City Desk is working on compiling a list of the dismissed, which reportedly includes at least one big industry name.

Meanwhile, one question looms: Are these layoffs? Or just strategic reductions aimed at redundant positions, as Post management would have us believe?

Consider the case of one dismissed employee. This individual was told that the "numbers have been bad on the digital side and because of that, that's why they're doing it."

Another victim of the reduction-in-force reports that the motivation is that the Post is moving to streamline its operations.

Updates to come.

City Desk is not printing names just yet. We've contacted several allegedly dismissed employees but have not yet received direct confirmation from them.

When asked if the Web site has laid off employees, Washington Post spokesperson Kris Coratti responded with this statement: "As part of the work we’re doing to turn around the business that supports our journalism, there were a small number of individual positions eliminated as a result of efficiencies we have found through our new structure and through new technology, and those have taken place both in print and online."

A top Post official cautioned against using the term "layoff" to describe reductions at washingtonpost.com, insisting that any dismissals are "targeted" at duplication of work between the Web site and the newsroom.

Washingtonpost.com is part of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, the Post Co.'s online publishing subsidiary. The site's employees and those of the main newsroom are in the middle of a merger operation that promises to end more than a decade of separation. Since washingtonpost.com launched in 1996, it has been located in Arlington, the better to allow it to explore the possibilities of the Internet unburdened by newsroom curmudgeonliness.

There's a labor dimension to all this as well. Putting washingtonpost.com in Arlington saved Post officials the hassle of dealing with a union for its Web site workers. Now that the merged operation will be located in D.C., any dot-com staffers who make the move are possible card-carrying union members.

Though the divide helped to incubate a fine Web site, this is 2009: No longer can a media company afford to have its limbs scattered about the region. The parallel operations on opposite sides of the Potomac River did indeed spawn some duplication of functions, and the Post these days is all about zeroing out redundancies.

However, it's unclear at this point whether the dismissals now afoot at washingtonpost.com all fall into the efficiency-reaping category. More reporting must be done. Stay tuned.

The first, and more serious, story was penned by Jeffrey Anderson in this morning's Washington Times. It detailed various small jobs done on Gray's home by William C. Smith & Co., the politically powerful local development company. The second, a Washington Post story by Tim Craig, involved his use of council stationery to ask Comcast for a $20,000 donation to the local delegation to the Democratic State Committee. Gray addressed the controversies in an afternoon appearance on NewsChannel 8's NewsTalk With Bruce DePuyt.

Regarding the DNC allegations, Gray made the case that the fundraising effort was focused on voting-rights awareness, and thus kosher. Given that the check benefited local Democrats attending a political convention, it's awfully questionable distinction to make. But he gets points for this realization: "'If I had to do it over again, I certainly wouldn't have used the stationery."

As for the work on his Hillcrest home, Gray insisted "there was no impropriety that was involved."

Gray went on describe his relationship with Chris Smith, the president and CEO of WCS&Co., which, he says, stretches back some 15 years to his time as executive director of Covenant House, when Smith;s company built youth housing and other projects. "There's a longstanding relationship here," Gray said. "Chris Smith is a guy of impeccable integrity. I like to phrase it that he's the best blend of economic development and social justice that hes ever seen."

The renovation project, he says, came about this way: "When I wanted to do a renovation on my house, I turned to him, and he said that he though that his company could help me."

Gray repeated that he paid in full for the work that was done, that no favors were extended. He went out to emphasize that this was intended to be no small job, that WCS&Co. helped identify an architect that he paid for. The small jobs mentioned in the Times story---painting a room, changing a door, washing a driveway---were incidental. "Had this larger project not been on the table, they never would have done the work," Gray insisted.

Then there's the issue of the payment. The WaTimes story implied that Gray only paid for the work done once the paper started asking questions. Gray says he got an invoice on Oct. 30, and paid it within two weeks, adding that he was not aware of reportorial inquiries until Monday, after the bill was paid. "My payment was not in response to anticipation of a story from the Washington Times."

DePuyt asked a smart followup about whether he had put any money down, as home-improvement contractors often require. "That may well have been the case if we had started the renovation," Gray said, adding, "There was no project that had been authorized to go forward. We were in the architectural development stage at that point."

Then there's the permit issue; the Times story found no evidence that nay permits had been issued. Said Gray, "There were no permits that were required. I cannot imagine that a permit would have been required for this work."

For more explanations on the renovation issue, do see Jonathan O'Connell's reporting today for Washington Business Journal. A William C. Smith & Co. exec explained to him that a company subsidiary called WCS Construction LLC did the work, describing it as "a Ward 8 business....they hire local contractors and that's really important in this city."

The exec, Carol Chatham, responded to the idea that her company did the work hoping to receive contracts thusly:

"The council does not award development projects. That comes through the mayor's office of economic development," she said. Given the lousy mayor-council relations, she said, "if we were trying to curry favor with the mayor we certainly wouldn't be doing favors for the chairman of the council."

