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Capitals Banged Up Entering Busy Stretch
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2006122319
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The Washington Capitals begin one of their busiest stretches in recent memory tonight against the New Jersey Devils with several players nursing injuries.
Forwards Chris Clark, Matt Bradley and Donald Brashear, as well as defensemen John Erskine and Bryan Muir, were absent from yesterday's practice at Kettler Capitals Iceplex, a disturbing development for a team without much depth and facing a grueling holiday schedule that includes six games over the next nine days.
"It just means that someone else is going to have an opportunity and a recipe for someone to get some more minutes here," Capitals Coach Glen Hanlon said.
The injuries will likely necessitate two minor league call-ups. It's believed the Capitals plan to summon winger Alexandre Giroux and 20-year-old defenseman Jeff Schultz from Hershey (Pa.) of the American Hockey League this morning.
Clark's condition is not considered serious and shouldn't keep him out of the lineup against Martin Brodeur and the Devils, who have lost four of their past five games and sit two points ahead of the Capitals in the Eastern Conference standings.
"He's one of those guys that have nagging little injuries that just rest will heal," Hanlon said of his team captain. "It's not going to happen overnight."
But the news wasn't so good regarding Bradley, who recently underwent surgery to repair a fractured finger on his left hand and will miss three to four weeks, according to General Manager George McPhee. The checking-line winger was hurt during a fight with Anaheim's Travis Moen on Dec. 8 and has missed five games.
Bradley is the second Washington player to be operated on this month. Winger Richard Zednik underwent abdominal surgery and won't be back for at least another four weeks and possibly longer.
Meantime, Brashear, Erskine and Muir are listed as day-to-day because of undisclosed injuries.
Brashear missed Tuesday's 5-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning and has not skated with the team since, although he might suit up against the Devils.
"If Brash is healthy enough to play, he'll play," Hanlon said. "Erskine is the one that's farthest away from being ready to play."
Erskine blocked a shot with his left foot against the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday and has been off the ice since. Hanlon has mentioned how much the Capitals have missed the toughness and veteran presence of Brashear and Erskine, who have eight of the club's 19 fighting majors.
Muir, who has two goals and an assist in his last four games, skated for about five minutes yesterday before limping off. He is questionable.
As for Giroux and Schultz, whether one or both gets into the lineup will depend on the other players' status. Giroux, 25, received 6 minutes 48 seconds of ice time against the Lightning and had a scoring chance in the third period. After the game, he was sent back to Hershey, where he leads the Bears in scoring with 21 goals and 32 points in 28 contests. Schultz, a 6-foot-6, 215-pound 2004 first-round draft pick, will be looking to make his NHL debut.
"It hurts when you lose guys to injuries," center Dainius Zubrus said. "The good thing is most of them are not that serious. But even if one or two guys are out, we can't look at that as an excuse. We have to just keep going."
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The Capitals begin one of their busiest stretches in recent memory on Friday against the New Jersey Devils with several players nursing injuries.
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What's Cooking With Kim O'Donnel
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2006122019
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Calling all foodies! Join us for another edition of What's Cooking, our live online culinary hour with Kim O'Donnel.
A graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education (formerly known as Peter Kump's New York Cooking School), Kim spends much of her time in front of the stove or with her nose in a cookbook.
Catch up on previous transcripts with the What's Cooking archive page.
Kim O'Donnel: Seasoned greetings, y'all. How's everybody doing? Me, I just polished off a few slightly stale jelly doughnuts that I made yesterday and trying to keep exercise as part of the maddening routine. Today is my final chat for 2006, so I'll push out a few thoughts and queries: What's your own personal culinary highlight this year? Also,m I'll take any last-minute blog requests. Need something answered or tackled? Lemme know: (kim.odonnel@washingtonpost.com) and I'll try to dispatch something in the blog space before the long holiday weekend. And now, it's all about you...
Travel meals: Kim, we are flying to family for Christmas, and need to take food on the flight. Can you suggest something that is not too messy, is easy to carry, and can go unrefrigerated for at least five hours?
Kim O'Donnel: With all the inflight liquid/gel restrictions these days, I'd stay away from yogurt and anything dip-like, for fear of having it confiscated. That said, I'd carry some apples, clementines, dried fruit, nuts, a favorite sandwich, and if you're feeling decadent, a little smoked fish and crackers.
Warrenton, Va.: I have a number of receipes that call for "heavy cream." Can't find anything in Giant, Safeway or Whole Foods labeled "heavy cream"... I asked the dairy managers in each store and they didn't have a clue to what it is. Is that the same as heavy whipping cream? Help!!
Kim O'Donnel: Yes. In fact, I'm looking straight in the face of a pint container of Organic Valley heavy whipping cream that I picked up this weekend at Whole Foods. Now you can teach those dairy managers a thing or two...
White Fruitcake: Hi Kim, I wrote in last week looking for candied citron for the white fruitcake recipe I was working on. I couldnt find it in any of the stores around here, but found an online source that came through BIG TIME -- so I wanted to give them a big thanks! The people at Barry Farm in Ohio were super helpful. When I explained that I needed the fruit ASAP, she said she would pull everything and get it out that afternoon, and it arrived right on time for my baking day. And everything was perfect. Check them out at: Barry Farm Foods
The cake ended up being a Tropical Fruitcake with the candied citron, plus orange, and pineapple, and dried mango, papaya, and golden raisins. I threw in a few handfuls of chopped almonds for a little crunch, but kept it pretty light and more cake-y than fruit-y.
Kim O'Donnel: Nice going. When do you plan to roll out this masterpiece? And are you feeding it with booze every so often? Curious minds want to know.
Alexandria, Va.: For Christmas, my sister sent me nine pounds of "hot and spicy" sausage from Conecuh County, Ala. This is a LOT of sausage for a single girl that eats meat about once a week. I was thinking of making a spicy jambalaya for a Super Bowl party -- any ideas for the other seven pounds!
Kim O'Donnel: That's probably I'd end up doing myself, dear. What about a sausage-and-biscuits number? Mixing with beans and rice? Throwing into a tortilla, with a scrambled egg?
Washington, D.C.: Re: your donut recipe
In the ingredients, you say:
1 1 /2 tablespoons unsalted butter (Margarine for Kosher; I may also try soy shortening here)
Butter can be kosher, and since the recipe also calls for milk, these are dairy donuts, so butter would just be another reason why these are dairy. If you were using margarine to make them parve (not dairy) then you'd have to replace the milk as well.
Kim O'Donnel: You are absolutely right. I was trying to make sure I had all my bases covered. Thanks for the sharp eye.
Pecan pie: How long do you think a pecan pie would keep? Hoping I can make it Wednesday for a party on Saturday, but I don't want to make people sick or anything. I'm hoping the copious amounts of sugar help it keep for a little while (in the fridge, of course). Or should I freeze it and thaw it out on Saturday?
Kim O'Donnel: I've never frozen a pecan pie. Anyone care to weigh in on this nutty matter?
Kalorama, Washington, D.C.: Hi Kim -- I need help on roasting chicken. I have tried everything (brining, butterflying, high heat, compound butter) and my chickens still end up being kinda bland. The brining definitely helps the texture but not the flavor as much as I'd like. In my most recent exploit, I brined a chicken, butterflied it, smeared a mix of mustard, olive oil, cracked pepper and coriander seeds under the skin and roasted at 450. It cooked beautifully and the skin was nice and crisp, but the chicken underneath was still blah.
Really, I want my roast chicken to taste like rotisserie chicken -- moist and chickeny! Any tips?
Kim O'Donnel: Brining a chicken, in my opinion, is not worth the work. I also am a advocate of "naked" whole chicken -- meaning no skin, which cuts down on fat and cooking time. Plus, it gives you an opportunity to make a spice rub (with at least 1 teaspoon salt) to rub into the nooks and crannies of the entire bird.
Washington, D.C.: I am organizing a Burns Supper and I need to locate a butcher who could supply haggis in the D.C. area. Do you have any ideas?
Kim O'Donnel: Good question. Anyone with literary haggis thoughts?
St. Paul, Minn.: I'd like to serve mimosas at our family's Christmas Eve brunch. What's the ratio of OJ to champagne? Will any champagne do? May I serve them in juice glasses (it will be a very casual brunch)?
Kim O'Donnel: St. Paul, if you don't have champagne flutes, don't stress it, but the taller the glass, the more room the bubbly has to bubble. If you want to do something domestic, consider Gruet, a sparkling wine from New Mexico that's relatively inexpensive. Earlier this year at a family brunch, the husband of a friend made mimosas in a pitcher, and then poured into glassees, which I think is a whole lot easier than doing them individually.
Rockville, Md.: Thanks for the chats. They are so helpful. I've been baking like crazy. My oatmeal cookies always turn out flat, not puffy. I've made sure the butter is nice and cold but it didn't help. My recipe calls for baking soda, not baking powder. Could that be the culprit?
Also, I'm looking for a red velvet cake recipe for my friend's birthday on New Year's Eve. Any good ones out there?
Kim O'Donnel: Take a look at some of the commonly asked questions about baking cookies, from cookie queen Nancy Baggett, in last week's Food section. It's actually best to have butter at room temp, not rock-hard cold. But...how old is the baking soda? Always a good idea to test it before using.
Arlington, Va.: Do you have any recipes for Christmas cookies or cakes that do not have eggs in it. I have a friend who is allergic and misses all the good holiday treats.
Kim O'Donnel: Have a look at this recipe for Vegan brownies, which are quite tasty and gift-worthy.
Equipment query: Hello Kim and thanks for the great chats. My question this week is about kitchen equipment. Specifically, I'm trying to figure out whether to get a new blender, my old very inadequate one broke it's collar recently, or get a food processor. I've never owned or used a processor and don't really know alot about its functions versus a blender. I don't really even use my blender that often, and I have a small kitchen, so I don't want to clutter my cabinets with extraneous equipment. So..., what do you advise?
Kim O'Donnel: I have a small kitchen, too. Really. In fact, I don't own a toaster due to lack of space. I don't own a blender, and only want one when I'm hankering for a margarita. I use my food processor a few times a week, at a minimum. It's got a blade for chopping and pureeing and one for dough, too. It has become a staple in my kitchen.
RE travel meals to take on-board: Please, please, NO fish on the plane (or train, or bus)! With my luck, you'll be sitting next to me, and there won't be a free seat to change to.
Try a better quality chicken. Most stupermarket stuff tastes like the packing it comes in no matter what. Look for an organic free range bird or at the very least a kosher bird. Even some of the major organic brands from Whole Foods are no better than Perdue. You get what you pay for a 99 cents a pound chicken taste like it. And Kim, let's stop the plugs for Whole Ripoff. They aren't that great and very overpriced!
Kim O'Donnel: Thanks for your feedback, anon. I'm not plugging WF, just telling folks when I know something is available b/c I've seen it or bought it myself.
Washington, D.C.: Help! Any idea what to do with a whole quart of fresh cranberries, that doesn't require using sugar? Thanks!
Kim O'Donnel: Without some kind of sweetener, cranberries are way tart, dear. If you don't want to use sugar, you could try honey, maple syrup, agave nectar. Even when you add juice to the berries,you still need further sweetening.
Roasted Chicken ...: I, too, have experimented with countless birds, and from experience, I cannot overemphasize the importance of getting a good quality chicken. Even if you roast a poor one perfectly, it's still going to taste blah, to use your words. Also, I'm a big fan of using an instant-read thermometer to make sure you don't overcook the bird -- simply place it in the thickest part of the thigh and walk away until the desired temp is met. If you haven't already, give Judy Rodger's recipe for roasted chicken a try -- she's an advocate of "salting" birds instead of brining (rub about 3/4 tsp of kosher salt for every lb of bird into chicken -- let rest in fridge for 2 to 3 days) and the results are just as good or better, and it's less mess, too.
Kim O'Donnel: Thanks for your first-hand report.
Arlington, Va.: This year I conquered my culinary fear of lamb. Actually, I'd never eaten much lamb and just thought I'd give it a go. Now, I'm addicted. I was always concerned about overcooking or undercooking. Now, a couple of chops, a quick sit in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and rosemary, into a screaming hot pan to brown on one side, flip and into a 400 oven to finish it off. It really makes me happy.
Kim O'Donnel: It's a great feeling, isn't it, when you get beyond your fears? Congratulations!
A Taste of Summer: Thanks to you, Kim, I made pesto with basil from my garden and stuck it in the freezer. Last night's warm temperature made the beef dinner I was planning seem a bit too heavy. I found some shrimp and the pesto in my freezer, had grape tomatoes and fettucine on hand and voila -- instant dinner served with white wine and the sliding glass door wide open (would've eaten on the deck, but put the furniutre away Thanksgiving week).
Kim O'Donnel: So glad for your summer flashback. I too was craving for an al fresco dinner last eve...
South Riding, Va.: I need a delicious but fast and easy salad recipe for the holidays! I prefer to make something with spinaches and/or arugula. I'll be serving stuffed (with olives, sun-dried tomatoes and feta cheese) roast lamb following the salad. Thanks!
Kim O'Donnel: Add fruit -- sliced pears, pomegranate seeds, tangerine or blood orange segments. Nuts are nice, too -- pecans or walnuts.
My significant other was diagnosed with cancer last week. I'm looking for ideas of comfort food that is also healthy and nurturing.
Also, any ideas of where to look to find info on what types of food one should try to eat (or avoid) during chemo or radiation? Ditto w/ looking for info on foods that are said to have anti-cancer properties?
Thanks for any help or direction you can provide!
Kim O'Donnel: Whoa. So sorry to hear this. Re: resources for what to deat during chemo and radiation, I'd probably go first to the American Cancer Society Web site; in fact, a quick search got me to this page: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/MBC/MBC_6.asp
Anti-cancer properties means antioxidants, which mean lots of leafy greens, citrus fruits, and deeply pigmented fruits and veg, such as sweet potatoes, winter squash, blueberries, raspberries, cherries, pomegranates, for starters.
Vegan Cookies --: Kim- the choc-spice cookies in your blog can be made vegan with a butter substitute. and are really good! They went like a flash at my house, and made really good ice cream sandwiches with vanilla ice cream between cookies!
Kim O'Donnel: That is GREAT to know. Thanks for chiming in. For those interested in original recipe, go here: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/mighty-appetite/2006/12/santa_wants_a_lowfat_cookie.html
Arlington, Va.: I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but it looks like everyone else does!
What are your favorite savory holiday foods?
I'm very partial to the many appetizers and cheeses (taleggio, gorgonzola, castelmagno, yum!) my family eats, but it wouldn't be the holidays for me without a good risotto (thanksgiving is dried porcini, Christmas is variable). Love the traditional (to us northern Italians anyway, I think the very southern ones eat fish) lentil soup for New Year's. Made with pigs feet for those of you who don't know ... (as a veggie, I skip this, but used to really enjoy them).
Kim O'Donnel: This time of year brings out my sweet tooth, unlike other times of the year. However, my favorite holiday savories include Hoppin' John for New Years, potato or sweet potato latkes, homemade cheddar crackers, chicken liver pate...
Culinary Highlight: Hard to pick one: my resolution was to try (at least) one new recipe a week so I learned a ton of new things. But braising new potatoes and making tomato tarts in teh summer will are the two things that are definitely in the standard repertoire!
Kim O'Donnel: Good for you, dear. Your resolution is in keeping with a desk calendar that i've been working on, with a recipe for each week. Keep up the good work!
Roasting chickens: Jamie Oliver has a great roasted chicken recipe (check Food Network Web site for it). Involves mizing butter, garlic, lemon zest, some fresh thyme and putting it under skin before roasting. Very yummy
Kim O'Donnel: More on the roasting chix scenario...
Fairfax, Va.: I was frying latkes with my kids this weekend and it was a big old mess because I discovered too late that I didn't have anything to turn them with. I still have all my old plastic college-era utensils, none of which looked like they were ready stand up to hot oil. I ended up using the biggest metal thing I had, a large salad fork. The results weren't so great. So now I'm going to give myself the gift of a new utensils but I'm not sure what I really need. If you were going to start from scratch, what are the essentials you would get? I have mostly nonstick cookware, if that helps.
Kim O'Donnel: There are great heat-resistant tools on the market these days, Fairfax. I'd get a pair of tongs, for starters. A slotted spoon. A heat-resistant rubber spatula and turner. A few wooden spoons. A zester. A paring knife. A meat thermometer.
Fairfax, Va.: I was given two bottles of homemade limoncello as a holiday gift. The thing is, I'm not much of a drinker so I was wondering if it's possible to cook with it. Any ideas?
Kim O'Donnel: Limoncello is sweet, so unless it was part of a dessert, the answer is no. Has anyone out there ever used limoncello in their cooking?
Arlington, Va.: What's Hoppin John?
Kim O'Donnel: Black-eyed peas and rice, darlin'. New Year's good luck charm as far as southerners are concerned.
Takoma Park, Md.: Many organizations provide nutritional information and/or food for patients with cancer and other illnesses. Food and Friends is one and they are amazing, see Food and Friends for eligibility.
Kim O'Donnel: F&F is indeed a great resource. Thanks for the reminder!
For others looking for candied citron, I just found mine at Safeway, in the baking aisle. An essential ingredient for my lebkuchen!
Kim O'Donnel: Excellent. Thanks for the sleuth.
Fairfax, Va.: Hi, Kim. Thanks for all the great info on this chat over the years. Any chance you have a great eggnog recipe you could share?
Kim O'Donnel: At your crackling fire service, Fairfax: Egg nog recipe
Van Ness, Washington, D.C.: Kim, please tell me about bread and salt. I want to try making some bread without salt. Is salt needed for the process of rising and proofing, or is it only for the taste? Thanks for your advice!
Kim O'Donnel: Yes, Van Ness, there are a couple good reasons to add salt to your bread dough. For starters, it strengthens your gluten structure and makes it more elastic, which in the end, will help with texture. It also keeps yeast growth in check and controls fermentation of the dough, which actually impacts sugars, which impact browning on the outside. So, I say, a little salt goes a long way.
Silver Spring, Md.: Limoncello lasts forever (make sure to keep it in the freezer). It's also strong, so you only have it in tiny digestivo glasses. Even if you're not much of a drinker (and I wouldn't suggest you DRINK limoncello -- sip in small amounts. It's not to get drunk on!), it's a great thing to have around. Everytime we have a dinner party or house guests, we always have tiny glasses of limoncello to top off the evening. A little goes a long way.
Kim O'Donnel: Thanks for your limon-y thoughts, Silver!
Limoncello: Pour over vanilla ice cream or fruit sorbets. You'll use it faster than you think!
Kim O'Donnel: More on the limon....
Washington, D.C.: Single girl throwing dinner party for new years eve -- want to do something gorgeous like a roast, but having trouble figuring out a full menu that's do-able with one oven.
Kim O'Donnel: Don't know how many people you're having, which ultimately could impact the menu....but one showstopper is paella, which is a completely stovetop option...talk to me!
Cranberries: Cook them for about five minutes, until they start to open up. Put them, and some orange rinds in a big glass containter, and pour some vodka over them. In a week, you have delicious, festive, orange/cranberry infused vodka. Tasty
Kim O'Donnel: Excellent. Thanks for getting this in under the cran-wire...
Washington, D.C.: Hi Kim. I got a stand mixer as an early Christmas present, and it has motivated me to take up baking. So far, I've made two cakes -- a spice cake and a German chocolate cake. Both have been good, but dry. I know this is a bit like asking a doctor to diagnose a disease without seeing the patient, but is there a general mistake that a beginner like me is likely making that would result in dry cake? I have tried not to deviate from the recipes at all. Thanks!
Kim O'Donnel: Perhaps, my dear, you are so enthralled by your new toy that you're not carefully watching the time while your batters get mixed together in zero time. That's the catch with fab kitchen toys; they do lots of the work, and we become less attentive.
Arlington, Va.: I use Lemoncello to flavor a wonderful very light lemon mousse that I make. It is fantastic.
Kim O'Donnel: Aha! That sounds lovely.
Confused in Md.: Hi Kim,
Looking at the yummy Iced Cranberry-White Chocolate Drop Cookies recipe in last week's food section, it calls for dried cranberries and then 1/2 cup chopped cranberries. Is the latter the stuff you get in the produce section? Haven't baked them yet, but that seems awfully tart, dontcha think?
Kim O'Donnel: I know the Food section folks would be happy to sort out the confusion during their chat tomorrow, at 1pm.
I was at the Giant in McLean last night, and lo and behold, I saw two frozen PHEASANTS mixed in with the turkeys. I didn't purchase one, but now I want to run back and pick one up to try! Any clues on best way to prepare? I heard they can be dry due to not having much fat.
Kim O'Donnel: Hmm. Interesting. I can do some homework for you, if you'd like. You'll need a marinade, I'm thinking.
Washington, D.C.: Hi Kim! I'm making truffles for the holidays this evening, and was thinking of trying something new with coconut. My thought was to substitute the cream in the ganache with coconut milk and stir in some shredded unsweetened coconut, before rolling the truffles in sweetened coconut. Think it'll work?
Kim O'Donnel: You know, the thing you need to be concerned with re: coconut milk is if it will integrate seamlessly with the chocolate, and I'm not sure. Rollingit in coconut will defintely work. perhaps a coconut liqueur at the end -- ie coconut rum -- instead of the coco milk?
Washington, D.C.: If anyone can help me out, it's you. My family does not eat meat on Christmas Eve for religious reasons. The dinner menu is all set -- fish, perogies, veggies.
It's lunch I'm struggling with. We're having pasta the night before, so that's out. I was thinking of a hearty soup -- can you recommnd an easy one to feed six? I have a crock pot and am not afraid to use it.
Thanks and a nice holiday to everyone out there in cyberland.
Kim O'Donnel: What about steamed mussels with some crusty bread and a salad? they take no time to cook and are great for a crowd. Holler if you need details.
Silver Spring: I'm from Texas (home of the pecan pie) I wouldn't freeze it because it make the consistency weird, even after thawing. I think it should be fine if you keep it refrigerated, but the closer to the date you can make it the better. It doesn't take that much time, so if you could swing it later in the week, that's what I'd recommend. And anyway, fresher is always better!
Kim O'Donnel: Here's one take on the freezing pecan pie matter...
Washington, D.C.: Re freezing a pecan pie...It works great! The pie filling actually does not "freeze" and I prefer eating it directly from the freezer. You can, however, allow it to warm to room temperature and it is absolutely fine. It would be best to put the entire pie in a large tupperware container rather than trying to wrap with saran and/or foil.
Judiciary Square: A co-worker is looking walking around with a recipe for lemon squares right now -- it calls for limoncello.
Kim O'Donnel: Well, whaddya know! Tell coworker to share with the class, pleez...
Washington, D.C.: Here is the best pheasant recipe I've ever had:
ROASTED SCOTTISH PHEASANTS WITH APRICOTS AND DATES '21' CLUB
At '21' wild Scottish pheasant is served in season (November through January). The rest of the year, free-range farm-raised pheasant is offered.
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (from about 2 large limes)
two 2 1/2- to 3-pound pheasants (preferably wild Scottish)-
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 teaspoons dried thyme, crumbled
vegetable oil for brushing pheasants
1/2 cup pitted dates, chopped
-available at some butcher shops and by mail order from D'Artagnan, tel.(800)327-8246 or (201) 792-0748
In a small heatproof bowl cover apricots with boiling water and soak 10 minutes. Drain apricots and cut into quarters. In a small saucepan simmer wine, liqueur, lime juice, and sugar 5 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Cut off legs of pheasants and reserve for another use. Sprinkle pheasants inside and out with pepper and salt to taste. Put 1 teaspoon thyme and 1 bay leaf in cavity of each pheasant and close cavities with skewers or toothpicks so that pheasants hold their shape.
Brush pheasants with oil and in a roasting pan arrange, breast side down. Roast pheasants 20 minutes and discard any fat in roasting pan. Turn pheasants over and to pan add apricots, wine mixture, and dates. Roast pheasants, adding about 1/2 cup water if all liquid evaporates, 25 minutes more, or until thermometer inserted in thickest part of breast registers 160 F. Let pheasants stand 10 minutes.
Transfer pheasants to a cutting board and cut each in half. Serve pheasants with apricot date sauce and garnish with thyme.
Kim O'Donnel: Excellent. Thanks for sharing in the nick of time!
Frederick, MD: Culinary highlight: I learned how to make chicken and dumplings.
Kim O'Donnel: Congratulations to you, Frederick! I plan to share some of these milestones in the blog before the year is out.
Arl Culinary Highlight of 2006: Cooking food so well for my very picky fiance (now husband)-- is now eating and more importantly LIKING:
- and my favorite accomplishment, he'll drink a glass of wine
His family is speechless and amazed!
Kim O'Donnel: Wow, you've been busy, dear.
Silver Spring: This is to the person asking about what she could take on a plane. My grandmother baked me one of her award-winning french apple pies for thanksgiving to take home with me. the airport security would not let me take it on the plane and I was not about to leave the pie with security. I ended up eating it all in the airport before boarding. It was great but I didn't really get the chance to enjoy it.
Kim O'Donnel: Thanks for weighing in, silver spring.
Washington, D.C.: Kim, I have become a big fan of the pumpkin bread recipe you shared a few years ago, and tend to make a fair number of loaves around this time of year. This weekend I tried making it with the white whole wheat flour that is now available (King Arthur brand) and it came out great. This looks like it will be an easy way to add some whole grains into a tasty treat.
Kim O'Donnel: I love it when you guys improvise at home and then share your kitchen reports. Well done.
Kim O'Donnel: It is time to go. Thanks for all the holiday cheer! Although this is the final chat of the year, the blog will keep going and going and going...so feel free to send me notes and I'll try to oblige in that space in these final weeks of 2006. May all your days be merry, bright, delicious and safe. Stay well. Peace to all.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Calling all foodies! Join us Tuesdays at noon for What's Cooking, our Live Online culinary hour with Kim O'Donnel.
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Reconciliation Is the Episcopal Mission
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2006122019
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Instead of Bible-thumping, how about a little Apocrypha-thumping suited to the season:
"1 Maccabees (Apocrypha), chapter 1
"41: Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, 42: And every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. 43: Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath. 44: For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land, 45: And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days: 46: And pollute the sanctuary and holy people: 47: Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swineâs flesh, and unclean beasts:"
Got that? Swine's flesh -- that's the pork that's listed in Deuteronomy 14, right after it says, "Thou shalt not eat any abomination." The Greeks wanted the Israelites to legitimize abomination in their religious services.
"1 Maccabees (Apocrypha), chapter 2
15: In the mean while the kingâs officers, such as compelled the people to revolt, came into the city Modin, to make them sacrifice. 16: And when many of Israel came unto them, Mattathias also and his sons came together. 17: Then answered the kingâs officers, and said to Mattathias on this wise, Thou art a ruler, and an honourable and great man in this city, and strengthened with sons and brethren: 18: Now therefore come thou first, and fulfil the kingâs commandment, like as all the heathen have done, yea, and the men of Juda also, and such as remain at Jerusalem: so shalt thou and thy house be in the number of the kingâs friends, and thou and thy children shall be honoured with silver and gold, and many rewards. 19: Then Mattathias answered and spake with a loud voice, Though all the nations that are under the kingâs dominion obey him, and fall away every one from the religion of their fathers, and give consent to his commandments: 20: Yet will I and my sons and my brethren walk in the covenant of our fathers. 21: G-d forbid that we should forsake the law and the ordinances. 22: We will not hearken to the kingâs words, to go from our religion, either on the right hand, or the left. 23: Now when he had left speaking these words, there came one of the Jews in the sight of all to sacrifice on the altar which was at Modin, according to the kingâs commandment. 24: Which thing when Mattathias saw, he was inflamed with zeal, and his reins trembled, neither could he forbear to shew his anger according to judgment: wherefore he ran, and slew him upon the altar."
Wow! That's not a Greek he killed, but an apostate Jew. Look up Gustave Doré's illustration of "Mattathias and the apostate" -- it's on the Internet:
In the background, you can see the swine on the altar where the apostate wanted to offer it. "25: Also the kingâs commissioner, who compelled men to sacrifice, he killed at that time, and the altar he pulled down. 26: Thus dealt he zealously for the law of G-d like as Phinees did unto Zambri the son of Salom. 27: And Mattathias cried throughout the city with a loud voice, saying, Whosoever is zealous of the law, and maintaineth the covenant, let him follow me. 28: So he and his sons fled into the mountains, and left all that ever they had in the city."
Imagine that! Killing an apostate and a government official, and then running to the hills and starting a guerrilla war! And all this, just because someone wanted his congregation to accept what the Bible calls an abomination. What a bunch of porkophobes!
It is worth noting that modern-day Israelites make a hero out of Mattathias and his sons, celebrating with an eight-day holiday the Maccabees' successful battle against Greek influence and abomination.
Compared to Mattathias, today's Episcopal dissidents are pretty tame stuff. All they propose to do is flee the Church and maybe take their buildings with them. No sword, no guerrilla war, no violence of any kind.
Bishop, let them go. How can you be so sure that the truth is with you and not with them?
Posted December 19, 2006 3:25 PM
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A conversation on religion with Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn. Visit http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/
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Back Into the Black: Profiting on a Green China
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When Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson traveled to China last week for a meeting of the newly formed U.S-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, he brought with him an entourage that included much of President Bush's cabinet, as well as the chairman of the Federal Reserve. The delegation's high profile reflected the high stakes of the trip: with a new Congress poised to consider such measures as increasing the tariff on Chinese goods by 27 percent, Paulson needed to make clear progress toward resolving some of the tough issues plaguing the U.S.-Sino economic relationship.
To this end, Secretary Paulson and his delegation were right to push for a firm commitment from China to strengthen its currency and to crackdown on piracy of software and other products. Resolving these important issues will help to reduce America's near $200 billion trade deficit with China this year.
However, the delegation failed to take advantage of one area that is ripe for progress: the United States' energy relationship with China. The Bush administration has signaled recently that it is interested in finding innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions and promote clean energy, and if it is serious about its intentions then the Strategic Economic Dialogue -- which counts energy and the environment among its planks -- would provide a good launching pad.
Paulson -- not to mention Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, who was a part of this delegation -- is well aware of the challenges posed by China's voracious appetite for fossil fuels. A recent report by the International Energy Agency projects that China will overtake the United States as the world's worst carbon emitter by 2009, thanks in large part to its reliance on environmentally caustic coal-fired power plants for electricity. Last year, China built approximately 75 such plants, and it will continue to build new ones at a rate of almost one per week for years to come. The carbon shadow of these plants stretches for decades into the future and their pollutants already reach across the Pacific.
China, like the United States, is not bound by any international commitment to reduce its carbon emissions, but there are signs that it has begun to recognize the dangers of fossil fuel dependence and the resulting environmental damage. China¿s latest Five Year Plan on national priorities and goals places unprecedented emphasis on environmental sustainability. Moreover, there is growing awareness that its energy security will be enhanced by diversifying away from fossil fuels.
China¿s interest in clean energy presents an enormous business opportunity as well as an environmental one. Unfortunately, it is an opportunity that the United States has not yet fully seized. A study released in October by former World Bank Chief Economist Nicholas Stern on the economic impact of climate change calculated that the markets for low-carbon energy projects will be worth at least $500 billion by 2050. In other words, combating global warming is not only an environmental necessity, but a vast economic opportunity.
Some U.S. investment companies are beginning to take notice -- Morgan Stanley recently announced that it plans to invest some $3 billion in the carbon trading market and other clean energy related projects -- but if the United States does not do more to promote the development of our domestic clean energy sector industry, it will find that its international competitors will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this new market.
Secretary Paulson could pave the way for green technology to become as successful of a U.S. export to China as airplanes and software by striking an agreement with his Chinese counterpart to facilitate such transactions. For instance, Paulson could commit to negotiating the necessary changes to the existing OECD financing arrangement in order to extend the loan repayment time for clean energy projects. The Chinese government in return could offer greater access to its clean energy market by agreeing to abide by the terms of the World Trade Organization's Government Procurement Agreement for alternative energy projects. This would make American companies eligible to provide significant inputs for China's burgeoning wind farm and solar power industry, among other things.
Had Paulson set this in motion, he would have returned from China with not only a major deliverable but a challenge that would compel the Bush administration and Congress -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- to work constructively together on an issue that should make both the business and environmental communities pleased: how best to promote the sale to China of green technology that is made in the U.S.A.
Even in the absence of such leadership by the Bush administration, however, Congress can still do its part by requiring that the U.S. Export-Import Bank (which currently provides billions of dollars each year of financing and credit to export American products) allocate a fixed percentage of all of its financing solely to clean energy projects. Furthermore, the Export-Import Bank could offer extended loan repayment time, reduced requirements for local financing, and the opportunity to forge joint partnerships with private banks to leverage additional assistance.
The global market for green technologies is not waiting for the United States to act. Now is the time to invest in the development of a domestic clean energy industry that can outperform its international competitors and capture a large share of this rapidly growing market. This is how America gets itself back into the black, and how it helps China to get into the green.
Denis McDonough, Senior Fellow, and Peter Ogden, Program Coordinator for National Security and International Policy, work on energy security issues at the Center for American Progress
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Combating global warming is not only an environmental necessity, but a vast economic opportunity.
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A 'Surge' in Wasted Sacrifice
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Here's an idea: Let's send more U.S. troops to Iraq. The generals say it's way too late to even think about resurrecting Colin Powell's "overwhelming force" doctrine, so let's send over a modest "surge" in troop strength that has almost no chance of making any difference -- except in the casualty count. Oh, and let's not give these soldiers and Marines any sort of well-defined mission. Let's just send them out into the bloody chaos of Baghdad and the deadly badlands of Anbar province with orders not to come back until they "get the job done."
I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a terrible idea, arguably the worst imaginable "way forward" in Iraq. So of course this seems to be where George W. Bush is headed.
Don't assign any real significance to the fact that the president has decided to wait until the new year before announcing his next step in Iraq, because if history is any guide, all of this photo-op "consultation" he's doing is just for show -- to convince us, or maybe to convince himself, that he has an open mind. The Decider doesn't have the capacity for indecision.
Through Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he has ruled out direct talks with Iran and Syria to try to enlist their cooperation in quelling Iraq's sectarian civil war. Through his own remarks, he has ruled out a firm timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. He has declared himself open to any and all advice, but he rules out any course of action that in his estimation will "lead to defeat."
So much for the Iraq Study Group. So much for the will of the voters. As Dick Cheney helpfully spelled out just before the election, "full speed ahead."
At least the Decider is consistent. From the start his administration's approach to this botched war has been to sort through all the tactical alternatives and pick the most counterproductive -- send too few troops, disband the Iraqi army, stand by while looters destroy critical infrastructure and the social order, allow sectarian militias to fill the power vacuum, make reconstruction an afterthought, and put know-nothings in charge of it.
There are more than 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and it's unclear what they are supposed to be accomplishing. It should be obvious that to establish security in all of Iraq and disarm the sectarian militias -- to conduct a proper occupation, in other words -- would require a massive infusion of boots on the ground. The Pentagon says that finding even an additional 20,000 to 30,000 troops to send would be a stretch, and officials warn (perhaps a little melodramatically) of the danger that the demands of Bush's war "will break" the U.S. Army.
I find it hard to believe that even this addle-brained administration is capable of breaking the Army. The generals could find 30,000 more troops to send, and I'll bet they could even find an extra 50,000 if they had to. But why?
