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You Can Dance If You Want To: Future scholars of social movements may well look back on May 2011 as the month it became safe to dance. Because up to now, the U.S. Park Police arrests of dancers at the Jefferson Memorial was merely a funny story; all of a sudden, it’s a political protest. More than 1,500 people have signed up on Facebook for a public dance-in next weekend, protesting the original arrests and this weekend’s second round, which was also a protest of the first one and the court ruling upholding it. We just hope the jail storage facility has room for all those toe shoes. +2
Melt With You: Free advice for the White House or any Democrats hoping to put climate change deniers on the defensive: Schedule some hearings for this week. Record high temperatures swept the D.C. area today and are expected to stick around. Last summer, which broke all kinds of heat records, there weren’t consecutive 95-degree days until late June; if this keeps up, going outside at all in August will be seriously ill-advised. Of course, the weather on any individual day doesn’t have anything to do with climate. But since that point seems lost on the likes of James Inhofe, no reason not to take advantage of the confusion. -3
Stop the Presses: Along with mayoral advice on keeping pets cool, the heat wave managed to break the media. Power outages rolled around the vicinity of North Capitol Street, shutting down the CNN Washington bureau and Roll Call, where staffers were unable to edit or lay out the next issue of the paper. If such mighty news organizations can be brought down so easily, we fear for Howard Kurtz. -1
Think Different: The stereotype of the BlackBerry-addicted Hill staffer checking email from the bar late at night (mostly in a misguided attempt to impress fellow bar patrons with how important the staffer is) may soon have to change. Not too much, though; mobile email is still as popular as ever in D.C. It’s just now it’s increasingly likely to be Gmail, read from an iPhone. Don’t expect to see Apple using images of federal bureaucrats in its marketing any time soon, but if footage of President Barack Obama using an iPad surfaces in Cupertino, Calif.-led ad campaign, it’ll be a sure sign that his reelection bid is going pretty well. +1
Friday’s Needle rating: 62 Today’s score: -1 Today’s Needle rating: 61