She's got a point there.

In all, not a bad first-day reaction from Gray---defensive at times, sure, and his accusations of political motivations were unnecessarily ugly, but he exhibited some awareness that there are legitimate questions that need to be answered. Whether this turns into a two-day story or something more depends on some questions yet to be answered: Has this WCS Construction done other similar home improvement work---for politicians or anyone else? Will the firm continue handling Gray's home renovation project? Was the work priced appropriately? Will Gray release the invoices for public examination?

With regard to the fundraising questions, DePuyt asked Gray if he'd be willing to have lawyer Bob Bennett, currently examining other D.C. Council ethics issues, examine the matter. Said the chairman, "I'd be happy for him to take a look at it."

Then DePuyt asked the money question: He asked Gray if he thought that the appearance of the stories represents a "brushback pitch" from the Fenty camp. Said Gray: "Absolutely. I think it's clearly political."

Gray insisted the stories would have no bearing on his decision whether to run against Fenty or not: "You called it a brushback pitch, I used to play baseball...When you get in the batters' box you better be ready for what comes."

Were I the editor of Colbert I. King, I would not let him write columns like this one. It's about Fort Hood and the betrayal of trust. I like King when he sticks to Fort Dupont, Fort Totten, and Fort Reno. That is, forts within the District of Columbia. Once the Pulitzer-winning king ventures out of city boundaries, he sounds just like any other national pundit.

Last week's local media story was the departure of John Solomon from the editorship of the Washington Times. The previous week's media story was the fistfight in the Style section of the Washington Post. Guess which one got more attention?

'Bout weather, I'm loath to complain
But dammit I hate all this rain
A state of emergency
(Ida's insurgency)
Just was declared by Tim Kaine

And now for my best silver lining:
No need for more weather scheme whining
The WaPo's restoring
Its layout (still pouring)
Good news for all those who were pining

Redskins and Giants: They're looking more and more like NFC East twins. One squad can't move the ball yet shows a little life out there on the field; and hey, so does the other. With the same results: Another loss. On the Giants front, this fourth straight defeat comes just before their bye week. So that means that the team's beat writers---with, of course, nothing more to write about---will spend a week and a half talking about the psychology of going into the bye week with a loss. You know, how it lingers and on and on. Deadly.

Washington Post ombudsman Andy Alexander hops on one of my pet peeves this week. The topic of his column is the paper's over-reliance on anonymous sourcing. That's a tired story in American journalism, but he's the ombo, so fine. But after you drill into his column a touch, you get to this gripe:

When they must be used, The Post doesn't do a good enough job of explaining why.

The Post's internal policies say: "We must strive to tell our readers as much as we can about why our unnamed sources deserve our confidence." That means offering enough description so readers can evaluate the quality of the source. Did they actually see or hear what took place? Do they have first-hand knowledge?

A review of anonymous-source usage over the past month shows that readers often got only bare-bones attribution. Of roughly 100 Post news stories using unnamed sources, fully a third provided no meaningful description. Typically, they referred vaguely to "sources," "officials," a "State Department official" or a "Democratic official."

And to all that, I say, hey, who really gives? I mean, readers know that when anonymous sources winds up in the paper, those sources don't want readers---anyone---to figure out who supplied the information. In other words, they want no identifying information in there. Not a trace. Yet people like Alexander, not to mention the Post's internal handbook, insist on as much identifying information as possible.

The result? We get a lot of bullshit qualifiers: "a source close to the negotiations," "a source who has seen the document but didn't want to be identified because he stands to be fired if he is outed." Well, I've never seen that last one, but you get the notion: These attempts to assure the reader that the source is bona fide never amount to anything. It's just wasted characters. The bottom line is this: The information has to be sound, whether it's supported by anonymous sources or not.

A senseless death: Two men rob a liquor store on upper Georgia Avenue, according to an account in the Washington Post: "Based on the account of at least one other employee in the store, investigators believe that two men, one armed with a handgun, entered the business and demanded money from [employee Rufina] Hernandez. Hernandez 'was cooperating and was fully complying with all the demands,' [MPD Sgt. John] Johnson said, but one of the suspects 'shot her anyway.' The two suspects fled on foot, Johnson said."

Today we introduce Hannah Neprash of districtlimerick.com, who will write regularly on D.C. news and politics—in limerick form.

Election week left some aghast
From last year, the difference was vast
A bell-weather? nope
Creigh Deeds had no hope
Before the first ballot was cast

The hearing for marriage rights raged
The witnesses—they got engaged
To make Council swoon
Could be a real boon
Who cares if it felt a bit staged

One couple created; one mourned
When death came to two who were horned
She overexerted
And life, it deserted
If you are an oryx, be warned

Cate took a brief break from Desire
To shop at the Target empire
Lord knows after shows
Her feet need repose
An ottoman, she did admire

This story still has me distracted
Because of how Allen reacted
The guy's old as dirt
But still brings the hurt
Click here for the fight reenacted

We all think commuting's a bitch
Made nothing but worse by the glitch
From phones and PAs
To online displays
The Metro has hit quite a hitch

This lim'rick has come to a close
And now you are doomed to read prose
But have no concern
The rhymes will return
To dole out more witty low-blows

On Tuesday, Gene Weingarten, perhaps the leading brain at the paper, applauded the anger: "The first thing I want to say is, hooray. Hooray that there is still enough passion left somewhere in a newsroom in America for violence to break out between colorful characters in disagreement over the quality of a story."

