If, like our Mr Bridge, you’re a fan of the late Mr Russert, you might be interested in WAMU’s live coverage of his funeral service today at the Kennedy Center. If you’re one of the 8 people in the country with an HD radio you can turn into HD-3 on 88.5 FM. If you’re one of the rest of us, WAMU streams all three stations online and you can find links here. The funeral service will be at 4pm this afternoon.

Tim Russert - PRSA International Conference - Philadelphia, PA, courtesy of hyku

A Pepco substation serving a good portion of DC’s downtown business district failed at 7:30 this morning, leaving 10,000 businesses in the downtown area without power, and Metrorail stations McPherson Square (Orange/Blue), Farragut West (Orange/Blue), Farragut North (Red) and Dupont Circle (Red) without power. In addition to the outages, there’s been a fire reported by WMATA at Metro Center, and another reported by WAMU, WTOP and multiple twitters at Dupont Circle Station this morning as well.

DC Dept. of Transportation says that more than 30 traffic signals in the downtown core are also out, and has requested that people please treat them as four ways stops. I know there were more than a few people on my drive up 15th street who failed to treat them as such. Of course, when traffic’s flowing, it’s hard to treat them that way, I get it, but still.

Be aware, commuting today probably sucked ass, so please be nicer to your coworkers who looked like they slogged through a marsh of fire in order to come to work.

[Update, 9:56] Dupont Circle Metro is now closed due to the power outage. Apparently a lot of people were having trouble exiting the station on the long escalator climb to the surface.

Marc Fisher reports today that WAMU has severed their relationship with Jonetta Rose Barras, pictured right, the fiery co-host to Kojo Nnamdi on the Politics Hour on his show every Friday. That’s too bad - she’s a big part of what makes that weekly episode fun, and her slightly-too-far pushing and boisterousness lets us hear the guests and other folks on the show get pushed a little harder without Kojo having to do it.

Equally unfortunate is that she’s chosen to blame WAMU’s refusal to agree to her salary request on the fact that she’s black and a woman. Her requirement may or may not be reasonable, but it’s hard to take this complaint too seriously when she’s appearing on a show hosted by a black man in a timeslot following a woman. Not to mention the fact that everyone who has heard JRB for more than five minutes knows she’s a little… hyperbolic. That’s part of her appeal, but it doesn’t help me to take her seriously when she makes those kind of assertions.

It’s a shame she didn’t choose to take the high road and simply state that WAMU chose not to pay her what she felt was reasonable for the job she performed for them and let everyone else draw their own conclusions. On the other hand, WAMU isn’t on the highest road either, with their statement that “analyst Jonetta Rose Barras is leaving WAMU 88.5,” which may be factually correct even though it omits “feet first.”

Photo from Jonetta Rose Barras’ own website.

Am I the only one wondering today how we’re predicting massive disaster associated with global warming, but we can’t nail down something like a simple weather pattern? The snow predicted for today was mostly deflected north of the city, leaving us with a slushy mess to deal with instead. There was a 1/10th of an inch (I got out some calipers.) of ice on my car this morning, but it’s fairly reasonable. Rain all day, possibly turning into snow late. Unless it’s all messed up again.

Messy Weather Closes Everyone (Except DC Schools)

It was fun to listen to the school closings this morning on the radio. Living in California during my formative years, I never got to know the glee of hearing that you’re getting a snow day. So, today, as WAMU stepped through all of the school closings, it was hysterical to hear that DC Schools are wide open today, while all the surrounding communities have packed it in.

I’m sure many parents got to say, “It’s a character-building exercise. Now get moving!” to disappointed kids all throughout the District.

Dude, Casual Encounters are Supposed to be Consenting

Maryland Police are looking for a serial rapist who is selecting his victims from Craigslist. The pattern seems to be that he finds someone on Craigslist, agrees to meet, then rapes them at knifepoint. Maybe it’s time for us all to go back to meeting people at work, or through friends and social outlets? Just to be safe?

My Neighbor, the Epix Tax Cheat

The Examiner has an awesome piece from one of the neighbor of Tax Scam Ringleader Hariette Walters in today’s paper. Of course, it’s not an ACTUAL neighbor, it’s someone who lives kinda sorta nearby. Maybe. I suppose then, can I claim to be her neighbor too, because we live in the same basic geographic region?

Apparently, there was some sort of electoral activity yesterday, but since it was in Iowa, I’m sure no one noticed. Right? Oh. It’s on the Front Page of every newspaper in the country? Really? Iowa? Okay, fine.

Carjacking closes Indian Head Highway during Morning Rush

Police are on the scene of a carjacking on Hwy 210 in Maryland and have closed down Northbound traffic, meaning it’s not possible at this time to get on the Wilson Bridge heading to Virginia. This is going to screw up everyone’s morning, so forgive your late coworker today, it’s not their fault.

Walter Dellinger to Represent DC in Gun Ban Case

Don’t worry, I didn’t know who he was either. Dellinger will replace Morrison on the legal team and present the brief on behalf of the city to the Supreme Court. Filing will be today, it’s expected. Dellinger was an advisor to President Clinton on constitutional issues (no word on if this includes definition assistance, as with the word “is.”) and was the Assistant Attorney General of Washington DC

$48,500 for a Portrait? Really? I’m in the wrong line of work…

This wouldn’t be a big deal if it was just a private citizen. But, it’s the head of the Museum of the American Indian and he used company funds to have it done. And his $250,000 travel budget is being looked at. Sen. Grassley (R-Nosypants, I mean, Iowa) is pretty ticked off about all that travel and has started an investigation by Congress.

