The Cleveland Park listserv is teeming with arguments in favor of and against eliminating the reversible traffic lanes on Connecticut Avenue, which many people claim to be unsafe for drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists alike; of course, others (read: commuters) are crying bloody murder at the potential increase in traffic jams during the morning and evening rush hour on one of the cities main arterial roadways....

Though it is District law that cars must stop for pedestrians in every crosswalk, let's be honest -- very few actually do so. When I choose to walk to work, I'm often left to navigate the harrowing crosswalk at Connecticut Avenue and Wyoming Avenue NW, where even a sign reminding drivers of their responsibility to stop is regularly (and at high-speed) ignored. Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) is hoping to change that. Cheh's office......

Friday has arrived at last, Washington. Despite the federal holiday on Monday, it's been a rather long week for many of us - though of course, we couldn't hold a candle to the week that D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi has had. The Post writes about yesterday's lengthy D.C. Council hearing into the tax office scandal, which lasted until 9 p.m. and where it was apparently revealed late in the evening that authorities are investigating the......

Of all the city government's agencies and departments, it's usually the big names that get the lions share of criticism from residents. The schools, the DMV, the public libraries, the Department of Public Works -- it's these that we're all quick to point to as proof of government incompetence. But with the fire that destroyed an entire building in Adams Morgan on Monday, it was the Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) that came under fire......

There have been so many fun shots in the Flickr pool this week; it probably helps that summer has officially started and we're leading up to some vacation time in a few days. We've always thought one of the fun things about living in a big city is that people just stake out a spot in a park or on a street corner to show off their talents. One day you'll run into the......

With notorious heat and humidity, Washington D.C. has never been the most pleasant place in the summer. Worst of all is getting stuck in some god-forsaken space that is crowded, poorly ventilated, and lacking in air conditioning. Bad news for all you Red Liners out there. These are just the conditions you should expect for the next few days in the Dupont and Farragut North stations. According to the Post, a broken pipe under Connecticut......

I thought I was getting such a good deal on my salon visits. A shampoo, a good cut, some pleasant conversation. They have good music playing, and everyone's friendly. Most importantly, the price is low enough not to seriously offend a sense of haircut-related frugality instilled through years in childhood spent getting bargain cuts in wood-paneled barbershops where grizzled Vietnam vets with fewer than 10 fingers cut hair with brisk efficiency while Hank Williams Sr.......

MONDAY As a part of its ongoing “Face It: We Are Probably All Going To Die or at the Very Least, Suffer Immeasurably” Series, Politics and Prose kicks off the week with a visit from Stephen Flynn, author of The Edge of Disaster, which, apparently, we are teetering on (cf. “all going to die,” “suffer immeasurably”). Also: CSI: Miami is on tonight! 5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 7 p.m. TUESDAY The art of letter writing is......

Written by Jason Linkins MONDAY Vertigo Books and the TransAfrica Forum’s Writers Corner are bringing three great authors together for a special reading event: Kwame Dawes (She’s Gone), Helon Habila (Measuring Time) and Dinaw Mengestu (The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears) come together at the Charles Sumner School, 1201 17th Street NW, 6:30 p.m. TUESDAY It’s a father and daughter fest at Politics and Prose tonight, as John McPhee, author of Uncommon Gardens joins Martha......

MONDAY As we've said before: F.W. Thomas Performances rock, but credit curator and MC Adam Mazmanian—he aims to prove it. Tonight, it’s the Rock and Roll Edition of DC’s premiere reading series, featuring John Sellers reading from his new book (Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life), Glenn Dixon discussing the secret porn of Christian rock, artist Mike Lowery emitting delightful odors, and Mazmanian himself, who’ll give rock gestures the Francois Delsarte......

