Looks like there are some changes on the sidelines at some local schools. George Washington had the first appearance of their new Little George mascot during Saturday's exhibition basketball game, and George Mason will be getting a mascot to replace Gunston, the furry green thing, on Monday. Gunston, named for George Mason's house, rose to prominence after the Patriots' improbable Final Four run in 2006. The guy even had his own Myspace page and pretty......

... it's the second most expensive! Via Consumerist, we learn that Sarah Lawrence College has surpassed George Washington University as the most expensive college in the United States, when combining tuition and room and board. The difference is not just mere pennies, either: Sarah Lawrence now costs $53,166 total for one year, while George Washington runs $50,312. The even bigger drop is in the tuition-only category, which finds GWU knocked down to #6 on the......

Usually when we think of the avant-garde, we think of testing limits and pushing boundaries, or we think of outrageousness and oddness. We also tend to think of Europe, where the movement started and really took off. Yet the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery’s Out of the Chateau: Works from the Demuth Museum is exhibiting some 30 works by American Charles Demuth (1883-1935), an artist who produced a tamer form of avant-garde art and helped......

One could argue that the GW Colonials men's basketball team put off their rebuilding year for awhile, and now it's caught up to them. Karl Hobbs' team reached #6 in the AP poll and the second round of the NCAA tourney in the 2005-2006 on the backs of Danilo Pinnock, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Mike Hall, and Omar Williams. When those four left after the season to graduation and the pros, the team was expected to finish......

THURSDAY: Happy New Year! Jerrold M. Post will be at Politics and Prose to read from his latest book, The Mind of the Terrorist. Is there a more depressing way to start the new year than discussing the psychology of terrorism? Only in Washington. 7 p.m. Cultural historian Jane Rhodes will be at the Olsson's in Penn Quarter to read from Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. 7 p.m.......

Over in academia, it's finals time, but the receSs improv team over at George Washington University isn't compromising their weekend, which will mark the group's final show of 2007, over it. On their unofficial blog, The Colonialist, they're offering up reasons why their peers shouldn't either. In the past, receSs alums have gone on to pursue real-life comic gigs, including TJ Miller (now on the ABC show "Carpoolers"), Herschel Bleefeld (who landed a role in......

We've reached another Friday, D.C., but if those light flurries that accompanied you on your way into work this morning gave you visions of a leisurely Saturday snowball fight, you'll likely end up disappointed. Very little accumulation is expected from these flakes, and the weekend will see temperatures back in the upper 40s, with a possibility of some light rain on Saturday morning, according to CapitalWeather.com. If this update doesn't satisfy your weather nerd urges,......

To celebrate the release of Electric Grace: Still more Fiction by Washington Area Women tonight, editor Richard Peabody and ten of the book’s forty-two contributors will be reading selections from their work at Politics & Prose tonight at 7 p.m. Faye Moskowitz, a memoirist, poet, short story writer and professor, will read from her story “Completo (A Triptych),” from the journal, Story Quarterly. Professor Moskowitz—or just Faye, as she would have it—grew up in Detroit......

>> Both the White House Christmas Tree and the Capitol Christmas Tree arrived in Washington today. >> D.C. fire officials are warning people not to overload electrical circuits in their homes this holiday season in the wake of a fatal garage fire over the weekend. [WTOP] >> Vice President Dick Cheney experienced an irregular heartbeat Monday and will be heading to George Washington University Hospital to have it checked out -- in case you......

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Indie: Romance & Cigarettes John Turturro's third film as a director is the sort that seems tailor made to become a cult classic. Not nearly polished or glamorous enough to be the sort of Broadway to big screen musical hit that Chicago or Hairspray was, it was too oddball to fit into the heads of most......

MONDAY >> The Library of Congress Mary Pickford Theatre in the James Madison Building kicks off 5 weeks worth of free Monday night rock and pop films with a rare showing of the 1966 documentary, The Big T.N.T. Show. David "Man from Uncle" McCallum hosts Ray Charles, Petula Clark, the Lovin' Spoonful, Bo Diddley, Joan Baez, the Ronettes, Roger Miller, the Byrds, Donovan, the Seeds, the Modern Folk Quartet, and Ike and Tina Turner taped......

Written by DCist Contributor Josh Kramer The Hatchet — George Washington University >>The big news at GWU this week is that Freshman Sarah Marshak, who reported six swastikas being drawn on her dorm room door's whiteboard, actually drew five of them herself, which she has now said she did to bring attention to the first incident. Marshak, who is Jewish and a former reporter for the Hatchet, was informed she will most likely be expelled.......

It's always interesting to compare collegiate news coverage with larger news outlets whenever a story breaks out of a campus publication. In the case of today's news about the apprehension of one suspect in the recent spate of hate graffiti on the George Washington University campus, the differences are pretty tangible. Both the Examiner and the Washington Post have stories up about the arrest by University Police of an unnamed student for his or her......

Written by DCist Contributor Josh Kramer The Hatchet — George Washington University >>David Horowitz, organizer of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, spoke Thursday night at GWU. Horowitz criticized the university and for its reaction to the students who hung ironically critical posters on campus, but spent most of the talk explaining the history of the Ottoman empire and what he believes is the rise of "Islamo-fascism." Horowitz also tried to claim that he is not a racist.......