As Post staff writer Hank Stuever wrote in his personal blog, the incident "embroiders [Allen's] legend." One commenter on this blog put it this way: "As someone who recently canceled his subscription to the Post after more than 30 years, I wish all the best to Henry Allen. I only wish he had slugged more of those nitwits on his way out."

All this Allen talk is headed in a pretty predictable direction, fitting neatly into a narrative best labeled as demise-of-the-Post nostalgia. The contours are familiar to anyone who's ever had a beer with a beneficiary of one of the paper's newsroom buyouts: Back in the old days, the Post was a real newspaper, a place where real stories were written and real journalists like Allen were free to do their thing. But now the Post is crumbling, its standards falling, a process punctuated by Allen's burst of violent anger.

There's some evidence to support the interpretation. By all indications, Allen isn't pleased with the direction of the Post. He was pissed when the regime of Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli pretty much ended the Style tradition of writing "Appreciations" following the deaths of major cultural figures. He's reportedly not too happy about the new look of the paper, about the smaller number of stories that are featured on the front of the Style section. He can't stand the memos about the new Multi-Platform Editing Desk.

So, yeah, there was a 68-year-old legend patrolling the Style assignment desk nursing some ambient anger about his workplace. That anger, of late, had become a much-commented-upon topic among Style staffers, at least one of whom wondered when the veteran would snap.

He'd yell a lot from his desk, inveighing against this management decree or that debasement of the news product. The words would carry over into the Style landscape and beyond. Recent months have been serendipitous for Allen's open-air broadsides at management: Ever since the main newsroom on the fifth floor of the Post building cleared out for renovations, Brauchli and his fellow honchos have been camping out with the Style people. Administrative assistants for Brauchli and other ranking editors got particularly unfiltered blasts. This multiplatform shit!

Onto this hot, rancorous griddle flopped Roig-Franzia. As I wrote in a previous post, Allen and Roig-Franzia had earlier exchanged words over a piece that the latter was writing about a woman who'd undergone multiple abortions---actually, 15 in 15 years.

Allen wasn't buying it. He asked what sort of proof the writer had that this woman, Irene Vilar, was telling the truth. A prominent law firm had corroborated the story, came the response. Whatever Allen's concerns, the Post reportedly vetted the story extensively.

The tension over the Vilar piece carried over into the "charticle" that Style co-boss Ned Martel had dialed up for the Saturday edition, written by Monica Hesse and Roig-Franzia. It was to be an historical tour through episodes in which sensitive information was unwittingly leaked---a riff off the hot news of the day, which was the wide-ranging congressional ethics investigation that had recently slithered into the public domain.

Allen hated the draft that he'd reviewed, calling it the "second-worst" piece that'd landed on his desk over 43 years. After Roig-Franzia heard that spiel, he called Allen a "cocksucker." Allen responded by popping him.

Freeze the frame right there. Henry Allen punches Manuel Roig-Franzia: Is this moment really laden with symbolism about the demise of the Post, about the decay of long-form narrative journalism, about sticking up for a bygone era?

Who knows what symbolism Allen may have intended to convey here. (He declined an interview about his take on the contemporary Post.) Yet the fight works poorly in the nostalgic slot where many have placed it and slides more neatly into what one staffer called the Woody Hayes mold of a graying icon going out in a fit of rage.

Here's why the old guard v. new guard interpretation falls flat:

*Roig-Franzia makes for an illogical symbol/punching bag for the "new" Washington Post. This guy predates the Brauchli ascension by many years. Nor is he the buzzword-spouting tool that Allen so despises. No, he's a practitioner of long-form journalism, just like anyone who aspires to write for the Style section. And a point about "cocksucker": Use of profanity in Style is the rule, thanks in part to the serial foul mouth of Allen himself. Yet more: The charticle wasn't Roig-Franzia's idea; it was the idea of Martel, who brought a magaziney sensibility to the section.

*There's nothing contemptible about a charticle. Style has long experimented with the breaking of formats and templates and molds---whatever you call them. Executing a charticle often takes way more work than upchucking some lame essay off the news. You gotta get the writers with the art people and the layout people, come up with all kinds of catchy headlines and subheads, and then put it all together. With all that effort, out the window goes the notion that the charticle is some pimpled incarnation of a new, cowardly, corporate Washington Post. Style editors going back many years have always been proud of their charticles. And I happened to have enjoyed this charticle quite a bit.

