I think it’s important that this is part of Michelle Rhee’s legacy, while I’m not necessarily holding her responsible. She put a premium on success at DC schools, and that pressure can lead to some dastardly things. Moreover, if the Noyes School is found to have cheated on standardized tests, it invalidates a lot of the results Rhee held up as a model in how to best teach students.

The mass movement is working on a number of fronts – in the courts, in the streets, and with the ballot petitions. This is a state-based progressive movement that has had no need for national Democrats or their poll-watching, continuously compromised manner. They are using principle rather than an individual politician as a rallying cry, and they believe they can build the movement into a political force. And they have buy-in from the state Democratic Party, with a unanimity between the politicians and the grassroots.

I moved down to the Washington, DC metro area in early September. Jobless, with my fingers crossed, I was fortunate to get an offer to join the FireDogLake team. Joyous with my new employment and the mitigation of my financial anxiety, I started to look for places that I could give back to the community. A friend of my recommended doing some work at Martha’s Table. Their mission is to provide nutritional, educational, and community support for the homeless. Their main focus is “at risk” children and their families. When I contacted Martha’s Table 3 weeks before Christmas and asked what I could do to help, they put me on a waiting list. Although discouraging, it was heartwarming to hear that we live in a country where even in times of hardship for the average household there is plenty of charitable souls trying to help out during the holiday season.

The best political organizers in America who aren’t getting Koch money happen to be Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Lady Gaga.

Barry Eisler’s new novel, Inside Out, is a spy thriller that takes off from the past years’ headlines about missing CIA torture tapes. But it is something even more: it is one of the most politically astute novels of our generation. No other work of fiction has pointedly posed the alternatives for those who would seek political change in the United States in the 21st century. And what are the possibilities in a system where conspiracy is impossible because “everyone is complicit”? Political nihilism, revolutionary adventurism, martyrdom, or subornation by the Establishment.

Earlier today, the Washington, DC City Council voted unanimously in favor of medical marijuana. The bill will now go to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s desk, where he is expect to sign it. This will add DC to the long list of states that have already approved the use of cannabis for medical purposes.

They should think about the very real crime of having 600,000 American citizens without representation in their own government.

The District of Columbia will become the latest region of the country to legalize same-sex marriage when they begin to grant licenses on Thursday. Today, the Supreme Court, in a three-page ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts, declined to intervene in the legislative action that passed the DC City Council earlier this year. Petitioners sought a public referendum on same-sex marriage before the law went into effect, but Roberts refused to stay the enactment of the law.

Everyone knows the joke — “Washington DC is Hollywood for ugly people.” But having done time in both places, I thought I’d offer up my impressions on how the two compare. . . .