‘New look for the Wash Post magazine’
courtesy of ‘ShashiBellamkonda’

If you picked up the Sunday Post today, you might nearly have thrown out the newest thing in it, the redesigned Post Magazine. We’ve talked a bit about the Magazine recently, and a redesign of the Post’s long-form contribution each week is certainly welcome.

What I found inside largely turned me off. It wasn’t the articles, though; Marc Fisher’s return to the Post is an excellent profile of Chancellor Michelle Rhee and sets the bar for content, but it’s the ads and the layout that are distracting. Flipping through, I found a lot of what felt like recycled content from the Going Out Gurus, and little bits that probably could’ve played well in Style, but the whole thing felt…odd.

Perhaps I’m too young to want the magazine format, though Wired continues to get my annual subscription for its layout and content. Perhaps I’m too used to the Post’s continual stream of excellent web content. Perhaps I’m just not a magazine sort of fellow, but all of this combines into something I read from cover to cover and didn’t feel I got anything from. Perhaps that was the barrage of full-page ads to ignore. I felt that if I were to filet out the good content from ads, I’d have been left with about four pages of excellent writing, and it deserves better than to be dressed up so badly with ads.

‘IXS_7276’
courtesy of ‘acme’

WJLA is touting a new poll they commissioned SurveyUSA to do about Mayor Fenty. The big headline is his (lack of) approval, though I think it’s much more interesting how the breakdown by race goes: 69%of black voters disapproved but only 24% of whites disapproved. SurveyUSA has the full poll results online so you can see how the 500 people queried break down by any number of categories.

WJLA is also making a lot of hay out of another answer: “In perhaps the most damaging area of the poll, 58 percent thought Fenty more focused on advancing his career than on the community’s needs,” but unfortunately the poll fails to ask the follow-up question that might make this a worthwhile bit of information: “Do you think most politicians are more focused on advancing their career than representing their constituents?”

Without knowing people’s baseline opinion on politicians – which overall tend to be poor – this isn’t really much of an indictment.

‘overrun’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

The District Department of Transportation is reporting that a prayer vigil scheduled for today on the west front of the Capitol may cause minor traffic disruptions throughout the day. While they don’t expect road closures, the heavy pedestrian traffic may temporarily close these streets:

• Maryland Avenue from 1st to 3rd streets SW
• Pennsylvania Avenue from 1st to 3rd streets NW
• 1st Street between Independence and Constitution avenues

Dar-ul-Islam from Elizabeth, NJ has organized this Jummah Prayer meeting (a congregational prayer that Muslims hold every Friday) on Capitol Hill. The “Day of Islamic Unity” is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m., and the organization expects nearly 50,000 worshippers.  However, in its report, the DDT estimates only 10,000 people during the day.