Whom would they fight? Would they ally themselves with those elusive "mainstream" Sunnis, or maybe those publicity-shy "moderate" Shiites? Would they capture and hold territory, or would they continue the practice of staying for a while, turning the job over to Iraqi forces and then watching as the militias move back in? If an extra 20,000 troops were sent to Baghdad tomorrow, could they realistically be expected to establish order in a sprawling megacity where some two dozen armed militias control the streets? Since we would be providing 20,000 new targets for snipers and roadside bombs, how many do we calculate will die?
It is unconscionable to think about dispatching more young men and women to Iraq without the realistic expectation that their presence will make a difference in a war that is no longer in our control. Here in Washington, proponents of a troop "surge" speak of giving the whole Iraq adventure one last try. But they sound as if they're more concerned about projecting an image of American resolve than anything else. Does anyone think a symbolic troop increase is going to have the likes of Moqtada al-Sadr or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tossing and turning through sleepless nights?
Doubling the number of American troops in Iraq would be wrong -- we need to get out, now, before we set the whole Middle East on fire -- but at least a surge of that scale would have a purpose. The modest increase now on the table would be purposeless and wrong. What could be more immoral than sacrificing American blood and treasure to save face in a lost war?
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It is unconscionable to sacrifice more American blood and treasure to save face in a lost war.
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'Old Europe' Can Gloat, but Then What?
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BERLIN -- On the day James Baker's Iraq report was published, I gritted my teeth and waited for the well-earned, long-awaited, Franco-German "Old Europe" gloat to begin. I didn't wait long. "America Faces Up to the Iraq Disaster" read a headline in Der Spiegel. In the patronizing tones of a senior doctor, Le Monde diagnosed the "political feverishness" gripping Washington in Baker's wake. Suddeutsche Zeitung said the report "stripped Bush of his authority," although Le Figaro opined that nothing Baker proposed could improve the "catastrophic state" of Iraq anyway.
And then, for two weeks . . . silence. If there are politicians, academics or journalists anywhere in Germany and France who have better ideas about how to improve the catastrophic state of Iraq, they aren't speaking very loudly. There is no question that America's credibility has been undermined by the Iraq war, in "Old Europe" as everywhere else. There is no question that America's reputation for competence has been destroyed. But that doesn't mean there are dozens of eager candidates, or even one eager candidate, clamoring to replace us.
There is, it is true, quite a lot of wishful thinking around. "Iraq is a disaster -- now we will have to clean up the mess," one German diplomatic acquaintance told me. "Germany Mulling Bigger Role in Iraq" read another Der Spiegel headline. But Germany is notoriously averse to sending soldiers, or anyone else, anywhere near combat. At the moment German politicians cannot even agree on whether their troops should be allowed to fight in Afghanistan, where they have been stationed for years. France, meanwhile, has announced that it is removing its troops from Afghanistan altogether. So how, exactly, will this Iraq cleanup take place? What will this "bigger role" be? "We can train judges and police," my acquaintance explained -- after the fighting is over, of course. Whenever that happens.
Scattered across Europe there are also a few diplomatic optimists, people who hope Europe can play "Middle East matchmaker," in the words of one writer, and maybe get the Iranians and Syrians to be more helpful and kind in Iraq -- or at least to stop funding the insurgency. Presumably these are the same optimists who also used to believe that a Franco-German-British diplomatic team could persuade Iran to stop conducting nuclear weapons research. Presumably they didn't notice that the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, held a "Holocaust denial" conference in Tehran last week -- not, perhaps, the clearest signal that he wants to make friends with bien-pensant Europeans -- or that the French president, Jacques Chirac, recently declared that his views on Syria exactly matched those of his American counterpart.
With some exceptions, the weird reality is that most European governments, whatever their original views on the war, are either officially or unofficially opposed to an immediate U.S. withdrawal: Chaos might ensue. And the chaos would be a lot closer to Europe than to North America. Most European governments, officially or unofficially, are also now worried that the next American president will retreat from world politics or become "isolationist."
Nor is there anybody here, of any stature, who believes that Europe -- for all its recent economic improvement, for all its trading power and for all its dislike of American foreign policy -- is going to replace the United States anytime soon. Germany is about to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union, and therefore Germany is discussing E.U. integration policy, E.U. immigration policy and E.U. economics. Germany is not discussing how the European Union will take on a leading military and diplomatic role in the Middle East. And not even Germany wants any of the other potential world powers -- Russia, say, or China -- to replace the United States in the role of dominant superpower.
In this weird reality, there is a very narrow sliver of hope: Maybe now the Germans, and even the French, will finally come to realize that there is no alternative to the transatlantic partnership, no better international military organization than NATO, no real "role" for any of us outside the Western alliance -- even if only because all the alternatives are worse. Maybe the Old Europeans will find inspiration to support and contribute further to the alliance, diplomatically and ideologically if not militarily. Maybe the United States will come to the same realization, too.
Ultimately the only way for the West to deal with the new threats posed by a disintegrating Iraq, a resurgent Iran and a shattered Middle East is through a unified policy -- an alliance whose members are not easily played off against one another -- and a joint strategy.
Joyeux Noel and Glückliches Neujahr to you all.
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If the 'Old Europe' intelligentsia have better ideas about how to improve the catastrophic state of Iraq, they aren't speaking very loudly.
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White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops
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The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.
Sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months is one of the central proposals on the table of the White House policy review to reverse the steady deterioration in Iraq. The option is being discussed as an element in a range of bigger packages, the officials said.
But the Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public.
The chiefs have taken a firm stand, the sources say, because they believe the strategy review will be the most important decision on Iraq to be made since the March 2003 invasion.
At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.
The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.
The informal but well-armed Shiite militias, the Joint Chiefs have also warned, may simply melt back into society during a U.S. surge and wait until the troops are withdrawn -- then reemerge and retake the streets of Baghdad and other cities.
Even the announcement of a time frame and mission -- such as for six months to try to secure volatile Baghdad -- could play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs have warned the White House.
The idea of a much larger military deployment for a longer mission is virtually off the table, at least so far, mainly for logistics reasons, say officials familiar with the debate. Any deployment of 40,000 to 50,000 would force the Pentagon to redeploy troops who were scheduled to go home.
A senior administration official said it is "too simplistic" to say the surge question has broken down into a fight between the White House and the Pentagon, but the official acknowledged that the military has questioned the option. "Of course, military leadership is going to be focused on the mission -- what you're trying to accomplish, the ramifications it would have on broader issues in terms of manpower and strength and all that," the official said.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said military officers have not directly opposed a surge option. "I've never heard them be depicted that way to the president," the official said. "Because they ask questions about what the mission would be doesn't mean they don't support it. Those are the kinds of questions the president wants his military planners to be asking."
The concerns raised by the military are sometimes offset by concerns on the other side. For instance, those who warn that a short-term surge would harm longer-term deployments are met with the argument that the situation is urgent now, the official said. "Advocates would say: 'Can you afford to wait? Can you afford to plan in the long term? What's the tipping point in that country? Do you have time to wait?' "
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The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.
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Pentagon Cites Success Of Anti-U.S. Forces in Iraq
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The Pentagon said yesterday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its highest level on record and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved a "strategic success" by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq's political institutions.
In its most pessimistic report yet on progress in Iraq, the Pentagon described a nation listing toward civil war, with violence at record highs of 959 attacks per week, declining public confidence in government and "little progress" toward political reconciliation.
"The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace," said Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed journalists on the report. "We have to get ahead of that violent cycle, break that continuous chain of sectarian violence. . . . That is the premier challenge facing us now."
The rapid spread of violence this year has thrown the government's future into jeopardy, Pentagon officials said.
"The tragedy of Iraq is that in February in Samarra, the insurgents achieved what one could call a partial strategic success -- namely, to trigger what we've been dealing with ever since, which is a cycle of sectarian violence, that indeed is shaking the institutions," Peter W. Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said at the briefing.
He was referring to the Feb. 22 bombing of the Askariya mosque, a holy Shiite shrine, in the ethnically mixed city of Samarra north of Baghdad.
Rodman said insurgent efforts to derail the political process, which he called "the strategic prize," had previously failed. But in 2006, he said, insurgents succeeded in hampering the new government from "getting on its feet."
The 50-page Pentagon report, mandated quarterly by Congress, also stated for the first time that the Shiite militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has replaced al-Qaeda as "the most dangerous" force propelling Iraq toward civil war, as Shiite militants kill more civilians than do terrorists.
And this report, unlike the prior one, omitted any explicit statement that Iraq is not in a civil war. Sunni and Shiite militias, aided at times by government forces, are gaining legitimacy by protecting neighborhoods and providing relief supplies, it said.
"The situation in Iraq is far more complex than the term 'civil war' implies," said the report, titled "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq." "Conditions that could lead to civil war do exist," it said, but added that the Iraqi government, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, "could mitigate further movement toward civil war and curb sectarian violence."
Driven by sectarian fighting, and a Ramadan surge, attack levels in Iraq hit record highs in all categories nationwide as the number of U.S. and coalition casualties surged 32 percent from mid-August to mid-November, compared with the previous three months, the report said. Over the same period, the number of attacks per week rose 22 percent, from 784 to 959.
Iraqi civilian casualties also increased, "almost entirely the result of murders and executions," the report said. Since January, before the mosque bombing, ethno-sectarian executions rose from 180 to 1,028 in October; ethno-sectarian incidents rose from 63 to 996 over the same period.
The escalation of violence in Iraq comes despite increased troop levels -- including a higher-than-anticipated U.S. force level of 140,000 troops and a growing contingent of Iraqi security forces, which this month are projected to reach the goal of 325,000 trained and equipped.
The report noted problems with Iraqi forces, however, saying the number of soldiers and police actually "present for duty" is far lower than the number trained and equipped.
Subtracting those Iraqi forces killed and wounded, and those who have quit the force, only 280,000 are "available for duty," Sattler said. About 30 percent of that number are "on leave" at a time, he said, leaving fewer than 196,000 on the job.
Iraqi police forces in particular are increasingly corrupt, according to the report, which says that some police in Baghdad have supported Shiite death squads. The police "facilitated freedom of movement and provided advance warning of upcoming operations," it said. "This is a major reason for the increased levels of murders and executions."
As a result of mass defections or police units being pulled off duty, the number of Iraqi police battalions rated as having "lead responsibility" in their areas fell from six to two, the report said, although officials said that number has since increased.
The Iraqi army has steadily increased the number of its battalions in the lead, from 57 in May to 91 in November, although some units have experienced high attrition when ordered to deploy to different regions of Iraq, such as Baghdad and Anbar.
Sattler implied that no number of U.S. or Iraqi troops would be great enough to quash the revenge killings. "I don't know how many forces you could push into a country, either U.S. or coalition or Iraqi forces, that could cover the entire country, where these death squads wouldn't find somebody," he said.
Indeed, the report documented that major U.S. and Iraqi military operations in the fall did not quell sectarian violence in Baghdad. Attacks dipped in August, but rebounded strongly in September after death squads adapted to the increased U.S. and Iraqi presence.
Asked in light of that whether they supported a surge of thousands of U.S. troops into Baghdad, one of several options under consideration by a White House review of Iraq strategy, Sattler and Rodman declined to offer an opinion. The report said the U.S. military plans to steadily pull out of cities and consolidate its bases. Meanwhile, the remaining 16 of Iraq's 18 provinces are expected to be placed under Iraqi government control in 2007.
At the same time, Iraqi public concern about a civil war has grown, while confidence in the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has dropped significantly as his efforts at political reconciliation have shown "little progress," the report said.
Nationwide, 60 percent of Iraqi people expressed a perception of worsening security conditions.
The sectarian violence has also led to an increasing number of internal refugees, as about 460,000 people have been displaced since February, the report said, citing Iraqi statistics. The United Nations estimates that more than 3,000 Iraqis are leaving the country each day.
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The Pentagon said yesterday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its highest level on record and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved a "strategic success" by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq's political institutions.
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Giuliani's Primary Hurdle
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NEW YORK, Dec. 18 -- His national poll numbers are a dream, he's a major box office draw on the Republican Party circuit, and he goes by the shorthand title "America's Mayor." All of which has former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani convinced he just might become America's president in 2008.
He is showing the early signs of a serious candidacy: Giuliani's presidential exploratory committee throws its first major fundraiser in a hotel near Times Square on Tuesday evening, and he recently hired the political director of the Republican National Committee during 2006. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week found that Republicans give Giuliani an early lead over Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is far ahead of the former mayor in organizing a national campaign.
Government gurus and IT experts needed to fill positions in the D.C. area.
Despite that lead, conservative party strategists and activists in key primary states are skeptical and warn that the socially liberal Republican faces a difficult campaign. They question whether a Republican who has had one marriage end in annulment and another in divorce, and favors abortion rights, gun control and immigrant rights, has much retail appeal in the evangelical and deeply conservative reaches of the GOP.
"If the Republican Party wants to send the social conservatives home for good, all they have to do is nominate Rudy Giuliani," said Rick Scarborough, a Southern Baptist minister and president of Vision America. "It's an insult to the pro-Christian agenda. . . . He's going to spend a lot of money finding he can't get out of the Republican primaries."
Giuliani is reticent about how he would overcome these obstacles -- he declined to be interviewed before the fundraisers, which are closed to the news media. But members of his intensely loyal inner circle said they expect him to run and campaign aggressively.
His strategy will be to capitalize on his status as a tough and plain-talking hero of Sept. 11, 2001. He believes, say advisers, that his tough views on national security -- he supports the USA Patriot Act -- and on Iraq, where he opposes withdrawal of troops, will overshadow his liberal social views. He will frame some of those positions as libertarian -- government has no business interfering in the bedroom.
Many Republicans say no. The party has grown steadily disenchanted with liberal members of the party, and it was Republican moderates in the Northeast who suffered many losses in last month's elections.
"For us to nominate him, we have to say those issues are not really important to us [and] we care more about winning regardless of the philosophy of our candidate," GOP consultant Curt Anderson said. "I don't believe that a majority of Republican primary voters will make that choice."
But in a measure of the party's divisions, other Republicans, such as California financier Bill Simon and talk show host Dennis Prager, say his social liberalism is of less concern. They are among a group of conservative activists who see in Giuliani a Reagan-like figure, sometimes wrong but possessed of unshakable conservative beliefs.
They also see a Republican Party that must establish a beachhead in Blue State America.
"Republicans do understand it is political suicide to keep this red-state, blue-state thing going any longer," said Barry Wynn, former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and a recruit to Giuliani's banner. "We need someone competitive in all 50 states."
Giuliani, 62, presents an unusual figure in recent political history. His coolness after the Sept. 11 attacks, and his eloquence about that loss, rendered him that rare mayor who could step onto the national political stage. He has a core of socially liberal positions -- he also supports domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, although not marriage -- but wraps it in a hide as tough as any conservative Republican.
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NEW YORK, Dec. 18 -- His national poll numbers are a dream, he's a major box office draw on the Republican Party circuit, and he goes by the shorthand title "America's Mayor." All of which has former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani convinced he just might become America's president in 2008.
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NASA Launches Google Collaboration
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NASA, seeking to give the public easy access to its massive trove of images and data about Earth and outer space, has entered into a formal agreement with Google to post material from the agency's many missions on the Internet. As the technology improves and the collaboration grows, officials said, viewers could one day be treated to live video from the moon, Mars and elsewhere.
"This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars," NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin said in a statement. He called the effort one "to make NASA's space exploration work accessible to everyone."
The agreement was announced at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. Google had previously announced plans to build a 1 million-square-foot facility at the research park. But while Google will be the first major online collaborator with NASA, the agency said that the images are not exclusive and that it is working on similar projects with other Internet portals.
"NASA has collected and processed more information about our planet and universe than any other entity in the history of humanity," said Chris C. Kemp, director of strategic business development at Ames. "Even though this information was collected for the benefit of everyone, and much is in the public domain, the vast majority of this information is scattered and difficult for non-experts to access and to understand."
Google and NASA researchers have already worked on several projects together, the agency said, with good results. "We are bringing together some of the best research scientists and engineers to form teams to make more of NASA's vast information accessible," Kemp said.
Under the arrangement, Ames will provide Google with its weather forecasting information, three-dimensional maps of the moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the international space station and space shuttle flights. It is the kind of public-private cooperation encouraged by the National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA officials said.
Ames chief S. Pete Wardon said that NASA has also converted video from the Apollo missions to the moon into digital form, and in the future those images could also be available for viewing online.
"The goal is to allow the public to feel they are virtually there," Wardon said, likening the Internet initiative to the fictional "holideck" virtual-reality chamber of the "Star Trek" television series.
"In the next decade, we're looking at the kind of technology that would enable people to feel the crunch of Martian soil as they move around, to feel the Martian wind on their faces. This is a step in that direction," Wardon said.
Under the agreement, he said, Google will use NASA images on its Google Earth Web site and will financially support some related projects at the agency. He said some collaborations are already under way -- in particular, a global-imaging project called the Global Connection, with National Geographic magazine and Carnegie Mellon University -- and more will begin in the next six months.
NASA officials said Google's technical expertise, as well as its popularity, will help spread excitement and knowledge about space and about NASA's plans to go back to the moon and on to Mars.
"The data already exists, from dozens of human and robotic missions," Wardon said. "The taxpayers have already paid for the data, and it should be available."
Google officials said they expected to learn from NASA's expertise as well, in addition to providing compelling images for users.
"Partnering with NASA made perfect sense for Google, as it has a wealth of technical expertise and data that will be of great use to Google as we look to tackle many computing issues on behalf of our users," the company's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said in a statement. Megan Smith, the company's director of new business development, said many Google employees first got excited about computer technology through NASA, so it is especially meaningful for them to be working with the agency.
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Latest news on the US federal government. Information and analysis of federal legislation, government contracts and regulations. Search for government job openings, career information and federal employee benefits news.
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Trump Lets Miss USA Keep Her Job
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NEW YORK -- Donald Trump gave Miss USA a reprieve Tuesday, allowing the boozing beauty queen to retain her title after she agreed to enter rehab and undergo drug testing.
In a moment of television drama filled with redemptive tears and longing looks, a tough-talking Trump, co-owner of the pageant, turned soft and decided to forgive Tara Conner for her debauched behavior.
"I've always been a believer in second chances," said Trump, who owns the Miss Universe Organization and Miss USA with NBC. "Tara is going to be given a second chance."
Trump met with Conner earlier Tuesday morning fully expecting to fire her, he said. But he walked away convinced the young woman was a "good person" with a "good heart" and not deserving of the boot.
"She left a small town in Kentucky, and she was telling me that she got caught up in the whirlwind of New York," Trump said at a news conference with Conner at his side. "It's a story that has happened many times before to many women and to many men who came to the Big Apple. They wanted their slice of the Big Apple, and they found out it wasn't so easy."
Conner won the title in April and moved to New York. Since then, she has partied hard, admitting she frequented clubs, where she threw drinks back _ despite being underage. She turned 21 on Monday.
Miss USA is considered a role model, and her conduct must reflect that, and behavior such as underage drinking is prohibited, a Miss Universe Organization spokeswoman said.
At the news conference, in a tear-choked voice, Conner said, "In no way did I think it would be possible for a second chance to be given to me."
Turning to Trump, she said, "You'll never know what this means to me, and I swear I will not let you down."
A few minutes later, a smiling and clearly relieved Conner donned her sash with the famous words: "Miss USA."
Trump said Conner would be entering rehab. A pageant official said details would be worked out privately with Conner over the next weeks.
Asked if she was a drunkard, Conner said: "I wouldn't say that I'm alcoholic. I'd think that would be pushing the envelope."
She also declined to discuss any of her problems that the tabloids had chronicled with much relish.
"My personal demons are my personal demons," she told a horde of reporters.
Trump said Conner would be able to move back into her swank pad at the Trump Palace. But he also cautioned that if she screwed up again she would be jettisoned.
"She knows that if she even makes the slightest mistake from here on she will be immediately replaced," he said.
If Conner had been dethroned, her title would have been taken over by first runner-up Miss California Tamiko Nash.
Conner, a 5-foot-5 blonde, has been competing in pageants since age 4. Three months after winning the Miss USA title, she finished fourth in the Miss Universe pageant.
In 2002, Miss Russia Oxana Fedorova won the Miss Universe pageant but was stripped of her title after violating her contract. Trump said Fedorova didn't show up for some photo shoots and charity events.
It was the first time a titleholder had been ousted in the contest's more than 50-year history. Fedorova denied she was fired and said she gave up the title voluntarily.
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NEW YORK -- Donald Trump gave Miss USA a reprieve Tuesday, allowing the boozing beauty queen to retain her title after she agreed to enter rehab and undergo drug testing.
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Casserly Keeping His Options Open
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If Joe Gibbs is truly serious about bringing in a general manager to help straighten out the Redskins next year, he need look no further than Northwest Washington to find a viable and eminently qualified candidate with years of GM experience, many of them at Redskins Park old and new.
Charley Casserly, who served as the Redskins General Manager from 1989 to '92 during the Gibbs I Era, moved back to Georgetown over the summer after spending the last four years launching the Houston Texans as the expansion team's first general manager. He resigned in May with a year remaining on his contract following a 2-14 season, ostensibly to pursue a job as the NFL's director of football operations.
At the time of his departure, there was widespread speculation that he'd been fired by Houston owner Robert McNair, though Casserly and McNair have vehemently denied that was the case. Still, there's no question Casserly was on the hotseat after the Texans' dismal season.
For one, his choice of recycled Dom Capers as the team's head coach never seemed to be a good fit. He also was under fire because several of his high draft choices on his watch did not pan out. And McNair's ill-advised decision to bring in former Denver and Atlanta head coach Dan Reeves as an advisor on football matters was a move that clearly undercut Casserly's authority and helped grease the skids for his exit.
But the Texans' loss quickly has become a win-win situation for CBS Sports, which signed Casserly this past summer to become its on-air NFL information specialist on the network's revamped pre-game show that also includes another long-time Washingtonian, former Fox studio host James Brown.
Casserly ultimately did not get the NFL post he wanted, a job that went to former Atlanta Falcons executive Ray Anderson. But his new gig with CBS allows him to keep his finger on the pulse of the league and the game, and also has been a positive plus for viewers now getting reliable insider information from a man with 29 years worth of NFL contacts to draw upon for his weekly four- to five-minute segments every Sunday.
Would Casserly chuck the high profile position in order to work as a general manager again, in Washington or anywhere else?
In an interview last week, he said he preferred not to talk about the Redskins specifically, other than to say that no one from the team has ever contacted him about returning in any capacity. But he also admitted he was keeping all his options open and certainly did not rule out a return to the NFL, something his bosses at CBS also knew when they signed him for the studio this year.
"If someone makes a run at him and he wants to go back to football, we certainly wouldn't stop him," said Eric Mann, who produces the pre-game show for CBS. "But we're thrilled to have him and really hope he stays. He takes this very seriously. He's not only an insider. When he gives you his opinion, you know there's a lot behind it."
I've known Casserly for almost 30 years, meeting him for the first time at a Redskins training camp in Carlisle, Pa. in 1977 when he showed up as an unpaid intern working for George Allen. A former high school teacher and coach in Massachusetts, he went from occasionally fetching milkshakes at midnight for the eccentric coach to breaking down film for the coaches and eventually working as a team scout, assistant general manager and then general manager when Bobby Beathard left in 1989. Casserly made many of the right moves that led to the team's last Super Bowl title, bled burgundy and gold and even found his wife Bev within the organization, where she worked in the accounting department at Redskins Park.
Still, despite all those past ties to the team, in my humble opinion, I'd have a hard time believing Casserly would ever go to work for Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, who made one of the first of many blunders in his seven-year reign of error when he fired Casserly not long after buying the franchise in 1999.
Snyder himself admitted publicly several years later that he had even told Casserly he "fired the wrong guy" when he decided to retain Norv Turner as his coach and let Casserly go. But a triumvirate of Gibbs-Snyder-Casserly would never work, if only because team president Gibbs only came out of retirement with the promise of total control of the football operation.
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If Joe Gibbs is truly serious about bringing in a general manager to help straighten out the Redskins next year, he need look no further than Northwest Washington to find a viable and eminently qualified candidate with years of GM experience, many of them at Redskins Park old and new.
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Science: Studying the Ocean
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Washington Post science writer Juliet Eilperin was online Tuesday, Dec. 19 at 1 p.m. ET to discuss how technology is transforming our understanding of the ocean.
Read her story here: Technologies Changing Insight Into Seas (Post, Dec. 18)
Submit a question or comment now or during the discussion.
Alexandria, Va.: Is there going to be any seafood in 50 years, or our we overfishing our oceans into a lifeless desert?
Juliet Eilperin: I assume you're referring to the study authored by Dalhousie University professor Boris Worm and several other colleagues that came out within the last couple of months, and predicted that according to current trends we will run out of commercially-available fish by 2048. The study is well done and accurate, especially in light of the growing demand for seafood across the globe. However, Worm noted in an interview with me that it's not too late: if we change our fishing practices and catch fish more sustainably, we can avert the scenario he outlines in his paper in Science.
Washington, D.C.: It strikes me that these scientists are engaging in what techies call "user-generated content" by contributing to a database. Would this "social revolution" of cooperation among scientists have been possible before the Internet? Was it sparked by something online (a listserve or discussion group) or offline (an international conference)?
Juliet Eilperin: Without a doubt, the Internet has enabled scientists to share their data more easily. At the same time, it's not like they couldn't do this before, since they attend conferences together frequently and spend time traveling the globe together on research projects. But it's much easier to communicate using the Web and equally important, the public can access this sort of scientific data in a way it couldn't before.
washingtonpost.com: Here is Juliet's story about the fish supply study: World's Fish Supply Running Out, Researchers Warn.
Detroit, Mich.: One reads about the effect that global warming is having on land animals such as polar bears, but I have seen little written on the effect that it might be having on underwater creatures. Is there any evidence that some underwater forms of life might be endangered by climate change?
Juliet Eilperin: I actually wrote a front page story on this in early July, if you're interested. Because the ocean aborbs roughly 40 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is becoming more acidic over time. This could have a huge impact on some of the creatures that form the basis of the sea's food web, because they build their shells from calcium. Climate change could also wipe out the world's coral reefs by the end of the century, according to the Carnegie Institution's senior scientist Ken Caldeira, and it could also impact some fish species directly. So global warming is absolutely going to affect the ocean's biodiversity, it's just a question of how soon and to what extent.
Silver Spring, Md.: What controls are in place for foreign countires to not overfish stocks. I traveled to India and Thailand and saw vast fleets of fishing boats. Are systems in place to limit all countries from overharvesting, or just the nations that join and agree to these fishing treaties.
Juliet Eilperin: Beyond the 200-mile boundary each nation controls off their coasts, fishing rules are subject to a series of international treaties. People spend months, if not years, negotiating complicated pacts on how to regulate both fish catches and means of fishing, and the results vary. For example, the U.N. was recently on the cusp of instituting a ban on bottom trawling on the grounds that it was destroying critical ocean habitat, but Iceland blocked it. So now there is no ban in place.
Crofton, Md.: What new technology is going to be used for man to explore first hand the depths for extened periods? For example breathable liquids, habitates, etc.
Juliet Eilperin: That's a really interesting question. I'm not sure what cutting edge technology will help humans explore underwater though certain research centers, such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, devote a great deal of time and money to developing such techniques. Felicia Coleman, one of the scientists I interviewed for my piece, said she and other researchers depend heavily on remote operated vehicles (ROVs) that can spend a much longer period of time underwater compared to humans.
washingtonpost.com: Here is that story on the growing acidity of the ocean affecting coral reefs: Growing Acidity of Oceans May Kill Corals.
Va.: What is this Ocean Commission I've heard about?
Juliet Eilperin: The U.S. Ocean Commission was a bipartisan, presidentially-appointed group that issued a comprehensive report on ocean policy more than a year ago (it may have been two years ago). The commission highlighted an array of reforms aimed at protecting the sea, most of which have not been enacted. There also was a separate Pew Commission, which was also bipartisan but independent of the government, which issued its own report before the Ocean Commission. Many of the suggestions, however, overlapped.
Bethesda, Md.: Is using technology to study the oceans a relatively new concept - it seems to me, the science community would be some of the early adapters of new technologies. Or was there an element of fear that the technologies would not give accurate readings?
Juliet Eilperin: In some cases there have been some real technological advances that have transformed conservation: for example, researchers can take much better photos underwater than they used to. In other instances I'm sure you're right, people have been skeptical of technologies that capture something we can't see. And to this day, there are still heated debates over estimates of fish population sizes and such, especially since fish can move around so quickly.
Rockville, Md.: There's real creepy stuff in the ocean.
Juliet Eilperin: Tes, there's no question that some marine creatures are dangerous, so it's something to watch out for when spending time at sea.
Was that you in that vonage commercial, where the young woman runs down to the ocean to see the dolphins?
Juliet Eilperin: I deny any and all commercial appearances, including ones featuring dolphins.
Arlington, Va.: What is your opinion on the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and how it will affect the U.S. fisheries?
Juliet Eilperin: I don't talk about my opinions on legislation, but I think it's fair to say the bill tightens the nation's fishing rules by emphasizing the importance of science. At the same time, it does not go as far as many scientists and environmentalists want it to go. On the other hand, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) a strong advocate of fishermen, dislikes aspects of the bill. You can look at the editorial the Post ran on this subject on Dec. 11, I believe, and Frank may have written a letter on it that was published in the Post.
Pittsburgh, Pa.: I have read that in some fishing industries various kinds of technology (LIDAR, sonar, etc) are used to assist the industry in increasing their catch. Are there any kinds sensor technology that have been banned from use after they have been found to be too effective? I also remember reading an article about an advanced sonar that was being developed and was curious if there were any bodies that regulated these issues.
Juliet Eilperin: That's an excellent question. To be honest I don't know if any of the technologies you're talking about have been specifically banned, regulators have generally focused on fishing gear that involves too much bycatch, and things like that.
Dublin, Ohio: Is there any program that tags Atlantic sealife as comprehensively as this one seems to tag the Pacific? That map with your story is very cool.
Juliet Eilperin: Researchers at Duke University tag tuna as well as sea turtles, and there are other scientists focused on other species. For example Barbara Block, whom I quoted in my piece, will be tagging tunas in the Atlantic next month along with some Duke scientists.
Juliet Eilperin: I'm signing off now, thanks for all the smart questions.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Washington Post science writer Juliet Eilperin was online to discuss her Monday Science Page feature story about how technology is transforming our understanding of the ocean.
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Kids' Books That Never Grow Old
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NEW YORK -- How many of us, at the end of our working days, will be able to say with certainty that something we did made the world a better place?
Edwin Frank is one of the lucky few. He brought Alastair Roderic Craigellachie Dalhousie Gowan Donnybristle MacMac back to life.
Frank is the editor who oversees the New York Review Children's Collection, a modest publishing venture that reissues eight or 10 out-of-print books a year. Right now he's sitting in a no-frills conference room at the midtown Manhattan office of its literary parent, the New York Review of Books, showing off some of the titles he's had a hand in reviving.
Here are Lucretia Hale's "The Peterkin Papers" and E. Nesbit's "The House of Arden." Here are "Jenny and the Cat Club," "The Island of Horses," "D'Aulaires' Book of Trolls." And here's the one about young Alastair -- or "Wee Gillis," as the kilt-wearing lad is known to friends and family who find his real name too exhausting to deal with.
Not coincidentally, it's a book Frank loved as a child. "I had my father's copy," he says, "because my father's mother was Scottish and had come over on the boat."
First published in 1938, "Wee Gillis" is a collaboration between Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, the author-illustrator team who created Ferdinand the pacifist bull. Its protagonist is a boy born of a mixed marriage, Scottish style. The plot turns on the culture clash between his mother's Lowland relations and his father's family in the Highlands. A bagpipe is involved.
We're not talking Harry Potter sales here, of course, but then again, there's no need to lay out Harry Potter money in advances. Reprint rights come cheaply enough, Frank says, for the New York Review to make money on reissues that sell as few as 5,000 copies.
And whatever the numbers, the books' reappearance makes booksellers and buyers happy -- reversing, in a tiny but symbolic way, the odious publishing trend toward keeping books in print for shorter and shorter periods of time.
A customer comes in asking for an out-of-print book "at least once a day, if not more often," says Dinah Paul, proprietor of the Alexandria children's bookstore A Likely Story. Paul's store does well with the New York Review collection, but she thinks the market could stand far more of the same. After all, "we all have favorites from our childhood."
"Bless their little hearts," says Brookline, Mass., children's bookseller Terri Schmitz, when told that the Review intends to keep its reissues in print indefinitely. "That's unusual in this day and age."
Schmitz recently featured "Wee Gillis" in her column on reissues for the Horn Book Magazine. She says the New York Review's choices can be "eclectic" (translation: She thinks Norman Lindsay's "The Magic Pudding" is "the strangest book you'll ever read"). But she praises a string of other "terrific" titles in the series, including Rumer Godden's "Episode of Sparrows" and Eleanor Farjeon's "The Little Bookroom."
Publishers sometimes bring back their own out-of-print titles, of course, and others will buy rights to the occasional orphaned book. "My approach is, these books are just too good to be out of print," says Stephen Roxburgh of Front Street, an imprint of Boyds Mill Press, who recently reissued "The Mark of the Horse Lord" by historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff.
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Get style news headlines from The Washington Post, including entertainment news, comics, horoscopes, crossword, TV, Dear Abby. arts/theater, Sunday Source and weekend section. Washington Post columnists, movie/book reviews, Carolyn Hax, Tom Shales.
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NAACP Appears Ready to Relocate to D.C.
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The NAACP is close to moving its headquarters to the District from Baltimore, Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said yesterday.
Williams said he expects to sign an agreement with the organization this week. The D.C. Council will vote today on emergency legislation that would give the NAACP a $3.5 million grant to help with land acquisition.
The headquarters could be an important anchor of the Anacostia Gateway, a development project city officials are hoping will spur revitalization along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE.
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said in May that the organization's board had voted to move to the District to have a presence in the nation's capital and was contemplating the change.
Williams said in a statement yesterday that he welcomed the possible relocation.
"There is no more appropriate place for the NAACP headquarters than Washington, D.C.," Williams said. "I am eager to help NAACP officials accomplish this move, and I look forward to working with them as they make our city their home."
The NAACP has been based in Baltimore since 1986, after the nation's oldest civil rights organization left New York, where it was founded in 1909.
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The NAACP is close to moving its headquarters to the District from Baltimore, Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said yesterday.
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D.C. Joins 13 States in Suing Over Air Quality Regulations
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Thirteen states and the District sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in federal court in Washington yesterday to try to get the agency to strengthen its restrictions on the amount of soot that industries and automobiles can release into the air.
The states and the District say that, under the Bush administration, the EPA has ignored scientific evidence and the advice of its own experts about premature deaths and illnesses caused by soot, the microscopic air pollution known as fine particulate matter. EPA analysis found that a relatively small reduction in yearly particulate matter emissions could prevent thousands of deaths annually in the United States and reduce chronic respiratory disease and asthma attacks.
In addition to the District, officials from California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont joined New York in the action that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The filers of the suit -- motivated by concern for their residents' health and by migrating air pollution they cannot control -- asked the federal appeals court to find that the agency had failed in its legal duty to protect the environment and public health.
