Thank you for having me as your guest blogger today. Sommer Mathis, in all her glory, returns next week. Please feel free to visit me here and here. And now, your Go Home Already for Friday, April 4. >> Nation’s Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened By Aristocratization: “When you have a bejeweled, buckle-shoed duke willing to pay 11 or 12 times the asking price for a block of renovated brownstones—and usually up front with satchels of…

Mark Athitakis’ latest article in the City Paper, “Building the Great D.C. Novel,” is a fine one, and it really gets the mind grapes juicing. It takes up a noble task: how to write the classic DC novel. His thesis, for which he builds a solid case, is this, “Though a few have come close, the Great American Novel has bypassed Washington.” Along the way, Athitakis speaks to Jeffrey Charis-Carlson, a “scholar of DC literature”…

For some, “Hell is other people,” but for one local blogger, hell is just one person: the maitre d’ at Kramerbooks & Afterwords, who governed over last Sunday’s brunchtime with a haughty manner and a tendency toward “psychological abuse.” There were snippy quips over bathroom tokens, for example, and memories that seem to have been remembered in German. But the whole matter ended up taking an existential turn for the worse:I also heard Herr Säuglingsmörder…

Earlier this year, newly minted Washington Times EIC John Solomon began making changes at his new place of employ. His first move was to bring an end to some of the Times’ most sacred traditions: like deploying scare-quotes around the word “marriage” when preceded by the word “gay,” and belittling a major national political figure and presidential nominee by referring to her constantly with her first name. Also, they resolved to be slightly less douchey…

My sister, after spending over a decade away from the Washington area, recently moved back to attend graduate school. As she had been away a good long time, and was only in her early teens when our family decamped for Orlando, Florida (a move we all regretted, trust me), she thought it wise to take the time to refamiliarize herself with the area. And, being a child of an employee of the American Automobile Association…

In today’s sad reminder that terrible people are out there walking among us, there is news today that an Alexandria charity, ALIVE (Alexandrians InVolved Ecumenically), has been the victim of a warehouse burglary, in which thieves made off with more than 1,000 pounds of food intended for the needy. ALIVE, which according to their website, “serves over 12,000 Alexandrians annually,” works with community volunteers to provide Alexandria’s less fortunate with a full spectrum of services,…

Good morning everyone, and welcome to your final day of guest blogger goodness. My name is Jason and today is Friday. If you are still getting started on your commute this morning, you’ll want to be aware of some continuing power outages downtown that have closed some streets. Wanna know which streets? Oh, fine then! Be mindful of the following closures: 12th St. NW from G St. to New York Ave., and H St….

Well, sad to say, but the A-Hole Patriots Ran Up The Score On Us Revenge Tour of 2008 came to a premature end in Seattle Saturday, and Washington fell to the Seahawks, 35-14. Yeah, yeah, they lost by 21 points. But the game was much more competitive than the score implied. In fact, after a Seattle special-teams mistake gave Washington a fortunate fourth-quarter possession deep in Seattle territory, I was starting to believe that something…

A month ago, the Washington Redskins needed to win out the rest of their season and receive a ton of help from the rest of the NFC in order to make the playoffs. And it needed to start in the short week between a Sunday’s loss to Buffalo and a Thursday night game with Chicago. And then it needed to start after Sean Taylor’s funeral. And then it needed to continue despite losing starting quarterback…

Well ain’t this a kick in the pants? The Washington Redskins, faced with having to take the same long cut to the playoffs that they did the last time they found themselves all but eliminated and facing a slew of teams suddenly willing to play dead, took their act on the road to Minnesota and won 32-1421, in a game that was only briefly tense and was basically decided by an alert eye on the…