MONDAY Okay. This is kind of a no-brainer. Norman Mailer will be discussing his latest, The Castle in the Forest, with author Alan Cheuse. Wesley United Methodist Church, 5312 Connecticut Avenue, 7 p.m. Two tickets with the purchase of the book at Politics and Prose or $12/ticket. Call (202) 364-1919 for more information. TUESDAY Are you a fan of actors from television show M*A*S*H-turned authors but are just sick at the sight of Alan Alda?......

MONDAY At Chapters, they’re mad for mystery writers on Mondays in March, and for alliteration at all other times. Today, they have a fine guest: Laura Lippman, who’ll be reading from her latest, What the Dead Know. 445 11th Street, NW, 1 p.m. TUESDAY Tom Bissell and his father, an ex-Marine who served in the Vietnam War, travel back to Vietnam on a journey that retraces both national and personal history. He’ll be in town......

MONDAY Have you ever found yourself sizing up the state of contemporary education and thought to yourself, "Saints be praised that I got out when I did?" You’re sure to feel that way after hearing from David Berliner, author of Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America's Schools. Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 7 p.m. TUESDAY Whether you're a civil war buff or someone who, much like our editor-in-chief Sommer Mathis, enjoys stealing......

MONDAY You know, kids. If you are, for whatever reason, uncomfortable saying the Pledge of Allegiance in class, just cross your fingers or something, or say “the Sun God Ra” instead of “The United States of America.” Or just suck it up and deal, it’s not like the Pledge really has binding legal power. Or just take Joel Westheimer’s advice. He wrote a book about this stuff: Pledging Allegiance: The Politics of Patriotism in America's......

MONDAY It’s anybody’s guess as to whether Mark Twain would have approved of Jon Clinch’s Finn, the dark, call-it-a-prequel, story of Huck Finn’s father, depicted herein as a degenerate bigot. But you know what? Suck it, Twain: you’re dead! At Olsson’s in Crystal City, 2200 Crystal Drive, 7 p.m. TUESDAY If your two favoritest things in the whole wide world are crayons and burlesque shows, then DCist is finally ready to offer an event that......

MONDAY Murder, urban intrigue, and the promiscuous pen of Edgar Allan Poe are the ingredients of Daniel Stashower’s treatise on the evolution of the detective story, The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allen Poe, and the Invention of Murder. Chapters, 445 11th Street, NW., 1pm. TUESDAY Head on over to the Baird Auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History to hear Andrea Mitchell discuss Talking Back: . . . to Presidents, Dictators, and......

It's been a wild week in the transit world. The Red Line caught fire twice and a Metrobus caught fire once, just as Metro unveiled a new commitment to safety. Virginia Republicans called for higher gas taxes, and we half expected to see a herd of pigs flying down Connecticut Avenue. These, and yet more Tysons tunnel news, after the jump. Photo by Chris Combs......

Hey D.C., watch where you step. It's still icy out there, but today's temps should reach the 40's, melting the remaining ice for at least a while. Some kids are still in luck with a few school delays this morning, mostly in the Virginia suburbs. Here's hoping the warmer conditions mean drivers can stop acting like it's locusts, not snow, crunching under the tires. Chief Inspector Also Convict: Clearly D.C. doesn't have any problem with......

We get it. You have strong feelings on the smoking ban. The little number next to the "Smoking Ban May Get Tougher..." link at the top of the page can attest to that. Overheard has resolved not to take a public position either way on the issue. We are uniters, not dividers. But we will say this: people carrying conversations that were taking place at a semi-private table in a noisy bar out into the......

It looks like the event-planners for most of the District's book stores are still on vacation, so it's slim pickings for you bookworms out there. Fortunately, Politics and Prose is picking up the slack with a few notable author events. Chicklit-erati beware: this week's offerings tend more toward the academic set. THURSDAY Daniel Mendelsohn will be reading from his book, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, about his historical detective work retracing......