In a required five-year review of its soot standards, the Bush administration agreed in September to cut the amount of soot that Americans can be exposed to in any 24-hour period from 65 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 35 micrograms. But the agency, rejecting its own scientific panel's recommendations, left unchanged the current standard for the annual maximum amount of soot Americans could breathe: 15 micrograms per cubic meter per day.
The states and the District want to reduce that annual maximum to 13 or 14 micrograms per cubic meter per day -- the amount that EPA's scientific advisory panel overwhelmingly voted to recommend last year. The EPA's own impact analysis states that if the annual standard were lowered to 14 micrograms, an additional 1,000 to 11,000 lives could be saved. Other research shows that lowering the acceptable level to 13 micrograms could prevent 24,000 premature deaths a year.
"The reason the District joined this suit is that we aren't meeting the standards for healthy air right now," said Traci L. Hughes, a spokeswoman for the D.C. attorney general's office. "The problem is that most of our pollution in the District comes from cars and transportation sources, and the District doesn't have the tools to reduce that pollution itself. We agree with EPA's scientific advisory panel that we need to cut the amount of soot that Americans breathe."
When announcing the new soot standards in September, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson called them "the most health-protective air quality standards in U.S. history."
Jennifer Wood, an EPA spokeswoman, said yesterday: "Where the science was clear, we took clear action. After reviewing thousands of studies based on the best available science, EPA significantly strengthened the previous daily standard by nearly 50 percent and retained the current annual standard."
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Farm Bureau Federation and National Pork Producers Council are among business groups that also have sued, arguing that the soot rules are too stringent. The states and the District joined a series of opponents who have filed challenges that claim the rules are too weak, including Earthjustice, the American Lung Association, Environmental Defense and the National Parks Conservation Association.
"It is unfortunate that this coalition of states must resort to legal action to get the EPA to do its job to protect the environment and the public health," Spitzer said.
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Thirteen states and the District sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in federal court in Washington yesterday to try to get the agency to strengthen its restrictions on the amount of soot that industries and automobiles can release into the air.
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Metro Freezes Hiring in Many Areas to Shore Up Budget
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Metro officials ordered an immediate hiring freeze yesterday for workers not involved in public safety or the operation of trains, buses and service for the elderly and disabled in an effort to close a $116 million budget shortfall.
The action comes days after Metro managers proposed a fiscal 2008 spending plan that includes fare increases of as much as $2.10, more contributions from area taxpayers, reduced bus and rail service, and administrative cuts. The proposed operating budget, which would go into effect July 1, totals $1.2 billion.
Several board members have said they want the staff to look for more ways to trim costs before opting for fare increases and service cuts. Among the measures they want considered are cutting more positions, eliminating a proposed 5 percent raise for 1,600 nonunion employees and getting rid of 60 take-home cars.
Metro officials also announced yesterday a review of consultant contracts of more than $100,000 that don't directly affect service operations as another way to trim next year's budget.
However, John B. Catoe Jr., Metro's incoming general manager, suggested that the agency should move quickly to hire an independent firm to analyze Metro's staffing structure and offer trims for the 10,000-employee agency. Catoe has discussed his plan with board members and the agency's acting general manager, Jack Requa.
"We need to do a self-assessment of the way we run this organization," Catoe said in a statement. "I'm confident that what will come of this introspective analysis are recommendations for ways we can do our jobs more efficiently and save taxpayer dollars along the way."
Catoe, who is to take over the agency Jan. 29, has recommended hiring Gayland Moffat Consulting Inc. of Salt Lake City to conduct the review, he said in an interview. The firm has provided similar services in Los Angeles and other transit systems in which Catoe has worked, he said. Catoe's proposal would cap the contract at $350,000, far less than the $800,000 that Metro managers had initially budgeted. Catoe said he hopes it's approved Thursday and that recommendations for staff cuts are provided by mid-April.
Metro board member Jim Graham, who chairs the agency's budget committee, said in a statement that the measures are the first "but not the only steps we must take to ensure that we ultimately pass a budget next year that is fiscally responsible and customer-focused."
Under the proposed budget, fares would increase at all times for all subway riders, with the biggest increases during rush hour. There would also be a 35-cent rush-hour surcharge for those who travel through 19 heavily used downtown stations. Rush hour runs from 5 until 9:30 a.m. and from 3 to 7 p.m. weekdays. The surcharge would also be in effect from 2 to 3 a.m. Saturdays.
Metro officials are also recommending charging riders more for using old-style paper Farecards instead of electronic SmarTrip cards, which save the agency money.
Rush-hour subway riders who use Farecards would pay 65 cents to $1.75 more, depending on the length of the trip. Those who use SmarTrip would pay 15 to 45 cents more, not including the 35-cent surcharge, or "congestion fee." As a result, rush-hour rail riders could face up to a $2.10 fare increase if they paid with Farecards.
Bus fares would remain unchanged -- at $1.25 -- for riders who pay with SmarTrip or weekly passes. But they would go up 75 cents for those who pay cash. Metro is also proposing to eliminate about a dozen bus routes with low ridership, most of them in Virginia.
Officials will be holding public hearings on the budget over the next several months. No decision will be made until the spring.
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News and information about Washington's bus and rail transit system.
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Violent Crime Is Up For 2nd Straight Year
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2006122019
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A surge in violent crime that began last year accelerated in the first half of 2006, the FBI reported yesterday, providing the clearest signal yet that the historic drop in the U.S. crime rate has ended and is being reversed.
Reports of homicides, assaults and other violent offenses surged by nearly 4 percent in the first six months of the year compared with the same time period in 2005, according to the FBI's latest Uniform Crime Report. The numbers included an increase of nearly 10 percent for robberies, which many criminologists consider a leading indicator of coming trends.
The results follow a 2.5 percent jump in violent crime for 2005, which at the time represented the largest increase in 15 years.
The latest numbers suggest that those results were not an anomaly but rather part of the first significant uptick in violent crime since the early 1990s, according to criminal justice experts.
Many communities, particularly those in urbanized areas, may be headed into a period of sustained crime increases, they said. While no one is certain of the causes, experts cited an increase in the number of young men in their crime-prone years, diminished crime-fighting assistance from the federal government, fewer jobs for people with marginal skills and even the ongoing growth in methamphetamine use in some places.
The numbers come amid heightened criticism of the federal government from many police chiefs and state law enforcement officials, who complain that the Bush administration has retreated from fighting traditional crime in favor of combating terrorism and protecting homeland security. Justice officials dispute those contentions and pointed yesterday to an ongoing study designed to identify solutions to the rise in violent crime.
"This confirms what law enforcement has been seeing and saying on a more anecdotal level: that crime is on the way up," said David A. Harris, a law professor at the University of Toledo who studies crime trends. "While it's still too early to be sure, you've certainly got things pointing in one direction."
One positive piece of news came in the category of car thefts and other property crimes, which dropped 2.6 percent overall. Even that portion of the report contained some bad tidings, however: Burglaries, another key indicator, rose 1.2 percent nationwide.
Homicide and assault rates rose by more than 1 percent overall, while the number of reported rapes dipped slightly.
The FBI's six-month report does not include statistics for the District, which reports crime statistics to the FBI only on an annual basis, officials said. Baltimore's overall violent-crime rate remained unchanged, the report showed. Data for individual states were not part of the analysis.
Rising homicide rates have prompted particular concern among law enforcement officials, and a surge in killings and other violent attacks in the Midwest played a significant role in driving up rates in 2005. But Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, noted that, unlike 2005, homicide rates plunged in many smaller and medium-size cities for the first half of 2006.
"Obviously these big cities are accounting for a big piece of the action in this report," he said.
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A surge in violent crime that began last year accelerated in the first half of 2006, the FBI reported yesterday, providing the clearest signal yet that the historic drop in the U.S. crime rate has ended and is being reversed.
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First Lady Had Tumor Removed Last Month
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First lady Laura Bush had a skin tumor removed from her right shin in early November. The procedure was not disclosed until last night.
The cancer was identified as a squamous cell carcinoma, a malignant tumor that is the second most common form of skin cancer.
Explaining why the procedure was not disclosed until now, Susan Whitson, the first lady's press secretary, said: "This medical procedure was a private matter for Mrs. Bush, but when asked by the media today, we answered the question."
The first lady was noted wearing a bandage on her right leg before the Nov. 7 elections. At the time, Whitson said Bush had a sore on her shin.
In late October, Bush had a biopsy because the sore was not healing, Whitson said, and it was determined to be a squamous cell carcinoma. That type of skin cancer affects the middle layer of the skin. It is more aggressive than basal cell cancer, the most common form of skin cancer. Squamous cell cancer is more likely than basal cell cancer to spread to other locations.
Whitson said Bush's tumor was removed under a local anesthetic. She called it "a little surgical procedure" and said: "It's no big deal. She detected it early. She caught it early." No further treatment was needed.
In 2001, President Bush had four lesions removed from his face, including two caused by a common skin ailment that can lead to cancer if left untreated. None of the four was cancerous, the White House said.
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First lady Laura Bush had a skin tumor removed from her right shin in early November. The procedure was not disclosed until last night.
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Paramilitary Ties Implicate Colombia's Political Elite
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2006122019
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BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 18 -- In what has been heralded as a decisive moment in Colombia's shadowy, decades-long conflict, a powerful paramilitary commander is to appear in a special court Tuesday to account for crimes that include massacres and assassinations. Salvatore Mancuso's testimony will be the first by a top death-squad leader in a Colombian courtroom, and it is being touted by the administration of President Ãlvaro Uribe as evidence that the wheels of justice are turning.
Rather than rejoicing, however, the Uribe government has found itself in the awkward position of being implicated in the wrongdoing. Over the past several weeks, Colombians have been gripped by revelations of ties between paramilitary fighters and several congressmen close to the president, as well as some officials in his administration. The scandal now threatens to unravel his authority.
Uribe won reelection in May after cultivating his reputation as a workaholic technocrat -- someone who would be relentless against corruption and illegal armed groups. But lately, he has joined a cast of lawmakers, intelligence service operatives and mid-level government bureaucrats in publicly denying ties to the paramilitary groups, which for a generation the military used as a proxy force to battle guerrillas.
"The government's smokescreen is becoming transparent," said Venus Albeiro Silva, a congressman from the left-leaning Alternative Democratic Pole party. "What's happening now is they cannot put the lid on this. That's why we're telling the president to come out and say the truth."
Repeated requests for an interview with Uribe went unanswered. But Vice President Francisco Santos said in an interview that the administration fully supports the investigations into ties with the paramilitary umbrella organization known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials, AUC.
"The government has said this has to go as deep as it needs to go," he said. But he added, "We're seeing the whole iceberg here."
So far, investigators from the Supreme Court and the attorney general's office have revealed case after case that not only expose friendly ties between officials and paramilitary fighters but also detail how lawmakers and others helped the fighters expand their hold over northern Colombia, liquidating opponents in the process.
Since three congressmen were jailed last month for collaborating with paramilitary groups, investigators have opened official probes into six more members of Congress and three former lawmakers. The most prominent is Sen. Ãlvaro Araújo, whose sister, Maria Consuelo Araújo, is the country's foreign minister. The senator has even admitted meeting with Rodrigo Tovar, a paramilitary commander who prosecutors say has been running a drug-trafficking group while negotiating with the government.
Another senator, Miguel de la Espriella, publicly detailed how he and dozens of other lawmakers met with paramilitary commanders in 2001. At the meeting, they signed a pact cementing an alliance designed to lead to disarmament negotiations, which death squad commanders hoped would help them avoid extradition to the United States on drug charges and hold on to land and other possessions. The talks began after Uribe won office in 2002.
"The interests of these men is personal, that they don't lose property and that they don't get extradited," said José Mejia, a former political officer in Tovar's paramilitary group who gave up his weapons this year. "What they're looking for is that they don't get tried for massacres and narco-trafficking."
The developments involving congressmen follow disclosures that a string of officials in the Uribe administration -- among them the former head of the intelligence service, the former head of the rural development agency and the former ambassador to Chile -- helped paramilitary groups by giving them classified information while orchestrating the takeover of land and the murder of the group's enemies.
The government has also come under withering criticism for moving too slowly to bring paramilitary fighters to justice, although the groups began disarming in 2003.
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BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 18 -- In what has been heralded as a decisive moment in Colombia's shadowy, decades-long conflict, a powerful paramilitary commander is to appear in a special court Tuesday to account for crimes that include massacres and assassinations. Salvatore Mancuso's testimony will be...
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Mixing With a Higher Class of Carbs
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That's the diagnosis David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, gives to many of the patients he treats.
"In the abstract," Heber says, "people think carbohydrates mean bread and pasta. So a lot of people are shocked when I say that fruit and vegetables are carbohydrates. They're among the healthiest carbohydrates you can eat. They're high in fiber, low in calories and have plenty of vitamins and antioxidants. They're really the best of the carbs."
Not only does eating plenty of fruit and vegetables help with calorie control, but two new reports published this month point to further benefits.
In one study of 1,500 healthy women, Laval University researchers in Quebec measured blood levels of a substance called insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which helps reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer and plays a role in preventing bone loss. Women who ate more citrus and other fruit and vegetables rich in vitamin C had higher IGF levels than those who ate less produce.
In another study, published this month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health researchers report that eating plenty of fruit and vegetables helps reduce blood levels of C-reactive protein, a substance linked to increased risk of heart disease. Led by Walter Willett, the study also found a lower risk of metabolic syndrome, which is characterized by added pounds around the middle as well as increased levels of blood cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar, and which significantly boosts the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Participants who ate the most fruit -- about two cups per day -- had a 34 percent lower risk of the metabolic syndrome compared with those who ate little fruit. And those who ate plenty of vegetables -- about two cups per day -- had a 30 percent lower risk of the metabolic syndrome than those who ate the least vegetables.
Welcome to Week Five of the Lean Plate Club Holiday Challenge. This isn't a diet -- or an attempt to take the joy out of your holiday. It's simply designed to help you maintain your weight until the new year. Research suggests that overweight and obese people gain an average of five pounds from Thanksgiving to New Year's -- and don't shed it in the spring. You can join the challenge at any time. This week's food goal is to improve the quality of carbohydrates you eat. For activity, walk 10 minutes three times daily.
Lean Plate Club member Melanie Miller (see her Holiday Challenge video blog at http://www.leanplateclub.com) has already discovered a benefit of eating more fruit and vegetables: less hunger.
She recently switched to fruit and vegetables from the snack bars she had been eating. "They had so much sugar in them," says Melanie, who now eats mangoes, blueberries, bananas and apples as well as plenty of vegetables, including bean dip and baby carrots. "If I get enough fruit and vegetables during the day, I find that I'm not hungry like I was with the bars."
That's because eating more highly processed carbohydrates, especially food and drink with added sugar, can send blood sugar levels soaring. To cope, the body produces insulin. That reduces blood sugar, but as it drops, you feel hungry again.
Less-processed carbohydrates, which include whole-grain cereals, crackers, bread and pasta as well as low-fat and nonfat dairy products, are less likely to set up that vicious cycle.
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Carbohydrate confusion. That's the diagnosis David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, gives to many of the patients he treats.
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50 Rooms, Hudson View (Plus Tinsel)
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2006122019
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Uncle Freddie's country cottage was exactly where a country cottage should be: framed by trees on a breezy bluff overlooking the broad blue Hudson River. Still, the cottage was unlike any I'd ever seen. It was big. Really big.
It seems the Vanderbilt kids of the early 1900s measured things a little differently from ordinary people. Frederick Vanderbilt's neoclassic mansion in New York's majestic Hudson River Valley was perhaps a bit more modest than other family palaces like the Breakers or Biltmore. Nevertheless, the house contains more than 50 rooms, staircase railings sheathed in crimson velvet and Venetian frescoed ceilings. Hardly cottage standards.
The banks of the Hudson are studded with similar retreats once owned by captains of industry and politically influential families we all learned about in history class, including the Rockefellers, the Goulds and the Roosevelts. They are the castles along America's Rhine, as the Hudson is sometimes called, and they stand as testaments to a time when excess was the height of style.
Today, more than a dozen estates are open for public snooping. They are part of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, a protected region of private and public land that spans more than 150 miles of riverbank and includes 3 million acres of woodland trails and parkland. To tour the mansions is to visit unique little museums full of Picasso tapestries (the Rockefellers' Kykuit in Sleepy Hollow), authentic Duncan Fyfe furniture (Boscobel in Garrison) and Tiffany lamps (Lyndhurst in Tarrytown) without confining oneself to a sterile, regimented environment. The homes are living, breathing spaces with ticking clocks and creaking floorboards.
It would take a week to see all the estates at a leisurely pace, but a weekend visit including four to six estates is very doable and will leave time for shopping and dining in pretty villages such as Rhinebeck, which is rich in historic architecture and boutique shopping.
Although the Hudson Valley is known for its autumn vistas of wooded hills ranging the palette of fire, the winter reveals the region in yet a different light -- by the twinkling of candlelight and Christmas lights. The scent of cinnamon and pine fills the halls of many mansions, which are festively adorned for the holidays. Wilderstein, the orange-red Queen Anne-style residence in Rhinebeck that last belonged to Margaret "Daisy" Suckley, close companion to neighbor President Franklin D. Roosevelt, takes on the trappings of a Victorian Christmas. The rooms inside Lyndhurst, the Gothic castle in Tarrytown where New York City mayor William Paulding and later railroad magnate Jay Gould sought respite, display exquisitely decorated interpretations of fairy tales. And Staatsburgh, a hilltop mansion with all the stateliness of the White House, is a favorite wintertime destination for families toting sleds.
Traveling north from Manhattan on a recent weekend, I drove up the New York State Thruway, Interstate 87, to begin castle-hopping in Hudson, an art-minded town just south of Albany, and to follow the river southward, mostly on the eastern bank, meandering down the Taconic Parkway and Route 9 -- one of the prettiest drives I've ever taken. There are views of the Hudson's tree-lined riverbanks, of the gossamer blue Catskill Mountains, of ancient willows bent over woodland brooks that appear so idyllically beautiful I was forced to swallow all the criticisms I'd had of the 19th-century artists who painted this region. Previously I had dismissed the work of the Hudson River School -- the landscape painters whose collective work is widely recognized as the first coherent American art movement -- as unrealistically pastoral. Now I saw that they were extraordinarily accurate.
Only an artist could have dreamed up Olana, the northernmost estate I visited. Glittering with gilded stenciling and multicolored masonry, the Middle-Eastern-inspired home looks like nothing you should find on the edge of the Catskills. Yet it blends harmoniously with the natural landscape, each pointed-arch window framing a view with artistic sensibility. Olana's master and designer, Frederic Edwin Church, was one of the most successful artists in the Hudson River School.
Traveling west to east on the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, you can see Olana's tower among the trees like the turret of a castle. Named after an ancient Persian treasure house and inspired by Church's travels to the Mideast, Olana is the architectural star of the heritage area. It stands in stark contrast to Thomas Cole's home, Cedar Grove, on the opposite bank, a modest yellow Federal-style home also open to the public. Cole was not only the founder of the Hudson River School but also Church's teacher. If homes are indeed an indication of success, it seems the student outshone his master.
Heading south to Germantown, Clermont is an elegant white Colonial Revival home with a front door that faces the river, recalling a time when the Hudson was the highway by which 18th-century guests arrived. The home's interior has been arranged to reflect how its last residents lived in the 1920s. Honoria Livingston McVitty was the last of 17 generations of Livingstons to inhabit the estate, and the heritage staff consulted her about its history before her death in 2000, just nine years shy of a century old. The kitchen was the only room about which McVitty could not advise, according to guide Edward Moynihan, because she claimed she'd never set foot in it. "I guess if she wanted to steal a cookie from the cookie jar," Moynihan said, "she had a servant steal the cookie."
Touring the estates is stepping into an alternate reality. There is a placard at Staatsburg h, an estate south of Clermont, that says Ruth Livingston Mills, who married wealthy financier Ogden Mills, inherited a 25-room house that she expanded into the current 79-room beaux-arts temple because it "was neither sufficiently commodious nor impressive enough for her society visitors." (I don't know about you, but I need at least three dozen rooms to adequately entertain, too.)
A day of exploring this excessive lifestyle can muddle your perception of luxury. I stepped through the white-columned portico of Springwood, the Roosevelt mansion in Hyde Park, at the end of my first day of touring, just after visiting the Vanderbilt mansion full of ornately gilded furniture and marble columns. I peeked into a dozen rooms, some sheathed in rich wood paneling, others cloaked in expensive Oriental-style rugs, and heard myself say, seriously, and with a shrug, "Modest."
Painters often set their easels on the edge of the Boscobel property in Garrison, south of Hyde Park. Though the main house is lovely, with bi-level balconies decorated with white wooden swaths, it is the natural landscape that usually inspires these artists' hands. Boscobel's bluff offers one of the most stunning panoramas in the valley: West Point Military Academy stands on the opposite shore, the green patchwork of Constitution Marsh lies in the foreground, and the river bends straight into the horizon, disappearing through the peaks of the Hudson Highlands.
In the fall, Boscobel's orchard is laden with several varietals of apples, and bagfuls are harvested and sold in the gift shop. Most of the estates in the valley began as real agrarian estates and then transitioned into "gentlemen's farms." I imagine the landlords waved their gloved hands limply in the direction of an empty field and said things like, "Kale. I want kale planted there."
Back up the river, between the Clermont and Wilderstein estates, the fruits of the land are also harvested at
in Annandale-on-Hudson. Here the focus turns outdoors, because the mansion is closed for renovations. This sounds like a disappointment, but it may be a blessing. The arboretum contains trees more than 150 years old, and the gardens of roses, annuals, perennials and herbs are carefully maintained after those designed by one of the last ladies of the house, Violetta White Delafield, a founding member of the Garden Club of America.
Visitors can sample the bounty of the still-tended fields, sold just down the street at the Montgomery Place Orchards Farm Stand. There are multicolored heirloom tomatoes and different kinds of apples and squash, but be sure to purchase several jars of their irresistible seedless black raspberry jam. I have been regretfully nursing a single jar, spreading its jewel-toned jam only on slices of really deserving bread.
At the southern end of the heritage area, the grounds of writer Washington Irving's country manor in Tarrytown, named Sunnyside, are often described as romantic, with a winding stream leading to a waterfall and a pond Irving called his "little Mediterranean." In December guides give candlelit tours of the manor, lead visitors in carols on a circa-1830s piano and read aloud some of Irving's Christmas-themed tales.
Irving set one of his most famous stories, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," in a town very close to Sunnyside. It's little wonder that the haunting tale of the headless horseman seizes the imaginations of local children in the months when the wind howls and the leaves crunch under foot. It seems the Hudson Valley is home to many ghosts -- those of legend and those of legendary men -- and all you need to do to find them is to step through their front doors.
Nicole Cotroneo last wrote for Travel about celebrity-spotting in Nashville.
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With estates carrying names like the Rockefellers, the Goulds and the Roosevelts, the Hudson River valley plays home to some of the country's finest mansions.
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Abrahamic America? A Label that Embraces But Also Excludes
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Religion vs. America By Leonard Peikoff
This lecture was delivered at the Ford Hall Forum on April 20, 1986.
A specter is haunting America--the specter of religion. This, borrowing Karl Marx's literary style, is my theme tonight.
Where do I see religion? The outstanding political fact of the 1980s is the rise of the New Right, and its penetration of the Republican party under President Reagan. The bulk of the New Right consists of Protestant Fundamentalists, typified by the Moral Majority. These men are frequently allied on basic issues with other religiously oriented groups, including conservative Catholics of the William F. Buckley ilk and neoconservative Jewish intellectuals of the Commentary magazine variety.
All these groups observed the behavior of the New Left awhile back and concluded, understandably enough, that the country was perishing. They saw the liberals' idealization of drugged hippies and nihilistic yippies; they saw the proliferation of pornography, of sexual perversion, of noisy Lib and Power gangs running to the Democrats to demand ever more outrageous handouts and quotas; they heard the routine leftist deprecation of the United States and the routine counsel to appease Soviet Russia--and they concluded, with good reason, that what the country was perishing from was a lack of values, of ethical absolutes, of morality.
Values, the Left retorted, are subjective; no lifestyle (and no country) is better or worse than any other; there is no absolute wrong or right anymore--unless, the liberals added, you believe in some outmoded ideology like religion. Precisely, the New Rightists reply; that is our whole point. There are absolute truths and absolute values, they say, which are the key to salvation of our great country; but there is only one source of such values: not man or this earth or the human brain, but the Deity as revealed in scripture. The choice we face, they conclude, is the skepticism, decadence, and statism of the Democrats, or morality, absolutes, Americanism, and their only possible base: religion--old-time, Judeo-Christian religion.
"Religious America is awakening, perhaps just in time for our country's sake," said Mr. Reagan in 1980. "In a struggle against totalitarian tyranny, traditional values based on religious morality are among our greatest strengths." (1)
"Religious views," says Congressman Jack Kemp, "lie at the heart of our political system. The 'inalienable rights' to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are based on the belief that each individual is created by God and has a special value in His eyes. . . . Without a common belief in the one God who created us, there could be no freedom and no recourse if a majority were to seek to abrogate the rights of the minority." (2)
Or, as the Education Secretary William Bennett sums up this viewpoint: "Our values as a free people and the central values of the Judeo-Christian tradition are flesh of the flesh and blood of the blood." (3)
Politicians of America have characteristically given lip service to the platitudes of piety. But the New Right is different. These men seem to mean their religiosity, and they are dedicated to implementing their religious creeds politically; they seem to make these creeds the governing factor in the realm of our personal relations, our art and literature, our clinics and hospitals, and the education of our youth. Whatever else you say about him, Mr. Reagan has delivered handsomely one of his campaign promises: he has given the adherents of religion a prominence in setting the national agenda that they have not had in this country for generations.
This defines our subject for tonight. It is the new Republican inspiration and the deeper questions it raises. Is the New Right the answer to the New Left? What is the relation between the Judeo-Christian tradition and the principles of Americanism? Are Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, as their admirers declare, leading us to a new era of freedom and capitalism--or to something else?
In discussing these issues, I am not going to say much about the New Right as such; its specific beliefs are widely known. Instead, I want to examine the movement within a broader, philosophical context. I want to ask: What is religion? and then: How does it function in the life of a nation, any nation, past or present? These, to be sure, are very abstract questions, but they are inescapable. Only when we have considered them can we go on to judge the relation between a particular religion, such as Christianity, and a particular nation, America.
Let us begin with a definition. What is religion as such? What is the essence common to all of its varieties, Western and Oriental, which distinguishes it from other cultural phenomena?
Religion involves a certain kind of outlook on the world and a consequent way of life. In other words, the term "religion" denotes a type (actually, a precursor) of philosophy. As such, a religion must include a view of knowledge (which is the subject matter of the branch of philosophy called epistemology) and a view of reality (metaphysics). Then, on this foundation, a religion builds a code of values (ethics). So the question becomes: What type of philosophy constitutes a religion?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "religion" as "a particular system of faith an worship," and goes on, in part: "Recognition on the part of man of some higher unseen power as having control of his destiny, and as being entitled to obedience, reverence and worship."
The fundamental concept here is "faith." "Faith" in this context means belief in the absence of evidence. This is the essential that distinguishes religion from science. A scientist may believe in the entities which he cannot observe, such as atoms or electrons, but he can do so only if he can prove their existence logically, by inference from things he does observe. A religious man, however, believes in some "higher unseen power" which he cannot observe and cannot logically prove. As the whole story of philosophy demonstrates, no study of the natural universe can warrant jumping outside it to a supernatural entity. The five arguments for God offered by the greatest of all religious thinkers, Thomas Aquinas, are widely recognized by philosophers to be logically defective; they have each been refuted many times, and they are the best arguments that have ever been offered on this subject.
Many philosophers indeed now go further: they point out that God is not only an article of faith, but that this is essential to religion. A God susceptible of proof, they argue, would actually wreck religion. A God open to human logic, to scientific study, to rational understanding, would have to be definable, delimited, finite, amenable to human concepts, obedient to scientific law, and thus incapable of miracles. Such a thing would be merely one object among others within the natural world; it would be merely another datum for the scientist, like some new kind of galaxy or cosmic ray, not a transcendent power running the universe and demanding man's worship. What religion rests on is a true God, i.e., a God not of reason, but of faith.
If you want to concretize the idea of faith, I suggest that you visit, of all places, the campuses of the Ivy League, where, according to The New York Times, "a religious revival is now occurring. Will you find students eagerly discussing proofs or struggling to reinterpret the ancient myths of the Bible into some kind of consistency with the teachings of science? On the contrary. The students, like their parents, are insisting that the Bible be accepted as literal truth, whether it makes logical sense or not. "Students today are more reconciled to authority," one campus religious official notes. "There is less need for students to sit on their own mountain top"--i.e., to exercise their own independent mind and judgment. Why not? They are content simply to believe. At Columbia University, for instance, a new student group gathers regularly not to analyze, but to "sing, worship and speak in tongues." "People are coming back to a religion in a way that some of us once went to the counterculture," says a chaplain at Columbia. (4) This is absolutely true. And note what they are coming back to: not reason or logic, but faith.
"Faith" names the method of religion, the essence of its epistemology; and, as the Oxford English Dictionary states, the belief in some "higher unseen power" is the basic content of religion, its distinctive view of reality, its metaphysics. This higher power is not always conceived as a personal God; some religions construe it as an impersonal dimension of some kind. The common denominator is the belief in the supernatural--in some entity, attribute, or force transcending and controlling this world in which we live.
According to religion, this supernatural power is the essence of the universe and the source of all value. It constitutes the realm of true reality and of absolute perfection. By contrast, the world around us is viewed as only semi-real and as inherently imperfect, even corrupt, in any event metaphysically unimportant. According to most religions, this life is a mere episode in the soul's journey to its ultimate fulfillment, which involves leaving behind earthly things in order to unite with Deity. As a pamphlet issued by a Catholic study group expresses this point: Man "cannot achieve perfection or true happiness in this life here on earth. He can only achieve this in the eternity of the next life after death. . . . Therefore . . . what a person has or lacks in worldly possessions, privileges, or advantages is not important." (5) In New Delhi a few months ago, expressing this viewpoint, Pope John Paul II urged on the Indians a life of "asceticism and renunciation." In Quebec some time earlier, he decried "the fascination the modern world feels for productivity, profit, efficiency, speed, and records of physical strength." Too many men, he explained in Luxembourg, "consciously organize their way of life merely on the basis of the realities of this world without any heed for God and His wishes." (6)
This brings us to religious ethics, the essence of which also involves faith, faith in God's commandments. Virtue, in this view, consists of obedience. Virtue is not a matter of achieving your desires, whatever they may be, but of seeking to carry out God's; it is not the pursuit of egoistic goals, whether rational or not, but the willingness to renounce your own goals in the service of the Lord. What religion counsels is the ethics of self-transcendence, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice.
What single attitude most stands in the way of this ethics, according to religious writers? The sin of pride. Why is pride a sin? Because man, in this view, is a metaphysically defective creature. His intellect is helpless in the crucial questions of life. His will has no power over existence, which is ultimately controlled by God. His body lusts after all the temptations of the flesh. In short, man is weak, ugly, and low, a typical product of the low, unreal world in which he lives. Your proper attitude towards yourself, therefore, as to this world, should be a negative one. For earthly creatures such as you and I, "Know thyself" means "Know thy worthlessness"; simple honesty entails humility, self-castigation, even self-disgust.
Religion means orienting one's existence around faith, God, and a life of service--and correspondingly downgrading or condemning four key elements: reason, nature, the self, and man. Religion cannot be equated with values or morality or even philosophy as such; it represents a specific approach to philosophic issues, including a specific code of morality.
What effect does this approach have on human life? We do not have to answer by theoretical deduction, because Western history has been a succession of religious and unreligious periods. The modern world, including America, is a product of two of these periods: of Greco-Roman civilization and of medieval Christianity. So, to enable us to understand America, let us first look at the historical evidence from these two periods; let us look at their stand on religion and at the practical consequences of this stand. Then we will have no trouble grasping the base and essence of the United States.
Ancient Greece was not a religious civilization, not on any of the counts I mentioned. The Gods of Mount Olympus were like a race of elder brothers to man, mischievous brothers with rather limited powers; they were closer to Steven Spielberg's extra-terrestrial visitor than to anything we would call "God." They did not create the universe or shape its laws or leave any message of revelations or demand a life of sacrifice. Nor were they taken very seriously by the leading voices of culture, such as Plato and Aristotle. From start to finish, the Greek thinkers recognized no sacred texts, no infallible priesthood and no intellectual authority beyond the human mind; they allowed no room for faith. Epistemologically, most were staunch individualists who expected each man to grasp the truth by his own powers of sensory observation and logical thought. For detail, I refer you to Aristotle, the preeminent representative of the Greek spirit.
Metaphysically, as a result, Greece was a secular culture. Men generally dismissed or downplayed the supernatural; their energies were devoted to the joys and challenges of life. There was a shadowy belief in immortality, but the dominant attitude toward it was summed up by Homer, who has Achilles declare that he would rather be a slave on earth than "bear sway among all the dead that be departed."
The Greek ethics followed from this base. All the Greek thinkers agreed that virtue is egoistic. The purpose of morality, in their view, is to enable a man to achieve his own fulfillment, his own happiness, by means of a proper development of his natural faculties--above all, of his cognitive faculty, his intellect. And as to the Greek estimate of man--look at the statues of the Greek gods, made in the image of human strength, human grace, human beauty; and read Aristotle's account of the virtue--yes, the virtue--of pride.
I must note here that in many ways Plato was an exception to the general irreligion of the Greeks. But his ideas were not dominant until much later. When Plato's spirit did take over, the Greek approach had already died out. What replaced it was the era of Christianity.
Intellectually speaking, the period of the Middle Ages was the exact opposite of classical Greece. Its leading philosophic spokesman, Augustine, held that faith was the basis of man's entire mental life. "I do not know in order to believe," he said, "I believe in order to know." In other words, reason is nothing but a handmaiden of revelation; it is a mere adjunct of faith, whose task is to clarify, as far as possible, the dogmas of religion. What if a dogma cannot be clarified? So much the better, answered an earlier Church father, Tertullian. The truly religious man, he said, delights in thwarting his reason; that shows his commitment to faith. Thus, Tertullian's famous answer, when asked about the dogma of God's self-sacrifice on the cross: "Credo quia absurdum" ("I believe it because it is absurd").
As to the realm of physical nature, the medievals characteristically regarded it as a semi-real haze, a transitory stage in the divine plan, and a troublesome one at that, a delusion and a snare--a delusion because men mistake it for reality, a snare because they are tempted by its lures to jeopardize their immortal souls. What tempts them is the prospect of earthly pleasure.
What kind of life, then, does the immortal soul require on earth? Self-denial, asceticism, the resolute shunning of this temptation. But isn't it unfair to ask men to throw away their whole enjoyment of life? Augustine's answer is: what else befits creatures befouled by Original Sin, creatures who are, as he put it, "crooked and sordid, bespotted and ulcerous"?
What were the practical results--in the ancient world, then in the medieval--of these two opposite approaches to life?