*Long-form narrative lives on in Style! If you've been monitoring your Style section this week, you may have noticed a two-part series on the youth-heroin ring in Centreville. I'm not saying this is a great model of reportage: After all, it tries to tell the story of kids abusing heroin through interviews with adults. But it is impeccably structured and long---just north of 6,000 words. Roig-Franzia's abortion piece, meanwhile, clocked in at a healthy 2,715 words.

Speaking of compelling narratives, what about Stuever's comparison of the Wawa and Sheetz convenience-store chains? At 2,453 words, the story married killer concept with smooth, highly reported execution. It was printed in late August, nearly a year into the Brauchli tenure. And I guarantee this: Had it been published five or ten years ago, it would have been cited by nostalgists as an exemplar of how great the Post used to be.

*Style is on the upswing. Brauchli has sustained a goodly amount of justified criticism for various instances of silliness and hypocrisy, with the Brauchli Doctrine serving as a premier example of the latter. Yet this executive editor cannot be slimed with neglecting the Style section. On the contrary, he has invested in it, transferring talent from the shuttered Sunday Source and other spots in the newsroom, not to mention bringing in Martel. Dividends have come in the form of improved long-form stuff, attractive layouts, and fewer self-indulgent essays (at least by my count). In recent months, I've found myself squirreling away the section at home in the hope that another individual won't dump it in the recycling bin before I can read all the way through it.

And to continue sucking the cock of the Washington Post, let's not fall into facile banter about its descent into corporate, soulless behavior, as have many Internet commenters. Throughout this decade, the Post's newspaper division has seen nothing short of a revenue crisis. Like other newspapers, it has responded in part by cutting staff. Unlike other newspapers, it has cut staff with a visible reluctance and agony, choosing to leverage its huge pension fund to offer voluntary buyouts to elder Posties. Hundreds of buyoutees have left the paper with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash plus other goodies that no "corporate" newspaper would ever extend.

The Post newsroom has dropped from around 900 employees to around 600-700 employees. It may not be what it was. But what remains is far bigger than what's gone.

For all his media hatred, Dan Snyder stuffs his staff with media people. Karl Swanson was in newspapers. Larry Michael was a radio executive. Even Vinny Cerrato came back to the team after a stint at ESPN, where he spent a season in exile after being banished by Marty Schottenheimer (who looks more like Vince Lombardi every season for what he accomplished here.)

Turns out the latest attack dog added to Snyder's pack, David Donovan, fits the pattern. Donovan's complete lack of respect for the media or the truth or both comes out every time he talks to a reporter these days. For but one example of Donovan's outlook: He's the guy who told the Washington Post a couple weeks ago that Redskins officials "don't see any difference" in "the way our actual fans are behaving" this season.

But, there was a time when Donovan was way into newspapering. It was all spelled out in a 2007 feature story in the Daily Times Herald of Carroll, Iowa, his hometown, to honor the local boy made good when he took the job as General Counsel with the Redskins.

Make that the local paperboy made good.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Iowa State gave DC David Donovan AND Vinny Cerrato? What did DC ever do to Iowa State to deserve that? Why did David Donovan join the dark side leave journalism? Snyder's media appearance starting to smell fishy? Ripken statue stolen by guy named Stoneburner who hangs out with a bunch of stoneburners?)

"As a youth David worked as a paperboy here at the Daily Times Herald and also spent time in this newspaper's circulation department," we're told.

And then we learn that Donovan was editor of The Charger, the student newspaper at Kuemper Catholic High School in Carroll.

And that at Iowa State University, his alma mater (and also Vinny Cerrato's alma mater, hmmmm), Donovan got his degree in journalism. And when his college schedule allowed, Donovan interned at the Daily Times Herald "covering general news and sports under the tutelage of former Sports Editor Dennis O'Grady."

He was dead set on being a newspaper man.

After ISU, Donovan headed to Florida with no assurances of landing a job, and no firm prospects.

"I moved to St. Petersburg and went to every newspaper in the area," Donovan said.

Only hours away from having to scuttle his journalistic plans and work in a warehouse so he could eat, Donovan talked his way into a copy-editing job at the St. Petersburg Times - widely regarded today as one of the best newspapers in the nation.  Soon, at only age 22, Donovan moved to the Sarasota Journal, a small, 6,000-circulation afternoon paper affiliated with a larger daily.

Then Donovan married a newspaperwoman. And when he got accepted to Georgetown University Law School, he enrolled, but only because he thought a J.D. would help his newspaper career!

He said that during law school it was his intent to use the legal education to further a journalism career.

"I went to law school without any expectations of practicing law," Donovan said.

But, alas, Donovan was a good law student. And during his early days as a practicing attorney, we learn from the story, Donovan had the epiphany that caused to him to give up journalism, and, from the sound of things lately, lose all respect for those who practice it.

"As a reporter, when you call people, they can hang up," Donovan told the Carroll Daily Times Herald. "When you're a lawyer and someone doesn't talk, you can send a subpoena."

