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    Eliza LaJoie

    Eliza LaJoie

    Contributor

  • Milk, Lemonade Protesters Target Capitol Hill

    Civil disobedience sometimes comes with a milk mustache. Saturday at noon, activists from the Raw Milk Freedom Riders and Lemonade Freedom -- slogan: Selling Lemonade Is Not A Crime! -- will gather by the Capitol reflecting pool with local parents and families to sell the illicit beverages. One organizer, Eddie Free, has long been a fixture of the "voluntaryist" -- don't call him a libertarian -- scene staging protests and getting arrested for things like dancing at the Jefferson Memorial.

  • More Bad News For Librarians

    When Marla McGuire was hired as a librarian at Cleveland Elementary School in the District of Columbia some four years ago, she was first librarian at the school in eight years. "I really tried to embed myself in the school community," McGuire told The Huffington Post. D.C. Public Schools announced in May that it was cutting allocated funding for librarians at schools with less than 300 students, and that the job is now a “flexible funding” position rather than a “core” one at schools of all sizes, meaning librarians' salaries will be drawn from a general pool of money that the school must disperse for many needs.

  • LOOK: D.C. Graffiti Street Art Enters The Gallery

    Titled Street Market, the Fridge Gallery show highlights the work of 15 local graffiti artists. In addition to exploring the 50 pieces on display, attendees of Friday night's opening reception will be able to watch several featured artists in action, as they transform part of the Barracks Row gallery into a new piece of art. The exhibition offers "an inside look at the history of graffiti in D.C.," according to assistant gallery director Emma Fisher, from artists like Asad "ULTRA" Walker, who has been working in D.C. for decades, to newcomers like Astrotwitch, a recent transplant from the West Coast.

  • D.C. Restaurants Celebrating Julia Child's 100th Birthday

    August 15 would have been Julia Child's one hundredth birthday. Par example, from August 15 until Sept. 3, the Smithsonian Museum of American History will be reopening its exhibit of Child's distinctive turquoise kitchen. Food-wise, peut-être try Cafe Dupont, in the Dupont Circle Hotel, which will be offering a special three-course, prix-fixe homage to the fabled chef until Aug. 15.

  • LOOK: Rooftop Fiddler Won't Play Lynyrd Skynyrd Classic

    Mystery solved: The man is Ness Zolan, a 25-year-old recent California transplant who goes by "DCFiddler" on Twitter. "I always like to find unique ways to bring access to the arts," Zolan recently told The Huffington Post. While relaxing on the roof one evening last April, Zolan's roommate suggested they do something to engage the many pedestrians trudging in and out the the nearby Harris Teeter on Kalorama Road in Adams Morgan.

  • Bad News For Fans Of 'Really Cool Bear'

    Monday was a sad day at the National Zoo. Nikki, a 20-year-old male Andean (or spectacled) bear, was euthanized after a year's struggle with squamous cell carcinoma -- a type of cancer. “It’s always hard to lose an animal we care so much about, and we feel very lucky to have had Nikki as part of the National Zoo family,” said Craig Saffoe, curator of Great Cats and Bears at the National Zoo, in a statement.

  • LOOK: Tiny, Tiny Art Heads To Georgetown

    While many classic pieces of art, from Pollack's Autumn Rhythm to Picasso's Guernica, are impressive for their vast proportions, the works of groundbreaking British artist Willard Wigan inspire awe because they are so tiny. The celebrated "microscopic sculptor" is in the nation's capital this week speaking about and exhibiting his art, which includes delicate depictions of hummingbirds and fairy tale characters -- complete with expressive faces -- inside the head of a pin, visible through a microscope. Wigan uses the wings of flys to paint his creations, and works between the tiny tremors that each heartbeat creates in the human hand.

  • 'Trash Valet' Service Riles Apartment Residents

    However swanky it may sound, "valet trash collection" is proving irksome to some area apartment-dwellers. The addition of this new "amenity" at a D.C. apartment building has some residents fuming that they’re being forced to pay for unwanted services, and has sparked heated discussions about everything from laziness to the potential embarrassment of guests seeing garbage-strewn hallways. On Thursday afternoon, a resident of Axiom at Capitol Yards posted a diatribe on popular neighborhood blog Prince of Petworth about the complex's decision to offer a nightly trash pick-up service.