TUESDAY We were wondering what the best way to entice you to come hear Maria Arana discuss her new book Cellophane, an alternately hilarious and disturbing tale of her native Peru, but then we remembered it was being held at the Inter-American Development Bank Conference Center Auditorium and we thought, heck, who DOESN’T spend Tuesday night at the Inter-American Development Bank Conference Center Auditorium? 1330 New York Ave. NW. at 6:30 p.m. Free. WEDNESDAY Over......

What up, DC? Here's a few last minute big, long, hot, fat content sausages to shove in your mouths. >> Tonight's cocktail hour talking points: Webb up 4 with 4% undecided, O'Malley and Ehrlich tied, Allen's people hate bloggers even more than that emo bitchling Jared Leto, and, responding to the self-induced cashiering of his credibility, John Kerry decides there's no better time to kick off aggressively campaigning for the 2004 Presidential vote than 728......

We don’t want to give the impression that we’re always picking on tourists. But, much like kids, sometimes they say they darndest things. Unfortunately, our predisposition towards finding them impossibly cute (and vital to the economic viability of the city, of course!) might make us inclined to assume that certain quotes come from those unfamiliar with D.C. But how many of us have occasionally found ourselves lost in our own city? Or asked a question......

>>H Street is already doing well as our new go-to for beer and good music; now they're adding some art to the neighborhood. Dissident Gallery officially opens its doors this weekend with a reception tonight at 7 p.m. Check out Kid Flash's textile and paint explorations of gender and class, Valentina Loi's photo transfers that use childhood games as metaphors for relationships, and works by Piero Passacantando. >>Irvine Contemporary opens a group exhibit that shows......

Have you ever boarded one of our beloved Metrobuses and, once moving, felt like your driver must be an ex-NASCAR racer? Well, there might just be a reason for that. Perhaps he or she was in training for Metro's Annual Bus Roadeo. Called a “Roadeo” because Metrobuses are put through their daily paces on a road or in the “corral,” this event challenges bus operators and maintenance workers to demonstrate their efficiency in timed skills......

Anyone living within two miles of Dupont Circle couldn't have missed the police lockdown last night. Starting shortly after 9 p.m., D.C. police cruisers took positions along Connecticut Avenue up to the intersection with Florida Avenue, eventually shutting down all traffic — pedestrian and vehicular — without giving an explanation as to why. Two helicopters loudly hovered overhead, while overly anxious police officers screamed loudly at anyone who dared cross the street (a man walking......

Walgreens To Invade Yenching Palace? The old restaurants are dropping like flies. At the end of 2005, Truman-era steakhouse Blackie's House of Beef served up its last porterhouse. In August, embattled real estate developer Douglas Jemal purchased the land occupied by A.V. Ristorante — a move that will force the 57-year-old Italian restaurant to close by October 2007. And yesterday, an enterprising tipster told us that the rumor on the street (well, on Connecticut Avenue)......

Just like everyone else this, we got so wrapped up in the election-related results this morning that we all but forgot that there's other, well, news in the news. Sloth Fights for Attention: Zoogoers have been all ga-ga for Butterstick and the yet-to-be-named tiger triplets over the recent year, so much so that most of the zoo's other animals have just stopped trying. Except Balawat, our local baby sloth bear, writes the Post. Balawat's......

For citizens with a literary bent, this week’s major highlight is the Hyman S. and Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival, running all week long, mainly at the Jewish Community Center at 1529 16th Street, NW. Highlights include Peter Beinart and Rebecca Goldstein, plenty of panel discussions, a poetry reading, and an appearance by Madeleine Albright, who makes some time while planning her forthcoming libel suit against ABC. A full schedule of this week’s Festival highlights......

Did you get caught on Connecticut Avenue near the Uptown Theatre last night? Were you blinded by the sight of limos and more barricades than you can shake a stick at? We were. And, boy, was traffic, both of the automobile and pedestrian sort, a riot. Looks like it was all courtesy of the premiere of the movie The Guardian, starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher and Sela Ward. We didn't spot any stars, but, according......