What a line! Kinda removes the mystery about who at Redskins Park was behind suing the grandmother.

***

That "rare in-season" media appearance by Dan Snyder on Tuesday at a team-organized charity event is starting to smell.

The only TV person on the scene was Lindsay Czarniak. She's with WRC-4.

Here's a list, taken from a transcript of what Snyder said that was printed on Snyder's website, of all the questions Czarniak asked, in order:

1)What does this mean to you, to be able to be out here?

2)Does it mean something special to get the cheers out there? Is it a refreshing feeling for once?

3)One thing I wanted to ask you, Dan, is about some of the negativity that has been around this team. When you look at things like the ticket controversy and then the signs being banned, does it feel like being out here and getting a chance to turn things around, where do you stand on that stuff?

4)You're human. How does it impact you?

5)People look at you and see the uber-Redskins fan. What are your thoughts about what's going on with this team?

7)What do you need from here on out? What's the next step for you?

Good golly. "You're human!" "People look at you and see the uber Redskins fan"? "What do you need?"

These are the sort of questions you'd think only somebody on the payroll would ask! I mean, only somebody who would wear licensed Redskins shirts on the air would say that!

Oh, wait! Czarniak is an employee of Snyder's Redskins Broadcast Network who talks about the Redskins while wearing licensed Redskins shirts on WRC's news broadcasts! Coincidence?

And now Pro Football Talk reports that the announcement the Redskins put out about the team's charity event, held at a Maryland high school, didn't mention that Snyder would be talking.

So all the newspaper people stayed away, except AP's Joseph White, who didn't get any questions in. And all the local TV reporters stayed away, except Czarniak. And Snyder only talked to Czarniak, who's on Snyder's payroll! And who asks how's he feeling and tells him he's "human" and the "uber-Redskins fan!"

Wow. 'Course, if it wasn't for Czarniak's Redskins employment and licensed wardrobe, nobody's suspect a thing.

***

One of Cal Ripken's statuenappers 'fessed up and was sentenced. Jason Stoneburner, who from the sound of things is a real stoneburner, got a suspended two years jail term and restitution to the Baltimore Orioles of about a thousand bucks. Seems fair.

Now he'll surely have to go state's evidence against the three other stoneburners (including Gary Parker, pictured above) who allegedly helped him rip Ripken's statue  -- which, contrary to his reputation as an Iron Man, was made of aluminum -- from its moorings at Camden Yards one September night.

The crew, all in their upper teens, threw Ripken in the back of their pickup before heading over to Patterson Park for one last round of, you know, stoneburning before lawmen got involved and saved Baltimore's favorite son.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Real Talk With Andrew Beaujon™: What is weighing on you most heavily this morning: The death of Claude Lévi-Strauss...or the impending release of DROID?

If you picked DROID, keep reading!

Lévi-Strauss said writing was the difference between the so-called civilized and the so-called savage; DROID says the difference between it and the iPhone is better coverage! ADVANTAGE: DROID!

Lévi-Strauss believed in "laws of mythical thinking"; DROID believes in making Garmin stock worthless! ADVANTAGE: TIE

Lévi-Strauss examined culture through food, but his theories were hostage to the fashion of academe; DROID is pretty great at everything except letting you end phone calls. ADVANTAGE: LEVI-STRAUSS.

POP QUIZ!
Two of these are headlines or subheads in today's print edition of the Washington Post, and one is something my grandmother used to say when conversation got incredibly boring.

1) "We happily let technology run the day, until it stops us in our tracks"
2) "Guardians of the roads or highway robbers?"
3) "Sure, you can get your money back, but there are no refunds on high expectations"

ANSWER: Trick question! They're all from today's Post!

BIKE COMMUTING CORNER
I am still wearing shorts when I ride to work. But much like I wonder where Northwest ends and Northeast begins when I look at North Capitol Street, I wonder where stubborness ends and being an asshole begins when Wearing Shorts in the Cold (WSITC). You need only walk through Adams Morgan at any time of day or night to feel the rage WSITC can inspire in even an even-tempered observer. Or fly! One of Beaujon's Immutable Laws of Travel (BILOT) is that wherever you are going, there's always someone in shorts on your plane. And yet here I am still bare-legging it to work! Please help me decide what is right. Also: I don't have proper bike pants. Problem?

IN OTHER NEWS: Does Yankee fan elation bother you more than Phillies fan sadness pleases you? DISCUSS. Sad day for Spaniards: Francisco Ayala dies...at 103! Eat more ham! EWWWW: you've got the cutest little baby face. Also: Washington Times readers on global warming!

I gotta bounce! Follow me on Twitter! Advantage: DROID!

Hit play and find out!

Let's mark the start of hostilities as mid-week. That's when, according to an informed source, Allen raised questions about a Roig-Franzia story about a woman who had undergone multiple abortions. In the back and forth, Roig-Franzia allegedly called Allen a "dick." No punches were thrown.