Virginia Governor Kaine to Address Consumer Fraud/Identity Theft

Governor Kaine is hoping to pass a set of legislation that would force companies to notify people whose identifying information has been mishandled and/or maliciously taken. WAMU has a great collection of sound bites concerning the Governor’s plan.

give yourself a no-prize if you get the reference

WAMU’s excellent Metro Connection show is bidding goodbye to one contributor and hello to a new one, all without a staff change. Peter Fay has done his last broadcast, at least as Peter, and will be on tomorrow’s show at 1pm to talk about his new identity as Colleen Fay. She’ll talk about her new life and the impending changes, which I think is pretty amazingly gutsy and open.

I suppose you have little choice when your job requires you be a public presence, but it’s still pretty impressive.

What’s also amazing is how goddamned hard it is to come up with the correct pronouns to discuss events on either side of a change like this. “He’ll continue to be a part of the show he was a part of creating fifteen years ago” doesn’t work since it won’t be he who continues. She wasn’t a part of creating the show, he was. I can’t say “she’ll continue” either. English is clearly not a language cut out for discussing time travel or gender-switching radio hosts.

To give credit where credit is due, I found this story on FishbowlDC

I’m not sure what it was this morning that finally got me out of bed, but I noticed it wasn’t the sunshine, nor was it a drive to get to work, it might’ve had something to do with the cat poking my eye with his paw, or maybe it was the NPR report about Sarkozy and China on WAMU, I’m not entirely sure. What I found particularly odd was that I wasn’t alone in my turkey hangover this morning.

All along my route into Murky, I was surprised by the lack of traffic. Am I the only one getting a late start this morning? Was it just me with the light traffic? I suspect that if Route 50 was as light as it was, the rest of town was pretty manageable as well. As displeased as I am to be off vacation and back to the grind, knowing that I have an easy ride home may do wonders.

Next Sunday is the last Sunday I’ll ever get to wake up to Stained-glass Bluegrass on WAMU. It’s been my morning routine for at least a year, and my morning tradition for far longer than that (I eschewed an alarm clock on sunday for a while), but no more. WAMU is changing their lineup to take advantage of the HD subchannels available to them. 88.5-1 will now be much as it is, talk radio with local shows by Kojo Nnamdi and Diane Rehm, as well as PRI and NPR programming. 88.5-2 will now be all-bluegrass, all-the-time, and 88.5-3 will be a BBC-based news station.

So, for those of us who haven’t yet found the $250 for the HD Clock Radio, Stained-glass Bluegrass is unreachable except via Internet Radio.

I applaud WAMU for taking the initiative to go HD, but it’s frustrating to be unable to receive the full depth of the programming that we once could receive.

photo courtesy of JoCo

When I say TONIGHT I mean TONIGHT FRIDAY AUGUST 31, not Saturday, as yesterday’s Express claims. Tsk, Post editors, tsk!

Tonight Jonatan Coulton will be appearing at the Birchmere with Bob Paul & Storm, formerly of DaVinci’s Notebook. I’ve seen all of them perform a few times and it’s always fun. Bob Paul and Storm were recently on Metro Connection, where you can hear a bit of what their banter and music is like. They describe themselves as funny guys who do music, but Coulton as a great musician who happens to be funny.

Coulton was on the front of yesterday’s Express (no, I don’t read it either - he mentioned it on his website) with an interview on page 41. [pdf] The money quote, I think, is “The credit has to go to Sir Mix-a-lot, since not only is [baby got back] wickedly funny, there is an important message in there about body image.”

He’s speaking, of course, about his breakout hit, which you can listen to free here.

At $20 I think it’s a pretty good deal for a show at the Birchmere. I only recently went for the first time, and was quite happy with the experience. Go early so you don’t have to pay Ticketbastard’s silly fees.

UPDATE: Whoopsie! Thanks Gina, I don’t know why I got Bob stuck in my head - the only thing I can imagine is some random neuron in the back of my brain remembering DaVN’s multiple collaborations with The Bobs. Sorry Paul!

I was headed to lunch in Old Town today, when I heard the craziest thing on the radio. Now, I realize that just because I heard it on the radio, it doesn’t automatically have to be true, but would Kojo Nnamdi really lie to me? I don’t think so. The subject in question was the contempt citations that the Judiciary Committee voted to issue for Josh Bolton and Harriet Miers.

The question is: Should these two be cited for contempt of Congress, it is likely that the charges will not be filed by the Executive Branch, but what about the idea of inherent contempt of Congress? By that authority, the chamber could consider Bolton and Miers in inherent contempt of Congress, send the Sergeant at Arms (who’s well compensated for the privilege) to detain the object of their ire, and bring them forth to the Capitol for a speedy trial and sentencing.

The last time this happened was in 1934, when the Postmaster General was tried by Congress and sentenced to 10 days incarceration in the DC Jail:…
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