Greece created philosophy, logic, science, mathematics, and a magnificent, man-glorifying art; it gave us the base of modern civilization in every field; it taught the West how to think. In addition, through its admirers in ancient Rome, which built on the Greek intellectual base, Greece indirectly gave us the rule of law and the first idea of man's rights (this idea was originated by the pagan Stoics). Politically, the ancients never conceived a society of full-fledged individual liberty; no nation achieved that before the United States. But the ancients did lay certain theoretical bases for the concept of liberty; and in practice, both in some of the Greek city-states and in republican Rome, large numbers of men at various times were at least relatively free. They were incomparably more free than their counterparts ever had been in the religious cultures of ancient Egypt and its equivalents.
What were the practical results of the medieval approach? The Dark Ages were dark on principle. Augustine fought against secular philosophy, science, art; he regarded all of it as an abomination to be swept aside; he cursed science in particular as "the lust of the eyes." Unlike many Americans today, who drive to church in their Cadillac or tape their favorite reverend on the VCR so as not to interrupt their tennis practice, the medievals took religion seriously. They proceeded to create a society that was anti-materialistic and anti-intellectual. I do not have to remind you of the lives of the saints, who were the heroes of the period, including the men who ate only sheep's gall and ashes, quenched their thirst with laundry water, and slept with a rock for their pillow. These were men resolutely defying nature, the body, sex, pleasure, all the snares of this life--and they were canonized for it, as, by the essence of religion, they should have been. The economic and social results of this kind of value code were inevitable; mass stagnation and abject poverty, ignorance and mass illiteracy, waves of insanity that swept whole towns, a life expectancy in the teens. "Woe unto ye who laugh now," the Sermon on the Mount had said. Well, they were pretty safe on this count. They had precious little to laugh about.
What about freedom in this era? Study the existence of the feudal serf tied for life to his plot of ground, his noble overlord, and the all-encompassing decrees of the Church. Or, if you want an example closer to home, jump several centuries forward to the American Puritans, who were a medieval remnant transplanted to a virgin continent, and who proceeded to establish a theocratic dictatorship in colonial Massachusetts. Such a dictatorship, they declared, was necessitated by the very nature of their religion. You are owned by God, they explained to any potential dissenter; therefore, you are a servant who must act as your Creator, through his spokesmen, decrees. Besides, they said, you are innately depraved, so a dictatorship of the elect is necessary to ride herd on your vicious impulses. And, they said, you don't really own your property either; wealth, like all values, is a gift from heaven temporarily held in trust, to be controlled like all else, by the elect. And if all this makes you unhappy, they ended up, so what? You're not supposed to pursue happiness in this life anyway.
There can be no philosophic breach between thought and action. The consequence of the epistemology of religion is the politics of tyranny. If you cannot reach the truth by your own mental powers, but must offer an obedient faith to a cognitive authority, then you are not your own intellectual master; in such a case, you cannot guide your behavior by your own judgment either, but must be submissive in action as well. This is the reason why--as Ayn Rand has pointed out--faith and force are always corollaries; each requires the other.
The early Christians did contribute some good ideas to the world, ideas that proved important to the cause of future freedom. I must, so to speak, give the angels their due. In particular, the idea that man has a value as an individual--that the individual soul is precious--is essentially a Christian legacy to the West; its first appearance was in the form of the idea that every man, despite Original Sin, is made in the image of God (as against the pre-Christian notion that a certain group or nation has a monopoly on human value, while the rest of mankind are properly slaves or mere barbarians). But notice a crucial point: this Christian idea, by itself, was historically impotent. It did nothing to unshackle the serfs or stay the Inquisition or turn the Puritan elders into Thomas Jeffersons. Only when the religious approach lost its power--only when the idea of individual value was able to break free from its Christian context and become integrated into a rational, secular philosophy--only then did this kind of idea bear practical fruit.
What--or who--ended the Middle Ages? My answer is: Thomas Aquinas, who introduced Aristotle, and thereby reason, into medieval culture. In the thirteenth century, for the first time in a millennium, Aquinas reasserted in the West the basic pagan approach. Reason, he said in opposition to Augustine, does not rest on faith; it is a self-contained, natural faculty, which works on sense experience. Its essential task is not to clarify revelation, but rather, as Aristotle had said, to gain knowledge of this world. Men, Aquinas declared forthrightly, must use and obey reason; whatever one can prove by reason and logic, he said, is true. Aquinas himself thought he could prove the existence of God, and he thought that faith is valuable as a supplement to reason. But this did not alter the nature of his revolution. His was the charter of liberty, the moral and philosophical sanction, which the West had desperately needed. His message to mankind, after the long ordeal of faith, was in effect: "It's all right. You don't have to stifle your mind anymore. You can think."
The result, in historical short order, was the revolt against the authority of the Church, the feudal breakup, the Renaissance. Renaissance means "rebirth," rebirth of reason and man's concern with this world. Once again, as in the pagan era, we see secular philosophy, natural science, man-glorifying art, and the pursuit of earthly happiness. It was a gradual, tortuous change, with each century becoming more worldly than the preceding, from Aquinas to the Renaissance to the Age of Reason to the climax and end of this development: the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment. This was the age in which America's founding fathers were educated and in which they created the United States.
The Enlightenment represented the triumph (for a short while anyway) of the pagan Greek, and specifically of the Aristotelian, spirit. Its basic principle was respect for man's intellect and, correspondingly, the wholesale dismissal of faith and revelation. Reason the Only Oracle of Man, said Ethan Allen of Vermont, who spoke for his age in demanding unfettered free thought and in ridiculing the primitive contradictions of the Bible. "While we are under the tyranny of Priests," he declared in 1784, ". . . it ever will be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith." (7)
Elihu Palmer, another American of the Enlightenment, was even more outspoken. According to Christianity, he writes, God "is supposed to be a fierce, revengeful tyrant, delighting in cruelty, punishing his creatures for the very sins which he causes them to commit; and creating numberless millions of immortal souls, that could never have offended him, for the express purpose of tormenting them to all eternity." The purpose of this kind of notion, he says elsewhere, "the grand object of all civil and religious tyrants . . . has been to suppress all the elevated operations of the mind, to kill the energy of thought, and through this channel to subjugate the whole earth for their own special emolument." "It has hitherto been deemed a crime to think," he observes, but at last men have a chance--because they have finally escaped from the "long and doleful night" of Christian rule, and have grasped instead "the unlimited power of human reason"--"reason, which is the glory of our nature." (8)
Allen and Palmer are extreme representatives of the Enlightenment spirit, granted; but they are representatives. Theirs is the attitude which was new in the modern world, and which, in a less inflammatory form, was shared by all the Founding Fathers as their basic, revolutionary premise. Thomas Jefferson states the attitude more sedately, with less willful provocation to religion, but it is the same essential attitude. "Fix reason firmly in her seat," he advises a nephew, "and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." (9) Observe the philosophic priorities in this advice: man's mind comes first; God is a derivative, if you can prove him. The absolute, which must guide the human mind, is the principle of reason; every other idea must meet this test. It is in this approach--in this fundamental rejection of faith--that the irreligion of the Enlightenment lies.
The consequence of this approach was the age's rejection of all the other religious priorities. In metaphysics: this world once again was regarded as real, as important, and as a realm not of miracles, but of impersonal natural law. In ethics: success in this life became the dominant motive; the veneration of asceticism was swept aside in favor of each man's pursuit of happiness--his own happiness on earth, to be achieved by his own effort, by self-reliance and self-respect leading to self-made prosperity. But can man really achieve fulfillment on earth? Yes, the Enlightenment answered; man has the means, the potent faculty of intellect, necessary to achieve his goals and values. Man may not yet be perfect, people said, but he is perfectible; he must be so, because he is the rational animal.
Such were the watchwords of the period: not faith, God, service, but reason, nature, happiness, man.
Many of the Founding Fathers, of course, continued to believe in God and to do so sincerely, but it was a vestigial belief, a leftover from the past which no longer shaped the essence of their thinking. God, so to speak, had been kicked upstairs. He was regarded now as an aloof spectator who neither responds to prayer nor offers revelations nor demands immolation. This sort of viewpoint, known as deism, cannot, properly speaking, be classified as a religion. It is a stage in the atrophy of religion; it is the step between Christianity and outright atheism.
This is why the religious men of the Enlightenment were scandalized and even panicked by the deist atmosphere. Here is the Rev. Peter Clark of Salem, Mass., in 1739: "The former Strictness in Religion, that . . . Zeal for the Order and Ordinances of the Gospel, which was so much the Glory of our Fathers, is very much abated, yea disrelished by too many: and a Spirit of Licentiousness, and Neutrality in Religion . . . so opposite to the Ways of God's People, do exceedingly prevail in the midst of us." (10) And here, fifty years later, is the Rev. Charles Backus of Springfield, Mass. The threat to divine religion, he says, is the "indifference which prevails" and the "ridicule." Mankind, he warns, is in "great danger of being laughed out of religion." (11) This was true; these preachers were not alarmists; their description of the Enlightenment atmosphere is correct.
This was the intellectual context of the American Revolution. Point for point, the Founding Fathers' argument for liberty was the exact counterpart of the Puritans' argument for dictatorship--but in reverse, moving from the opposite starting point to the opposite conclusion. Man, the Founding Fathers said in essence (with a large assist from Locke and others), is the rational being; no authority, human or otherwise, can demand blind obedience from such a being -- not in the realm of thought or, therefore, in the realm of action either. By his very nature, they said, man must be left free to exercise his reason and then to act accordingly, i.e., by the guidance of his best rational judgment. Because this world is of vital importance, they added, the motive of man's action should be the pursuit of happiness. Because the individual, not a supernatural power, is the creator of wealth, a man should have the right to private property, the right to keep and use or trade his own product. And because man is basically good, they held, there is no need to leash him; there is nothing to fear in setting free a rational animal.
This, in substance, was the American argument for man's inalienable rights. It was the argument that reason demands freedom. And this is why the nation of individual liberty, which is what the United States was, could not have been founded in any philosophically different century. It required what the Enlightenment offered: a rational, secular context.
When you look for the source of an historic idea, you must consider philosophic essentials, not the superficial statements or errors that people may offer you. Even the most well-meaning men can misidentify the intellectual roots of their own attitudes. Regrettably, this is what the Founding Fathers did in one crucial respect. All men, said Jefferson, are endowed "by their Creator" with certain unalienable rights, a statement that formally ties individual rights to the belief in God. Despite Jefferson's eminence, however, his statement (along with its counterpart in Locke and others) is intellectually unwarranted. The principle of individual rights does not derive from or depend on the idea of God as man's creator. It derives from the very nature of man, whatever his source or origin; it derives from the requirements of man's mind and his survival. In fact, as I have argued, the concept of rights is ultimately incompatible with the idea of the supernatural. This is true not only logically, but also historically. Through all the centuries of the Dark and Middle Ages, there was plenty of belief in a Creator; but it was only when religion began to fade that the idea of God as the author of individual rights emerged as an historical, nation-shaping force. What then deserves the credit for the new development--the age-old belief or the new philosophy? What is the real intellectual root and protector of human liberty--God or reason?
My answer is now evident. America does rest on a code of values and morality--in this, the New Right is correct. But, by all the evidence of philosophy and history, it does not rest on the values or ideas of religion. It rests on their opposite.
You are probably wondering here: "What about Communism? Isn't it a logical, scientific, atheistic philosophy, and yet doesn't it lead straight to totalitarianism?" The short answer to this is: Communism is not an expression of logic or science, but the exact opposite. Despite all its anti-religious posturings, Communism is nothing but a modern derivative of religion: it agrees with the essence of religion on every key issue, then merely gives that essence a new outward veneer or cover-up.
The Communists reject Aristotelian logic and Western science in favor of a "dialectic" process; reality, they claim, is a stream of contradictions which is beyond the power of "bourgeois" reason to understand. They deny the very existence of man's mind, claiming that human words and actions reflect nothing but the alogical predetermined churnings of blind matter. They do reject God, but they replace him with a secular stand-in, Society or the State, which they treat not as an aggregate of individuals, but as an unperceivable, omnipotent, supernatural organism, a "higher unseen power" transcending and dwarfing all individuals. Man, they say, is a mere social cog or atom, whose duty is to revere this power and to sacrifice every thing in its behalf. Above all, they say, no such cog has the right to think for himself; every man must accept the decrees of Society's leaders, he must because this is the voice of Society, whether he understands it or not. Fully as much as Tertullian, Communism demands faith from its followers and subjects, "faith" in the literal, religious sense of the term. On every account, the conclusion is the same: Communism is not a new, rational philosophy; it is a tired, slavishly imitative heir of religion.
This is why, so far, Communism has been unable to win out in the West. Unlike the Russians, we have not been steeped enough in religion--in faith, sacrifice, humility, and, therefore, servility. We are still too rational, too this-worldly, and too individualistic to submit to naked tyranny. We are still being protected by the fading remnants of our Enlightenment heritage.
But we will not be so for long if the New Right has its way.
Philosophically, the New Right holds the same fundamental ideas as the New Left--its religious zeal is merely a variant of irrationalism and the demand for self-sacrifice--and therefore it has to lead to the same result in practice: dictatorship. Nor is this merely my theoretical deduction. The New Rightists themselves announce it openly. While claiming to be the defenders of Americanism, their distinctive political agenda is statism.
The outstanding example of this fact is their insistence that the state prohibit abortion even in the first trimester of pregnancy. A woman, in this view, has no right to her own body or even, the most consistent New Rightists add, to her own life; instead, she should be made to sacrifice at the behest of the state, to sacrifice her desires, her life goals, and even her existence in the name of a mass protoplasm, which is at most a potential human being, not an actual one. "Abortion," says Paul Weyrich, executive director of the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, "is wrong in all cases. I believe that if you have to choose between new life and existing life, you should choose new life. The person who has had an opportunity to live at least has been given that gift by God and should make way for a new life on earth." (12)
Another example: men and women, the New Right tells us, should not be free to conduct their sexual or romantic lives in private, in accordance with their own choice and values; the law should prohibit any sexual practices condemned by religion. And: children, we are told, should be indoctrinated with state-mandated religion at school. For instance, biology texts should be rewritten under government tutelage to present the Book of Genesis as a scientific theory on par with or even superior to the theory of evolution. And, of course, the ritual of prayer must be forced down the children's throats. Is this not, contrary to the Constitution, a state establishment of religion, and of a controversial, intellectual viewpoint? Not at all, says Jack Kemp. "If prayer is said aloud," he explains, "it need be no more than a general acknowledgment of the existence, power, authority, and love of God, the Creator." (13) That's all--nothing controversial or indoctrinating about that!
And: when the students finally do leave school, after all the indoctrination, can they be trusted to deal with intellectual matters responsibly? No, says the New Right. Adults should not be free to write, publish, or to read, according to their own judgment; literature should be censured by the state according to a religious standard of what is fitting as against what is obscene.
Is this a movement on behalf of Americanism and individual rights? Is it a movement consistent with the principles of the Constitution?
"The Constitution establishes freedom for religion," says Mr. Kemp, "not from it"--a sentiment which is shared by President Reagan and by the whole New Right. (14) What then becomes of intellectual freedom? Are meetings such as this evening's deprived of Constitutional protection, since the viewpoint I am propounding certainly does not come under "freedom for religion"? And what happens when one religious sect concludes that the statements of another are subversive to true religion? Who decides, which, if either, should be struck down by the standard of "freedom for religion, not from it"? Can you predict the fate of free thought, and of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," if Mr. Kemp and associates ever get their hands fully on the courts and the Congress?
What we are seeing is the medievalism of the Puritans all over again, but without their excuse of ignorance. We are seeing it on the part of modern Americans, who live not before the Founding Fathers' heroic experiment in liberty, but after it.
The New Right is not the voice of Americanism. It is the voice of thought control attempting to take over in this country and pervert and undo the actual American revolution.
But, you may say, aren't the New Rightists the champions of property rights and capitalism, as against the economic statism of the liberals? They are not. Capitalism is the separation of the state and economics, a condition that none of our current politicians or pressure groups even dreams of advocating. The New Right, like all the rest on the political scene today, accepts the welfare-state mixed economy created by the New Deal and its heirs; our conservatives now merely haggle on the system's fringes about a particular regulation or handout they happen to dislike. In this matter, the New Right is moved solely by the power of tradition. These men do not want to achieve any change of basic course, but merely to slow down the march to socialism by freezing the economic status quo. And even in regard to this highly limited goal, they are disarmed and useless.
If you want to know why, I refer you to the published first drafts of the [1986] pastoral letter of the U.S. Catholic bishops, men who are much more consistent and philosophical than anyone in the New Right. The bishops recommended a giant step in the direction of socialism. They ask for a vast new government presence in our economic life, overseeing a vast new redistribution of wealth in order to aid the poor, at home and abroad. They ask for it on a single basic ground: consistency with the teachings of Christianity.
Some of you may wonder here: "But if the bishops are concerned with the poor, why don't they praise and recommend capitalism, the great historical engine of productivity, which makes everyone richer?" If you think about it, however, you will see that, valid as this point may be, the bishops cannot accept it.
Can they praise the profit motive--while extolling selflessness? Can they commend the passion to own material property--while declaring that worldly possessions are not important? Can they urge men to practice the virtues of productiveness and long-range planning--while upholding as the human model the lilies of the field? Can they celebrate the self-assertive risk-taking of the entrepreneur--while teaching that the meek shall inherit the earth? Can they glorify and liberate the creative ingenuity of the human mind, which is the real source of material wealth--while elevating faith above reason? The answers are obvious. Regardless of the unthinking pretenses of the New Right, no religion, by its nature can appeal to or admire the capitalist system; not if the religion is true to itself. Nor can any religion liberate man's power to create new wealth. If, therefore, the faithful are concerned about poverty--as the Bible demands they be--they have no alternative but to counsel redistribution of whatever wealth already happens to have been produced. The goods, they have to say, are here. How did they get here? God, they reply, has seen to that; now let men make sure that His largess is distributed fairly. Or, as the bishops put it: "The goods of this earth are common property and . . . men and women are summoned to faithful stewardship rather than to selfish appropriation or exploitation of what was destined for all." (15)
For further details on this point, I refer you to the bishops' letter; given their premises, their argument is unanswerable. If, as the New Right claims, there is scriptural warrant for state control of men's sexual activities, then there is surely much more warrant for state control of men's economic activities. The idea of the Bible (or the "Protestant ethic") as the base of capitalism is ludicrous, both logically and historically.
Economically, as in all other respects, the New Right is leading us, admittedly or not, to the same end as its liberal opponents. By virtue of the movement's essential premises, it is supporting and abetting the triumph of statism in this country--and, therefore, of Communism in the world at large. When a free nation betrays its own heritage, it has no heart left, no conviction by means of which to stand up to foreign aggressors.
There was a flaw in the intellectual foundation of America from the start: the attempt to combine the Enlightenment approach in politics with the Judeo-Christian ethics. For a while, the latter element was on the defensive, muted by the eighteenth-century spirit, so that America could gain a foothold, grow to maturity, and become great. But only for a while. Thanks to Immanuel Kant, as I have discussed in my book The Ominous Parallels, the base of religion--faith and self-sacrifice--was re-established at the turn of the nineteenth century. Thereafter, all of modern philosophy embraced collectivism, in the form of socialism, Fascism, Communism, welfare statism. By now, the distinctive ideas at the base of America have been largely forgotten or swept aside. They will not be brought back by an appeal to religion.
What then is the solution? It is not atheism as such--and I say this even though as an Objectivist I am an atheist. "Atheism" is a negative; it means not believing in God--which leaves wide open what you do believe in. It is futile to crusade for a negative; the Communists, too, call themselves atheists. Nor is the answer "secular humanism," about which we often hear today. This term is used so loosely that it is practically contentless; it is compatible with a wide range of conflicting viewpoints, including, again, Communism. To combat the doctrines that are destroying our country, out-of-context terms and ideas such as these are useless. What we need is an integrated, consistent philosophy in every branch, and especially in the two most important ones: epistemology and ethics. We need a philosophy of reason and of rational self-interest, a philosophy that would once again release the power of man's mind and the energy inherent in his pursuit of happiness. Nothing less will save America or individual rights.
There are many good people in the world who accept religion, and many of them hold some good ideas on social questions. I do not dispute that. But their religion is not the solution to our problem; it is the problem. Do I say that therefore there should now only be "freedom for atheism"? No, I am not Mr. Kemp. Of course, religions must be left free; no philosophic viewpoint, right or wrong, should be interfered with by the state. I do say, however, that it is time for patriots to take a stand--to name publicly what America does depend on, and why that is not Judaism or Christianity.
There are men today who advocate freedom and who recognize what ideas lie at its base, but who then counsel "practicality." It is too late, they say, to educate people philosophically; we must appeal to what they already believe; we must pretend to endorse religion on strategic grounds, even if privately we don't.
This is a counsel of intellectual dishonesty and of utter impracticality. It is too late indeed, far too late for a strategy of deception which by its nature has to backfire and always has, because it consists of confirming and supporting the very ideas that have to be uprooted and replaced. It is time to tell people the unvarnished truth: to stand up for man's mind and this earth, and against any version of mysticism or religion. It is time to tell people: "You must choose between unreason and America. You cannot have both. Take your pick."
If there is to be any chance for the future, this is the only chance there is.
Posted December 18, 2006 8:36 PM
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A conversation on religion with Jon Meacham, Sally Quinn and Stephen Prothero. Visit http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/stephen_prothero/
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Ex-NSC Official Says White House Is Stifling His Criticism of Iran Policy
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2006121819
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A former top White House official accused the Bush administration yesterday of trying to muzzle his criticism of its Iran policy and of falsely alleging that his writings contained classified material to prevent them from being published.
Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst who became a senior director for Middle East policy for the National Security Council before leaving the administration in 2003, said the White House decided that substantial passages of an opinion article he had written for the New York Times involved classified information. Leverett said the article was only a summary of a longer paper he had written a few weeks earlier -- which had been cleared by the CIA as containing no classified information.
He said no fact in the proposed Times article differed from the earlier paper, which he wrote for the Century Foundation.
The assertion that the Times article contained classified information "is false," Leverett said yesterday in a speech about his policy proposals at the New America Foundation. "Indeed, I would say that claim is fraudulent. The people making that claim know it is not true."
Leverett voted for George W. Bush in 2000 but since leaving the White House has emerged as a fierce critic of administration policy, particularly toward Iran. His paper for the Century Foundation made the case for engaging with Tehran on a comprehensive basis to seek a "grand bargain" with the Islamic republic -- at a time when administration officials have resisted pressure to enter in talks with Iran on Iraq and other issues.
"The White House is using the rubric of protecting classified information, not to protect classified information, but to limit the dissemination of the views of someone who is very critical of their approach to Iran policy," Leverett said. The Times article was written with his wife, Hillary Mann Leverett, an Iran specialist who is also a former NSC staff member in the Bush administration.
White House and CIA spokesmen adamantly disputed Leverett's charges. NSC spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that career staff members on the access and records management staff, who determine whether classified material is involved, made the ruling without political appointees being involved.
Johndroe and CIA spokesman Mike Mansfield said that, in a lapse, the CIA did not circulate the Century Foundation paper to the White House. Johndroe said sections of that paper probably would have been deemed classified. "It was an oversight," Mansfield said. "It should have been shared with them."
As a former CIA official, Leverett is required to submit his writings for pre-publication review. Mansfield said that the CIA reviews the material only to determine whether it is classified but decided to send the proposed op-ed article to the White House, which had an interest because Leverett had once served there.
Leverett said it is his understanding that this is the first time the White House has reviewed his writings, and that it occurred because the White House had complained to the CIA about other articles. Mansfield declined to comment on whether any of Leverett's previous articles had been sent to the White House for review.
"It is very disappointing to me that former colleagues at the CIA have proven so spineless in the face of this kind of tawdry political pressure from the White House," Leverett said. He said CIA officials told him that they felt the article "did not contain classified information, but they had to bow to the wishes of the White House."
Leverett said the CIA ordered two sections concerning U.S. dealings with Iran in his article to be heavily redacted, even though the material had appeared in news reports or had been discussed publicly by administration officials.
One section described Iran's cooperation in helping create a new government in Afghanistan, which Leverett said in his Century Foundation paper led Iranian officials to believe the two countries were on the cusp of a diplomatic opening. But that ended when Bush named Iran as part of the "axis of evil," he said.
The other section concerned his description of an offer the Iranian foreign ministry sent the administration in 2003, through Swiss diplomatic channels, to resolve outstanding bilateral issues with the United States. The White House rejected the approach, which has been widely described in news reports since then.
"The administration's handling of Iran policy has been the strategic equivalent of medical malpractice," Leverett said.
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A former top White House official accused the Bush administration yesterday of trying to muzzle his criticism of its Iran policy and of falsely alleging that his writings contained classified material to prevent them from being published.
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Anthony Suspended 15 Games for Brawl
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2006121819
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Carmelo Anthony, the NBA's leading scorer and one of its most popular stars, was suspended for 15 games yesterday as NBA Commissioner David Stern levied harsh penalties following a melee near the end of a game between the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
Anthony's suspension began last night with Denver's home game against the Washington Wizards.
Anthony was one of seven players suspended for a total of 47 games. Nuggets guard J.R. Smith and New York reserve Nate Robinson both received 10-game suspensions. The league also fined the Nuggets and Knicks $500,000 apiece.
Stern said he was "very disappointed" to see such an ugly scene a little more than two years after the infamous brawl between the Indiana Pacers and fans of the Detroit Pistons. "Clearly, we're not getting through or players in certain circumstances just don't want to be restrained. I would suggest that those players will not have long careers in the NBA," Stern said during a conference call. "We have set up the goal of eliminating fighting from our game. We haven't eliminated it completely."
Perhaps knowing that a stiff penalty was inevitable, Anthony issued an apology on Sunday. But it wasn't enough to keep him from receiving the sixth-longest suspension in NBA history. He will be forced to sit out until Jan. 20 for punching the Knicks' Mardy Collins.
Since Anthony's suspension is longer than 12 games, he can seek an arbitration hearing to have it shortened. Anthony's agent, Calvin Andrews, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Stern said Anthony was given no special treatment. "We judged him on his actions on the court, period," Stern said. "And they deserved a harsh penalty."
Collins, a rookie reserve for the Knicks, sparked the incident when he placed his arms around the neck of Smith and slammed him down with 75 seconds remaining in the Nuggets' 123-100 victory. Collins was suspended six games.
Former Wizard Jared Jeffries, playing just his third game of the season since returning from a broken left hand, was suspended four games after he attempted to chase Anthony and had to be restrained by Garden security personnel and Knicks assistant coaches. Knicks center Jerome James and Nuggets reserve Nene each received one-game suspensions for leaving their benches during the on-court altercation.
After Collins's hard foul on Smith, Smith rose to confront him. Robinson rushed to the scene, pushing Smith. Anthony shoved Robinson, then Robinson and Smith exchanged faint punches that failed to land before Smith tackled Robinson. They tussled and fell into baseline seats, not far from where Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan was watching the game.
The situation had appeared to die down when Anthony approached Collins and dropped him with a right hand to the face, further escalating the situation and sending Jeffries on a mad dash toward Anthony. Ten players were ejected after the fight. "The incident was deeply regrettable, unacceptable on every level and I hope and expect to never witness anything like it again," Dolan said in a statement. "We are all very sorry it happened."
Seconds before the mayhem ensued, Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas warned Anthony not to go into the lane, implying that a hard foul would come. He was not fined or suspended by the league. Stern said the league did not find "definitive information" to punish Thomas. Nuggets Coach George Karl told reporters in Denver yesterday that he thought Thomas should've been disciplined. "There's no question, it's wrong," he said.
Thomas implied that Karl was partially to blame for the brawl because he left four of his starters on the floor in the closing seconds of a blowout. "He put his players in a tough position," Thomas told reporters at the Knicks practice facility.
Karl was incensed with Thomas yesterday, calling him "a jackass" and saying that the excessive foul by Collins "was premeditated. It was directed by Isiah. I think his actions after the game were despicable. He made a bad situation worse. I'll swear on my children's life that I never thought about running up the score."
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Carmelo Anthony, the NBA's leading scorer and one of its most popular stars, was suspended for 15 games yesterday as NBA Commissioner David Stern levied harsh penalties following a melee near the end of a game between the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
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Michael Wilbon - A Hittin' Image - washingtonpost.com
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2006121819
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In the context of NBA history, Saturday night's brawl between the Knicks and Nuggets simply wasn't that big a deal. For more than 50 years, NBA players have squared off and thrown punches at each other, sometimes moving dangerously close to the stands if not altogether into the paying customers. Seems to me there were three or four of these every year in the 1970s and 1980s, even the 1990s.
But that was pre-Ron Artest, pre-Malice at the Palace, as in Auburn Hills. It was made clear following that Friday night, Nov. 19, 2004, that the NBA would not stand for fighting of any kind, that the NBA didn't want to be perceived the way it was being perceived, so Commissioner David Stern laid down the law. The NBA would do everything in its power to stop violence on the court, or for that matter anywhere near the court. Everybody in the league, players and coaches, have been aware of this very serious image-cleanup campaign. So Stern had every right to come down hard on the brawlers and instigators from the other night at Madison Square Garden.
Fifteen games for Carmelo Anthony's sucker punch is not only appropriate in the context of today's NBA, it's mandatory. Ten games each for Denver's J.R. Smith and the Knicks' troublemaking little fool, Nate Robinson, is appropriate, too. The others who got suspended got what they deserved. You can even make the case, and I would, that Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas instigated the whole thing and should have been suspended as well.
"You-were-beating-us-so- badly- we-decided-to- take-somebody- down" -- which was essentially Thomas's rationale for Mardy Collins's thuggish foul that started the whole thing -- shouldn't be tolerated.
Seems Thomas had a flashback to his old days as a Bad Boy Detroit Piston, when you could take out even superstar players like Bird and Jordan and Magic just to make a point. The NBA was like the wild, wild West not very long ago, to the point where coaches would say openly, within earshot of reporters sitting on press row during the game, "If he comes down the lane like that again. . . ."
The irony of suspending players but not coaches is inescapable in this instance, because the poor sportsmanship started with the coaches that night at Madison Square Garden. Nobody will come right out and say it, but this childish dispute started with Nuggets Coach George Karl keeping his starters in the game till the end to pound the Knicks in front of their home fans. Karl is a University of North Carolina guy, as is Larry Brown, who was fired and embarrassed to a great degree by Isiah Thomas.
So Karl was getting some payback for his boy, Larry Brown, and since Thomas didn't like being dunked on repeatedly during garbage time, somebody on the Nuggets had to pay.
A stupid, dangerous foul by Collins, who is suspended for six games, triggered the brawl and yet another examination of what the NBA is and isn't, or should and shouldn't be.
NBA players have endured more scrutiny, pertaining to image, than any other professional athletes in America. This was the case in the 1970s, when the league had to deal openly with the perception that the league was too black and too drug infested. And after a very cozy period with patrons and Madison Avenue from, say, 1984 until about 2000, the league is back to dealing with the perception that too many of its players are thugs.
Whether that's racial code or not, the NBA is a business and Stern is its chief operating officer, and he's had to deal with the perception affecting the league's reality and bottom line. The recent adoption of an age limit, the dress code, and the crackdown on demonstrative complaining to the refs is all part of a larger effort to improve the league's image.
So was hiring a conservative operative to figure out how the league that had married itself to hip-hop could be better perceived by the people who buy the tickets and jerseys.
You can sugar-coat this any way you want but the bottom line is: A black league has to be palatable to white patrons. And black multimillionaires swinging at each other isn't part of the equation. If Stern doesn't send the message that the league has zero tolerance, it's incredibly bad business.
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In the context of NBA history, Saturday night's brawl between the Knicks and Nuggets simply wasn't that big a deal. For more than 50 years, NBA players have squared off and thrown punches at each other, sometimes moving dangerously close to the stands if not altogether into the paying customers. Seems to me there were three or four of these every year in the 1970s and 1980s, even the 1990s....
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EPA Pushes New Rules For Sewage Treatment
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2006121819
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The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed stringent pollution limits on the wastewater plant that processes much of the Washington area's sewage -- but has not set a deadline for when the standards would have to be met.
The limits apply to the amount of nitrogen, a key pollutant linked to low-oxygen "dead zones" in the Chesapeake Bay, dumped out of the Blue Plains plant in Southwest Washington.
According to a draft permit issued by the EPA this month, the plant would have to cut its output of nitrogen, which ranges from 6 million to 8.5 million pounds annually, down to about 4.7 million pounds.
Environmentalists said yesterday they were pleased. But there was a major caveat: In its proposal, the EPA acknowledges that Blue Plains cannot actually meet the nitrogen limit it is being held to. Officials at the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, which runs the plant, said the necessary upgrades might take years.
"It's a very hollow victory," because the actual amount of pollution might not decline anytime soon, said Beth McGee, a senior water quality scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The Blue Plains plant receives sewage from the District and Montgomery, Prince George's, Loudoun and Fairfax counties. It then dumps the treated water into the Potomac near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
Part of the plant's task is to remove nitrogen -- a pollutant that can act like waterborne fertilizer in the Chesapeake, feeding unnatural blooms of algae that suck up the dissolved oxygen that fish, crabs and other organisms need to breathe. The plant has been credited with making major strides on this front, cutting nitrogen output by about 75 percent since 1987. But environmentalists have said more reductions are still needed.
Earlier this year, the EPA issued the first draft of its permit for the Blue Plains plant, setting a much higher limit on nitrogen: about 8.5 million pounds a year.
Environmentalists protested, saying that studies had shown that anything over 4.7 million pounds would be too much. This month, the EPA relented.
"Blue Plains is the largest single source of nitrogen pollution in the Chesapeake Bay," said David Baron, an attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental group that had pressed for a stricter permit. "So requiring them to cut their pollution level in half is a big step."
Since the Blue Plains plant probably won't meet the limits by the time the permit is approved, the EPA said it would work out a set of deadlines.
Avis Russell, general counsel for the Water and Sewer Authority, said officials there did not yet have an estimate for how long those improvements might take -- or how much they might cost.
"We cannot yet determine whether or not we can achieve it, and -- if so -- by when," Russell said.
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The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed stringent pollution limits on the wastewater plant that processes much of the Washington area's sewage -- but has not set a deadline for when the standards would have to be met.
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Challenge Index - washingtonpost.com
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2006121519
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Education analysts Andrew Rotherham and Sara Mead"believe that the Challenge Index is a seriously flawed measure of overall quality." They'll be online Wednesday, Dec. 13, at noon ET to discuss their objections to The Post's high school rankings and offer their thoughts on how to measure school success.
Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.
Rotherham is co-founder and co-director of and Mead is senior policy analyst for Education Sector, a nonprofit education policy think tank. Rotherham was a special assistant to President Clinton, advising him on education policy, and he serves on the Virginia State Board of Education. Mead worked for the Dept. of Education and the Gore2000 campaign. She lives in the District and has studied District schooling policies.
Thanks for having us. For background for readers, the original analysis of the Challenge Index that Sara and I did can be found at the link above.
Skewed Index: I am all for college prep, AP and even IB programs. However, my nephew is in a college prep program and takes two AP classes. I tutored him in algebra and cannot fathom how he is ready for AP physics and calculus. His parents say he is struggling in the classes as well. He is on pace to graduate, as he has his base credits covered. However, for the index, he counts as a positive. Wouldn't the index be better if it measured the ratio of number in classes and students, and weighted it by the percentage that passed the exam? There are other ratios to examine as well. This index is really just a participation index. This could merely reflect which districts have made the resources available versus which students benefit most from the programs and tests.
