Good morning, Washington. For many of you, the holiday gluttony has persisted beyond Thursday, but if you can manage to move this afternoon -- and you didn’t spend all your precious cash on Black Friday -- you can capitalize on Shop Local First Day, when independently owned stores across the District offer discounted merchandise. more ›

In which we share some thoughts on being a state and a little-d District. more ›

Yesterday, former Washington Post reporter Jose Antonio Vargas revealed in a piece published by the New York Times Magazine that he is an undocumented immigrant. While Vargas' piece was eye-opening and could possibly could lead to him being deported, we also found it interesting that the paper where Vargas won a Pulitzer, the Post, didn't run with the story. more ›

Kudos to DeMatha Catholic High School band founder/director John Mitchell, who was profiled by the New York Times yesterday. more ›

I've been spending some time this morning playing with this infographic, released by the New York Times over the weekend, which shows the results of a Gallup poll in which 1,000 randomly selected American adults were called every day over the last three years, and asked questions like "Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday?" and "Is the city or area where you live getting better as a place to live?" Gallup then plugged those responses into an index called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index -- it's a pretty fun way to kill a few minutes. So how does D.C. stack up? more ›

Last week, The New York Times published this article on the prevalence of "junk food"/comfort food on the Hill. Many food writers and bloggers were up in arms about what they viewed as a condescending attack on the city's burgeoning food scene. Food (critic) fight! more ›

How we enjoy it when the New York Times takes some time out of its busy routine of pontificating on the state of the modern woman to cast a spotlight on the Washington area! Yesterday, the Times' Media Decoder blog lent some attention to the Washington Examiner's crime-fighting abilities. Oh, you didn't know that the paper possessed such awesome powers? more ›

Morning DC. Looks like we're in for another beautiful fall day - pretty perfect for ye old Tweed Ride, which will roll through DC this afternoon. If you want to join in donning your Sunday best, there's still time to register. more ›

Today the New York Times has a great story on how the medical marijuana industry may well save local newspapers starved for advertising dollars. Basically, the medical marijuana industry in the states where it is legal has been something of a boon to alt-weeklies. more ›

The New York Times editorial board penned a pro-D.C. Voting Rights piece today. "Washington’s lack of representation is profoundly undemocratic," they write. "Of course, in a perfect world, fixing the disenfranchisement of residents of the nation’s capital would not be conditioned on giving another House member to a state that has not been wrongly deprived of one. But the compromise is still worth making." The Times goes with the “District Clause” argument when pondering constitutionality, and takes a quote from EHN for its headline: "'It’s 200 years too late,' says Eleanor Holmes Norton, who now serves as the city’s nonvoting member of the House. 'But we’ll take it.'" For those who missed the news late Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposed to begin floor debate on the bill on Feb. 23, and a vote is expected on Feb. 24, making the bill one of the very first items of business for the Senate after they return from this week's recess. more ›

Yes, yes, thank you for sending us 342 emails about how New York Times columnist and Bethesda resident David Brooks wrote something really ridiculous today about District's Ward 3. The column posits that the upper-upper-middle-class section of Washington is populated entirely by trial lawyers, TV news producers and Democratic staffers, and that these people are only upset about the excesses of Wall Street executives because they are envious. They are wealthy, you see, but not as wealthy. A sample:

People in Ward Three have nationalized extravagance and privatized Puritanism. Under their rule, the federal government is permitted to throw hundreds of billions of dollars around on a misguided bank bailout, but if a banker like John Thain spends $1,500 on a wastepaper basket then all hell breaks loose. Dazzling personal consumption is out. Middle-class drabness is in. It’s sad, but there’s nothing to be done.

Sigh. The New York Times has taken the occasion of Barack Obama's election to run another inane Washington, DC "style" story about how they think a tiny sliver of our city's population - namely the handful of very old, well-monied white people with deep connections to national politics - is in charge of setting the tone of the District of Columbia. The entire article is breathtaking in its silliness, but the lede is the most ridiculous:

Bill Clinton brought jazz, Rhodes scholars, a slice of Arkansas and all-night pizza policy sessions. When George W. Bush arrived, Texans took over the town. Blue jeans were out; coats and ties and cowboy boots were in.

New York may have bigger rats, but according to New York Times food writer Frank Bruni, D.C. may have a "cupcakery" that beats out New York's iconic Magnolia Bakery. Bruni samples and gushes at length over Georgetown Cupcake's massively popular treats, though he still manages a minor swipe at D.C.'s food scene. more ›

Thanks to the 276 different people who took the time to email us this New York Times blog post from Jennifer "I probably shouldn't make pathetic attempts at insults with a middle name like" 8. Lee. Apparently our reputation for obsessing over a) transit issues and b) people who try to compare D.C. to New York City are well known at this point. more ›

We're getting ready for our staff holiday party tonight, so GHA and AT are combined into one super post! Have fun, y'all. We certainly will be. more ›