Peace prevailed until Friday morning, when Style staffers convened to discuss their journalism. According to sources, Roig-Franzia at one point in the meeting reached across the table and grabbed Allen's notepad, tearing a page from it. Allen barked, "Give me my fucking notebook." Roig-Franzia complied, pushing it back across the table.

After that incident, not much went according to the Post Stylebook. Allen, an assignment editor for Style, learned that one of his reporters, Monica Hesse, had been tasked by Style co-boss Ned Martel to do a funny-type story coming off the big news on the congressional ethics investigation. Allen wasn't apprised that Hesse had been so assigned and let Martel have it. "Next time you want to assign a story to one of my writers, you come talk to me. I'm right here," Allen said to Martel, according to a Post source. They discussed the matter and came to an amiable conclusion.

The story then moves from errors of protocol to errors of journalism. Allen eventually got his hands on the copy that Hesse and Roig-Franzia had been dispatched to generate. It was a "charticle" on famous incidents in which key actors in history have unwittingly coughed up sensitive information to the wrong people.

One of the headlining incidents in the charticle was how a Confederate solider had lost some military plans of Robert E. Lee in a field that later found their way into Union hands. The original story reportedly said that the offense occurred in Virginia. Wrong--Maryland.

There were other errors as well.

Allen made clear his displeasure with the integrity of the piece, proclaiming that it was the "second-worst piece I've ever had handed to me in 43 years," according to a source. The first-worst was a mistake-ridden profile of Paul Robeson that never saw the printed page. Those 43 years include Allen's 39 years of service at the Post along with a tenure at the New Haven Register.

The veteran editor gave pretty much the same sharp-elbowed spiel to both Hesse and Roig-Franzia. Hesse responded by asking for the story back so that she could iron out some of the wrinkles.

Roig-Franzia responded by saying, “Henry, don’t be such a cocksucker.”

At that, Allen leapt into action, shoving Roig-Franzia. He then popped him in the cheek. According to an eyewitness account, Roig-Franzia didn't try to match the 5-11, 200-pound Allen punch for punch, instead opting for more of a civil-rights-movementy kind of stance.

Into the one-sided faceoff jumped Chris Richards, the Post's pop-music critic. One of the first responders, Richards stood between the hostile parties. Brauchli reportedly intervened as well.

After the set-to, Allen spent some time behind closed doors with managers. Brauchli told him that the Post just can't have this sort of conduct in the newsroom. Allen agreed. They left it at that.

Then it was on to the office of Style co-boss Lynn Medford, who was apparently briefed by Brauchli on what to say to Allen. Medford told Allen that Brauchli had said that this was a new era at the Post and we can't have violence in the newsroom. (What, did the smelling-salts lady take a buyout?) Another message from Brauchli to Allen via Medford: You can't come into the newsroom again for your entire career.

That sanction is not as harsh as it sounds: Allen's last day was to be Nov. 20. He is 68, had already accepted a buyout, was working on contract at the time of his lunge, and had already announced his retirement.

Of his swing, Allen says, "The last time I threw a punch at anybody was in the spring of 1963 in Parris Island, S.C., in Marine Corps recruit training." Allen served in Vietnam for four months. Roig-Franzia hung up when called on this matter.

UPDATE: Be sure to check out City Paper's exclusive reenactment of this historic event: Allen v. Roig-Franzia ~ The Movie!

The real cause of the anger with Ms. Rhee is her assault on the entrenched special interests that helped make District schools a national disgrace. How else to explain the extraordinary efforts of the American Federation of Teachers to demonize her? How else to interpret the total lack of interest among Ms. Rhee's critics on the council in hearing her examples of some of the bad teachers who were terminated as a result of the reduction in force? Why hasn't the council bothered to conduct a similar inquisition about the 2,500 other city workers who have lost their jobs in the past year?

Funny thing: The Post editorial board is about the only voice in town that can make you feel sorry for poor little Michelle.

The hallmark of a Robert McCartney column is care. Care not to push what the facts can justify. Care not to elbow anyone too hard. Care with grammar, syntax, and clarity. Yet in the lede of his latest column, about Rhee and the council, McCartney appears ready to throw care to the wind: "The future of the District's school system may well be decided by whether Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's forceful reform campaign becomes mired in a swamp of her own self-defeating hubris."

Oooh, sounds like the columnist is gearing up for a slam! Well, no, turns out just a mild slap on the wrist: "At the hearing, Rhee was poised and even conciliatory at times. She also sounded self-righteous, though, especially in her repeated statements that she acts only in the interest of children. That maddened some council members, who said they, too, care about children first."

The analysis McCartney should be providing is something along the following lines: As she sits before the council, dutifully spouting talking points about conciliation and so on, Rhee is really just acting. It's been reported in these pages that Rhee told an audience that cooperation and consultation are "way overrated."

But when the progress on standardized testing plateaus, or just falters a bit, then Rhee will pay for her ways.

For the best stuff on all things Rhee, go to Loose Lips columnist Mike DeBonis.