Sara Mead: You are right that AP test-taking doesn't measure whether or not kids actually mastered the AP curriculum. One of Jay's goals with the challenge index has been to encourage schools to open AP opportunities to all students who might benefit from them, rather than restricting them to just students that they judge are most likely to pass an AP test. There's some good logic here: evidence shows that kids benefit from being exposed to the rigorous academic curriculum that well-taught AP classes offer.
But you are also correct that this means a school can do well in the challenge index even if its actual AP classes are not of high-quality and they kids don't do well on the AP tests they take. That's why the College Board developed a measure, which Jay added to the challenge index this year, that measures the percentage of all a school's graduating seniors who had a passing score on at least one AP exam. It's not a perfect measure (I'd prefer two separate indicators on what percentage of a school's students took at least one AP test and the percentage of students taking tests who passed them), but it does improve the information that's available about how well a school is doing preparing its students to pass the AP exams. You can find those ratings for D.C.-area schools in the Post package on the Challenge Index.
One minor detail worth noting here: The challenge index is based on the number of kids taking AP tests, not the number enrolled in AP courses. A lot of kids take AP courses but don't take the exam, and some kids take AP exams in subjects for which they have not taken an AP course (often because their school doesn't offer such a course).
Springfield, Va.: If the Challenge Index is inappropriate, what do you recommend parents look to when trying to objectively select a school district? At this time I am contemplating relocating my family from Springfield, Va., in the Lake Braddock school district, to Stafford, Va., in the Colonial Forge district. Which would you choose, and why? Thanks.
As we said to the previous question on this, check a variety of sources and then make the best decision you can. Bryan and Emily's book will help you with that if you want a resource. But don't just trust the realtors, there are a lot of factors that matter in terms of "fit" for your child and you should weigh them all.
Fairfax, Va.: Doesn't the size of the school work against it in the Challenge Index? If the school has a very large senior class it can lower its challenge index score.
Sara Mead: Nope. The Challenge Index is a ratio of the number of kids in a school who take AP tests to the number of a school's graduating seniors. If a school is large, that (hopefully, although not always) means it has a large graduating class. But it also means it has a large number of potential test-takers. So, we should expect a big school to have more kids taking AP or IB tests than a small school. If the index just measured the number of kids in a school taking AP tests, it would work against small schools.
(It's worth noting, though, that the Challenge Index does not measure the percentage of a school's graduates or students who took an AP test.)
Katryn Nicolai here. Can you summarize why the Challenge Index is not a reliable tool?
Andrew J. Rotherham: Hi Katryn,
Our concern with the index boils down to what it does not take into account rather than what it does. We agree with Jay that AP course-taking is very important. However because the index doesn't look at other measures, for instance graduation rates, scores on state standardized tests, etc it gives a very incomplete measure of school performance. Consequently, a school can have a few students taking a large number of AP courses while most students are getting a subpar education and it can still rank as one of the "best" schools under this index. In fact, perversely, a high dropout rate can actually help a school's ranking by changing its denominator in Jay's formula. We think that's unacceptable considering the nature of the educational challenges the region and the nation face today.
Washington, D.C.: Your critique seems to rely heavily on the existence of various forms of "achievement gaps" which are certainly an important policy issue. But from the perspective of an individual whose children are on the "good" side of these gaps (most Newsweek and Washington Post readers, for example), what's the problem with using an index that ignores them as an aide for deciding where it might be good to send one's kids?
Even in the affluent suburbs that surround this city, there are substantial gaps in achievement for students by race and income so I'm not sure I'd characterize the Post's readership in exactly that way. In fact, on average, African-American students perform better on Virginia's standardized (and horribly named) SOL tests in Richmond than in Fairfax County. You won't see that on the real estate brochures.
So while AP offerings are one thing parents should consider when they think about what high school to send their children, too, there are a host of other factors they should consider to. And Sara and I think that it's incumbent on the Washington Post to do that and incumbent on Jay Mathews to make Newsweek's list of "best" high schools better approximate a reasonable definition of that word.
Ft. Washington, Md.: What advice can you give to parents that live in an area (P.G. County) with the lowest-ranked schools but cannot afford to move or send their children to private schools?
Sara Mead: I am assuming that you are talking about schools that are ranked low on the Post's Challenge Index. I know that Jay Mathews, who developed the Challenge Index, would agree with me that just because a school doesn't do well on the challenge index, that doesn't mean it's a bad school. There are lots of schools that do a good job educating their students but do not necessarily offer AP courses or encourage their students to take AP tests. Conversely, evidence from state assessments, graduation rates, and other measures shows that many schools that did well on the challenge index don't actually do a good job of educating their students, for reasons Andy describes above.
The challenge index is only one, and I would argue one very narrow and flawed, measure of how well schools are educating their students. That's one of the reasons Andy and I have challenged calling schools that do well on the national list America's "100 best high schools."
D.C.: Sara, you've done important work on gender in education, how does that factor into the Challenge Index?
Sara Mead: Thanks for saying nice things about my work! We didn't look specifically at achievement data for boys and girls in schools on the challenge index. I would really like to see Jay include more information with the index about what percentage of students in a school from different subgroups (such as students from different racial and ethnic groups) took AP tests. Obviously, it would be interesting to include information on the percentage of boys and girls who took AP tests in that information. In general, girls are more likely to take AP tests than boys, but there are also significant differences depending on the subject. Girls are more likely to take AP tests in foreign languages, whereas boys are more likely to take AP tests in physics and computer science.
Bethesda, MD: You weigh in on federal and state policy on a regular basis. What should the government be doing in this situation?
Andrew J. Rotherham: Great question.
In too many places it's still easier to find out good comparative information when choosing a washing machine than it is when choosing a school. That's a problem that government can solve by making transparent information available.
Information is, of course, power and for too long state and local officials have been reluctant to part with the power that comes with having all the data. But as these new Web sites show, the genie is out of the bottle on transparency and so state and local officials should get in front of it.
Very much related, too many parents still have trouble visiting schools and watching classes when they're making a decision. Obviously schools need to be able to maintain orderly environments where kids can learn and it can't be a free-for-all. But our public schools are public institutions and they need to live up to that charge by welcoming the public in to see what's happening and get a first-hand sense when they're making choices about schools.
Arlington again: Are you going to, or have you, come up with your own list based on your own criteria to rival Matthews' list?
Andrew J. Rotherham: We are not specifically, but I have been working, along with my colleague Mike Goldstein who founded the Match Public Charter School in Boston on a project with a large news organization to do exactly that. Look for it before too long. Sara can speak for herself but she thinks that this whole list business is trouble so she's put her energies into slaying some other dragons lately.
Bethesda, Md.: How would you reform the Challenge Index to better reflect the quality of high schools?
Andrew J. Rotherham: For starters we would include other measures, achievement gaps (or lack thereof) and graduation rates (again disaggregated by race and income). As Jay points out, when he started the index information like this was not available in a comparative way. That's changed though and the Challenge Index needs to change, too
Andrew J. Rotherham: Here is a link to the Match School. It's a very interesting school, best open-enrollment high school in Boston, and an example of what can happen when all kids get a rigorous curriculum
Hagerstown, Md.: Isn't this ranking unfair to smalls schools in rural areas that can't offer as many AP classes as big city and suburban schools?
Sara Mead: It's probably easier for bigger schools to offer a lot of AP classes, but there are plenty of ways smaller and rural schools can help more kids take rigorous college-level courses, too. One of the easiest ways is by encouraging more students to take college-level courses at their local community college. It can be an affordable way for rural communities to offer their students courses like calculus or physics for which it's often hard to hire qualified high school teachers. Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner supported initiatives to encourage this. Another thing some small schools can do is to make AP courses the default course: For example, you could replace your current senior English course with AP language or AP literature, but you would need to do a lot of teacher professional development and improve the preparation kids are getting in earlier English classes.
Students can also take AP tests even if they don't take an official AP course. I was lucky when I went to high school to have several teachers who were willing to work outside of class with me and a small group of students to prepare us for the AP tests, even though our school didn't offer an official AP course. There are lots of ways to expand opportunities for all students to take rigorous college-level work if they are creative.
Andrew J. Rotherham: Due to a technical snafu an earlier question got deleted, it was from a parent wanting to know how they should choose a school if not using the Challenge Index.
In short the answer was, comparative data about schools as well as qualitative measures about the school, informed opinions of others, needs of your child, and careful consideration about what school will be the best fit. And trust your gut. Worry less about labels like public, private, and charter and more about what school is the best fit for your child.
Bryan and Emily Hassel have written a book, The Picky Parents Guide, referenced above, that is a great resource for parents. And Web sites like Schoolmatters.com and Greatschools.net offer data for parents and Greatschools.net offers parent reviews, too.
Andrew J. Rotherham: Here is a link to the GreatSchools.net site.
Andrew J. Rotherham: And here is Schoolmatters. It's a project of S& P, and a sign of the times, the same analytic rigor they bring to rating companies and states, they're bringing to the education space.
Alexandria, Va.: Do you think that the emphasis on taking AP classes is putting the squeeze on those students who may be above-average but aren't quite up to the work required in a well-taught AP class? For example, my son's high school is eliminating most "honors" classes in the upper grades, which means you either have to take the "regular" class (often with unmotivated students and a not very challenging curriculum) or take the AP class. There is no middle ground. Without the honors classes, my son has a choice between classes that are too easy (and probably boring) and classes that he may not be able to handle.
Sara Mead: I think some proponents of AP class would probably argue that the "squeeze" you're mentioning is a good thing, because it encourages schools to raise standards and expectations for their advanced students who were previously in honors classes. I have a lot of concerns about the challenge index, particularly because some schools that do well on it don't seem to serve disadvantaged students well.
But if you look at some of the schools Jay has written about, like YES! College Prep, that do serve a lot of disadvantaged students and get them to pass AP tests, it's clear that a lot of kids who a lot of people might think aren't quite up to the work actually can succeed in AP courses with the right instruction and support.
AP courses are rigorous, but they are intended to cover the kind of content in the kind of depth and speed that kids will have to encounter in their first year of college. I'm not sure we do any favors to students who are college bound by putting them in courses we call honors (which assumes they are challenging, college-preparatory work) but that don't prepare them for the rigors of college-level work. Some of these students will get a rude awakening in college. We should also improve expectations in a lot of "average" courses so that they are challenging for students.
Sara Mead: Thanks for the questions everyone. It's been great chatting with you, but now it's time for us to eat lunch. Please check out our work at www.educationsector.org.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Education analysts Andrew Rotherham and Sara Mead "believe that the Challenge Index is a seriously flawed measure of overall quality." They'll be online to discuss their objections to The Post's high school rankings and offer their thoughts on how to measure school success.
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The Foley Fallout
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2006121519
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Soon-to-be-speaker Nancy Pelosi is fond of mentioning that she's the mother of five, grandmother of six. The California Democrat should keep that in mind as she reviews the House ethics committee's report on former representative Mark Foley and considers proposals for tougher ethics enforcement.
Pelosi should ask herself: What would she think if the pages whom Foley pursued with his smarmy e-mails and even worse instant messages were her own children?
Would she be satisfied with the ethics committee's conclusion that no House rules were broken by any of the lawmakers or staffers who had ample warning of Foley's problem and failed to do anywhere near enough to stop him? As a parent, does she think that their actions complied with the rule requiring members and staff to conduct themselves "at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives?"
Would a company with a problem like this in its midst conclude an investigation without a single minor disciplinary action against any individual? Would an investigator with more independence have come to the same no-fault conclusion?
It's hard to see how.
The 89-page report by a special investigative subcommittee of the ethics panel is an oddly schizophrenic document. The facts it lays out and analyzes present a disturbing, even repellent, picture of an institution where political considerations took precedence over the welfare of children. The few people who tried to stop Foley "encountered obstacles in the chain of command that limited their effectiveness," the report says. Most just tried to toss away the hot potato as quickly as possible.
"In all, a pattern of conduct was exhibited among many individuals to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences of former Representative Foley's conduct with respect to House pages," it concludes.
Then it absolves any particular individual of any actual rule violation.
One argument against assessing individual culpability is that the report speaks for itself and will produce its own consequences, in the political arena, for those whose behavior fell short. We'll see. But in my experience, the specific facts fade quickly from the public's memory, and the exculpatory bottom line--no violation of House rules -- remains.
In fact, this self-serving spin is already underway. "I am glad the committee made clear that there was no violation of any House rules by any Member or staff," Speaker J. Dennis Hastert proclaimed in a statement. This from a man who, the evidence shows, was warned by at least two people -- Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) -- and most likely a third, his chief of staff, Scott Palmer, about Foley's conduct.
Boehner testified that, when he raised the subject of Foley's inappropriate e-mails with Hastert, the speaker "said that the matter 'has been taken care of.' " The speaker said he doesn't remember any of these conversations.
Another argument is that the wrongdoing here involved errors of omission -- failures to act to stop the chief offender, Foley himself. This lack of attentiveness, so this argument goes, looks a lot worse in hindsight, with Foley's sexually explicit instant messages revealed.
But anyone paying responsible attention to Foley's behavior -- calling a young male intern in another congressional office; using frequent-flier miles to fly a former page up to visit him; turning up outside the page dormitory; the list goes creepily on -- couldn't have been surprised that he crossed so far over the line.
After all, the House clerk confronted Foley directly 10 times about his inappropriate attention to pages; Foley's chief of staff went to Palmer, Hastert's chief of staff, with a "plea" to help him deal with the "chronic problem with my boss's attention to pages and young staffers." Given all this, the lackadaisical, we-may-have-a-political-problem (or opportunity, in the Democrats' case) response when the matter of Foley's "overly friendly" e-mails came up amounts to gross negligence on the part of at least some of those involved.
Ironically, the committee's performance could be a blessing in disguise for those who believe -- as I do -- that the ethics process ought to be strengthened with some kind of independent investigative arm. As the 110th Congress takes up the ethics mess that the 109th failed to fix, the question of adding an independent ethics enforcement process is going to be front and center.
The ethics committee's performance on the Foley matter reinforces the need for such a change -- and for the new speaker to use her "mother-of-five" voice, loudly and firmly, to get it done.
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After the Mark Foley mess, Congress clearly needs an independent ethics enforcement process. Let's hope the new House Speaker agrees.
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A Battle Hillary Clinton Should Relish
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2006121519
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Hillary Rodham Clinton faces a maddening challenge. Many of the people who like and admire her, who believe she has good values and would make an excellent president, are not sure they are for her because they don't think she can win.
Many of these same people, as one prominent Democrat told me, actually feel guilty that they harbor these doubts, partly because the specter that haunts Clinton has little to do with anything she has said or done herself.
In public, the doubts are dressed up as substantive concerns -- she's too cautious, she didn't stand up against the war in Iraq, she mishandled that health care reform in the 1990s, she's perceived as too liberal or she's not progressive enough.
The doubters are ashamed to say what really worries them: that Americans don't want to relive the supposed psychodramas of the Bill Clinton years; that her association with her husband will mobilize his enemies more than it will energize his friends; that their relationship is just too complex for those critical swing voters to understand or accept.
Who can blame Sen. Clinton's supporters for being enraged by such a list? Would those who trumpet "family values" admire her more if she had just divorced the guy? Why should the sins of the husband be borne by the wife? Do her six effective and admired years in the Senate and her landslide reelection mean absolutely nothing? Has anyone even looked at her many serious policy speeches?
And if Bill is the real issue, doesn't his stewardship look awfully good now when compared with that of the current White House occupant?
Yet, no matter how unfair, misguided or even dimwitted Sen. Clinton's supporters may find the catalogue of doubts, she will have to deal with them if she is to win over all the guilt-ridden skeptics.
And that is why the prospect of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy is not only good for the Democratic Party but also good for Clinton herself. Without Obama in the race, the Democratic primaries would boil down to Hillary and those vying to be the anti-Hillary. She might well win a battle of attrition, but without quelling the doubts.
A Clinton-Obama contest would require Clinton to shed some of her caution. It would create enormous popular interest in the Democratic Party. And if she were to beat Obama -- this assumes, as I expect, that Obama will look just as formidable a year from now as he does today -- Clinton would prove her mettle, which might finally put the doubts to rest.
The most curious thing about the coming contest, if it happens, is that in certain respects the Obama candidacy of 2008 would bear an uncanny resemblance to Bill Clinton's candidacy in 1992. Youth is part of it. Clinton was 46 on Election Day in 1992. Obama will be 47 on Nov. 4, 2008. So are their parallel promises to break with the past and create a new kind of politics.
In 1991 Gov. Bill Clinton railed against politicians who "have divided us against each other, pitting rich against poor, playing for the emotions of the middle class, white against black, women against men, creating a country in which we no longer recognize that we are all in this together."
In his New Hampshire debut over the weekend, Obama said that we had "come to be consumed by" the "24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative-ad, bickering, small-minded politics that doesn't move us forward. . . . There's no sense that they are coming together in a common-sense, practical, non-ideological way to solve the problems that we face."
The most important passage in Obama's New Hampshire speech was this one: "America is ready to turn the page. America is ready for a new set of challenges. This is our time. A new generation is prepared to lead." In other words: Goodbye to both the Clinton era and the Bush years.
A discussion about who is best positioned to turn the page of history is precisely the one Hillary Clinton most needs to engage. Joining that dialogue will be essential for the other candidates, notably John Edwards and Evan Bayh, who cannot simply run as anti-Hillarys and will have to challenge the notion that this is a two-person battle.
However the contest turns out, the debate about the future that Obama is encouraging would be good for Clinton because, most of all, she needs to put the past behind her. Paradoxically, it might also help Democrats recover the best, most forward-looking aspects of Bill Clinton's legacy.
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A Clinton-Obama contest would require Hillary Clinton to shed some of her caution. And if she were to beat Obama, Clinton would prove her mettle, which might finally put the doubts about her to rest.
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Clinton and Giuliani Have the Early Edge For '08, Poll Shows
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New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), who briefly competed against each other in a Senate race in 2000, hold early leads over potential rivals for their parties' 2008 presidential nominations, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Clinton has a clear head start over other prospective Democratic candidates, with Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), who only a month ago expressed interest in the 2008 race, running second and former senator John Edwards (N.C.), the party's 2004 vice presidential nominee, in third.
Giuliani's advantage in the Republican race appears more tenuous: He holds a narrow lead over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who is far ahead of Giuliani in organizing a presidential campaign. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who has not disclosed his plans for 2008, is well back in third.
Giuliani enjoys strongly favorable ratings, according to the survey, with two-thirds of Americans giving him positive marks. His leadership after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, earned him widespread praise.
Clinton remains the most polarizing politician among those considering a campaign for president in 2008, but her image has improved perceptibly during her six-year tenure in the Senate.
In contrast, McCain's favorability ratings have declined over the past nine months. Among independents, his support has dropped 15 percentage points since March. Independents were his strongest supporters when he sought the Republican nomination in 2000. The decline comes at a time when McCain is calling for sending more troops to Iraq and has aggressively reached out to conservative groups and Christian conservative leaders.
These early poll results largely reflect name identification among the field of candidates, which includes several political celebrities and many others who remain generally unknown to people outside their states. As a result, hypothetical matchups are often poor predictors of what will happen once the primary and caucus season arrives in early 2008, and as voters learn more about where candidates stand on important issues.
But the findings provide early clues to the shape of the presidential nomination battles while raising questions that will be answered only by months of campaigning, debates, speeches and town hall meetings.
The poll underscores, for example, the degree to which the Republican field is dominated at this stage by two candidates who have never been the darlings of the GOP's conservative base, which is very influential in the party's primaries. McCain warred with conservatives -- particularly evangelical leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell -- when he ran in 2000, though he and Falwell have patched things up. Giuliani enjoys popular support among Republicans, although he supports abortion rights, gay rights and gun control.
On the Democratic side, Obama has made a quick and favorable impression but is still generally unknown and certainly not the only potentially significant rival to Clinton, should both formally enter the race.
Among Democrats, Clinton leads the field with 39 percent, followed by Obama at 17 percent, Edwards at 12 percent, former vice president Al Gore at 10 percent and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the party's 2004 nominee, at 7 percent. No other Democrat received more than 2 percent.
When those surveyed were asked their second choice, Clinton's advantage became even more evident. She is the first or second choice of 60 percent of those surveyed, with Obama second at 33 percent.
Clinton receives significantly higher support among women than men (49 percent to 29 percent) and is favored by more moderates than liberals. Obama has almost equal support among men and women but has twice as much support among liberals as among moderates.
Among Republicans, Giuliani is favored by 34 percent to McCain's 26 percent. Gingrich is at 12 percent, and outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney runs fourth at 5 percent.
The Post-ABC poll also asked Americans to rate some of the potential candidates from both parties. Giuliani topped that list with a 67 percent favorable rating. Clinton was next at 56 percent, followed by McCain at 50 percent, Edwards at 49 percent and Obama at 44 percent. But many people haven't formed solid impressions of candidates such as Obama and Edwards.
Clinton had the highest unfavorable rating, at 40 percent, but Romney had the worst ratio: 22 percent favorable to 24 percent unfavorable, with 54 percent saying they didn't know enough about him to have an opinion.
There was another potentially more significant issue for Romney in the survey. Asked whether they would be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who is Mormon, as Romney is, 35 percent said they would be less likely and 3 percent said they would be more likely. Sixty-one percent said it would make no difference.
Underscoring the fragility of early polls on the presidential race is the fact that most Americans know little about where the candidates stand on specific issues. Just 45 percent said they knew a great deal or a lot about Clinton's positions, by far the highest number on that question.
The poll was conducted Dec. 7-11 by telephone among a random national sample of 1,005 adults. The margin of error for the full poll is three percentage points; it is five points on the 2008 presidential preference questions.
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New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), who briefly competed against each other in a Senate race in 2000, hold early leads over potential rivals for their parties' 2008 presidential nominations, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
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Joint Chiefs Advise Change In War Strategy
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2006121519
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The nation's top uniformed leaders are recommending that the United States change its main military mission in Iraq from combating insurgents to supporting Iraqi troops and hunting terrorists, said sources familiar with the White House's ongoing Iraq policy review.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney met with the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday at the Pentagon for more than an hour, and the president engaged his top military advisers on different options. The chiefs made no dramatic proposals but, at a time of intensifying national debate about how to solve the Iraq crisis, offered a pragmatic assessment of what can and cannot be done by the military, the sources said.
The chiefs do not favor adding significant numbers of troops to Iraq, said sources familiar with their thinking, but see strengthening the Iraqi army as pivotal to achieving some degree of stability. They also are pressing for a much greater U.S. effort on economic reconstruction and political reconciliation.
Sources said that Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is reviewing a plan to redefine the American military mission there: U.S. troops would be pulled out of Iraqi cities and consolidated at a handful of U.S. bases while day-to-day combat duty would be turned over to the Iraqi army. Casey is still considering whether to request more troops, possibly as part of an expanded training mission to help strengthen the Iraqi army.
The recommendations Casey is reviewing to overhaul the military mission were formulated by Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the outgoing top U.S. ground commander, officials said. The plan positions the U.S. military to be able to move swiftly to a new focus on training, one of the key recommendations from several reviews of U.S. strategy, including from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.
Under the plan developed by Chiarelli's staff, the military would shift about half of its 15 combat brigades away from battling insurgents and sectarian violence and into training Iraqi security forces as soon as the spring of 2007, military and defense officials said. In northern and western Iraq, U.S. commanders are already moving troops out of combat missions to place them as advisers with lower-level Iraqi army units, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for the military in Iraq, said yesterday at a briefing in Baghdad.
Administration officials stressed that Bush, under pressure from Congress and the electorate to abandon the United States' open-ended commitment, has made no final decisions on how to proceed in Iraq. But the new disclosures suggest that military planning is well underway for a major change from an approach that has assigned the bulk of responsibility for security in Iraq to more than 140,000 U.S. troops.
The chiefs also want to see a new push on political and economic issues, especially employment programs, reconstruction and political reconciliation, to help quell the problems that have fueled both the Sunni insurgency and Shiite-Sunni sectarian strife, say defense officials and U.S. military officers in Iraq. A new jobs program is considered key to pulling young men from the burgeoning militias.
Pentagon chiefs think that there is no purely military solution for Iraq and that, without major progress on the political and economic fronts, the U.S. intervention is simply buying time, the sources said. They particularly want to see U.S. pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to offer amnesty to Sunni insurgents, approve constitutional amendments promised to the Sunni minority, pass laws to ensure equitable distribution of oil revenue, and modify the ban on members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party taking government positions.
Bush alluded to this proposition when he met briefly with reporters after his meeting at the Pentagon. "Our military cannot do this job alone," he said. "Our military needs a political strategy that is effective."
But Bush also showed no sign that he is retreating from his basic proposition that the U.S. military must be engaged in Iraq for some time. "If we lose our nerve, if we're not steadfast in our determination to help the Iraqi government succeed, we will be handing Iraq over to an enemy that would do us harm," he said, adding that he would not be "rushed" into a decision.
Bush has been intensely involved with reviewing his options on Iraq this week, meeting on Monday with officials at the State Department and talking by videoconference on Tuesday with his commanders in Iraq. One senior administration official said last night that the situation is "fluid" and described Bush as especially mindful of the need to integrate military and political strategies.
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The nation's top uniformed leaders are recommending that the United States change its main military mission in Iraq from combating insurgents to supporting Iraqi troops and hunting terrorists, said sources familiar with the White House's ongoing Iraq policy review.
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Army, Marine Corps To Ask for More Troops
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2006121519
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The Army and Marine Corps are planning to ask incoming Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Congress to approve permanent increases in personnel, as senior officials in both services assert that the nation's global military strategy has outstripped their resources.
In addition, the Army will press hard for "full access" to the 346,000-strong Army National Guard and the 196,000-strong Army Reserves by asking Gates to take the politically sensitive step of easing the Pentagon restrictions on the frequency and duration of involuntary call-ups for reservists, according to two senior Army officials.
The push for more ground troops comes as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sharply decreased the readiness of Army and Marine Corps units rotating back to the United States, compromising the ability of U.S. ground forces to respond to other potential conflicts around the world.
"The Army has configured itself to sustain the effort in Iraq and, to a lesser degree, in Afghanistan. Beyond that, you've got some problems," said one of the senior Army officials. "Right now, the strategy exceeds the capability of the Army and Marines." This official and others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the matter.
The Army, which has 507,000 active-duty soldiers, wants Congress to fund a permanent "end strength," or manpower, of at least 512,000 soldiers, the Army officials said. The Army wants the additional soldiers to be paid for not through wartime supplemental spending bills but in the defense budget, which now covers only 482,000 soldiers.
The Marine Corps, with 180,000 active-duty Marines, seeks to grow by several thousand, including the likely addition of three new infantry battalions. "We need to be bigger. The question is how big do we need to be and how do we get there," a senior Marine Corps official said.
At least two-thirds of Army units in the United States today are rated as not ready to deploy -- lacking in manpower, training and, most critically, equipment -- according to senior U.S. officials and the Iraq Study Group report. The two ground services estimate that they will need $18 billion a year to repair, replace and upgrade destroyed and worn-out equipment.
If another crisis were to erupt requiring a large number of U.S. ground troops, the Army's plan would be to freeze its forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and divert to the new conflict the U.S.-based combat brigade that is first in line to deploy.
Beyond that, however, the Army would have to cobble together war-depleted units to form complete ones to dispatch to the new conflict -- at the risk of lost time, unit cohesion and preparedness, senior Army officials said. Moreover, the number of Army and Marine combat units available for an emergency would be limited to about half that of four years ago, experts said, unless the difficult decision to pull forces out of Iraq were made.
"We are concerned about gross readiness . . . and ending equipment and personnel shortfalls," said a senior Marine Corps official. The official added that Marine readiness has dropped and that the Corps is unable to fulfill many planned missions for the fight against terrorism.
Senior Pentagon officials stress that the U.S. military has ample air and naval power that could respond immediately to possible contingencies in North Korea, Iran or the Taiwan Strait.
"If you had to go fight another war someplace that somebody sprung upon us, you would keep the people who are currently employed doing what they're doing, and you would use the vast part of the U.S. armed forces that is at home station, to include the enormous strength of our Air Force and our Navy, against the new threat," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a briefing last month.
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The Army and Marine Corps are planning to ask incoming Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Congress to approve permanent increases in personnel, as senior officials in both services assert that the nation's global military strategy has outstripped their resources.
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Americans Say U.S. Is Losing War
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2006121519
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Most Americans think the United States is losing the war in Iraq and support a bipartisan commission's key proposals to change course, according to a poll released yesterday. But the Iraq Study Group's report has become a political orphan in Washington with little backing from either party.
Nearly eight in 10 Americans favor changing the U.S. mission in Iraq from direct combat to training Iraqi troops, the Washington Post-ABC News survey found. Sizeable majorities agree with the goal of pulling out nearly all U.S. combat forces by early 2008, engaging in direct talks with Iran and Syria and reducing U.S. financial support if Iraq fails to make enough progress.
Yet neither President Bush nor Democratic leaders who will take over Congress in three weeks have embraced the panel's report since it was released last week. Bush set it aside in favor of his own review, but, faced with conflicting advice within the administration, the White House said yesterday that plans to announce a new Iraq strategy by Christmas would be delayed until January. Democrats remain undecided and kept their distance while trying to pressure Bush.
"I don't think I've ever seen politicians walk away from something faster," said Gordon Adams, who was a White House defense budget official under President Bill Clinton.
The dichotomy between the public's support for the plan and the Washington establishment's ambivalence illustrates the complex political environment as Bush searches for a new strategy in a war that has outlasted U.S. involvement in World War II. A war-weary public appears hungry for ideas that would represent a major change, but political leaders remain uncertain whether the plan's proposals would improve the situation.
The lukewarm reception to the report contrasts sharply with earlier expectations for a panel led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). In the weeks leading up to the report's release, many in Washington predicted that the Iraq Study Group would become the next Sept. 11 commission, its conclusions imbued with an aura of bipartisan authority. Instead, conservative Bush supporters labeled it a plan for surrender while liberals called it a sellout for not proposing a firm timetable for withdrawal.
"Part of the problem is the expectation was so high," said panel member Vernon E. Jordan Jr. "The expectation was proportionate to the seriousness of the issue and how greatly people were concerned about it. The problem is there is no absolute correct answer."
Conventional wisdom emerging from both parties holds that the report's real value is its assessment of the situation in Iraq, which it terms "grave and deteriorating," a judgment some said changed the debate in Washington by ending any lingering illusions or pretense.
The public's discontent with the war has grown even since last month's congressional elections, when voters tossed out Republican majorities in favor of Democrats critical of Bush's leadership in Iraq. Bush's approval rating now stands at 36 percent, down four points from before the elections and the second-worst of his presidency. The poll found the lowest-ever approval for his handling of Iraq, 28 percent.
Overall, 52 percent now say, the United States is losing the war, up from 34 percent last year. Three in 10 say the United States is making significant progress in restoring civil order; nearly half thought so in June. And 41 percent say Iraq is now in a civil war, up from 34 percent in August. Forty-five percent describe the situation as close to a civil war.
Although the public remains leery of immediate withdrawal, it has lost faith that the Bush administration has a clear solution for Iraq. Twenty-five percent think it does, down 13 points since September. Even Republicans are no longer convinced, with 49 percent saying the president has a clear plan, down 22 points since September. The solace for Bush is that just as few Americans say the Democrats have a clear plan.
The public is more open to the Iraq Study Group plan, with 46 percent for it and 22 percent against it. When asked about some of its specific recommendations, respondents are dramatically more supportive. Seventy-nine percent favor shifting U.S. troops from combat to support; 69 percent support withdrawing most combat forces by early 2008; 74 percent support reducing aid if Iraq fails to make progress toward national unity and civil order; and about six in 10 support talking with Syria and Iran to try to resolve the conflict.
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Most Americans think the United States is losing the war in Iraq and support a bipartisan commission's key proposals to change course, according to a poll released yesterday. But the Iraq Study Group's report has become a political orphan in Washington with little backing from either party.
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AOL Lays Off 450 At Dulles Office
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AOL laid off more than 450 employees at its corporate headquarters yesterday as part of plans announced earlier this year to cut costs and change the company's business strategy.
The Dulles company said it was not cutting as many jobs locally as originally anticipated. In August, AOL executives said that about 1,000 of the 5,000 jobs to be cut worldwide would be local. Including yesterday's cuts, AOL has eliminated fewer than 600 positions in Northern Virginia.
"In August, we were making a preliminary estimate based on very early information about how the company's new strategy would affect our structure," said Andrew Weinstein, a spokesman for the company. "When we worked through the implications of the new structure, we found there were fewer jobs on the Virginia campus that were impacted than expected."
The layoffs come at a time when AOL is undergoing perhaps its biggest challenge ever -- to transform the business plan that built the company. AOL now offers its services free through its Web site and is moving to make its money from advertising instead of subscriptions.
Last month, parent company Time Warner appointed a new chief executive for AOL, former television advertising executive Randy Falco. Longtime AOL vice president Ted Leonsis has said he plans to leave his job at the end of the year.
Analysts seem pleased with AOL's performance so far, but now that costs have been cut, they say, AOL must aggressively build its audience and advertising revenue.
AOL also is trying to shed its image as a company with poor customer service after some members complained that AOL had made it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions. Yesterday, AOL reached a settlement with the Florida attorney general over service complaints and agreed to reimburse some customers.
Next year "is going to be the key . . . for Randy Falco and his new deputies to demonstrate they can translate AOL's successful traffic migration to the kind of growth that we've come to expect from other online companies," said Tuna Amobi, senior entertainment equity analyst at Standard & Poor's. "There's still some uncertainty in our minds how their strategy is ultimately going to shake out."
AOL said most of those laid off yesterday had worked on efforts to sign up Internet access subscribers. Falco sent employees a memo saying the cuts were the final round of the previously announced layoffs.
"I realize that this period of change has been difficult and distracting," he wrote. "And I am impressed by the professionalism and steadfastness that you and your colleagues have demonstrated as this process has run its course."
The mood at AOL's large suburban campus was gloomy, even though employees said they knew some cuts were coming. Some employees said layoffs have become routine, especially at this time of year. In 2004, AOL let 750 employees go just before the holidays. The company also laid off 700 people in fall 2005.
AOL employees commiserated yesterday by passing around a link to photo Web site Flickr showing a man wearing a series of T-shirts with different messages under the banner "AOL, The Third Annual Christmas Layoff 2007."
In a sign of just how low morale has sunk, some employees hoped to be laid off "to step off the treadmill and get into something else," said a former AOL executive who spoke on condition of anonymity because he still has business dealings with AOL management. AOL said workers laid off yesterday would be paid through February. After that, they will receive severance equal to two months' salary, the company said.
With the layoffs, AOL's has about 14,000 employees, with 4,000 in Northern Virginia.
Andrea Spiegel, who was AOL's vice president of audience programming operations and planning until she quit in June, said employees have learned "to expect layoffs every six months or so."
Spiegel stays in touch with her former colleagues and said most of those laid off saw it coming. But some were caught by surprise. "In general, the mood is mellow. The packages are good, so that helps a lot," she said. "There are always questions about why this person, why that person. Mostly, though, a lot of people are just glad it's over."
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AOL laid off more than 450 employees at its corporate headquarters yesterday as part of plans announced earlier this year to cut costs and change the company's business strategy.