  • LOOK: Art Exhibition Features Live Canaries

    Most of the works on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art use traditional materials. An installation by Jennifer Coster uses living, singing birds as well as chunks of coal and wire cages to examine the dangerous allure of the suburbs. The exhibition, "Canaries in McMansionland," has taken up residence on the Corcoran's special display bridge until Aug. 5.

  • Attacked Yoga Teacher: 'There Is Always More Good To Be Done'

    After undergoing surgery following a vicious attack last month, Michael Joel Hall awoke from sedation to discover that his friends, fellow yoga teachers and much of the D.C. community had been rallying behind him. Hall wrote that Graglia and Mulqueen "are both getting capes," and invited all supporters to perform sun salutations at a mass yoga session at Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park at 5 p.m. on Sunday .

  • Goodwill Pop-Up Shop To Pop Up Downtown

    Goodwill hopes to lure the District of Columbia's cool kids and bargain hunters into a "pop-up" consignment store near Chinatown. Edited for Goodwill is a collaboration between Goodwill, Pepco (aka the most hated company in America) and Gensler architects. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • Literacy Group Helps Battle D.C.'s Secret Struggle

    Growing up in North Carolina, Rita Daniels watched the struggles of both her parents' mothers, who were illiterate. When Daniels grew up and came to the nation's capital to study adult education, she encountered many people still suffering the inconveniences and humiliation associated with illiteracy: people who couldn't go to the grocery store, pay a bill or even navigate Metro without help. "Unless you live it, you take it for granted that life comes with high reading skills," Daniels said.

  • LOOK: Pussy Riot Activists Target Russian Embassy

    The chant of "We won't be quiet, Set free Pussy Riot!" attracted the curiosity of motorists, joggers and others passing by on Wisconsin Avenue, many of whom stopped to snap a photo, sign a petition or even pick up a sign -- and don a balaclava. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • Pussy Riot Protest To Target Russian Embassy

    Political activists and punk musicians will unite outside the Russian Embassy on Friday to demand that three members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot be released from jail. The combined protest and concert will take place from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. outside Russia's massive embassy compound in D.C.'s Glover Park neighborhood. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich have been incarcerated since February after playing a provocative, anti-Putin song from the pulpit of an Orthodox church in Moscow, weeks before the Russian presidential elections.

  • WATCH: Sudden Gazelle Birth Surprises Zoo Visitors

    Visitors to the National Zoo on Wednesday got more of a spectacle than anticipated when one of the zoo’s rare dama gazelles gave birth in an enclosure. You can see the adorable new baby's first steps in the video above. Zoogoers lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time were able to observe the animal’s birth and shaky first steps, according to a National Zoo media advisory.

  • Yoga Studios Unite To Help Uninsured Instructor

    After a late-night attack on a gay couple left a popular yoga teacher hospitalized, the yoga community in the District of Columbia and beyond has united to try to help their uninsured colleague get back on his feet. Michael Joel Hall of miDCity Yoga was beaten along with boyfriend Michael Roike early Sunday morning while walking on 3rd Street NE in the Eckington neighborhood. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • LOOK: Two Sisters Fuse Art, Technology

    Friday at the Flashpoint Gallery, they will unveil their first collaboration, "Atmospheric Front," an interactive mix of handcrafts and computer technology. The Flashpoint show will also be the sisters' first in D.C. Earlier this week they chatted with The Huffington Post about sisterhood, hacking and the artistic muse that may or may not be Lisa Frank. HuffPost: What do you like about living near D.C.?

  • Nanny University? Smoking Ban Lights Up Controversy

    Smokers studying at the University of Maryland have one year to either kick their habit or find new, off-campus hangouts. UMD has announced that by June 30, 2013, all campuses in its system will be 100 percent smoke-free.

  • Chipotle Will Help Local Agriculture Program

    Looking for a chance to stuff yourself and feel philanthropic at the same time? On Monday, 59 Chipotle restaurants in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Northern Virginia will be participating in a fundraiser for the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture. For every customer that mentions the event between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., Chipotle will donate 50 percent of its profits -- up to $15,000 -- to the sustainable food initiative.

  • SATURDAY: Party With Pianos At U-Md.

    Forget Carly Rae Jepsen and Nicki Minaj this weekend. Held as part of the William Kapell International Piano Competition & Festival, the free event will feature performances by competition finalists, music-themed refreshment, a piano room for children, and demonstrations of all types of strange and wonderful keyboard instruments, like Yamaha Clavinovas, which "play like a piano but can imitate hundreds of instruments, allowing for a four to sound like a symphony" according to the university.