Results tagged “washingtonblade>”

From the ashes of the Washington Blade, DC Agenda has risen. The staff of the suddenly shuttered LGBT publication has managed to put together a new web site and "a modest, early iteration" of a print edition, both out today, less than a week after they all lost their jobs. From their introductory message:

The former staff of the Washington Blade remains united and DC Agenda represents our effort at continuing the important mission and work of the Blade. It will grow and evolve to include a much larger and more diverse group of voices. But the core of the Washington Blade’s work remains unchanged. We will cover Congress, the White House, the LGBT rights movement, the D.C. marriage fight, local hate crimes and other political issues important to the LGBT residents of the city.

Continue reading "Former Blade Staffers Launch 'DC Agenda'"

The folks who were all abruptly laid off from the Washington Blade earlier this week are meeting tonight from 6-8 p.m. at the Hard Rock Cafe (11th and E Streets NW), where they hope to greet loyal readers and/or potential investors & volunteers who want to help them get a brand new newspaper off the ground. Read more about what they're up to at SavetheBlade.com, and stop by to join them for a drink tonight. The former Blade staffers changed the name of their Twitter feed today to @DCAgenda, so it looks like they might already have an official name for the new venture at this point.

Incredibly sad and surprising news for the LBGT media world, not to mention the local media scene: The Washington Blade has been shut down. The LGBT publication's twitter feed first alerted us to what was going on just a little while ago: "Washington Blade, like all Window Media publications, is closing today. Thank you for your support. (Keep following us for developments.)" Sure enough, even the Blade's web site has been taken down.

>> The father of a 4-year-old boy who was shot to death in October was arrested yesterday and charged with killing the man believed responsible for the child's death. [WaPo]

Via the Washington Blade, three organizations are competing to take over Capital Pride from the Whitman-Walker Clinic, which began organizing the event in 1997 with One In Ten, DC's LGBT arts group. Whitman-Walker became the sole producer and financier of Capital Pride in 2000.

DC for Marriage, an eight-month-old group advocating same-sex marriage rights in the District, will hold a "Marriage Equality Community Forum" tomorrow night at 7 p.m. in room 412 of the Wilson Building. This is the group's first public event, which is co-sponsored by several local LGBT organizations including the DC Center, DC Black Pride, AQUA DC, and the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, among others. Yesterday, DC for Marriage announced Sabrina Sojourner, the first open...

Last night a few of us made our way to Nellie's Sports Bar, where the Washington Blade was giving out its Best of Gay D.C. awards. We were honored to pick up the prize for Best Local Blog, with their kind description:When D.C. residents need to keep up on local events, art, sports, restaurants or pretty much anything else related to life in the District, they head to DCist.com... The blog is truly a community...

Good morning, D.C. Yesterday was just about the most beautiful day, weather-wise, that the city has seen in a long time, and today we're expecting more of the same. So is there anything on God's green Earth that could cause us to lose the attendant sunny dispositions we all naturally have as a result? Oh, drat. It's Thursday. Metro General Manager John Catoe will appear before Metro's Board of Directors today and recommend raising minimum...

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive new guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Foreign: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg The Avalon is screening tonight, for one night only, this classic musical by Jacques Demy and Michel Legrand. Both bittersweet and endlessly charming, the film features the always enchanting Catherine Deneuve as an umbrella saleswoman in love with the local auto mechanic. Nothing works out the way anyone wants it...

Via the Washington Blade, President Bush has issued a veto threat of the D.C. appropriations bill because it lifts bans allowing federal funding to be spent to enable residents to register as domestic partners and qualify for benefits like married couples, and lifts the ban on funding for needle distribution programs to drug users. “Under federal law, legal marriage is the union between a man and a woman,” the memo says. “Federal tax dollars are...

Veteran gossip columnist Michael Musto is in town today promoting his new book, La Dolce Musto, a collection from his columns of the same name (he'll be at Nage Restaurant from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.). The bespectacled provocateur has spent 20 years at the Village Voice chronicling New York City’s gay life, nightlife and sex life, sometimes in terms that would make Candace Bushnell blush. Along with the tales of club kids, politics and sex...

Written by DCist contributor Christopher Durocher Never mind that D.C.’s delegate doesn’t actually have a vote in either house of Congress. Never mind that D.C. residents get a “shadow” representative and senator that are so influential that most members of Congress wouldn’t know our delegation if they tripped over them. Never mind that legislators, federal courts and pretty much the rest of the nation couldn’t care less that we in the nation’s capital are subject...