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Palestinians Kill Hamas-Linked Judge
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2006121519
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KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian gunmen forced a Hamas commander to his knees and fatally shot him early Wednesday outside of the courthouse where he worked as an Islamic judge, escalating factional tensions in the Gaza Strip.
The shooting came two days after the killing of the three young children of a Fatah-allied Palestinian intelligence officer, which sparked fresh conflict between the rival Hamas and Fatah factions. The violence has reduced chances for a unity government and pushed the two sides closer to civil war.
Palestinian security officials said the slain man was Bassam al-Fara, 30, a jurist at the Islamic court and a Hamas commander who belongs to the largest clan in the southern town of Khan Younis.
Witnesses to the shooting said four gunmen calmly ate breakfast at a food stand as they waited for al-Fara outside the courthouse.
When he emerged from a taxi, three of the men grabbed him and forced him onto his knees, while the fourth pulled out a weapon and shot him. The attack left the sidewalk riddled with bullet holes. The witnesses declined to be identified, fearing for their safety.
Dozens gathered at the scene and Palestinian security officers set up roadblocks. Hamas militants set up their own roadblocks throughout town, searching for the shooters.
In a statement faxed to reporters, Hamas openly accused what it called a Fatah "death squad" of the killing.
Fauzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, gave no further details about al-Fara's militant activities but pledged to hunt down the killers.
"This is an ugly crime committed against one of the field commanders of Hamas' military wing and one of the prominent figures in Hamas," Barhoum said. "The fingers that shot him are the same fingers that were involved in the killing of previous Hamas leaders. "Hamas is not going to forget the blood of its members. It is going to pursue and bring those who were involved in today's crime to justice."
Fatah spokesman Tawfik Abu Khoussa rejected the accusations.
"We condemn all acts of anarchy, whatever may be behind them. We call on the brothers in Hamas to stop firing accusations before the investigation," he said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said from Sudan that he would cut short a foreign trip and return to Gaza.
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KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian gunmen forced a Hamas commander to his knees and fatally shot him early Wednesday outside of the courthouse where he worked as an Islamic judge, escalating factional tensions in the Gaza Strip.
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Two Old Friends at Center of Poison Mystery
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2006121519
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MOSCOW, Dec. 12 -- At a closed hospital run by the Federal Medical-Biological Agency, two Russian men, friends since they were 12-year-olds, lie removed from the world and at the center of an international poisoning drama.
Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy, who visited with former Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill, have declared their innocence, as the investigation narrows to this city and to at least one of the men, Kovtun.
Each discovery of a trace of polonium-210, the radioactive isotope that killed Litvinenko, acts like a carelessly left fingerprint. British and German investigators say a trail of positive readings matches the movements of Kovtun from Moscow to Hamburg on Oct. 28 and then on to London, where he met with Litvinenko at the bar of the Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1.
Kovtun and Lugovoy both have ties to the Russian security services that Litvinenko said were out to kill him on President Vladimir Putin's orders. Yet they also have long-standing bonds with Putin's exiled enemies, who are seen in Moscow as likely suspects. How Kovtun, 41, came into possession of or contact with polonium-210 remains unanswered. He gave two interviews to Russian reporters in late November and has remained silent since. There are unconfirmed reports that he is seriously ill from radiation exposure.
Asked on Echo Moskvy radio on Nov. 24 what he thought had happened to Litvinenko, Kovtun said, "Of course I am thinking about it. But I dealt with justice so I would be very careful with any comments. I don't want to go into detail and tell fortunes from coffee grounds."
German police are investigating Kovtun as a suspect in illegal handling of a radioactive substance. Russian prosecutors call him a victim and have opened an attempted murder case on grounds that he was poisoned.
From age 12, Kovtun and Lugovoy lived in the same apartment block in Moscow, their fathers both employed in the Soviet Defense Ministry. They went on to the same elite academy, the Supreme Soviet Military Command School, which turned out military and KGB officers.
Lugovoy joined the KGB in 1987 and was assigned to the Ninth Department, or Kremlin guard, which provided security for high-ranking Communist officials. Kovtun went on to serve in what was then Czechoslovakia and later in East Germany, apparently as a military man. Whether he had an intelligence role there remains unknown.
At some point, Kovtun married a German, Marina Wall, now 31. He moved to the port city of Hamburg. Authorities there said he has held an unrestricted visa to live and work in Germany since the mid-1990s.
Police said they were investigating tips that Kovtun may have worked in Hamburg as a waiter.
Kovtun and Wall divorced but kept in touch. He rented an apartment one floor below his ex-wife's residence in a working-class part of Hamburg, neighbors said, but did not live there.
Police have established that Kovtun visited Wall in October on his way to London. He visited a local immigration office on Oct. 30 to update his visa.
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MOSCOW, Dec. 12 -- At a closed hospital run by the Federal Medical-Biological Agency, two Russian men, friends since they were 12-year-olds, lie removed from the world and at the center of an international poisoning drama.
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Twilight for the Kimono
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2006121519
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But Yamaguchi, like Japan's signature kimono, is slipping into winter. At 102, he is among the last master weavers of Nishijin, the country's most celebrated kimono district, and his pace has slowed. He rubbed the morning chill from his knuckles, fitted his hunched shoulders deeper inside his indigo jacket and resolutely pushed on.
This kimono -- for the role of a willowy beauty in a classical Noh play, withering from the loss of her lover -- will take him a full year to make. If Yamaguchi doesn't finish it, there are few weavers left in Japan skilled enough to take over.
"This kimono must be beautiful, but there is also sorrow in the weave," Yamaguchi said, eyes trained on his stitch. "The audience will see this and immediately understand that the character is mourning for something precious, for something lost."
This requiem could apply to the Japanese kimono itself, and particularly Nishijin, the district that for 1,200 years has been the heart and soul of this nation's weaving tradition.
Since 794, when the imperial court arrived illustriously in the new capital of Kyoto, Nishijin has clothed emperors and shoguns, princesses and geisha, prime ministers and mistresses. It survived fires and floods, the post-World War II American occupation and, for decades more, fickle tastes. Twenty-five years ago, production of Nishijin kimonos and obi -- elaborate kimono sashes -- was thriving, with highflying Tokyo businessmen purchasing $25,000 kimonos for wives and lovers like so many boxes of roses.
But today, as a result of globalization and rapidly changing demographics, the kimono business has collapsed, its future in question. Sales are expected to sink to an all-time low this year, even as Japan has emerged from recession to experience its longest economic boom since World War II.
The prosperity has come with an altered set of cultural values. This is a country of manga comics and glittering animation. The rising moguls driving the new economy are more likely to buy muscled chrome from one of Tokyo's expanding list of Ferrari dealerships than drop their spoils on Kyoto silk.
As the kimono becomes more museum piece than couture item, what once made it quintessentially Japanese is gradually fading. Market realities have forced kimono makers to eschew expensive Japanese silk. As a result, more than 90 percent of new kimonos and obi made in Japan, including most of those from Nishijin's most venerable textile houses, are now woven from cheaper imported silk.
Like blue jeans in America, kimonos increasingly are not being made in Japan at all. In search of cut-rate labor, a growing number of ancient Japanese kimono houses have opened weaving factories in China. As the work drops off, younger Japanese craftsmen have deserted the industry in droves, leaving the last generation of masters with few heirs.
In Nishijin, the graying Yamaguchi is one of only three masters left who can create a kimono from scratch -- both conceptualizing and weaving with his own seasoned hands to infuse a garment with the intended wearer's personality. All three are over 70. None has an apprentice.
"It is a sign of the times," Yamaguchi said. "I am not sure who will carry on this tradition for future generations. I no longer have the time or energy to teach someone now. Even if I did, where would they work?"
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KYOTO, Japan His fingers muscled from almost a century of weaving, Yasujiro Yamaguchi worked the humming loom in his private workshop. Patiently lacing golden threads through a warp of auburn silk, he fashioned a bolt of kimono fabric blooming with an autumn garden in shades of tea green, ginger and...
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Antidepressants a Suicide Risk for Young Adults
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2006121519
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Widely used antidepressants double the risk of suicidal behavior in young adults, from around three cases per thousand to seven cases per thousand, according to a huge federal analysis of hundreds of clinical trials. It marks the first time regulators have acknowledged that the drugs can trigger suicidal behavior among patients older than 18.
Officials at the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that the higher risk was found in patients 18 to 25 and that the risk faded among older patients. The finding comes two years after the agency ordered a "black box" warning on the drug labels following the discovery of a heightened risk of suicidal behavior among children taking the pills.
After reviewing the latest data, an expert federal panel yesterday recommended that agency officials tell doctors and the public of the risk but also find a way to note that the risk declines with age, and that leaving depression untreated is also risky.
While the studies on the relationship between the drugs and suicide appear contradictory, the experts said one possibility is that the drugs may pose a risk early in treatment but have a protective effect in the long term.
The agency is leaning toward expanding its black box warning, said Thomas Laughren, director of FDA's division of psychiatric drug products. Officials said they will try to write language that would urge clinicians to use the drugs carefully, not abandon them.
The new finding created a dilemma for the regulators. Even as it vindicated some of what critics of drugs such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft have said for years, the earlier official warnings about the drugs appear to have led to a drop in their use -- and there are troubling signs that this can lead to an increase in suicides.
After concerns were raised in the Netherlands about the suicide risk, there was a 22 percent drop from 2003 to 2005 in antidepressant prescriptions for patients under 18 and a 50 percent increase in suicides, said Robert Gibbons, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois in Chicago. The number of suicides went from 34 to 51.
'What we are seeing is the early signs of an epidemic of suicide in children who are no longer being treated for their depression," Gibbons said in an interview. U.S. suicide data for 2005 is not yet available, but Gibbons said the FDA's black box warning had caused a similar decline in prescriptions among children here. He predicted dozens more suicides as a result and warned that any expansion of the black box would have a similar impact on adults.
Robert Temple, director of FDA's Office of Medical Policy, said regulators are in a bind. On the one hand, they need to tell physicians about the new results to warn them to monitor patients closely for suicidal behavior, but if that means doctors stop prescribing the drugs altogether, "I don't know what you are supposed to do."
Emotions ran high at the meeting of expert advisers yesterday, with both advocates for the drugs and their critics warning the federal regulators that a wrong move would cost lives.
Critics of the drugs said they were deeply distrustful of both the medical profession and FDA itself because of conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry. Allen Jones, of the consumer advocacy group Alliance for Human Research Protection, said, "the love affair between the pharmaceutical industry and our government institutions has to end."
Gwen Olsen, a former pharmaceutical industry representative, told the panel she had influenced doctors by offering them free food, gifts and gimmicks to get access and then presented them with skillfully manipulated data. Olsen said she had a change of heart after her 20- year-old niece committed suicide following a withdrawal reaction from the antidepressant Paxil. She said her niece first tried to hang herself from a ceiling fan. When the fan broke, Olsen said, she doused herself in oil and set herself alight.
Two experts critical of the drugs, British psychiatrist David Healy and Joseph Glenmullen, a psychiatrist who lectures at Harvard University, said the FDA analysis played down the magnitude of the suicide risk. Information uncovered in lawsuits, they said, suggested that several suicides in industry trials were never disclosed.
"Industry controls the data, and industry with the aid of FDA have miscoded the data so all the articles in all the journals that purport to represent clinical trial data are misleading," Healy said in an interview. His own analysis, published in the British Medical Journal in 2005, found a two-fold increase in risk among all adults taking the drugs.
"The idea you would have a risk in one age group but not another is just wrong," Healy said.
Other medical experts and patient advocates, however, warned that black box warnings could scare patients away from necessary treatment.
Christopher Kratochvil, a psychiatrist who spoke on behalf of the American Academy for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; John Mann, a Columbia University psychiatrist who spoke on behalf of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention; and Donna Barnes, president of the National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide, all said additional warnings might harm patients by making them fearful of treatment.
Unlike the case with children, in whom antidepressants have generally failed to show they are superior to sugar pills in short-term trials, the drugs have a track record of working in adults. A recent federal study showed that while the drugs do leave much to be desired, treatment provided in the best care settings helped two-thirds of depressed patients recover.
"I feel I am listening to a chapter from [the novel] 'Animal Farm' saying, 'industry bad, industry bad,' " said Carolyn Robinowitz, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association, in an interview. "Pharmaceutical research has brought us a lot of good things."
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Widely used antidepressants double the risk of suicidal behavior in young adults, from around three cases per thousand to seven cases per thousand, according to a huge federal analysis of hundreds of clinical trials. It marks the first time regulators have acknowledged that the drugs can trigger...
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Odd Jobs - washingtonpost.com
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2006121519
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As far as occupations go, Washington has always been known as a city of lawyers, lobbyists and government workers. But among the navy-suited and sensibly shod are a few select folks who answer the ubiquitous question, "So, what do you do?" with replies more wacky than wonky
FEW EXPERIENCES CARRY MORE POTENTIAL TO DEMORALIZE than having to examine your Lycra-clad jiggly bits while shopping for a swimsuit. Although Colleen Corrigan can't get rid of your love handles, she can alter a suit to emphasize your assets, a specialty that she has been perfecting for the past 20 years as one of the country's only bikini tailors.
Traditional tailors won't touch a swimsuit -- the material tears far too easily, and the clientele can be unrealistically demanding. Corrigan knows how rare she is: When she was opening her District store, the Bikini Shop, back in the 1980s, she tried to find someone who would work with her customers. "The tailors looked at me like I was crazy," she says. So she started doing the alterations herself, soon finding a growing following among bodybuilders, beauty pageant contestants and dedicated beach bunnies. Most, but not all, of Corrigan's clientele is female. Usually, a client will model a few bikinis or one-pieces, and Corrigan will make suggestions -- lengthening straps, adding bra pads, fastening eye-catching sequins.
These days, with the Bikini Shop closed for refurbishment, Corrigan works out of downtown's Southern Cleaners, with owner Tran Thu doing much of the sewing. Their biggest challenge, she says, is not so much the technical aspects of the job, but managing expectations. "Everybody is not going to come out looking like Raquel Welch," she says. Corrigan remembers one curvy client who, despite entreaties, insisted she wanted padding on her already generous natural assets. In the end, she got her way. "I did it," says Corrigan. "If she feels good, then good for her."
PEOPLE PAY HYUN MARTIN TO STICK HER FINGERS IN THEIR MOUTHS, but she's no dentist. She's an expert in the art of jaw massage, a series of techniques designed to release tension in the small triangular joints connecting the mandible to the skull. Tightness in those areas can be precipitated by anything from a onetime fender bender to continuous stress. In its worst forms, it can prevent sufferers from opening their mouths more than an inch or two. Martin's typical 50-minute massage works the muscles of the cranium, neck, shoulders and, of course, jaw to soothe that pain.
Martin learned massage in the late 1990s, when she was an executive charged with hiring massage therapists for local fitness clubs and wanted to be able to evaluate the candidates' skills. Her adeptness at her new hobby persuaded her to change direction, and demand for her services quickly escalated. "My reputation was as a celebrity massage therapist. It was very much a jet-set lifestyle," she says. When a dentist told her that most people have some level of trouble with the temporomandibular joints, she added jaw massage to her services.
Eventually, work trips to London and Los Angeles to treat such clients as Metallica's James Hetfield and King Constantine of Greece paled next to the appeal of staying in the Washington area with her husband and children. Eight months ago, Martin opened her Bethesda spa, Be You Bi Yu. ("Bi Yu," translates as "beauty having fun" in Japanese, Martin says.) Martin emphasizes the spiritual side of massage and believes simple mechanical technique is only part of a holistic healing process. Still, "if you only want massage, that is fine. I'm not going to shove it down your throat," she says. Unless that's called for, of course.
IF THERE'S A MENU, PLACE CARD OR CITATION to be handed out at the White House, you can bet Rick Muffler will be breaking out his dip pens and nibs. The senior of three White House calligraphers, Muffler toils in a tradition older than the presidency itself, painstakingly writing out programs, cocktail lists and more.
The decidedly traditional job is a mix of protocol and creativity. Menus for state dinners, for example, usually start with the first lady giving guidance on themes and styles. After using his collection of custom-made pens and inkwells to craft the lettering, Muffler may add embellishments for a special occasion -- perhaps an emu and kangaroo to honor the Australian prime minister. Practice runs are rushed to Laura Bush herself, and particularly tight turnaround times may mean whipping out the blow-dryers to speed the smear-proofing along. "The exemplars of the 1800s had months, sometimes, to do documents," Muffler says. "We get hours."
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As far as occupations go, Washington has always been known as a city of lawyers, lobbyists and government workers. But among the navy-suited and sensibly shod are a few select folks who answer the ubiquitous question, "So, what do you do?" with replies more wacky than wonky.
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8-Night Satellite: XM's Radio Hanukkah
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2006121519
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MIAMI -- Every year it's the same -- the relentless refrains of "Santa Baby" and "Silver Bells," those saccharine lyrics that seem to fill every radio frequency, not to mention every speaker in stores and restaurants and offices. By the time Christmas is over, Terri Lynn says she feels saturated.
This year, the 50-year-old Jewish resident of Fort Lauderdale has an escape: She can tune in to Radio Hanukkah.
Though the potential audience is likely rather small, XM Satellite Radio's Hanukkah-themed station at XM108 is being touted as the first of its kind and one celebrated by the network's Jewish clientele, who've long known December's airwaves to be filled only with the holly-jolly, jingle-bell sounds of Christmas.
"It's 24 hours of Hanukkah! I'll be dancing the hora," said Lynn, a publicist whose clients include the Salvation Army, the Jewish Federation of Broward County and Habitat for Humanity. "This could be refreshing. Who knows? Maybe non-Jews will start loving these songs too."
XM108 will run for the eight nights of the Festival of Lights, beginning Friday, not only with Hanukkah songs including "I Have a Little Dreidel," but also candle-lighting blessings and Jewish-themed specials with celebrities ranging from comedian Al Franken to sex therapist Dr. Ruth to the rock band Barenaked Ladies.
There is no similar effort on terrestrial radio; XM competitor Sirius Satellite Radio is offering the thoughts of Hasidic Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu scattered in programming on its Reggae Rhythms network during the eight nights of Hanukkah.
Regardless of the appeal to listeners, the Hanukkah radio efforts are little match for the airwaves' Christmas programming, which shows signs of gaining even more popularity this year.
XM is hoping its Hanukkah programming, which joins a network with five Christmas stations, will also fuel membership. It's marketing the station through synagogues, Jewish organizations, rabbinical groups and the like, offering free access to XM during the eight nights of Hanukkah.
Washington-based XM says Radio Hanukkah is the brainchild of CEO Hugh Panero and it's being produced by Allen Goldberg, who says the channel's introduction gives him "great satisfaction" after a lifetime of Christmas music on the radio.
Says Goldberg: "It's about time."
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Search Washington, DC area TV schedules and reviews from the Washington Post. Features DC, Virginia and Maryland entertainment listings for television programs. Visit http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/partners/zipcode.asp?partner_id=wpc today.
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Pepco Asks to Raise D.C. Power Rates 7.8%
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2006121519
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Pepco is seeking permission to raise residential electricity rates in the District an average of 7.8 percent, the company said yesterday, citing the increased cost of maintaining and upgrading its distribution system.
The rate increase, on top of double-digit increases for rising fuel costs the past two years, would boost the average monthly residential bill in the District by about $6, to nearly $83, the company said. It would generate $50.5 million a year in additional revenue for the company, 35.4 percent more than what it now receives to cover distribution costs in the District.
In a filing with the D.C. Public Service Commission, Pepco said that it had not received permission to raise rates for distribution in a decade and that the new distribution fee would still be less than 1995 levels when adjusted for inflation. The company said that over the past three years, the cost of transformers had doubled and the price of electrical cable had risen 85 percent.
"The increase we are requesting now is necessary for us to keep up with inflation and technology improvements necessary to continue to provide quality service for our customers," Thomas H. Graham, president of Pepco Region, said in a written statement.
"Bah, humbug," said Elizabeth A. Noel, the D.C. people's counsel. "Pepco is really proving to be the Grinch who stole Christmas."
Noel said the rate request showed that deregulation of the utility industry had backfired for consumers. "As was discovered in Maryland and other places where rate caps are ending, D.C. consumers are at the end of the rate cap period, and the company is back asking for more money from ratepayers who to this point have received no benefits whatsoever," she said in a written statement. "Pepco's rate request follows six sad, bad years of 'deregulation.' "
As a result of deregulation, Pepco and other utilities separated the generating and distribution parts of their businesses. Pepco sold its power-generation operations and buys electricity from other companies. After a long period during which rates were frozen as part of the deregulation deal, regulators allowed Pepco to charge 18 percent more in 2005 and 12 percent more in 2006 in the District to cover higher fuel costs.
Pepco said that over the past decade, going back before rates were frozen, the consumer price index had risen about 32 percent.
"Not only have D.C. consumers not received any benefits from 'deregulation,' they have not realized the benefits of 'retail competition,' " Noel said. Residential customers in the District can buy electricity from Pepco and its affiliate, Pepco Energy Services, or Washington Gas Energy Services.
Big commercial and industrial users have more flexibility to buy electricity from power merchants, and many of them have made long-term supply arrangements.
The distribution rate increase will still affect them.
"We knew it was coming, and we have budgeted for it," said Kathy Barnes, senior vice president of property management at Akridge, a major commercial real estate firm. "We've taken steps to manage our consumption in other ways, working within our buildings to conserve energy."
Pepco, a subsidiary of Pepco Holdings, has more than 745,000 customers in Maryland and the District. Last month, Pepco asked for a distribution-rate increase for its Maryland customers that would raise the overall electricity rate there by 3.9 percent.
If approved, the District increase would go into effect in September.
Separately, Pepco also filed notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it plans to sell $400 million of bonds to a group of insurance companies.
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Pepco is seeking permission to raise residential electricity rates in the District an average of 7.8 percent, the company said yesterday, citing the increased cost of maintaining and upgrading its distribution system.
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Baker's Fundraising in Different Light
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2006121519
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In the days before the September Democratic primary, Prince George's county executive candidate Rushern L. Baker III announced that he had raised $1.2 million and touted the figure as a sign of his campaign's viability.
Recently released documents, however, show that almost half of the money came from loans, rather than contributions, including more than $300,000 from a single entity, Southern Management Corp. The Fairfax County-based company operates 11,000 apartment units in Prince George's County and has feuded with County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), who was seeking reelection against Baker.
Baker also lent $196,000 to his campaign, which came within 5 percentage points of winning.
The figures make the campaign appear less successful at attracting broad financial backing than supporters had suggested.
Yesterday, Baker said it was tough to persuade wary donors to give to a campaign against a well-entrenched incumbent. He said he was comfortable with the amount of money he borrowed to run his campaign and said it was not misleading to trumpet fundraising numbers that included hefty loans.
"It meant we were able to spend whatever was there," he said. "It wasn't like this was money that couldn't go to commercials. We raised the money."
According to Baker's finance reports, he received three loans from an entity called the Renters Finance Corp. between July 2005 and Sept. 8, 2006 -- a few days before the Sept. 12 vote. Baker's campaign manager and Southern Management's chief executive confirmed yesterday that the Silver Spring-based finance group is an arm of the apartment complex company.
Maryland law limits the amount corporations can donate to political campaigns to $4,000 in each election cycle. But there is no limit on the amount a company can lend a campaign. The law requires that candidates pay back loans during the next political campaign cycle, in this case, by 2010. Baker is required to repay all loans, except for what he lent himself, meaning he will owe about $375,000.
Baker said that he is not done in politics and that he is confident he will be able to raise the money to repay Southern Management and other lenders. "Our history has been that if you find people willing to invest that much in you, you'll find that they're willing to help next time around," he said.
Last year, Johnson held a news conference to announce that he had compiled a list of 22 apartment complexes responsible for more than 19,000 calls to 911. He said apartment owners had failed to provide adequate security. This year, he proposed county legislation that would require managers to file security plans to protect residents. Johnson has said he plans to push the bill again.
Owners questioned the statistics and said Johnson was looking for a scapegoat to blame for crime.
David Hillman, Southern Management's chief executive, said yesterday that Johnson's decision to target apartments played a role in his decision to support Baker. But he also said he believed that Johnson, who was elected in 2002, was managing the county poorly and that Baker would do a better job.
"We did what we thought he needed, and I'd do it again in a minute," Hillman said. "What we have now is not what the county deserves to have."
When Baker launched his campaign in January, Johnson had close to $1 million for the campaign, and Baker was given little chance by political observers of defeating him.
In the days before the vote, Baker used fundraising figures as evidence that he had a shot at defeating Johnson, even though county residents had not turned out an incumbent executive in a generation.
Yesterday, Johnson's chief of staff, Michael D. Herman, said the latest campaign finance figures bolstered Johnson's contention that Baker was essentially being underwritten by apartment owners, "many of whom were going to be within the scope of new regulations requiring increased safety on their property in the county."
"Mr. Johnson said they were heavily financing his campaign," Herman said. "Now it's obvious."
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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In the days before the September Democratic primary, Prince George's county executive candidate Rushern L. Baker III announced that he had raised $1.2 million and touted the figure as a sign of his campaign's viability.
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Government Appeals Currency Redesign
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2006121519
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WASHINGTON -- An effort to force a redesign of the nation's currency so paper money could be more easily used by the blind would be too expensive and could cause undue hardships on the vending machine industry, the Bush administration says.
The administration asked an appeals court on Tuesday to overturn a ruling that could require the introduction of such features as Braille lettering, micro-perforations or varying the sizes of denominations to aid the blind and visually impaired.
Justice Department attorneys representing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson filed the appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asking that a Nov. 28 decision by U.S. District Judge James Robertson be overturned.
Robertson ruled that the nation's currency as currently designed violates the Rehabilitation Act, a law that prohibits discrimination in government programs on the basis of disability.
Robertson ordered Treasury to come up with ways for the blind to recognize the different denominations of paper currency, finding in favor of a lawsuit brought by the American Council for the Blind, which has waged a four-year court battle over the issue.
In his ruling, Robertson had said the United States was the only nation out of 180 issuing paper currency that printed bills that were identical in size and color in all their denominations.
He cited the successful use of such features as varying sizes, raised lettering and tiny perforations used by other nations as evidence such changes were feasible.
But in their petition to the appeals court, government lawyers argued that varying the size of denominations could cause significant burdens on the vending machine industry and cost the Bureau of Engraving and Printing an initial investment of $178 million and $37 million to $50 million in new printing plates.
"Even placing these figures in the context of the $420 million the BEP has spent annually on average in producing currency over the last 10 years, the additional costs proposed to modify the currency are not easily dismissed," the government argued in its petition to the appeals court.
The government lawyers also argued that blind people were not being denied "meaningful access" to currency transactions because there were portable readers that could identify denominations and they also could use credit cards for transactions rather than cash.
Jeffrey Lovitky, an attorney for the American Council of the Blind, said he would ask the appeals court to reject the government's arguments and allow the case to go forward with a January hearing where the government is scheduled to provide testimony to aid Robertson in deciding what remedies should be adopted.
Christopher Gray, president of the council, said that while his group has been lobbying for changes to help the blind since 1995, the government has yet to conduct any feasibility studies of what those changes might cost and has instead moved ahead with a number of design changes to thwart counterfeiters.
"We would be happy to wait until the next change in the bills and build accessibility in at that time," Gray said. "Surely, if you did it that way, the costs can't be anything like what is being claimed by Treasury."
Tara Cortes, president of Lighthouse International, another advocacy group for the blind, said the government's decision to fight making changes in the currency could end up being harmful to millions of Americans.
There are 1.3 million people in the United States currently who are legally blind, but it is estimated that number will double by 2030 and millions more will have vision problems as the baby boom generation ages and more people fall victim to macular degeneration and other diseases, such as diabetes, that can affect vision.
"While the government may argue that changing the dollar bill will cost billions, it will pale in comparison to the costs of the vision loss epidemic," Cortes said.
Associated Press Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON -- An effort to force a redesign of the nation's currency so paper money could be more easily used by the blind would be too expensive and could cause undue hardships on the vending machine industry, the Bush administration says.
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Ex-Clinton Adviser Is Choice to Head CBO
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2006121519
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Peter R. Orszag, a Brookings Institution economist who served as a senior economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, was named yesterday to head the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan agency that provides lawmakers with cost estimates for legislation and other budgetary analyses.
Incoming Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) announced Orszag's nomination, saying the economist was selected from three finalists who were interviewed Monday by a bipartisan team of congressional budget leaders.
Orszag is "exceptional," Conrad said in a written statement. "Not only is he an outstanding economist, widely recognized as one of the most able economists in the country, but he also has written widely on the many challenges facing the Budget Committee, the Congress, and the country."
Orszag also won praise from the outgoing chairman, Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who called him "an excellent choice" and a man who "shares my deep concerns about the fiscal challenges posed by entitlement spending."
Orszag, an expert on Social Security, is a co-founder with Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin of the Hamilton Project, which seeks to address income inequality in the United States without hampering American competitiveness. Before joining Brookings, Orszag served as a special assistant to Clinton for economic policy and as a senior adviser on Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.
Conrad said he would recommend Orszag in January to House and Senate leaders, who would formally appoint him to a four-year term. He would replace Acting Director Donald Marron, who has been serving in that capacity since Douglas Holtz-Eakin left the agency last year for the Council on Foreign Relations. Marron and Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, were also finalists for the job.
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2006 elections,campaigns,Democrats,Republicans,political cartoons,opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy,government tech,political analysis and reports.
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Bush Delays Speech on Iraq Strategy
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2006121519
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Faced with a growing list of recommendations and a range of contradictory policy options from key advisers, President Bush yesterday delayed a planned announcement about a new strategy for the war in Iraq until the new year.
The administration had said the president would address the nation before Christmas but scrapped those plans as Bush grapples with a host of proposals for adjusting policy in the increasingly unpopular and costly war.
"He decided, frankly, that it's not ready yet," press secretary Tony Snow said. He did not offer a specific date for the speech, telling reporters: "[It] is not going to happen until the new year. We do not know when, so I can't give you a date, I can't give you a time, I can't give you a place, I can't give you a way in which it will happen."
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group last week issued a report calling the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating," while recommending fundamental changes in how the Bush administration handles the war. Also, the White House is conducting its own crash review of its war strategy. Meanwhile, Bush yesterday continued a series of highly visible briefings and meetings, first with military commanders and later with Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi.
"It shouldn't be surprising that he wants to take the time to digest that, to discuss it with his senior advisers, and then to put forward a way forward," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters. "And I'm quite certain that that will be in a reasonable length of time, but it has to be a way forward that, first and foremost, the president feels he's consulted fully, that he has been given the very best advice, and that he has a way forward in which he has confidence when he puts it before the American people."
Rice added that the delay would allow incoming Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is to be sworn in Monday, to be fully integrated into the decision-making process.
In its policy review, the administration is focusing closely on the "80 percent solution," that would bolster the political center of Iraq and effectively leave in charge the Shiite and Kurdish parties that account for 80 percent of Iraq's 26 million people and that won elections a year ago. Vice President Cheney's office has vigorously argued for the plan.
Other options under consideration include a short-term increase of 15,000 to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad, a plan supported by the State Department, and accelerated training of Iraqi forces. Another possible strategy would redirect the U.S. military away from the internal strife to focus mainly on hunting terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda.
"Our objective is to help the Iraqi government deal with the extremists and killers, and support the vast majority of Iraqis who are reasonable people who want peace," Bush said after his Oval Office meeting with Hashemi.
Administration officials said the president hopes to reach a decision on a new strategy as he continues to consult with his advisers in the weeks ahead. "There really isn't a process in place as much as continued collaboration with all the key players," Snow said.
"There is still no final decision on the way forward," he added.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) criticized the delay, saying that Bush should act decisively to prevent Iraq from sliding deeper into chaos.
"Waiting and delaying on Iraq serves no one's interests," Reid said. "The president needs to understand how important and urgent change is for Iraq and for our troops. Talking to the same people he should have talked to four years ago does not relieve the president of the need to demonstrate leadership and change his policy now. The ball remains in his court, and time is running out."
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Faced with a growing list of recommendations and a range of contradictory policy options from key advisers, President Bush yesterday delayed a planned announcement about a new strategy for the war in Iraq until the new year.
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Waterfront Colors: Boston's Modern Update
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2006121519
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The first art museum to be built in Boston in nearly a century opens its new digs today. And with its move to the Seaport District, the Institute of Contemporary Art stands to become the signature of a part of the city that even most Bostonians don't know.
Until recently, the neighborhood has mostly been a sea of parking lots used by people who work in the congested downtown area. But the new ICA, designed by the New York-based firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is meant to do for Boston what Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao did for that formerly lackluster city in Spain: to make a boring part of the urban landscape come alive and make people rethink where the center of the city is.
A key factor in this extension of the city is the Big Dig, Boston's over-budget and never-quite-finished construction project, which has buried a particularly unattractive elevated highway that once divided the Quincy Market/Faneuil Hall area from the harbor. Now, with the highway moved underground, the city has a feeling of openness, and the waterfront a new accessibility.
While the ICA is the anchor for development on the waterfront, a few other significant lures are already in place. Across a vast parking lot from the new ICA (seemingly everything in the Seaport District is across a vast parking lot) is the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, which opened in 1998 with a specially commissioned permanent exhibit of 21 monochromatic paintings by Ellsworth Kelly. Most of the brilliantly colored, 11-foot-high works are installed at either end of the sweeping corridors at the building's harbor side. They seem to glue together an otherwise sprawling building.
As with the ICA, the courthouse presents its most glamorous side not to those parking lots, but to the sea. A pleasant way to approach both buildings, especially in the evening when they're lighted, is via the harbor cruises that run in warm weather and the water taxis that operate year-round.
Boston's acclaimed Children's Museum, a 10-minute walk from the new ICA, is itself undergoing a major expansion (open during construction, though), with 23,000 square feet of new space. The equally celebrated New England Aquarium is a 20-minute walk from the ICA along the HarborWalk that will one day follow the water for more than 40 miles.
There also are a growing number of restaurants and shops in the area, new hotels, the huge new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, and spectacular views of the wharves that ring the harbor, the sea beyond and, if you turn around, the Boston skyline.
The 70-year-old ICA began life as the Boston Museum of Modern Art, a sister to New York's Museum of Modern Art. Both were founded by young Harvard grads determined to introduce new art to America. MoMA championed the School of Paris -- Picasso, etc. -- while the ICA favored Northern European artists, including Edvard Munch and Oskar Kokoschka. The ICA, which mixes visual and performing arts, has had several homes, most recently sharing a historic but awkwardly renovated Back Bay building with a firehouse.
There's a huge amount of glass in the new, 65,000-square-foot museum: The cafe has sliding glass walls, and two walls of the 325-seat theater are glass. In the walls' fully transparent state, the view stands to compete with anything on the stage. But the walls can be changed with the flick of a switch. Performers can choose filtered light with no view or a total blackout. They also can choose whether they want visitors to see their backstage preparations.
The land side of the ICA is an enigmatic blank, three floors with exterior walls of several kinds of glass topped by a huge opalescent box on the fourth. There's no grand entrance in the center of the facade, not even a sign on the front of the building. The architects' idea is that the structure itself is supposed to say "ICA." They've deliberately placed the entrance obliquely, in the southwest corner of the building. (There will be a discreet ICA sign over that door.) Go to the water side of the ICA and the mystery unravels, starting with an outdoor staircase that will serve as a grandstand where people will be entertained by poetry readings as well as by the water view and, above that, a dramatically cantilevered fourth floor that looks as if it wants to float or fly away. This is the floor where the galleries are -- galleries that are column-free, so that nothing interrupts the view of the art.