Man, those Giants are stinking it up.

Credit the Barras Report for this great little look at a dispute in Ward 3 about out-of-boundary students. Barras is focusing on a movement that's apparently taking root in this well-to-do region, in which parents are urging that Ward 3 schools educate exclusively Ward 3 kids, signaling frustration with the system in which kids from other parts of the city commute in to get educated at these Ward 3 gems. One trouble with the Barras piece: She uses Hardy Middle School as a case in point, yet Hardy is squarely within the boundaries of Ward 2. Sure, it has some Ward 3 "feeder" schools, but still.

1.) In a column titled, "Medical marijuana is an insult to our intelligence," Lane mocked a woman named Angel Raich, a U.S. Supreme Court plaintiff who said she needed marijuana for a litany of illnesses. Though someone at WaPo has since scrubbed Lane's remarks from the post, this is what he had to say about Raich: that she "might consider a consultation for hypochondria, or perhaps marijuana dependency.”

If I were Lane, I would've had this removed too. Why? Because it looks terrible to first say that, and then have to include a correction wherein you admit that the person you just made fun of "is about to undergo an operation to reduce her Schwannoma, which is a benign brain tumor."

Raich also got in contact with the Marijuana Policy Project. That "benign" brain tumor? Here's how the MPP reported it: "Raich is having highly risky surgery October 28 – surgery that her doctors had originally ruled out because it is too dangerous — because her brain tumor has now become life-threatening."

2.) So, not only did Chuck Lane mock someone with a brain tumor, but then he turned around and painted medical marijuana activists as thugs. The opening line of his follow-up post (the one I blogged about last week) reads like this: "My post about 'medical marijuana' stirred a lot of comments, some of them approving, the vast majority hostile and vituperative -- and one or two actually threatening."

His email to me read: "I thought marijuana was a peaceful drug, but for some reason a lot of its adherents got really verbally violent over my writings."

Look, Chuck. They made a movie about you, so you must realize by now that you're not spouting off in a vacuum, and that regardless of how few of your usual readers are marijuana users, lying* about the effects and support of medical marijuana in the web pages of a nationally respected newspaper is probably going to draw out the whole gang. That's how the Web works, and I think you'd agree--if you weren't on the business end of the pitchfork—that it's a very democratic way to do journalism.

But what's most offensive is your implication that the reaction to your columns (95% of the comments were pro-medical marijuana and anti-Chuck Lane), were somehow out of character; that stoners and potheads are supposed to be peaceful and politically unengaged and quiet and dumb. (Or something.) But you couldn't put us in the category of passionate, politically engaged citizens--we had to be "violent" instead, which plays to an entirely different stereotype, one that casts weed users and advocates as violent criminals.

If you expected that you could write a nasty hit piece with bad facts and escape unnoticed, well...surprise. You can't, because we're watching you, and we'll continue to respond in intelligible, stereotype-defying ways for the foreseeable future/ fo' evah evah.

[*Ed. note: Yes, Chuck, you lied to your readers. If you navigate your way to the MPP's response to your first column, you'll see a bevy of statistics that contradict the few you googled. Among them, this one: "And last year, the American College of Physicians – 124,000 doctors of internal medicine – stated, 'Evidence not only supports the use of medical marijuana in certain conditions but also suggests numerous indications for cannabinoids,' marijuana’s unique, active components."]

And he won. But it took eight years before Stewart was told by the courts he could carry his sign into the stadium here.

Times and venues have changed. It's unclear if Rockin' Rollen's case will help victims of the Redskins latest purge. Will somebody who had their poster taken please sue Dan Snyder so we can find out?

***

Also, for the eating-disorder-looking print edition, I squeezed BeerInTheBathroomsGate™ for a few more drops. Completists will want this umpteenth revisitation upon the same story so they can see the only appearance of "oral-fecal" in a sentence. Kind of like getting the repackaged Elvis Costello's Greatest Hits every three years, just for the remixed-again version of "Mystery Dance."

***

David Alperin checks in with some more Dan Snyder weirdness.

Alperin was the first guy to tell me that Snyder changed the sign policy at FedExField. Before the Tampa Bay game, stadium guards confiscated a sign he made saying "Love the Redskins, Hate the Owner."

(AFTER THE JUMP: Fake cheering at FedEx? You're going to use "Douchewellian" again? AND the trademark sign? El Al disputes charges that its security is as Douchewellian as Dan Snyder's? You're going to promote the Great Dan Steinberg again? GEICO signs good, Snyder Sucks signs bad? Why would anybody go to Snyder's "Night of the Quarterbacks"? Brett Haber plays the feud with his former boss?)

Before making the sign, Alperin had checked on Redskins.com, Snyder's own site, to make sure that it was within the rules to bring it to the game. It was. When Alperin told the confiscators he had looked at the team's own rule book, the guards told Alperin that the rules had been changed "last night" and took his sign anyway.

