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Wednesday, March 25: As part of the Francophonie 2009 cultural festival, the Ripley Center will be playing a movie about a French-Canadian family in the ’70s, Histoire de Famille. Oh, goodie, can’t wait. [Francophonie] MORE »
Wednesday, March 4: The ambassadors of nine very tiny countries (including countries you didn’t even know were countries such as Malta, Liechtenstein and Monaco) will be coming together and reading poetry from their homeland in English and their quaint native tongues. MORE »
There are plenty of reasons to celebrate this weekend — not that there’s any doubt you haven’t been wasted since Tuesday, 11 PM anyway. Still! Hopey is officially moving to town, which means you don’t have to see another one of CNN’s dumb holograms again until 2012, at least. And look at this: there are a disproportionate number of excellent Rock and Roll concerts in DC this weekend, including the Sea and Cake, David Byrne, and the Gutter Twins. Plus Art Spiegelman! This is that Change you were promised. MORE »
Our Liz Glover dropped by the National Portrait Gallery to ask bitter voters about Stephen Colbert’s dignified triple portrait, which enjoyed a limited engagement hanging in the restroom foyer, over the water fountain. The answers may repulse you! (Thanks to Dawne Langford for the camera work.)
Pilar O’Leary, this magazine cover lady who was head of the Smithsonian’s Latino Center until resigning in February, was apparently in the midst of an ethics investigation at the time that found her wasting your taxpayer money (that you have to pay today ha ha!) on limos, fashion show tickets, five star hotels, concerts and “music award ceremony” FAVORS. According to a report released yesterday, “The investigation revealed that O’Leary has not always acted in the best interests of the Smithsonian… Her conduct has violated the basic ethical rules of the Institution.” The National Air an Space Museum is currently building a rocket to shoot O’Leary to Neptune. [Washington Post]
Running the Smithsonian might be the best job in Washington. Nearly a million a year and unlimited vacation — sign us up! Even the deputy secretary got all the leave she wanted! And though you’ll be forced to resign in disgrace when it’s revealed that you took 10 weeks of vacation a year while making $5.7 million at outside gigs and failing to raise as much money for the institution as your predecessor, it’s still great while it lasts. MORE »
* Senate Republicans hope John McCain shows up to work so they can avoid a veto of the Iraq funding bill. Please note that we didn’t take the easy “soften stance on pullout” headline joke. [WP, NYT]
* Gonzales’ aide invokes her “fifth amendment right” while taking “an indefinite leave of absence.” We’ve come a long way as a society — a few years ago she just would’ve been “disappeared.” [WP, NYT]
* FBI so excited about their new anti-terrorism powers they’re doing donuts in the nations’ personal information parking lot. [WP]
* First Guantánamo detainee actually found guilty, entered the plea himself, and is Australian. Swarthiest possible actors will continue to be cast for every “bad guy” movie role, however. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* David Stockman is thankful there aren’t any emails to dig through from the Reagan administration. [WP]
* Lawrence Small tells Smithsonian board of regents they can take his job and shove it into a jewel encrusted urn. [WP]
* Jim Webb tells Capitol police they can take his gun from the cold, dead hands of his aide. [WP]
Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small is out just a month after his obscene expense reports showed up in the Washington Post — Small made off with $2 million in ridiculous “expense reimbursements” in his three short years on the job, including hundreds of thousands of dollars out of “petty cash.” Oh, and when the inspector general started investigating the outlandish expenses, he commanded her to lay off. She didn’t. MORE »
* Pat Leahy thinks Karl Rove needs to go under oath. Chuck Schumer thinks it’s “highly unlikely” that Alberto Gonzales will have a job after this week. [NYT]
* David Iglesias was the world’s greatest voter fraud prosecutor before he wasn’t. [WP]
* Carol Lam, on the other hand, got what she deserved for inconveniencing esteemed government officials like Duke Cunningham and Dusty Foggo. [WP, LAT]
* US Military is unprepared to begin new exciting wars. [WP]
* Patrick Kennedy tells Ted Kennedy to, “do it for the crazies dad, do it for me.” [NYT]
* State Department gives North Korea its drug money back. [NYT]
* What’s this “internet primary” all the kids are talking about these days? [WSJ]
* The Smithsonian: still free, thanks to tax-payers like you. [WP] MORE »
Diaper-clad nutbucket Lisa Nowak isn’t just proof that even America’s astronauts are deranged creeps — she’s also a shining tribute to being born and raised in the DC metropolitan area! MORE »
* Montgomery County Teenage Suicide. Don’t do it. [
* Traffic circles actually reduce the number of accidents, including bike and pedestrian accidents. [Rethink College Park]
* Smithsonian American Art Museum lighting designer writes about how he lit the Joseph Cornell Retrospective. [Eye Level]
* Women in DC becoming blonder, more attractive. [Radical Flower]
* Miracle Fruit is “like some weird new experiment from Willy Wonka’s factory, only Willy Wonka is some shady horticulturist from Fort Lauderdale known to the world only through his cryptic messages on obscure gardening blogs.” [Eat Foo]
* Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small earned $884,733 in 2006. [City Desk]
* In case you are too clean and wealthy and scheduled and lucky to take the Metro, there was a fire at Farragut North today. [Read Express]
* Best karaoke spots in DC. [The DC Concierge]
* “It borders on criminal that no one in District government is making the case that some of this money [$1.4 billion surplus] should be returned to DC taxpayers.” [Cut DC Taxes]
* The Washington monument is pretty, after all. [Blue Coyote Laughing]
* Some guys on LNS “see college women as little more than cumbuckets. A warm place to put their dicks. And if they’re wearing a low cut shirt at a frat party, it’s not like they’re going to mind, right?” [why.i.hate.dc]
