DCentric

Good Morning, DC! While you were hitting the snooze button, we were compiling delicious links for you to enjoy with your hopefully hearty breakfast.

Real Housewives of DC: Cat Ommanney’s ex is classy, embarrassed about show. “I have very few regrets in my life, but this is the one.” Once, he points out, if you Googled “Ommanney,” you would have discovered three centuries of naval admirals going back to his great-great-great-grandfather. Now you find rumors about the marriage breakup and snarky tattling on the show.” (The New York Times)

Is Michelle Rhee becoming a force in D.C. real estate? “…homeowners who never used to dream of sending their kids to local schools are giving them a second chance. Meanwhile, parents who can’t afford to buy in the ritzier districts are wondering when—and whether—Rhee’s reforms will pay off for schools where gentrification only recently arrived.” (Washington City Paper)

About Glenn Beck’s rally to “Restore Honor”: Theocrats > Libertarians? “…Tea Partiers and related right-wing activists have often been split, just below the surface, between competing factions — largely secular libertarians who focus on fiscal issues and the scope of government vs. religious-right-style theocrats who are still inclined to fight a culture war. Saturday’s gathering seemed to suggest the latter contingent might have the edge.” (Washington Monthly)

In case you missed it: “Poll shows D.C. Mayor Fenty getting more credit than support in primary race against Gray” A great read from WaPo this weekend– “Catherine Magruder, 59, a poll respondent from Anacostia, in Ward 8, summed up her choice: “There is a lot of things [Fenty] did do good, but I prefer, what’s his name? Gray.”" (The Washington Post)

The L.A. Times ranked LA teachers. What if WaPo did it, too? “Teacher’s unions have now found an enemy even more loathsome than Michelle Rhee: the Los Angeles Times. On Sunday, the LAT published a database that included information on 6,000 Los Angeles teachers, who were ranked according to “their effectiveness in raising student test scores.” Local and national unions blasted the paper.” (slatest.slate.com)

As U.S. troops leave Iraq, an officer honors the memory of a young interpreter “Roy’s head came up to my chest, and baby fat rounded out his face. He had cheeks so smooth that I could tell he had never shaved. I thought about asking him his age, but I didn’t want to offend him during our first meeting. So I asked him why he had become an interpreter. I’ll never forget his answer.” “One day the Qaeda came to my school. They say, ‘You are not students anymore! Put away your books! Now we show you the path of jihad!’ My two best friends say to them, ‘We are students trying to learn. We don’t want to do the jihad.’ ” “And then?” Roy gave me a wan smile. “Then, they gather the school in one place, they kneel them down, and they cut their heads with the knife.” (The Washington Post)

Dino owners looking for a second location in DC “Gold says he sees a lot to admire about what’s going on in Columbia Heights, which he describes as a “very vibrant, discerning neighborhood” and notes would be “geographically very convenient to Dino.”" (tbd.com)