Alperin now says that while attending the Eagles game he noticed that Snyder's message control efforts go way beyond that latter-day book burning.

"The crowd noise after DeSean Jackson scored and for the remainder of the game was fake," Alperin reports. "It was pumped in over the speakers to create the illusion of excited fans.  I looked around and the majority of the crowd looked like someone just killed their puppy.  There was no energy.  The only cheering I did was to boo Campbell, Snyder & Cerrato."

When will the Douchewellian™ tactics cease?

(Alperin, by the way, says he will not be renewing his season tickets after this season.)

***

The other day Cheap Seats Daily mentioned how a friend was given a total body frisk by a guard looking for anti-Snyder signs at the gate before the Eagles game, and threw in a line that the security checks were tougher to get into FedExField than to "board an El Al flight."

That prompted the following response from Ron Glickman, account manager for El Al Israel Airlines Ltd:

"Enjoyed reading your comments about the security checks at FedExField, but I must assure you, the checks that one would go through for an El Al flight are a lot less hands on as your article suggests. All of our checks are first to screen the passengers and provide them with a sterile environment as they check in and on the aircraft. If anyone is ever searched, it is always a last resort and we rarely do a body search. In fact, I don’t think that we have done any in the past year in the entire United States."

Glickman then plugged El Al's "code share flights" with American Airlines from DC to Tel Aviv.

***

The Great Dan Steinberg, who has chronicled the Prague Spring of Redskins Nation like nobody's business, had another golden nugget yesterday: The Skins gave away Geico signs at the gate of the Redskins/Eagles game, while confiscating and destroying all other signs.

I guess this means David "Yeah, That's the Ticket!" Donovan, the Redskins chief operating officer and neo-Karl Swanson, was caught lying again? Donovan's been on a spree all week -- saying Philly fans weren't in FedExField, that only a few posters were confiscated at the Monday game, that Redskins fans aren't acting any different this season, etc. And during his own personal WhopperFest, Donovan has also asserted that the Redskins have a policy against all signs, for safety reasons.

Now come tales of Monday's Geico banner giveaway by the team Donovan chiefly operates. To find out that what Donovan has been saying wasn't true is just, well, business as usual.

Nobody ever heard of Donovan until the Washington Post's ticket scandal investigation broke, when he came out to say the team doesn't really sell to scalpers and doesn't really sue its season ticket holders -- both big, bad fibs.

And ever since that coming out party he's kept up a pace for fibbery that's just awe-inspiring. I can't ever remember a public figure being caught in so many lies in such a short period of time. If untruthiness were an Olympic sport, well, Donovan'd be on a podium and they'd be playing our anthem. Sorry, Gov. Sanford, you'll have to settle for the silver medal. (For a different take on the guy, the commenter on the fan message board Hogs Haven says he was once a neighbor of Donovan's, and remembers him being "of good character." Then the ex-neighbor adds, Donovan "knows who signs his paycheck.")

(I had heard Geico commercials on Snyder's sportstalk station, WTEM, in the days leading up to the Eagles game saying that the "first 10,000 fans" to show up at FedEx would get a "free gift" from Geico. But they never mentioned what the gift was. Now we know why.)

***

Another victim of the Skins crisis: Snyder is running commercials for the Redskins party he's throwing next Tuesday, dubbed "Night of Quarterbacks" and featuring speeches from Sonny Jurgensen, Joe Theismann and Jason Campbell, at a pace that seems desperate.

Pretty much every break on his radio sportstalker, WTEM, includes another spot for the party. So every 10 minutes or so, you hear: "Space is limited!"

Tickets are $106.50. On the invitation, suggested dress is "casual business attire." I wonder if Snyder will admit couples who show up wearing "Dumb" and "Dumber" shirts.

Actually, I wonder if anybody will show up.

***

But, there are some winners in the Skins soap opera: Rich Tandler tells me his RealRedskins blog has never been more popular.

"They say that Redskins TV ratings are down and that team merchandise sales are down," Tandler says. "But the hits are booming at my website. I’m on pace for a 30% + increase in unique visitors to RealRedskins.com for October compared to September. Page views already are up 30% and there are five days to go in the month."

Why?

"It seems that giving fans a place to vent is good for business," Tandler says.

Now Brett Haber, who used to work for Dan Snyder, wants a piece of that. Haber is now touting a message board to bash the Redskins owner. It's been accepting viewer harangues since yesterday afternoon.

Haber recently found out that his former boss at the Redskins Broadcast Network has banned him and Channel 9 and allegedly everybody with a camera from interviewing patrons in FedExField's official parking lot. Haber's peeved at Snyder. Snyder learned how to control the media while putting WUSA news employees on the payroll to run his infomercials and preseason game telecasts, a situation that the CBS affiliate always concealed. Just as WRC now tries to deny that its news employees, even the ones wearing licensed Redskins shirts on the air and carrying "Redskins Broadcast Network" microphones, are working for Snyder.

***

(Full disclosure: I freelance music reviews for the Washington Post.)

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