The new ICA asserts its mission as soon as you enter the lobby, where a huge wall will be given over to one artist each year. The inaugural choice is Japanese artist Chiho Aoshima, whose "The Divine Gas" features a huge nude woman lying prone on the grass, the Boston skyline reflected in her eyes, a rainbow appearing over her head. Pastel bubbles rise on the right, and if you look carefully you notice that they're coming out of her derriere.
Another opening exhibition features Mona Hatoum's 1994 "Foreign Body," made in collaboration with a doctor wielding an endoscopic camera that entered all the artist's bodily orifices. Those who still believe in the Hoax of Contemporary Art may have their prejudices reinforced when watching Hatoum's colonoscopy, projected on the floor of a small round room.
A temporary show, "Super Vision," explores what we see, and what sees us, in the modern world. It's part Photoshop, part surveillance, and a bit creepy. The Mona Hatoum piece is in it. So are Andreas Gursky's nine-foot-tall photograph "Shanghai," an eerie, seemingly endless hotel lobby that dwarfs the viewer and is dominated by a preternatural shade of yellow; and Tony Oursler's huge staring eyeballs, projected onto white orbs hanging from the ceiling.
The original ICA was a show space without a permanent collection of its own. With the move to the waterfront, the Institute has started acquiring artworks, most of them gifts from loyal supporters, and about half the gallery space is devoted to new-collections display. The Institute can't play catch-up, though. Creating a comprehensive collection of contemporary art would be prohibitively expensive. So the policy is to acquire works from ICA exhibitions, one at a time.
Some are stunning. Take, for instance, the 1999 "Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson)" by the British artist Cornelia Parker, who had her first solo U.S. museum exhibition at the old ICA in 2000. "Hanging Fire" is one of her trademark suspended sculptures. Hundreds of bits of charred wood dangle from nearly invisible wires. They look as if, in death, they're en route to some sort of architectural heaven.
Then there's photographer Nan Goldin's 1988 "Matt and Lewis in the tub kissing, Cambridge," which caused a censorship controversy when it was displayed in a Boston office building a decade ago as part of an auction to benefit AIDS causes. The portrait of two men embracing in a bathtub was removed by the building's owner but now has a place of honor in the ICA.
The new building isn't the end of the ICA's expansionist vision for the city. When the Institute was in its former cramped quarters, it extended its reach through a series of summer shows in other spaces, both inside and out, called "Vita Brevis." Next year "Vita Brevis" continues with projects on Boston's underused Harbor Islands. ICA director Jill Medvedow calls the new Institute, together with the harbor, its other institutions and the islands, a "sapphire necklace," a play on the "emerald necklace" of parks with which Frederick Law Olmsted ringed Boston in the late 19th century.
Christine Temin, an art critic in Boston, last wrote for Travel about the Japanese island of Naoshima.
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Find Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland travel information, including web fares, Washington DC tours, beach/ski guide, international and United States destinations. Featuring Mid-Atlantic travel, airport information, traffic/weather updates
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Post Politics Hour
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2006121219
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Don't want to miss out on the latest in politics? Start each day with The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.
Washington Post White House reporter Peter Baker was online Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 11 a.m. ET.
Peter Baker: Good morning, everyone. President Bush today is meeting via videoconference with his commanders and ambassador in Iraq. Democrats are pressing him to make a radical change in course. And we have new poll numbers out today suggesting that Americans are increasingly negative about the war and the president's leadership of it. So lots to chew. Let's get started.
Raleigh, N.C.: How would you characterize the relationship between the White House and congressional Republicans at this exact moment (recent elections, ISG report and everyone's reaction to it?) What are the "trendlines?" Down, I know, but how steep?
Who are his closest friends and his, well, not enemies, but most wary GOP compatriots? I'm not asking for names, I'm asking about groups ... is he closer to the House or the Senate? Which region of the country is represented by Republicans who are doing the most to separate themselves from Bush? How would you characterize the White House relationships with the Libertarian wing or the hawks or the religious right?
Peter Baker: These are good questions. No doubt, the relationship between the president and his fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill is pretty strained. Take a look at the Senate Republican election for minority whip -- the caucus chose Senator Trent Lott (Miss.) in what some of them intended as a rebuke to the White House, which had helped push Lott out of leadership four years ago. Other than the Texas delegation, I'm not sure who I would put into the Bush loyalist camp at this point. Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon made an impassioned speech on the floor last week breaking with the president over the war, reflecting what a lot of other Republicans think but haven't necessarily said publicly. Many are still angry that he didn't fire Secretary Rumsfeld before the election. So the president starts the next Congress at a very low point. The real question is whether he will work with his fellow Republicans, perhaps trying to lure "Blue Dog Democrats" on selected issues to forge a majority, or will he bypass his own party leadership to try to forge compromises with the Democratic majority leadership.
Crestwood, N.Y.: Good morning Mr. Baker.
The president's "approval rating" (sort of an irony) is plumbing historic depths, as the guys on cable say. It is not impossible, perhaps even likely, that it will reach Watergate levels soon, perhaps in the low 20's and teens.
At what point does a president lose the power to govern? Do you think there is any possibility at all that his own party might compel him to force Cheney to step down and designate as his replacement a center-conservative from the Senate -- presumably from a safe red state?
Peter Baker: There's a real risk, I think, that at some point you lose your ability to influence events in Washington and the White House is certainly acutely aware of that. Keep in mind, though, that a president, even an unpopular lame duck, has enormous power by virtue of his office that make him relevant. And he is, in the end, the commander-in-chief in a time of war and unless Congress is willing to directly intervene by cutting off funds -- which the Democratic leadership says it won't do -- he has great latitude to lead as he chooses.
Can you explain the apparent double standard being applied to Rep. Jefferson? Any Republican involved in a scandal is front page news every day until they are forced to resign (see Delay, Cunningham and Foley). This guy is clearly involved in something not above board and he receives little press and no pressure to resign.
Aren't these the Democrats who are going to restore integrity?
Peter Baker: Well, actually we wrote a number of front-page stories when the revelations about Congressman Jefferson first became public -- a quick database search turns up nine front-page stories on the congressman and various aspects of his case in the last year. The real questions in my mind are: 1) why hasn't he been indicted, given the facts that authorities have outlined in public, and 2) what will Democrats do about him. As you note, Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi promised on Election Night to run the most ethical Congress ever. Not only did she not speak out against Congressman Jefferson in the runoff election, she now appears likely to give him a committee assignment, albeit one lower profile than the Ways and Means slot she stripped him of last summer.
It is interesting that Democrats have
washingtonpost.com: Pelosi May Give Jefferson a Lesser Committee Assignment, ( Post, Dec. 12)
Loudoun, Va.: A question came up in yesterday's politics chat about funding for the Iraq war.
Since Pres. Bush seems determined to go forward with his war, the only sway the Democrats and others against the war have is the power of the purse in Congress. I appreciate that it would be very bad politically for the Democrats to simply cut off funding for the war. "Political suicide" was a term used yesterday, if I remember right.
Wouldn't it be possible, though, for the Congress to insist that the administration include the money for the war effort in the regular budget process, instead of through the "emergency" appropriation bills as they have been doing? After 3 years, the war is hardly an unforeseen emergency anymore, and those off-the-budget appropriations go straight to the deficit.
If the President feels so strongly he's doing the right thing, let him build it into his budget for the country. The Republicans punted and didn't pass the budget, leaving it behind for the new, Democratic-majority, Congress to do - so let's make him write an honest budget.
Refusing to pass an emergency appropriation and making the war fall into the real budget wouldn't be anti-war or anti-troops, just anti-deficit - shouldn't conservative Republicans approve of that?
Peter Baker: The Iraq Study Group, in fact, recommended the same thing. Recommendation 72 says: "Costs for the war in Iraq should be included in the President's annual budget request, starting in FY 2008: the war is in its fourth year, and the normal budget process should not be circumvented. Funding requests for the war in Iraq should be presented clearly to Congress and the American people. Congress must carry out its constitutional responsibility to review budget requests for the war in Iraq carefully and to conduct oversight."
Kettering, Ohio: It seems that Kucinich's entry into the Presidential race as the anti-war candidate has garnered much press ...not. I don't get the ego that makes him think he has the proverbial snowball's chance. He comes from a safely Democrat district, perhaps the twin of the one that re-elected Jefferson, but he mismanaged Cleveland so badly it took years to recover. Do you think he will do anything other than make the other Demo-candidates look less dangerous?
Peter Baker: There's little indication that he will play a major role in the nominating process, at least to judge by his performance in the 2004 race. At this point, there are other antiwar voices in the contest, or at least potentially so, including, I believe, Senator Barrack Obama.
St. Louis, Mo.: A few weeks ago, I thought it was too soon for Barack Obama. Now, I'm a bonafide believer. I've read some criticism that he doesn't have a Iraq exit strategy. I think that's OK because our current administration doesn't have one either. I believe that Obama's candidacy could usher in a new kind of understanding between cultures and a new kind of openness that this country hasn't experienced before. Plus, the only negative thing the"machine" seems to be able to dredge up on him is that is middle name is Hussein. So what? We've learned to say Kucinich, Blageovich, and plenty of other kinds of names. If his name is a problem, it says more about us than it says about Mr. Obama.
Peter Baker: Interesting. What's happened in the last few weeks that changed your mind? Was it something he did or just a frustration with the status quo? I've met a number of people who shifted their views after seeing him in action either in person or on television. He's a powerful speaker, very compelling, very charismatic. The name thing is intriguing -- will it make a difference to Americans that his middle name is like Saddam's last name and his last name sounds like Osama? -- but I'm not sure that's really the most significant challenge he has to overcome. The more meaningful questions that opponents will no doubt ask are: What has he done to earn the presidency in just two years in the Senate? What accomplishments does he bring to the table to demonstrate readiness to lead the country?
New York, N.Y.: Hi Peter--
Thanks for taking questions this morning. You talked earlier about whether Bush will forge relationships in the next Congress to get things done. Wasn't the last (only?) time he did this was for No Child Left Behind? Is this White House really capable of making political deals/compromises? Seems to me a shakeup in his Hill-liaison staff is needed. What do you think?
Peter Baker: It's not the only example, but it is probably the most prominent. (Others might be the Medicare prescription drug benefit and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which the president initially opposed.) The real question probably involves not the White House staff but the president himself. Is he ready (or capable) of making compromise as a regular feature of his governing style? He likes to point to his time in Texas when the legislature was controlled by Democrats, but obviously as we've noted before, a Bob Bullock Democrat is a very different beast from a Nancy Pelosi Democrat.
Re: Jefferson: No one wishes he would disappear from the political scene as much as I do, but what exactly are they supposed to do? He was overwhelmingly re-elected by his district. I don't think that says much about his district, but they certainly knew about all of his legal issues and voted him in anyway. Democratic leadership is supposed to somehow subvert the wishes of his district? All of this breastbeating by these Republicans about the nobility of THEIR transgressors is such a laugh!
Peter Baker: Well, clearly Democrats had the option of speaking out vigorously, campaigning for his opponent in the runoff (who was also a Democrat), pouring campaign funds into the opponent's race, and so forth. They chose not to do that. Maybe they thought that would be inappropriate interference against an incumbent, maybe they thought it would backfire, or maybe Speaker-to-be Pelosi was afraid of the backlash from the Congressional Black Caucus, which has resented her past action against Congressman Jefferson.
New York, N.Y.: I agree Obama has the charisma to run for president and win. But what does he stand for? I'm still waiting to hear. He has, however, set the bar a little higher -- his opponents will have to learn how to excite voters in a positive way, and that's always good.
Peter Baker: Interesting points. Thanks for posting. He certainly will force other candidates to try to match the excitement he's created.
Silver Spring, Md.: Obama looks to be getting stronger and stronger and just might get nominated and could even win. But a Gore-Obama ticket would be even stronger. What are the chances Gore would enter the race?
Peter Baker: I haven't seen any serious indications that Vice President Gore is getting ready to run, nor have I seen much appetite for another Gore campaign except among some liberal activists. But I wouldn't totally rule it out either.
Maplewood, N.J.: Thank you for taking my question.
When do you think the President will come forward with his "way forward"?
Peter Baker: Look for a speech to the nation next week. The White House is trying to dampen expectations now by saying it could happen after Christmas, but the smart money is on middle of next week before the holiday.
Rochester, N.Y.: I'm sure you won't take this one, but it's worth a shot: is anyone in the newsroom concerned about the fact that the Post is hiring John Solomon (formerly of the AP), whose pieces on Harry Reid were widely criticized, not only in the blogosphere but also by media critics (such as your own Howard Kurtz)? Does his hiring mean we can look forward to more RNC-inspired hit pieces on Democratic leaders?
I'll bet your getting a lot of questions like this today. And I'll bet you won't take any of them.
Peter Baker: Old trick: "I bet you won't take this question cuz you're scared, nyah, nyah." (And by the way, glad to welcome back our friend in Rochester to these chats.) But the serious answer to your question is everyone I've talked with in the newsroom is absolutely thrilled that John Solomon is joining us from the Associated Press. John is one of the marquee names in political journalism and he's going to help us build the best accountability team in the business going into the 2008 election cycle. Has he been criticized by partisans in the blogosphere? Personally, I don't know, but who hasn't been? He wouldn't be doing his job as an investigative journalist if he didn't make some people squirm. John and the team he's led at the Associated Press have broken a lot of important stories without regard to political party; in addition to the ethical missteps of Senator Reid, he and his team exposed the Dubai ports deal that caused a huge civil war within the Republican party and uncovered the videotape showing what President Bush was told about Hurricane Katrina before it hit.
When will the MSM stop being reverential to the President and start asking him tough questions with follow ups like that BBC guy did in the last charade of a press conference of this President?
Peter Baker: And welcome back to Thief River Falls, another Post chat favorite. You're not going to agree, obviously, but White House reporters do in fact ask tough questions and we do our best to follow up as well. You can be tough and still be polite. Don't mistake respectful with reverential.
Given your previous answer to Crestwood, N.Y., how do you think this Iraq episode and Bush's plummeting influence and popularity will affect voter's minds in 2008? Will we see a replay of the Nixon backlash?
Peter Baker: It's too early to say what effect Iraq will have in 2008. It will depend, obviously, on events on the ground. If things are going the way they are today, obviously, it would be the driving issue in the race.
What Obama did:: It isn't only that he is compelling as a speaker, with charisma that I believe supercedes Bill Clinton, but he talked about things most people in the late-boomer/gen-xer generation can relate to, such as using his first big check to pay off some student loans. The other thing is that Obama doesn't seem to come with the baggage other politicians seems to have: McCain has torture, Clinton has Bill, Vilsack has boredom.
Peter Baker: A lot of interesting comments on Senator Obama, so I'll post a few in the interest of the discussion. Thanks for writing.
Helena, Mont.:"The more meaningful questions that opponents will no doubt ask are: What has he done to earn the presidency in just two years in the Senate? What accomplishments does he bring to the table to demonstrate readiness to lead the country?" Well, given the past 6 years, the answer really could be that Barack Obama cannot possibly be worse than the current occupant of the White House. Lack of experience, accomplishments, and readiness to lead the country weren't issues in 2000. Or is this just another "it's okay if you are Republican" thing?
Peter Baker: The counter argument I've heard from some Democrats is: Look what happened last time a president was elected without much experience. But presumably Democrats believe any of their candidates would be better than the Republican candidate, so how does that distinguish Senator Obama from his primary competition?
Anonymous: Can I get a "welcome back" even though I never left?
I just wanted to ask about what you see happening to all the "talking heads" that continue to show unyielding support to the Prez, and this war effort. Now they are starting to eat their own (see Fox and Friends on Sunday). I wonder, do they start to become equally as irrelevant as the Prez as his numbers wind down?
Peter Baker: Welcome back! We're glad you never left. Talking heads, of course, are talking heads and it doesn't seem to matter much what they talk about, just so long as they talk. (Might the same thing be said about WaPo chatters? Perish the thought!)
Washington, D.C.: Bush and Bipartisanship: You cited some examples where President Bush worked with Democrats to enact legislation/get something done, e.g., No Child Left Behind, DHS; however, I have trouble imaging what the next big area for bipartisanship would be...the war and entitlements seem too daunting. What is your best guess as to an issue that could bring both parties to the table? Thanks.
Peter Baker: I agree, it's hard to imagine them coming together on the war or entitlements, as paramount as those issues are. It's conceivable, though, to see deals over the minimum wage, immigration, energy and extension of No Child Left Behind.
Washington, D.C.: I don't recall having ever seen approval ratings of Bush during the March 2003 invasion. The perception was that there was unity in the country on the invasion, but today The Post is reporting that the 70% disapproval is the highest since March 2003. How come there was no reporting on the country being divided during the invasion?
Peter Baker: Actually, he had a 68 percent approval rating in March 2003, according to the Post-ABC News poll then. I think you may be confusing what our online story was saying. Here's the sentence: "In a new Post-ABC News poll, seven in 10 Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation in Iraq -- the highest percentage since the March 2003 invasion." In other words, it's the worst number for the president on how he's handling the war -- not his overall rating -- since the war began.
washingtonpost.com: Poll: 7 of 10 Americans Disapprove of Handling of Iraq War, ( Dec. 12)
Riverhead, N.Y.: Obama's attraction to me is that he is not an insider. He holds no preconceived notions which would muddy the waters, so to speak. I find this refreshing. Do you think he has any chance of winning?
Peter Baker: One more post from a Senator Obama fan. Obviously he does have a chance of winning, he has great momentum at the moment, and there are some Democrats who believe he would be the strongest candidate they could field. But of course there have been a lot of hot candidates early in the process who never made the distance, so it's going to be a real challenge.
Baltimore, Md.: If you have experience, you're too "insider" and if you don't, you're too green. Whatever. The average person doesn't care about experience. The average person, like me and my friends, wants a person whose stances they agree with and whom they feel they can trust. I like Edwards (experience) and Obama (not so much), and whom I ultimately support will depend on what they stand for, period.
Peter Baker: One more post on this topic. Thanks for the thought.
Winnipeg, Canada: The latest opinion polls, and the situation in Iraq, put President Bush in roughly the same position in which Neville Chamberlain found himself in 1940 Britain.
At that point, the British parliament and public realized that Chamberlain's policies had been an absolute failure, although he stubbornly insisted on staying the course. His party eventually staged an internal coup and replaced him with his nemesis, Winston Churchill.
Although your form of government is different, do you see any likelihood that the Republicans will try to find a way of breaking the Bush-Cheney axis and replacing them with a caretaker government as a way of both saving the nation and their future political prospects?
Peter Baker: You said it yourself, our form of government is different. Short of impeachment, which doesn't seem to be in the cards, there's no way to remove a president the way there is with a prime minister.
Baltimore, Md.: Why would the Democrats even think about putting Hillary Clinton up in 2008 when there are so many lifelong Democrats who would never, ever vote for her? "Anyone but Hillary" is what the people I know say. I don't totally understand their vitriol, but it is a fact, and is that really a risk worth taking for the Dems?
Peter Baker: Posting for the sake of the discussion. Thanks for writing.
Washington, D.C.: What do you know about the way that President Bush gets his news? Does he watch the network news, cable, ESPN?
Peter Baker: It's a myth that he doesn't read newspapers (a myth, I believe, he helped perpetuate, maybe because it's "cool" to be anti-media). He does, or at least selections of the papers. He doesn't, we're told, watch much in the way of television news. And of course, he gets briefed by his aides, for whatever you make of that.
Peter Baker: Well, I see I've gone over time again. Too many fun questions and posts, never enough time. Thanks for making it lively, as always. Have a great week.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Washington Post White House reporter Peter Baker discusses the latest buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.
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Chile's Gen. Pinochet, the Strongman Who Tore Apart His Country
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The streets of Santiago were slick from fire-hose spray, and the acrid scent of tear gas lingered in the crisp air. It was the autumn of 1985, and the tempo of protest against Chile's military dictatorship was building steadily. Diplomats and politicians were demanding change. Students and labor activists filled the streets, ducking police batons and chanting gleefully, "It's going to fall! It's going to fall! The military dictatorship is going to fall!"
But Gen. Augusto Pinochet, ensconced in his heavily guarded palace after more than a decade in power, seemed as immovable as a tank. On his 70th birthday, he called the capital's press corps to his suburban mansion. As cameras whirred, he lifted weights, performed sit-ups and jogged around his driveway in a sky-blue track suit. Pinochet's wordless message of robust defiance was unmistakable. The old soldier was still strong and he had no intention of calling a retreat.
I spent much of that year living in Santiago, and I visited Chile as a newspaper correspondent repeatedly between 1983 and 1990, when the Pinochet regime finally gave way to elected civilian rule.
Pinochet, who died Sunday at age 91, was a man with a mission. He genuinely believed he was doing the right thing, carrying out a grim duty in order to save his country from evil. In every speech and interview, the strongman of Santiago returned to the same theme: his sacred, patriotic calling to rid Chile of communism, whatever the cost.
"I am a man fighting for a just cause; the fight between Christianity and spiritualism on the one hand, and Marxism and materialism on the other," he told a magazine interviewer in 1984. "I get my strength from God."
He was stern, insecure and humorless, except when in the company of his grandchildren. In a region of cronyish despots, Pinochet cultivated the image of a disciplined Prussian commander. He was so sensitive to suggestions of impropriety or autocracy that when a news magazine ran a cartoon of him as a bewigged Louis XIV, he had every copy confiscated from newsstands across the capital.
Yet the longer he remained in power, the more he came to revel in its titles and trappings. He traveled in a convoy of gold Mercedes Benzes, changing their order so assassins could not target him. He promoted himself to captain general after removing all other senior army officers who approached that rank. In public, his peaked cap, dark glasses and swishing gray cape made him look like a giant bird of prey.
He was scornful of politicians, viewing them as a selfish and bickering class that had led Chile into the clutches of communism. At his rare news conferences, he was impatient and brusque, feigning ignorance of human rights abuses and insisting his regime had nothing in common with the Nazis or the Inquisition.
But when Pinochet spoke of the need to "extirpate" communism from Chilean soil, it sent chills down my spine. As victims emerged from secret prisons, we learned what that verb really meant: fingernails pulled out, electric shocks applied to genitals, mock-rape by dogs. To this day, I remember the faces and the voices of weeping men, ashamed to confide the terrible things that had been done to them.
An equally tragic legacy of Pinochet's rule was that it exacerbated the divisions that had split Chilean society during the presidency of socialist Salvador Allende, whose revolutionary ideals inspired the young and poor -- and horrified the old and wealthy.
Instead of healing those wounds, Pinochet rubbed them raw. Instead of restoring civilian rule after overthowing Allende in 1973, he shut down Chile's democratic institutions. Military rule created a nation of sycophants and cowards, where neighbors did not speak for years, where office workers looked away as people were dragged into unmarked cars, where elegant housewives held pro-military parades and teenage slum-dwellers were tear-gassed.
While researching a book about Pinochet's rule, I interviewed hundreds of people. Many were ordinary civilians whose dignity had been stolen by a combination of economic and political oppression: the black-listed carpenter who had to sell his family wedding rings, the bookkeeper whose father's library of history and philosophy books was burned by a squad of soldiers.
In addition to wiping out communism in his country, Pinochet implemented radical free-market economic reforms that threw tens of thousands of people out of work but eventually put Chile on a path of growth that is the envy of Latin America today.
Now, years later, this reformist image has been sullied by revelations about Pinochet's secret bank accounts in Washington and elsewhere. In his final years, he stooped to mafioso-like assertions of senility to escape prosecution for human rights abuses. He died a free if diminished man, publicly unrepentant and convinced he had saved Chile from becoming another Cuba.
But while the old general was lifting weights and running laps in his protected palaces, determined to prove he could out-tough his critics, the society outside those walls was flailing and divided.
Even this week, many Chileans reacted to Pinochet's death with the same extremes of adoration and hatred that were common when he was still in power. Perhaps only now that he is gone, and one of his regime's torture victims, Michelle Bachelet, occupies the presidential palace, can the reknitting of Chile's social fabric finally begin.
Constable, an editor and reporter at The Post, is co-author of "A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet."
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McEwan and Plagiarism
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You probably heard about the recent kerfuffle in which someone suggested that in his novel "Atonement" the great Ian McEwan, possibly the best novelist in the world, plagiarized passages from the autobiography of romance novelist Lucilla Andrews. McEwan answered the allegation in The Guardian, noting that he cited Andrews in his Author's Note at the end of the novel. The New York Times tells us that heavyweight authors are coming to McEwan's defense, saying McEwan didn't plagiarize, but did what everyone does all the time. Thomas Keneally in a letter in support of McEwan writes, "Fiction depends on a certain value-added quality created on top of the raw material, and that McEwan has added value beyond the original will, I believe, be richly demonstrated."
Here's Erica Wagner, literary editor of The Times of London: "We have perhaps lost this sense of literature as a conversation....The myth of originality? There's no such thing."
Jack Shafer says that's balderdash. And Shafer is exactly right.
No one objects to adding value to someone else's work. Research is good. And yes, McEwan acknowledged his debt to Andrews. The problem is that he duplicated her language in certain passages with little or no revision. You can compare the passages here. You make the call. [The Post's Jabari Asim views it as benign, more like "sampling" than theft.]
The best that can be said is that it's not very MUCH copying, that it's a misdemeanor rather than a felony, and thus might not merit so dramatic a label as "plagiarism." It's more like literary sloppiness. Atonement is a creative triumph, and scale matters in these things. My guess is that McEwan lost track of who wrote what, and some of Andrews' sentences wound up in his novel without the amount of revision that he had intended. That's a forgivable mistake.
But it's obnoxious when the pals of the bigshot author say it's not a mistake at all, that everyone does it, that this is how creative people create. That's absurd. Inspiration is fine, copying isn't. The fact that McEwan is a fabulous, Bookered novelist does not somehow excuse the behavior. If anything he should set the highest possible standard. He's a great writer and a literary treasure and doesn't need to cut and paste from anyone else.
By | December 12, 2006; 8:24 AM ET Previous: Sea Urchins 'R' Us | Next: Billy Grahamland
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Am I first? Or did someone already write that?
Posted by: Dooley | December 12, 2006 9:35 AM
Umbrage interuption - Canadians are too boring for the Washington Post? I will miss Doug Strucks articles.
Then again this article kind of shows we are boring and becoming more so.
Posted by: dmd | December 12, 2006 9:36 AM
It seems McEwan's work can now be viewed as "original" in the Hollywood sense of the word - i.e., "it's not very MUCH copying."
Posted by: byoolin | December 12, 2006 9:38 AM
No doubt McEwan has gotten at the "essential truth" (thank you, James Frey and Oprah!) -- or "truthiness", for Colbert Show fans -- of the story, which Ms. Andrews, as a mere romance novelist, clearly missed.
In all honesty, I think McEwan is a bit over-rated as an author, and by all means should be held accountable for the "borrowing." BUT: he did acknowledge his debt to Ms. Andrews. So it's all a bit of a tempest in a teapot, isn't it?
As for originality, well, there really is nothing new under the sun -- mostly it comes down to how you spin it. :)
Posted by: Jennifer Ouellette | December 12, 2006 9:46 AM
Canadians are too boring for the Washington Post? This boodle would be a heck of a lot quieter if the 'nucks took their pucks and went home.
Posted by: byoolin | December 12, 2006 9:50 AM
Literature as conversation? Seriously? That sounds really pretentious but then I am just and average joe reader, without a whole lot of in class time on the subject.
Is this a matter of being pushed by publishers that something is not as finished as the writer would like it to be? Maybe too much adherence to a predetermined date? I don't know about anyone else but I find a lot more books with errors from spelling, to grammar, to sections missed, sentences without end. One of the Giller prize nominees was so poorly edited that it almost lost its nomination to bad spelling. The author and publisher admitted it was rushed.
Is it in part an editing problem?
Posted by: dr | December 12, 2006 9:52 AM
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 9:59 AM
I compared the passages, and it smacks of plagiarism to me. Let me put it this way - if I had written an exam and the professor compared the answer with another examinee's answer, and they were that similar...
It's not literary sloppiness...McEwan would have had to have sat down with Andrews' book in hand and line by line "borrow" from her book and change the words.
Posted by: PLS | December 12, 2006 10:02 AM
"Acknowledging" someone is a little different from providing a footnote saying "these words did not flow from my pen."
I'm thinking Wilbrod's six (four!!), but I shouldn't presume...
Posted by: Scottynuke | December 12, 2006 10:10 AM
The very first thing that I thought of when Dion was elected as leader was ah, another notch for the thinking politician. Its about time we stopped worrying about how a guy sounds and looks on tv, and started paying attention to what they say and even more importanly what they do. In the end, these are the things that matter. Its like revenge of the pointy politicos.
Hopefully WaPo will find a way to connect with Canada. We are boring because we are peaceful, and we generally don't make noise, and we don't seem to pose much of a threat. Its not like this is new. What it is is a funny way to treat a major trading partner.
Posted by: dr | December 12, 2006 10:11 AM
I sometimes think I've made up a joke only to remember I've picked it up somewhere. Here's one I'm still not sure of: He couldn't find his a$$ with his hands tied behind his back. It seems so obvious I think I must have heard it before.
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 10:12 AM
Good morning, friends. Just wanted to pop in and say good morning. Don't feel too well this morning, will try to get in the doctor's office this afternoon.
As to copying other folks work, don't we all do that to some extent? I am not upholding the author in what he did. I've never read anything by him. Don't know him from beans. We say phrases and short sentences perhaps that others have coined? Of course, an author if he or she is going to quote someone should identify that someone as being the creator of those words.
In asking this question, I'm thinking about what we often say here. The word "umbrage"? I love that word, and we use it so often, but I cannot for the life of me tell you who started saying that. Was JA or Mudge?
The funeral is tomorrow, and I am sure my daughter, although heartbroken, will find closure much better than what she has been going through for the pass couple of days.
Have a good day, folks. Try real hard anyway. I know sometimes it can be hard to do, but we must try. And we can do that if we remember that God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.
Posted by: Cassandra S | December 12, 2006 10:13 AM
J.Ouellette's--"Nothing new under the sun..."
Examples abound. The musical "West Side Story" based on the play "Romeo and Juliet," (and as per Richard Dawkins) the new myth of Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code" based on the old myth of the New Testament, and on and on and on...
Posted by: Loomis | December 12, 2006 10:16 AM
Joel "invented" umbrage on the Achenblog, when he said the following in the Kit "The Greatest American Idol":
"Someone please slap me if I use the words 'appalled' or 'consternated' or if I take umbrage. I normally don't take umbrage at anything, because I don't LIKE umbrage, and pretty much gave up umbrage after college."
Posted by: Tom fan | December 12, 2006 10:20 AM
Cassandra, please know that I'm thinking about you these days. *HUGS*
Posted by: Scottynuke | December 12, 2006 10:21 AM
(1) In storytelling, we call this "stealing;" or, if we are feeling ashamed and seek absolution, "influenced in the folk tradition." I find my feelings on the subject are ambiguous. What if he had said "Substantial portions of the material on the experience of nursing were so excellently expressed by Lucilla Andrews that I could not significantly improve upon her writing, yet I needed that material to complete the portrait. I have taken the liberty of using some of her words and experiences to flesh out my own poor work [disingenuous self-effacement, doncha know], and I commend you to read her personal account of the hospitals in 'No Time for Romance,' including her work in its original context." Would that have made it okay, or not?
(2) I notice that the majority of links to Slate, by JA or any other part of the WaPo, seems to be to Jack Shafer. Is Slate practically a vanity publication for him, now? Is he just so darned prolific that he is able to fill a magazine by his lonesome? Is he simply better than the other Slate writers? Or does he write about stuff (particularly, writing about the process of communication through the media) that strikes WaPo writers and editors as particularly worthy of the WaPo linking to an outside (well semi-outside) commentator?
(3) I anticipate that I shall manifest my physical presence within the confines of McCormick and Schmick's this evening, at about 5:45ish. I shall encounter you there, and after that time.
Posted by: StorytellerTim | December 12, 2006 10:22 AM
I'm in, Scottynuke. Unfortunately, cannot be part of the early table-nabbing crew.
Posted by: Raysmom | December 12, 2006 10:25 AM
I'm in, and can arrive early...as early as four...but won't want to be the only boodler...as I may be sloshed by the time the rest arrive...
This post would drive Weingarten batty...
Posted by: omni | December 12, 2006 10:41 AM
I'm in tonight. I will try to be there early and will try to remember a BPH sign (and a writing pad for conversing with Wilbrod).
PLS... nice to see you here this morning. Can you make it to M&S tonight?
Looking forward to meeting some new Boodlers.
Posted by: TBG | December 12, 2006 10:42 AM
Heard someone ask a street vendor once if something he was selling was a real designer whatever and the vendor answered, "No. It's a replica."
I thought that was a much better word than "knockoff."
Posted by: TBG | December 12, 2006 10:43 AM
And much less troubling than "counterfeit."
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 10:49 AM
Posted by: Raysmom | December 12, 2006 10:52 AM
Bollocks. I could forgive the specific references to the treatments, that IS in fact research. But the whole saga about the injured soldier and the same names used--come on.
I've never read Ian McEwan, I believe, so I can't say if this scene was pivotal to the book. Still, I'm not seeing the type of writing that has been described in this interview: http://www.powells.com/authors/mcewan.html
This is why I prefer to do my research with as many sources as possible, it's much less likely I'll start parroting whole excerpts unconsciously in my work.
And always pick dead, out of copyright authors whenever possible. And practice the excellent art of paraphrasing.
I must admit, my paraphrase of Shakespeare "to Be or not to be" speech so tickled my teacher she insisted on reading it in class.
Here's an example: "The proud man's contumely and the insolence of office.." was translated as: "The scorn of snobs and egomaniac politicans.." (Which made her laugh).
I think I used perhaps ONE word in the same place as Shakespeare did... and certainly every "key word" was paraphrased.
"To live or to die, that's the problem. Should I endure the up and downs of life..... or just end it all with a knife?..."
See. If I could mar Shakespeare's verse for modern-day vocabulary and clarity at what, a pimply 16 and make it interesting...
McEwan could have done it the right way. He didn't.
Most plagarists aren't punished because they don't normally do the whole thing as plagarism, but I'd say that he owes it to himself to rewrite that scene for future releases. It may well improve the book too, if he can write half as good as people claim.
Although if I read in the revision about the wounded patient thinking to himself of the scorn of snobs as a reason to die...
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 10:56 AM
I dunno...I'm pretty ambivalent on the plagarism thing. I read Shafer's piece and the offending passage in question, and yes, there's no doubt he did it, and screwed up by not changing it around enough. And the "ringing defense" of "everybody does it, won't pass muster.
On the other hand, it is only a paragraph or two, in a 400-page (or whatever) novel; a zillion readers would have gone past it without batting an eye. It wasn't like this was a major character he "stole," or a major incident (yes, it is pretty riveting for only two grafs), but still. To me it looked like something he copied into a rough draft, and never got around to fully re-writing it enough escape detection. Not changing the names wasn't deliberate so much as just plain dumb. So now everyone is crambling to either defend or prosecute ten minutes worth of sloppy work on an afternoon when he wasn't paying attention. I see it all as a tempest in a teapot.