Written by DCist contributor Christopher Durocher. Last month the brave city councilors of Manassas, Virginia refused to vote against gay massage therapist Howard Daniel’s application to operate a business from his home, despite protests by members of a local church. Instead, the Council refused to vote at all, leaving Daniel’s with no answer, but many questions about whether homophobia in his community had limited his business opportunities. As the Post reports: Daniel's application hadn't actually...

Written by DCist contributor Christopher Durocher Where’s a boy (or girl or girly boy or mannish woman or transgendered person, or anyone else for that matter) suppose to get a drink these days? It seems that organizations are coming out of the woodwork to keep D.C. residents and visitors from enjoying the beverages so crucial to the success and enjoyment of any social interaction. High profile clashes over liquor licenses have been common between local...

Written by DCist contributor Christopher Durocher BeBar, the newest gay bar in D.C., opened its doors to the public last week. Though there may be nothing remarkable about another gay bar in the city (especially for the heterosexual set), Be Bar’s story is part of a larger story of ongoing gentrification in the city and the conflict it’s creating in a number of neighborhoods. For over six months, BeBar’s owners have faced vocal opposition from...

Written by DCist contributor Christopher Durocher In anticipation of the September 12 District primaries, the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA) of D.C. released its ratings for mayoral candidates last week. The ratings, which score candidates from +10 to -10 based on their support for the GLBT community and its issues, ranked D.C. Council Chair Linda Cropp the top candidate with a +9.5 rating, while Councilmember Vincent Orange found himself at the bottom of the...

While a number of states continue to debate or enact bans on gay marriage, the District, long a progressive-minded town with an active gay population, has steered clear of the debate. Until now, it seems. A ballot initiative to define marriage as a union between a man and woman is set to be introduced before the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, DCist has been told. Lisa Greene, a 40-year-old Republican activist and founder of...

And we thought calling gay folks "sexual deviants" was so yester-decade in these parts. Apparently not. There is controversy and commotion in Metro's Board of Directors, where Maryland member Robert Smith called gay people "sexual deviants" on a cable access show last week, reports the Washington Blade. Council-member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who is gay and serves on Metro's board, has demanded that Smith resign. After a June 15 meeting where Graham raised the issue...

Maryland, the state some DCists call home, may be getting closer to becoming the next state to legalize same-sex marriages. Well, one step closer, anyway. A case filed by nine same-sex couples earlier this month (plaintiffs Jodi Kelber-Kaye and Stacey Kargman-Kaye are pictured above) and aimed at overturning a state law banning same-sex marriage is currently working its way through the courts, with a circuit court in Baltimore set to hear oral arguments on July...

The words free concert are sweet music to this DCist's ears and probably yours, too. If you are not reading this because you already like classical music, our chances of getting you to follow our suggestions may improve if we recommend concerts that require no tickets or even real planning. It's summer, so we're going to make this as painless as possible. NATIONAL CATHEDRAL SUMMER FESTIVAL: >> There is a series of free concerts this...

City officials are reeling after a member of D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams' cabinet was found dead in her home. Wanda Alston had served as advisor to the mayor as director of the D.C. Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs. She is pictured to the right in a photo from the Washington Blade printed in a story from last July about the selection of a new head for the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration. The AP...

This week's City Paper cover story examines gentrification in Columbia Heights from an unusual source: a busy community email list active since 1999. The City Paper writers delve into this email list in search of poignant, funny, and ridiculous stories from a neighborhood in transition. (Oddly, they didn't provide a link to the group anywhere in the story.) Between a brief contextual introduction and the "Illustrations by Derf" the entire article is drawn from the...

In a not-too-surprising nod to one of D.C.'s most famous chefs, the latest issue of Esquire has named Chef Yannick Cam's new restaurant Le Paradou one of the best new restaurants in the United States. Cam, perhaps most famous as the chef of Le Pavilion during the '80s, made his return to D.C. this April after a period at Le Relais in Great Falls. This is the second time one of Cam's restaurants has been...

As you probably know by now, if you've been trolling political blogs all day like the good little unproductive employee you are, Ed Schrock, a conservative Republican congressman from Hampton Roads, Va., quit his re-election efforts after a D.C. blogger, BlogActive, alleged that Schrock was gay. As DCeiver noted this morning: "Don't look now, but Virginia's having its own McGreevey moment!" BlogActive, run by D.C. gay activist Mike Rogers, has been on a campaign for...