What did our congressmen and women do before technology? With all the tweeting, texting, blogging and kindling going on these days, it’s a wonder they have time to update their Facebook pages. Luckily, Bob Latta has a solution. Hopefully it’ll help Jim Oberstar, who seems to have a problem hitting the right tiny keys, or Sherrod Brown, who’s singularly averse to capital letters.

In other news, Rick Perry is going to the State Fair, Joe Wilson’s audiences aren’t quite as prolific as he might hope for, Eric Cantor is friends with someone called SWAC Girl (who may or may not be a conservative superhero), Jason Chaffetz is making friends in high places again and Arlen Specter is watching the playoffs. And we don’t know, John Shimkus, but we’re willing to bet that reading the entire Harry Potter series, even including “Quidditch Through The Ages,” is much more entertaining than reading the Baucus bill.

Jack Nelson, one of Washington’s best and most respected journalists of the past 40 years, died Wednesday morning at his home in Bethesda. Barbara Matusow, his wife, told friends, “I want you to know that Jack passed away this morning. He looked very peaceful and beautiful, young even, which is a lovely image for me to hold on to.”

Barbara was a Washingtonian senior writer from 1987 to 2002, and she has continued to write for the magazine as a contributing editor. In the October issue, Barbara wrote about Jack’s taking part in the clinical trial at NIH and what a wonderful resource those trials can be for Washington area residents. She said Jack was very pleased with the story, especially the picture of him with Barbara and with Leo, his sheltie puppy.

Here is a link to the Washingtonian story.

And here is a link to the Los Angeles Times story today outlining Jack’s incredible career in Washington.

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The Washington Post and the Columbia School of Journalism have spent much of this week celebrating the latest report on how to save journalism, this one by former Post editor Leonard Downie and Columbia University professor Michael Schudson.

But all the self-congratulation didn’t sit well with Jim Farley, head of news and reporting at WTOP radio, Washington’s all-news station. He called the report’s denigration of radio journalism “thin gruel—not based on any serious research.”

The Post devoted a chunk of Monday’s opinion page to a Downie-Schudson essay promoting their ideas, which boil down to suggesting ways for charities, government, and universities to help finance journalism. The new business model, they argue, is handouts and subsidies of various kinds.

Post media reporter Howard Kurtz used his Monday media column to give the Downie report more attention. Kurtz focused on the report’s listing of new ventures that show “journalism is being revived and reinvented in some encouraging ways.”

Two years ago, United Airlines trumpeted that it was the first airline to fly nonstop between the capitals of the world’s greatest powers: the United States and China. The new route was the result of heated airline bidding and a special ruling by the Transportation Department.

The route from Dulles International Airport was a big step in what economist Zachary Karabell calls “superfusion”—the growth of a single giant economy linking both countries.

Then came the global economic meltdown. Now United says it can’t find enough business to support year-round operation of the once-celebrated route; the airline has suspended it from October 25 through March 27. While United says it’s just a seasonal thing, the move is a sign of the cooling of bilateral relations between the countries amid the economic crisis and recent trade disputes.

Continuing the service, United spokesperson Sarah Massier says, “doesn’t really make sense if we’re not getting the passenger amounts we want.”

This article first appeared in the October 2009 issue of The Washingtonian. For more articles from that issue, click here.

Image courtesy of the Newseum.

On the day the Washington Post unveiled its new design, the newspaper did what it still does best: It published the second in a powerful investigative series about how the District misspends millions to treat AIDS victims. The articles, by Debbie Cenziper, are maddening, saddening, and solidly grounded in documents.

But was it easier to read? Is the new Washington Post easier to read than it was Sunday?

Biggest change for readers throughout the Post is the typeface. The Post switched from Postroman to a version of Scotch Roman, “a sturdy typeface used in newspapers since the early 1800s.”

The new type is thinner and will allow the Post to get more words on the page. Being less bold, it is slightly harder to read, especially for Boomers with fading eye sight, and they make up the bulk of print readers.

Dan Snyder bought the Washington Redskins in May 1999 and at first looked like a savvy businessman who loved the team and might become a great owner.

Little did fans know that his hiring of Vinny Cerrato that year would doom the team to years of disappointment and mediocrity.

There was a brief moment of hope in 2001 when Snyder fired head coach Norv Turner after an 8–8 season and hired a tough, experienced coach, Marty Schottenheimer, and gave him some real power. One of the first things Schottenheimer did was fire Vinny Cerrato.

Who was Vinny Cerrato? He had been the player personnel chief for the San Francisco 49ers in the 1990s, leaving mostly wreckage behind, before he was hired by Snyder in 1999 and fired by Schottenheimer in 2001. But when Schottenheimer’s Redskins went 8–8 in 2001, Snyder fired Schottenheimer and, figuring he could run the team with someone like Cerrato as his yes man, rehired Vinny.

It’s been one disaster after another ever since.

In honor of Washington’s godfather of go-go, Seventh Street, Northwest, from T Street to Florida Avenue has been “symbolically designated” Chuck Brown Way. The honor was certainly deserved, but why stop there? Here are other area routes that could be named after local personalities:

U Street, Northwest: Jim Vance Street. Washingtonians trust this local mainstay as the go-to source for what’s happening. Cleaned up since the early ’90s, U Street now boasts the same swagger that made it a favorite long ago.

I-270: Ben Stein Highway. You’ll need a pair of dry, clear eyes to make it through the tentacles of this stop-and-go artery without falling asleep during rush hour.

Military Road, Northwest: Dick Cheney Road. With plenty of deer creeping on and around the shoulder of this street near Rock Creek Park, there’s unlimited hunting potential, and heavy traffic means innocent bystanders are always at risk.