Written by DCist Contributor Sarah Stonesifer The Diamondback – University of Maryland: >> Hartwick Towers, an off-campus apartment building, was the scene of a fire on Friday, Oct. 12. The fire has come under scrutiny by both students and city officials, as the building is not equipped with sprinklers and fire alarms did not function during the fire. Students were left on their own to find alternative housing until they were let back into their......

Having failed to make their intended satire clear to the George Washington University campus, seven students felt the need to come forward late last night to take responsibility for those "anti-Muslim" posters we told you about yesterday. The Hatchet published parts of the letter after receiving it last night. Among the seven students who admitted their involvement was ubiquitous IVAW poster boy and current GWU graduate student Adam Kokesh. "It is to our great dismay......

Take a look at the poster on the right. Does it strike you as patently offensive, or does the preponderance of exclamation points tell you it's certainly satire? That's what students at George Washington University are arguing about today, as the posters, hung up around campus overnight, have caused quite an uproar. The GW Hatchet has the story, which has since been picked up by the AP and the Post. The posters falsely advertise "Islamo-Fascism......

MONDAY: Democratic presidential candidate and Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd will make an appearance at Politics and Prose to talk about his book Letters from Nuremberg, which has nothing do with 2008 and everything to do with 1948 (or thereabouts). Dodd's father, Thomas, was an attorney during the famous Nuremberg trials, in which members of the Nazi Party in Germany were prosecuted for their crimes, and the book consists of letters written by Thomas to his......

It's not exactly breaking news, but the City Paper's cover story this week is about the George Washington University and its high tuition, tops in the nation. The somewhat basic article (at least to a GW grad and basketball blogger) talks to a few University officials and a couple of students, but seems a little thin. The article does make a good point (and one that we made months ago) — is it worth it?......

We’re continuing our love affair with Robeks Smoothies and their summer promotions. Today, in honor of two new locations that just moved into town, Robeks is offering a Buy One-Get One deal at all D.C.-area branches. Where are the new guys? Near George Washington University at 2000 Pennsylvania Ave., and another at the Cabin John Shopping Center in Potomac, Md. That makes the 14th and 15th Robeks in our neck of the woods. Inferior to......

>> Larry Flynt has 30 solid leads on potential congressional sex scandals, and was especially shocked to learn something juicy about a yet unnamed senator. [CNN] >> Via Matt Yglesias, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports the latest hilarity in the Duke Cunningham saga: First, he's snitching to the FBI, so look out, Brent Wilkes. Second, he apparently was miffed that Wilkes got the “younger and cuter” of the prostitutes Wilkes hired for them on......

TUESDAY: Former vice president/rock star Al Gore will speak about his new book The Assault on Reason to a sold-out crowd at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium. Don't expect An Inconvenient Truth, though; this is all about shrinking approval ratings for the president and Congress, not shrinking coastlines. 6 p.m. Political journalist Michael Barone will speak about his book Our First Revolution, which is actually a reference to Britain’s Glorious Revolution of 1688, not the......

It looks like Senate Republicans really don't want today's scheduled Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to happen as planned. DCVote spokesperson Kevin Kiger tells us that Republicans have tried to invoke the 2-hour Rule, which would cut off committee action two hours after the Senate started work for the day. We've got our browsers set to the live webcast of the hearing, set to begin at 1:30 p.m., at which point we'll know whether Sen. Russ......

After passing the House and getting a hearing in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee last week, The D.C. Voting Rights Act moves to the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow. The committee has scheduled a full hearing on Wednesday called “Ending Taxation Without Representation: The Constitutionality of S.1257,” which will address, natch, the constitutionality of the bill. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, is a supporter of......

If you work on the Hill you might still have time to run over to the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rm. 342 for the hearing Equal Representation in Congress: Providing Voting Rights to the District of Columbia before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The hearing, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., will include testimony split into two panels, the first with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), Mayor......

After a rocky road through the U.S. House of Representatives, legislation granting the District a voting seat in the lower chamber will get its first hearing before a Senate committee tomorrow -- and pretty much everyone and their mother is set to testify. In a hearing scheduled to start at 10 a.m. before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, eight witnesses will discuss the legislation that was passed in the House on......

In the wake of last Monday's deadly shootings at Virgina Tech, many local college students are discussing campus security and the implications for their schools. In addition to holding a slew of vigils and showing support for their peers in Blacksburg, collegians wonder how such a tragedy could occur on American campuses and what university officials are doing to protect their students. American University administrators are taking a second look at their emergency response plan,......

>> If "gorgeous weather" isn't enough of a reason to get you outside, this weekend's kick-off for the National Cherry Blossom Festival should get you to shake off that winter gloom. Head over to the National Building Museum tomorrow to kick-off the celebration with Family Day events from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and the opening ceremony from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Lots of hands-on art activities, like oragami and fruit carving, will keep......

Though Republicans managed to sink legislation that would grant the District a voting seat in the chamber last week, voting rights activists haven't given up. In fact, they're going straight to the top. According to the Post, Mayor Adrian Fenty is slated to meet today with Joshua Bolten, Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush. We're not sure what the meeting will accomplish, though. The White House officially expressed its intention to veto the......

>> Could an Evangelical group be forcing your kids to swap spit in school? We were just as shocked as some parents to learn that the answer may be "yes." Apparently, just such a program, aimed at teaching kids about STDs and peer pressure, has been in place at many Montgomery County schools for nine years. In the lesson one student is given a piece of gum to chew and then other kids are asked......