Our beloved D.C. United may have crashed and burned (again) in the MLS playoffs this season, but life goes on. Also, the playoffs go on — right in our backyard, in fact. Many moons ago, Washington was picked to host the 2007 MLS Cup this Sunday at noon, at RFK. Time to put aside your grieving and check out the game. Tickets start at $30, maybe even less on Craigslist. When else are you going…

MONDAY: As part of a national book tour sponsored by Amnesty International, award-winning journalist and filmmaker Michael Otterman will be at the Penn Quarter Olsson’s to discuss his latest book, American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond. 7 p.m. Local author Edward P. Jones (All Aunt Hagar’s Children and Lost in the City) will be at Politics and Prose to introduce the latest stories in the popular annual collection, New Stories…

There isn’t much to criticize about a show that is packaged so neatly, so near perfect in sound quality, and inclusive of all of the right elements, that listeners go home feeling happy and fulfilled. The Shins’ set last night at DAR Constitution Hall was just that. They performed a mixed batch of songs from all of their past albums for the fans who bobbed up and down in their seats, hesitant at first but…

MONDAY Politics and Prose welcomes Ali Ansari, who will be discussing his book Confronting Iran. We’ve not read the book, but we’d hazard a guess that the strategies offered by the author get a good deal more nuanced than something along the lines of whining “We got to get them to stop doing this shit.” 5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW., at 7 p.m. TUESDAY It’s not said often enough, but historical accounts of great naval battles…

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), our non-voting representative in the U.S. Congress, yesterday requested that the District be allowed to place two statues in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, at right, where each state is granted the right to place two statues of prominent citizens. The request came during a debate on New Mexico’s request to place a statue of Po’pay, a Native American leader who launched what has been called “the first American Revolution”…

Here’s the next installment in our weekly series of the undervisited musuems and historical sites in the D.C. area, from contributor Susan Breitkopf. For Part 1, click here. Itching to get away from the daily grind? Think folks who lived in previous eras had it easier? Find out the answers at one of these historic museums located just a stone’s throw from the D.C. border. Even if you don’t care about history, you can look…

Ambivalent Images took this photo of a statue and monument in Lafayette Square across from the White House, but didn’t know who it memorialized. Well it’s Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, the French general sent to aid George Washington during the American Revolution. This statue was Checkpoint No. 3 in the 2003 Urban Challenge, which this DCist ran. Now on to the Morning Roundup … More on Anthrax Scare: While it looks…