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. more ›

After a long wait, CityDance Ensemble Rehearsal Director Christopher K. Morgan finally gets to see his face on the silver screen. In December of 2003, Morgan was cast as a dancer in John Turturro’s film Romance & Cigarettes. After filming in 2004, the movie faced some setbacks and became what the Associated Press referred to as “the luckless orphan of corporate shuffling.” More than two years after its original release date, Romance & Cigarettes... more ›

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and local resident Tim Weiner won the National Book Award's nonfiction category for Legacy of Ashes: The History of the C.I.A., a sweeping 600-page critical history of the agency with a particular emphasis on the intelligence failures that have occurred during the agency's relatively short period of existence. "Legacy of Ashes," writes Weiner, “is the record of the first sixty years of the Central Intelligence Agency. It describes how... more ›

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Indie: War/Dance Sometimes you need an antidote before the poison even arrives. Next week Hollywood releases yet another of those diabetic-shock-inducing films about musically gifted youngsters and how they can be an inspiration to us all, designed to make soccer moms everywhere weep into their hankies. One week prior to that, though, comes a documentary from... more ›

Channel 9 reporter Bruce Johnson has broken the story on the dust-up at the Washington Post this past week. Classical music critic Tim Page, winner of a Pulitzer prize, has long been one of the best writers in the Style section, making the paper's shrinking coverage of classical music all the more shameful. In response to a mass email from the staff of Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry, which was sent to Page apparently... more ›

It was a good weekend for historically informed performance: after a stunning concert of the Bachs by Café Zimmermann at the Library of Congress, it was out to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Sunday night for a recital by the British duo of Andrew Manze and Richard Egarr. In charming prefatory remarks, Manze labeled the selection of one Schubert and three Mozart sonatas as "some of our favorites." A look back over their... more ›

MONDAY: We apparently didn't pay enough attention in history class, because we never knew Alice Roosevelt Longworth was such a bad girl. The daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, Alice married then Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth and had a child by Sen. William Borah of Idaho. Stacy A. Cordery will be at Politics and Prose with all the juicy details found in her latest book Alice . 7 p.m. TUESDAY: New York Times columnist... more ›

New Hampshire Looks to Smack Down Senators: After the U.S. Senate failed to overcome a filibuster on legislation that would grant the District a voting seat in the House of Representatives, voting rights activists swore they would have their revenge. On the top of their list are Republican senators John McCain (Ariz.), Gordon Smith (Ore.), and Thad Cochran (Miss.), not to mention the lone Democrat to vote against the bill, Max Baucus (Mont.). But one... more ›

Neither Mozart nor Hockey Themed Washington works hard to burnish its dining credentials. D.C. fat cats who are literally fat need somewhere to eat, and they're not going to throw down lobbyist dollars for just any slop. No. D.C. is a dining destination, beckoning the up-and-coming chefs and their myriad foodie followers. People are noticing, too. From the New York Times to the National Geographic Traveler, we're a getting noticed -- enough so that a... more ›

As we noted yesterday, today is Patriot Day; so conceived to commemorate the 9-11 attacks—even though we Americans aren't the greatest at "commemorating," see: Veterans' Day, Memorial Day, etc. Just six years on, though, feelings are still raw and memories vibrant. Resiliency is a virtue of our citizenry however, and if nothing else, we can get a hearty laugh out of OBL's radical beard transformation, his decidedly porno 'stache, and threats of attack via the... more ›

You may have admired the sculpted heads of children by Desiderio da Settignano (c. 1429–1464) in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. Washingtonians are lucky to have these pieces in their backyard, rare enough for a museum anywhere, and even luckier that the NGA is the only American venue for the first international exhibit devoted to this elusive artist, Desiderio da Settignano: Sculptor of Renaissance Florence. It draws together pieces from three major... more ›

>> Most of the city it seems will be heading to RFK after work, so plan your Metro rides on the Blue and Orange line accordingly. >> The band that brought you the third most played song on the DCeiver's iPod, The Daybreak Line, is teaming up with three other list-worth bands (The Grownup Noise, The Able Birds and Aubriot) tonight at the Red & the Black. $8, 4 bands, too good to pass... more ›

With Congress in recess, it's officially the August doldrums here at Reader, Meet Author. If you have any tips, feel free to drop us a line. Otherwise, read some good books and stay cool. MONDAY: Pushcart Prize-winning author Katherine Taylor will be at Olsson's Books & Records in Dupont Circle to talk about her debut novel Rules for Saying Goodbye, a coming-of-age tale that straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction. 7 p.m. TUESDAY: Man... more ›

Monday >> Canada’s post-punk four piece Uncut just released their latest album Modern Currencies in the U.S. on July 17th and will be at DC9 tonight with special guest Patrick Krief of The Dears. Just like their name says, they are raw: loud, bold, and off the wall. Check out the stopmotion animated video for their recent single, "Darkhorse" which includes a fire bombing Ronald McDonald and an army of pissed off Care Bears. 8p.m.,... more ›