John G. Hanhardt has been working as a consulting curator on film and media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). He’s had an influential career as one of the pioneering curators of media art in North America, helping shape the way museums look at and receive new media within their galleries and collections — all stemming from his perspective of film’s influence on art and culture in the 20th Century. Hanhardt grew up in…

FRIDAY: >> Kaiser Chiefs, a Leeds, England five-piece, hits the stage at the 9:30 Club tonight. Their music is infectious (you know, in a good way), confident, and sure to get you dancing. And they’re cute, in a quintessentially British sort of way. $15. Doors open at 9, openers The Cribs go on at 10:15, and the Kaiser Chiefs will be on stage at 11:30. At which point we’ll be asleep. Because we are old….

We’ve had some good times with WMATA over the years, haven’t we? There was the time some guy was eating a candy bar while entering a station and was arrested. Or the time WMATA officials handcuffed a talkative pregnant woman? And, of course, there was that lovely moment when a 12 year-old girl ate a french fry on a Metro platform and, as a result, was searched, handcuffed, put into a paddy wagon, and kept…

OK, so there isn’t a specific D.C. angle other than it takes place here, but this is pretty monumental news in the larger scheme of things. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, today announced her resignation, the first in over 10 years and one likely to set up what is sure to be a long and brutal battle between conservative factions looking to reign in “judicial activism”…