Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Early this year, I took advantage of one of our strangely mild January days and went on a short walk with my dog. I was tossing a ball for the little guy on an ugly square of WMATA-owned scrub near the Brookland Metro station, when a fellow resident of the neighborhood came by and encouraged me to defend the grassy lot from…

Houstonist reports on cross-dressing thieves and undressing educators this week. A Peeping Tom defends himself with a papaya and an outraged onlooker asks Ken Lay, “TATER TOTS OR FRIES?” Also, FEMA wants it’s money back. LAist are a bug bunch of geeks. They’re Star Trek geeks, David Duchovny geeks and Frank Gehry geeks. During their Cochella preview their readers reveal themselves to be Depeche Mode geeks. Seattlest saw their basketball team preparing to leave for…