Loomis raised the question of West Side Story being an adaption of Romeo and Juliet, which it clearly is and has never been remotely disputed; in fact, it is it's selling point. Or that some episode of Gilligan's Island is based on Aeschylus, or some such. I don't think that kind of literary "borrowing" (in some cases it isn't borrowing so much as an "homage") is comparable to plagarism, for a whole host of reasons, starting with intent to deceive, with sloppiness or carelessness, with major plot/characters versus minor, etc. If I write a novel about whaling, and my opening line is "Call me Ishmael," I don't think I'm deceiving anybody about where that came from, or that I simply forgot to change the name of my ship's Captain from Ahab to its anagram, Baha. Sure, I could make the whale Moby Shaquille, but what's the point?
What McEwan did was clearly different, but it was also clearly small potatoes, as Hyman Roth says in Godfather II. (No discussion of high lit'ry matters would be complete without a reference to John Milton's Godfather trilogy. And you thought Mario Puzo wrote it. Ha! Double ha! The fall of Michael Corleone is clearly modeled on Satan, and Sonny is...um...Paul Bunyan. Or John Bunyan. Bertie the Bunyip. One of them.)
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 10:59 AM
McEwan noted her in the author's note with the original text. But he apparently got sloppy with the writing, when he was trying to evoke the reality that Andrews captured but also probably (and here's where the "literary conversation" comes in) pay tribute to her originality. Poets mimic and hint at other lines of poetry all the time. I'll give McEwan the benefit of the doubt -- he's a writer of enormous creativity, do we think he needs to borrow?
As for Shafer, he has a sharp critical mind but at times blows as hard as anyone in Washington. And I mean that. And in Washington, that's saying a lot.
Posted by: godknowswhy | December 12, 2006 11:01 AM
SCC: I apparently apparently got a little sloppy myself.
Posted by: godknowswhy | December 12, 2006 11:07 AM
I do rather think you're right. I nearly had that happen-- some notes in a rough draft was sent off instead of the finished draft. I had quite a time talking to the editor, I was mortified.
This is why the best rule is to paraphrase everything you make notes of from the start. He could have done better if he's all that. I hope he'll rewrite the scene. But he acknowledged the author, which doesn't exactly shout out "oh I forgot that was in there."
And Mudge, there's a difference between an unattributed quote from a famous book by a dead guy, that people are bound to recognize-- (metaliterature) and an unattribute page or two from an relatively obscure romance novel with a living author. If you gotta copy, make it good at least ;).
One of my favorite fanasty novels is a work of metaliterature-- "Silverlock" by John Myers Myers.
It has oblique references to over 400 works of literature, literary characters appear from all times and ages. Of course, the book is set in the Commonwealth of Letters. I mean, even the Golden Calf? The Iliad? The Odyessy? Pilgrim's Progess? Robin Hood? The Alamo? Huckleberry Finn? A Midsummer's Night Dream? About every other line you can find a reference to a literary work.
There's even a passing reference to a white whale as Silverlocks swims to shore after a shipwreck. I had to re-read it before I caught it. I was thinking "everything but Moby Shaquille."
The book starts. "If I had cared to live, I would have died." Which in itself may be a quote to some other work, but I haven't tracked that one down yet.
And the good drinking songs. I like "Bowie Gizzardsbane" and another song that goes (from a character thought to be dead)
"Death was only fooling; fill my cup, I'm both dry and drooling.."
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 11:16 AM
Book review of this book:
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 11:17 AM
For the life of me, I can't remember where I first heard this, but *Tim's post reminded me of it:
I think it was a famous comedian (who probably stole the line from someone else).
Posted by: martooni | December 12, 2006 11:18 AM
TBG, I actually may be able to make it! I'll have to see if the husband can pick up the little one tonight. :-)
Posted by: PLS | December 12, 2006 11:22 AM
It's a good line. By "stealing" you make the text your own, rather than something shared by you and another author. Martooni, I remember George Burns saying it, but like you say, it's not original to him either ;).
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 11:26 AM
I think you just made all my points, Wilbrod.
Whether something is attributed or not is totally ireelevant. I don't need to say "Call me Ishmael" was written by Melville, and in the opening act of West Side Story, Tony doesn't need to tell Pop the drugstore owner he feels like one of Shakespeare's characters felt. Recognition of the source by the reader is immaterial, and reliance upon various and sundry literary sources is also irrelevant. That isn't what the McEwen case is about.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 11:32 AM
As far as I know, the original quote was T.S. Eliot: "immature poets imitate, mature poets steal."
Posted by: ac in sj | December 12, 2006 11:34 AM
And that reference to Bertie the Bunyip takes me back to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Thanks, 'mudge.
I wish I could join you for the BPH tonight. Quaff one for me, willya?
Posted by: ac in sj | December 12, 2006 11:37 AM
McEwan's not my cup of tea, but I did think "Saturday" was a fine novel. I've meen meaning to read "Atonement", but other stuff has been popping up, like Paul Neilan's completely insane, foul and stunningly funny slacker novel, "Apathy and Other Small Victories."
A man's got to have priorities, don't you know.
Perhaps McEwan did slip up and use Andrews' work, intentionally or not. Obviously, the question is how much this matters. Personal opinion: Not much.
Writing is financially lucrative for very few people; if plagiarism were *really* rewarding to writers, God would have a HUGE legal team.
Posted by: bc | December 12, 2006 11:41 AM
By the way, Craig says somebody should show up at 4:15 to 4:30 to reserve the tables for ourselves.
That's doable, I'll be out there, and recognizable by my companion (color and general face appearance at wilbrodog.blogspot.com )
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 11:45 AM
Now, will somebody phone to confirm happy hour times and prices? ;).
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 11:48 AM
Addendum-- the front tables are in bars. First come, first serve.
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 11:49 AM
I'll be in the vanguard of reinforcements, hopefully there before 5. I think we're up to 8, possibly 9 if PLS is in. Did bc make it official? Where's Pixel been, anyway?
Posted by: Scottynuke | December 12, 2006 11:52 AM
Now, I know you want to renew the army-navy feud, but not at a BPH ;).
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 12:06 PM
Relax, Wilbrod: omni, bc and I will all be there at 4:30; scotty might to (scotty?). If we three/four horsemen of the apochryhpal can't told that beachhead, no one can.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 12:44 PM
I finally encountered McEwan when the New Yorker published an excerpt from "Saturday." Couldn't put it down.
In the department of movie originality, Anthony Lane in the New Yorker this week notes that in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, the hero is saved by "a happy coincidence lifted straight from a Tintin book called "Prisoners of the Sun."" This is on top of part of the plot being lifted from "Naked Prey," which in turn was based on John Colter's story of being captured, then set loose and hunted. Colter was a veteran of the Lewis and Clark expedition. IMDB says the movie was intended to be about Colter or someone like him, but was moved to South Africa to save production costs.
So how about someone borrowing a McEwan plot for a movie filmable in Romania or New Zealand?
Posted by: Dave of the Coonties | December 12, 2006 12:45 PM
Wilbrod, The funniest metaliterature I have read recently were from the UK (Welch, most likely) author Jasper Fforde. He has a 4-series involving the literary detective Thursday Next and 2-series in a nursery rhyme world. For example the Big Over Easy is about a murder investigation by Jack Spratt and Mary Mary of the nursery crime division. Humpty Dumpty has been pushed from his favorite wall. Jack Spratt is recovering from a professional set-back; three little pigs he had accused of murdering a wolf were set free by a gullible jury. It's written in a faux "noir" style, very funny. http://www.jasperfforde.com/
Posted by: Shrieking Denizen | December 12, 2006 12:49 PM
I like Jasper Ffordes, too. His first book I was like WTF the first 2 pages then I really got into it. I like Thursday next.
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 12:51 PM
But, Silverlock and Jasper Ffordes-- no comparsion. Apples and oranges.
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 12:52 PM
I find it a little ironic the novel is named "Atonement".
Posted by: Error Flynn | December 12, 2006 12:58 PM
Retreating backwards to the earlier discussion about thongs, saw this funny article (IMO).
Posted by: dmd | December 12, 2006 1:05 PM
Well Atonement comes from At + one +ment.
So basically he was seeing his and that romance novelists work as one and the same. :)
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 1:05 PM
dmd... I love that article! $340 indeed!
My daughter recently purchased a thong for her friend's 13th birthday gift (it was a joke, people!) from the Everything's A Dollar store.
My only wish is that someday she's wealthy enough to purchase a $340 pair of underwear. Wealthy enough--but not actually do it.
Posted by: TBG | December 12, 2006 1:11 PM
This Myers Myers fellow is too literary for me, too much references would flew over my head Wilbrod. I started reading English in (young) adulthood, so I suffer from a late start and my slow cruising speed makes picking up the distance difficult. Trying to mix in a book in French once in a while doesn't help either. I'll raise an Achendrink to you all at about 17:15 tonight. Good BPH !
Posted by: Shrieking Denizen | December 12, 2006 1:12 PM
Scott Feschuk is great - he was about the only reason I ever read the National Post.
Posted by: byoolin | December 12, 2006 1:15 PM
OK, here's the deal: I have a take home exam due tomorrow that I haven't really started yet. I need to get it finished before I can come to the BPH, but my husband *is* going to pick up our daughter from daycare. So hopefully I will be really productive this afternoon!
Posted by: PLS | December 12, 2006 1:15 PM
Thanks TBG, I am still trying to get my head around $340 for glorified string, have I mentioned I can be quite cheap?
byoolin this link is for you, also check out Capital outakes, quite amusing. Feschuk now in MacLeans.
Posted by: dmd | December 12, 2006 1:23 PM
So I've got the choice:
1) Go home after work, spend time with my wife & kids in the traditional annual event of hauling a pine tree into our living room so we can decorate the stupid thing.
2) Go to the BPH and engage in stimulating conversation which will inevitably play a role in solving some of the world's major problems as well as turning some of my favorite virtual friends to real ones.
The thought of me stumbling through the threshhold just in time to prop the angel on top of the tree...
Should I throw it out there for a vote?
Posted by: Pat | December 12, 2006 1:29 PM
dmd, thanks for the link - your Christmas present is in the mail (it rhymes with "Shmorder of Shmanada").
Posted by: byoolin | December 12, 2006 1:29 PM
dmd| $350 for 1 item of underwear! No wonder these people need tax cuts.
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 1:31 PM
Pat, here is my advice think not of the present tense, but of the future ramifications, which will make the next few days better, evening with virtual friends or pleasing wife and family?
Posted by: dmd | December 12, 2006 1:40 PM
Borrowing from a romance novelist is not plagarism, it's flattery (or flatulence, or one of those other 'f' words). Had these words been Nabakovian, would it have changed the novel? Sloppy, maybe stupid, in a world of Iraq, global warming, and nuclear dispersion; another example of how our formerly great civilization is going to hell in a handbasket.*
*quoted from my sister-in-law, who retains all rights.
Posted by: MedallionOfFerret | December 12, 2006 1:40 PM
Regarding your dilemma, Pat, you know as well as I do that we all have to set priorities in our lives, and compared to family, hearth and home, the BPH should come...first.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 1:42 PM
Did you have any questions about that recommendation, Pat?
OK, then. See you about 4:30 or 5?
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 1:45 PM
Posted by: Anonymous | December 12, 2006 1:45 PM
Won't be able to boodle. Dear friends have serious family emergency so we are hosting some children while grownups respond.
Enjoy, all you imaginary people beaming into focus!
To boodling in 2007: Prosit Salud Cheers
Posted by: College Parkian | December 12, 2006 1:46 PM
Well, PLS, what is the subject matter of this test? Maybe we could help you out, a little... unless it's an ethics test.
Posted by: ScienceTim | December 12, 2006 1:46 PM
Like I always say, write, revise, rewrite, rewrite! See, Shakespeare was great because he used iambic pentameter. He couldn't have done long passages of plagarism if he had wanted to. There's an advantage in having an unique style. And don't tell me that everybody back then wrote in the same style and Shakespeare was actually a committee.
Mercifully, McEwan will never be lasting enough that furture McEwan theorists will be debating whether he was actually a pseudonym for Andrews, the romance novelist.
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 1:48 PM
Sorry we won't see you there, CP, but needs must.
Hopefully, we'll see you at the next one.
Posted by: bc | December 12, 2006 1:57 PM
Shriek... I read Fforde's "The Eyre Affair" way back when it was only available in hard cover and loved it. I've been shying away from the bookstores (almost as bad as me loose in a Home Depot without adult supervision), so wasn't aware he'd turned it into a series.
Hmmm... payday is Friday... do I dare step foot in B&N?
Posted by: martooni | December 12, 2006 1:59 PM
"Under The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works enjoy protection for original work if they can establish "a degree of labour, skill or judgement" in producing it.
That formula is crucial. The courts have denied protection to certain works, including some advertising slogans.
Since there is no copyright in an idea, any claim for breach of copyright must rest on the way that the idea is expressed.
Even so, the key issue may be the amount of a book, both in quantity and quality, which is copied by someone else."1
So, I guess we need to opine on the literary quality of Andrews' prose as well as the quantity copied by McEwen.
This is so silly. If McEwen had just responded, "Good Lord! You're right! How terrible. I shall rewrite that passage immediately," the debate would go away.
Even if it isn't technically plagiarism, I don't believe a writer of McEwen's quality (and I think very highly of him as a writer, though Atonement is not, in my view, his best book by any means) doesn't know when he's not being original.
It should not have happened at all, and as it did, he should own it and fix it.
1 Neutral Citation Number: [2006] EWHC 719 (Ch)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE CHANCERY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Before : MR JUSTICE PETER SMITH
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1. Michael Baigent 2. Richard Leigh Claimants
The Random House Group Limited Defendant
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 2:00 PM
Well, it seems someone needs to say this, so I will. Atonement is a brilliant novel. In all reality, it seems to me that McEwan lifted sections of another autobiography describing what it was to be a nurse in World War II. While sloppy, this is not what made Atonement great. The greatness of the book lies in the story of the writer . . . Honestly, I couldn't much care less if he lifted a few sentences (although it's lazy). It does not diminish the novel.
Posted by: afterglow | December 12, 2006 2:14 PM
Science Tim: the course is Complex Civil Litigation. And the exam is to draft (based on the hypotheticals provided) 1) a Consolidated Plaintiffs' Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction Barring Enforcement of the Law, 2) a Motion to Dismiss the Appeal and Opposition to Write of Mandamus, and 3) an Opposition to a Motion to Dismiss or Abstain.
Hey, you asked! Fortunately there's a 5-page limit for each answer.
Posted by: PLS | December 12, 2006 2:17 PM
SCC: WRIT of Mandamus. Sigh.
Posted by: PLS | December 12, 2006 2:18 PM
If this was the extent of "plagarism" then it doesn't even reach the level of the misdemeanor. What is truly a felony is that you haven't denounced today's truly disgusting editorial in praise of Pinochet and Kirkpatrick. If you had the slightest degree of human decency (which I doubt) you would resign from the Post immediately!
Posted by: MONA | December 12, 2006 2:20 PM
"This is so silly. If McEwen had just responded, 'Good Lord! You're right! How terrible. I shall rewrite that passage immediately,' the debate would go away."
Isn't that the case with most scandals? It's usually the coverup or excuse-making that does a person in.
Posted by: TBG | December 12, 2006 2:21 PM
There is no "l" in kerfuffle. You must now die a mean death. :(
Posted by: CK | December 12, 2006 2:23 PM
The Fforde books may be available at your local library danghippie/martooni. I have seen some of them at mine even if if is a very modest library. I've yet to read The Fourth Bear. I suspect it is a Jack Spratt investigation of the three bears' home invasion by the infamous Goldilock. I'll try to read it over the Christmas vacation. If I finish The Cell and doesn't start another Aubray/Mathurin before then that is.
Posted by: Shrieking Denizen | December 12, 2006 2:24 PM
But this one was a kerfluffle. Totally different thing.
Posted by: Achenbach | December 12, 2006 2:26 PM
Wow, Joel, I guess she told you.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 2:27 PM
Good for McEwan! I hope very much that he knew what he was doing when he took the paragraph. If he didn't, then he was being sloppy. The fact is, artists do this all the time. Hawthorne includes passages of Cotton Mather in "Young Goodman Brown." Melville includes passages of just about anybody who wrote on whales in Moby-Dick. Whitman's poem "Cavalry Crossing a Ford" is a slightly reworked version of a newspaper article written by somebody else. And the list goes on and on. This kind of borrowing and transformation is a fundamental part of the artist's craft.
Posted by: Andrew | December 12, 2006 2:29 PM
Kenneth Starr wasn't assigned to investigate Bill Clinton because he engaged in some inappropriate behavior with that woman.
It was because he lied and covered up. And *he* ended up getting nailed, anyway. As it were.
Posted by: bc | December 12, 2006 2:30 PM
Dear CK, editing JA is permitted by Tom Fan only. She should come online and do her job later. And a kerfluffle may just be a lighter, fluffier form of kerfuffle, what do I know.
Posted by: Shrieking Denizen | December 12, 2006 2:30 PM
The problem with calling its plagiarism is that it's a description of actual medical practice. We took Instrument X and applied it to Wound Y in Manner Z. That is the technical description. If you define a word just as it is defined in a particular dictionary, you cite the dictionary and use the definition. But you aren't plagiarizing by doing so. McEwan cited her, so it isn't plagiarism.
Posted by: Anonymous | December 12, 2006 2:31 PM
We will go with kerfuffle since no one grasps that a kerfluffle is a kerfuffle that's gone off the deep end. Kerfluffle is the better word but I guess I'll just "dumb down" my prose.
Posted by: Achenbach | December 12, 2006 2:31 PM
Dear CK, editing JA is permitted by Tom Fan only. She should come online and do her job later. And a kerfluffle may just be a lighter, fluffier form of kerfuffle, what do I know.
Posted by: Shrieking Denizen | December 12, 2006 2:31 PM
The problem with calling its plagiarism is that it's a description of actual medical practice. We took Instrument X and applied it to Wound Y in Manner Z. That is the technical description. If you define a word just as it is defined in a particular dictionary, you cite the dictionary and use the definition. But you aren't plagiarizing by doing so. McEwan cited her, so it isn't plagiarism.
Posted by: KevinP | December 12, 2006 2:34 PM
Sorry for the double post. Moveable Type went postal on me. (I got the sea foam screen of death.)
Posted by: Shrieking Denizen | December 12, 2006 2:35 PM
Getting thirsty. And I feel a wee touch of the scurvy coming on. bc, you feeling a little parched? A little peckish, perhaps? Yearning for a frog and a peach?
Needless to say, guess who is posted on the WaPo home page in big letters.
*readying bunker, just in case*
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 2:35 PM
You're not all really going to the BPH and leaving us here, with the A-blog on the home page?!
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 2:37 PM
Some would have you believe that there is nothing new under the sun. (I just made that up right now - in a value-added conversational sort of way.)
Posted by: RD Padouk | December 12, 2006 2:38 PM
Yoki, to paraphrase a certain source (no plagarism intended), you'll just have to stay the course, while we cut-and-runners cut and run.
KevinP, it's pretty clear you didn't read the McEwen graf in question. But nice try.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 2:39 PM
Serious writing question: Aren't there the equivalent of "fact checkers" for literature? You know, people who try to make sure that there is no accidental plagiarism? Cause I can see how, just as it is easy to regurgitate another tune without really realizing it (seeking the opinion here of the artist formerly known as martooni) it might be easy to accidentally re-write an especially memorable phrase or passage buried deep within one's psyche. Or is the notion of inadvertent plagiarism total bogus?
Posted by: RD Padouk | December 12, 2006 2:47 PM
Certainly publishers of fiction do not fact-check nor are they trolling through every word of each work to try to find plagiarism (and who could you possibly hire, if you were so inclined, who knew every source from which something might be plagiarized? -- well, 'Mudge, maybe). Nor should they. The author is responsible for the author's work, surely?
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 2:50 PM
Here's my letter (that would be the letter "l" of course) of support for my good friend and terribly talented writer, Joel Achenbach:
"kerfuffle" is a veddy right proper disagreement or mess. Pinkies extended, and vigorous adjustment of bifocals for emphasis.
"kerfluffle" is like two thong-wearing mountain gorillas flinging poo at each other, then engaging in the biggest, baddest, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) rumble EVAR. Folding chairs used as weapons, Bruno Sammatino's face covered in blood, the whole shmear. The pie fight from "The Great Race". Utter mayhem.
The two are completely different, IMO.
Glad I was around to clear that "l" up.
Posted by: bc | December 12, 2006 2:53 PM
There is no "l" in kerfuffle?
Hey, has anyone heard the expression, 'He couldn't find his arse with his hands tied behind his back', or not?
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 2:58 PM
Don't worry about CK, Joel. She's just a little flustrated.
Posted by: TBG | December 12, 2006 2:58 PM
Yoki - I guess it does make sense that the final responsibility must rest with the author. Still, I would think that a publisher would have a significant financial interest in preventing fraudulant works from reaching print.
Might be an interesting programming challenge: Compare this text with all existing texts.
Hmm, run-time *could* be a problem.
Posted by: RD Padouk | December 12, 2006 3:00 PM
Thanks for clearing that up bc. The two thong wearing gorillas thing wasn't a thinly veiled allusion to a certain pair of retired naval/marine officers by any chance? How bad of you.
Oh boy oh boy. The blog is in big letter on the home page above the fold with a picture of the accused plagiarist himself. I hope that the McEwan fans are nicer people than the Rove/[censored] we had to deal with previously.
Posted by: Shrieking Denizen | December 12, 2006 3:01 PM
If we're not careful "kerfuffle" vs. "kerfluffle" will turn into a "schmozzle" - appropriated from David Hobbs.
Posted by: Error Flynn | December 12, 2006 3:02 PM
You don't have to respond if you haven't heard it but if you have you'll save me from accusations of plagarism and further embarrassment.
I'd also like to ask Joel if anyone else noticed the timeline of creationism, creation science, and Intelligent Design closely followed NASA's use of exobiolgy, bioastronomy, and astrobiology.
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 3:07 PM
"Still, I would think that a publisher would have a significant financial interest in preventing fraudulant works from reaching print."
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 3:08 PM
Joel, thanks for including the Judith Wagner quote. I think it gets the essense of writing exactly right. Or, as a not very famous person once said, "art is the conversation a society holds with itself."
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 3:15 PM
EF, next thing you know you'll have a fracas (pronounced "fray-kow" by Hobbs, IIRC. EF, that'll be enough of that. No one else in here has any idea of what we're talking about.)
SD, if I'd meant who you suggest I may have meant, I'd have said "silverback gorillas". Which isn't a bad idea, now that I think about it.
Anyway, if McEwen does get into a legal entanglement over being just a bit lazy, God *will* be firing up his team of Divine Solicitors to go after every writer who ever lived.
Posted by: bc | December 12, 2006 3:21 PM
Boko, the "he couldn't find his..." phrase is, I wager, one of those that is generated spontaneously by more than one person. It's just such an obvious construction, right? Sort of like the macaronic pun on poisson/poison that Wilbrod and I discussed several months ago.
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 3:22 PM
Regarding literature: Nihil sub sole novum -- and that was 2000 years ago! If we go by your rules, Joel, Shakespeare was a thief and a hack.
Posted by: jimmyvanl | December 12, 2006 3:24 PM
Let's help Joel out, regular Boodlers, and remove the ls from our posts today. That way no extras will sneak in.
et's hep Joe out, reguar Booders, and remove the s from our posts today. That way no extras wi sneak in.
I'm sure Joe wi be gratefu.
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 3:29 PM
You know, at first I thought she wrote, "there's no I in kerfuffle." The letter EYE, not the letter EL. Like, "there's no I in TEAM."
I wondered what the heck she meant and figured it was just over my head (kind of like "Sea urchins see with their feet.")
Posted by: TBG | December 12, 2006 3:35 PM
I guess the rules are different in literature vs. non-fiction. Does anyone recall the hullabaloo over Doris Kearns Goodwin being accussed of plagarism?
Ever since the very first words were spoken, ever since someone clapped their hands together, ever since a word was written down on paper, everything that follow, one could argue, is plagarism.
So in an age where books seem to constantly loose out to TV, Xbox, etc., let's stop attacking writers and instead value the contributions they make to society.
Posted by: Had Enough? | December 12, 2006 3:36 PM
So, if I go to the BPH, can anybody meet me at... What Metro stop is it? around 4:30? I've only got about 20 minutes to decide!
Posted by: Pat | December 12, 2006 3:39 PM
Thanks Yoki, you're right. Now I know how Scott felt. *Shaking fist at sky* DARN YOU AMUNDSEN
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 3:41 PM
Why do we think the person who caused such a fuffle is a female? Was it the use of the word 'mean?"
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 3:41 PM
Are you guys putting out the BPH sign again or does everyone at M&S know you?
Posted by: dr | December 12, 2006 3:42 PM
Hi: McEwan has plagiarized; he did not use quotation marks or cite his source. I teach research writing at a military college where plagiarism is an honor violation. The rules for using researched material are clear; all quoted, paraphrased, and summarized passages must be cited in the writer's text and in a Works Cited list. Allusions to a literary work is not plagiarism.
Posted by: Linda Karch | December 12, 2006 3:46 PM
Ms. Karch, does citing Andrews in his Author's note at the end of "Atonement" not count?
Posted by: bc | December 12, 2006 3:48 PM
I'm commenting from a vacuum, so I apologize if this is redundant. I also see this as similar to "sampling" in music--something which is completely acceptable and even encouraged in modern genres (hip-hop mostly). There is, however, one huge difference between pulling a few phases or passages from a primary source and recycling them through your characters and sampling a few bars of music to run as a loop on your new single. When you sample something like, say, "Under Pressure" EVERYONE recognizes it. Pop music is such that most people can identify a fair number of songs after hear just a few notes (heck, there's even a game show based on that). But literature? If you pull phases out of some semi-obscure biography, most readers are not going to recognize it. McEwan is creative enough that he could have come up with a way to somehow pay tribute to the person whose words he thought were so perfect. Perhaps he could have written a cameo for Lucilla Andrews?
Posted by: jw | December 12, 2006 3:50 PM
Padouk, Yoki is absolutely right: publishers don't hire fact-checkers (nor should they). By long-standing custom, the writer is responsible for the material.
In the case of fiction, especially, a fact-checker would be preposterous; what would be the point? (And anyway, "fact-checking" is different from plagarism. If I was fact-checking something you wrote, I wouldn't necessary be using the same source you did. I'd just verify that it was right or wrong.) Which isn't to say that a good editor shouldn't be on his/her toes. The problem nowadays with publishers isn't lack of fact-checkers, but just lack of general editors. Maxwell Perkins, may the FSM rest his soul, is long dead, and RIP, Max.
Now non-fiction might appear to be another case altogether, but really isn't. Once again, book publishers don't have "fact-checkers"; how could they? The fact-checker would have to spend more time fact-checking than the writer spent writing; it would take massive amounts of time, and to very, very little purpose.
And that's not even to mention the problem of how do you "fact-check" allegations, assertions, speculation, etc.? It's just about all one can do to cover one's a$$ against libel, and that's about it.
Now, newspapers and magazines (at least the biggies, with actual budgets and stuff) do hire fact-checkers; those at the New Yorker were infamous (and infamously good). But the Podunk, Iowa, Boot and Shoe Recorder? Fageddaboutid. But not everyuthing gets fact-checked, nor should it be. At a certain point, any good editor knows when a piece of work is starting to get into deep doo-doo, and proceeds according.
As for recognizing plagarism, there is now software available that does a lot of it automatically in schools.
And what are you gonna do with an Updike, a McEwen, a Hemingway, a Barbara Cartland, a Joyce Carol Oates, a Michael Connelly or a Carl Hiaasen? Ask 'em to wait in the lobby while you run their manuscript through the plagarism detector? How long would you reasonably expect to be their publisher?
Actually the liability risk to publishers is just about zero. If there are 100,000 books published every year, how many of them get into legal trouble? Three? Four? They do what airlines do: a plane crashes, a hundred people die, ya pay out a million per corpse, and you're still in business and making a profit. It's the cost of doing business.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 3:51 PM
I think it's unfair to look at a few sentences of McEwan's work and cry "plagarism". Reference to other works is an established method of deepening fiction, and in my opinion, you have to look at the passages in question in light of the larger work. Obviously, McEwan has added some value to Andrew's work by referencing her words to deepen his own story. You want writers to get rid of references to other works? Say goodbye to metafiction and modern literature. You want people to refuse to replicate plots and ideas? Say goodbye to romance, detective, Sci-Fi...pretty much all genre fiction. Writers often write to their literary predecessors as a means of respect and admiration, or anger and argumentation. To take away this ability is to ask for a-historial literature, impossible to produce.
Posted by: Rita | December 12, 2006 3:53 PM
Mudge, so where does the problem arise finding good general editors? Is it a matter of not enough people going into the field, or that the people going into the field are not quite up to the task. Is it publishers who may need to cut corners or a reliance on technology?
Posted by: dr | December 12, 2006 4:02 PM
I think McEwan can easily be forgiven....
2 Hail Maries and an Our Father
Posted by: Pat | December 12, 2006 4:05 PM
Barring a dramatic turn of events, I shall shortly depart from my cubicle for the BPH. This should be fun!!
Posted by: Scottynuke | December 12, 2006 4:05 PM
// Obviously, McEwan has added some value to Andrew's work by referencing her words to deepen his own story//
The only added value accrued to McEwan. I suppose hearing the post modernist, I hate to 'privelege' it by calling it a, perspective, was inevitable.
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 4:06 PM
I agree that literary borrowing is like musical sampling. But just as writers sometimes borrow from writers/work that seem obscure to some (witness references to obscure opera and ad copy in Ulysses) people who sample don't always sample from well-known work. (See DJ. Rupture, The Avalanches).
Posted by: Rita | December 12, 2006 4:07 PM
"The only added value accrued to McEwan."
Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Her work was worth borrowing from because her ideas were good. A compliment to her.
Posted by: To Boko999 | December 12, 2006 4:10 PM
Hi, guys *waving*. Long time, no see. Just got a brief moment with my head above water. Got another of those weekly committee meetings tonight, so no BPH for me ;-( That, and friend wife missed a step and broke her foot so I need to stay close to home. She is NOT a happy camper! The whole of the holidays with her foot in a cast. Me, I'd cut McEwen a bit of slack. Yes, he probably should have either paraphrased or credited in the body of the text. But since he did give credit in the book, it's not a major boo-boo. Question: Wonder if anyone has tried going through Barlett's and attempted to compose a work just using the "famous quotations"?
Posted by: ebtnut | December 12, 2006 4:12 PM
It's publishers, I suspect. Book Editors, from what I see, are also expected to be contract negotiators, select the gold out of the dross, and so on. I would say there is very, very little correcting of ,;. done. Thats the author's responsiblity to proofread or hire somebody else to do it.
You can't turn misspelled monkey typewriting work and expect the editor to be a proofreader. Editors that care will likely suggest revision directions-- what to cut, and so on.
I mean, can anybody read James Joyce and REALLY believe that book editors actually proofread and copyedit authors' works?
Not that I've ever been a book editor-- the thought of actually talking to authors and negotiating book deals and having to live in New York (not the place for a gnome), pretty much makes that unlikely for me.
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 4:13 PM
Hi ebtnut. Yes; I'll try to dig out two or three examples. At least one is very clever and funny.
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 4:14 PM
To ebtnut: Been there, done that. Waiting to be published.
Posted by: Rita | December 12, 2006 4:14 PM
Ebnut-- you mean, without any paraphrasing or misquoting? I doubt that would be done well enough to be an interesting literary work, then.
Misquoting/paraphasing Barlett's-- now that'd be interesting.
Just remember the saying-- a quiet horse kicks strong.
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 4:17 PM
This post is absurd. Who says that "Inspiration is fine, copying isn't" (comma splice, anyone?)? What if copying the expression is the only way to express oneself? What if copying another's expression is the best way to do so? If I cut and paste that infamous picture of all those buses in flooded water during Hurricane Katrina, and then redistribute that picture to the world, have I engaged in expression or plagiarism? Would Achenbauch say my expression is merely inspirationally permissible?
Posted by: Crash Davis | December 12, 2006 4:20 PM
Jed Rubenfeld, "Freedom of Imagination," Yale Law Journal 112 (2001): 1.
Posted by: Crash Davis | December 12, 2006 4:22 PM
MONA mentions an editorial in praise of Pinochet and Jeane Kirkpatrick (hardly in the same category, even though Jeane favored a supposedly "realist" policy of working with the devil). Anyway, WTF? Could MONA possibly be referring to Eugene Robinson's column? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101226.html
If so, I suppose you could describe it as praise to call a fellow a tyrant and a despot in the opening sentence, if that were the 'honored' fellow's goal. In the case of Pinochet, I suppose that case could be made.
Posted by: Tim | December 12, 2006 4:29 PM
If you print someone's photo's as your own you're a thief.
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 4:35 PM
"Would Achenbauch say my expression is merely inspirationally permissible?"
No, but he might ask you to spell check his name. I know this is strictly against the heretofore mentioned SCC policy, and I am scum.
Too much reliance on spell checkers can bring much embarrassment. I once was spellchecking a request for a certificate of insurance, and said yes just a leeeeettle too hastily. My request went out for a cervical of insurance. The broker still probably has that request hanging on the lunch room funnies wall.
Posted by: dr | December 12, 2006 4:36 PM
dr, did you see this article, such a sad story. I was hoping you could clarify something for me, what is a dugout in this context. Large watering hole?
Posted by: dmd | December 12, 2006 4:41 PM
Copied word for word; a clear case of plagiarism, both in terms of diction and syntax. Who is Ian Elwan, anyway?
Posted by: Dave | December 12, 2006 4:43 PM
Expository writing is not the same as fiction. You don't lard up a work of fiction with quotation marks and footnotes, especially if you were paraphrasing. It is to be read seamlessly. McEwan paraphrased. Perhaps not so thoroughly as he should have, but the words definitely were not in the precise order in which Andrews wrote them, therefore, quotation marks were not appropriate because it would have been a misquote. The case for or against plagiarism (by McEwan, of Andrews) is independent of this particular point.
In the latter part of this comment, she notes that allusions to... sorry, "Allusions to a literary work is [sic] not plagiarism." Well, isn't that what McEwan did? Therefore, he is not guilty of plagiarism. Does the obscurity of the alluded literary work factor into whether it's an allusion vs. plagiarism?
Posted by: StorytellerTim | December 12, 2006 4:45 PM
Whatever happened to the refreshing type of comment like 'oh yes, we somehow missed that reference and apologize; we will correct it in the next printing.' All this lack of taking responsibility to me makes it harder for the others who follow suit and are going to be less likely to own up. I don't care if it's only four sentences out of 500; a short acknowledgement is needed! Oy!
Posted by: ccohen | December 12, 2006 4:46 PM
If, as some have suggested, that this was a mistake and he meant to go back and use his own 'voice' to express what had been written , then it's a oops, my bad, move on. Howerver if it was puposeful then he stole someone else's work and has deceived his readers.
I've just finished reading Joel's description of his encounter with New Age ufologists channeling aliens. These people really press my nerve. I recommend immediately implementing a mental hygiene program based on cattle prods and Desert Eagles.:-b
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 4:49 PM
He referenced the author. It ain't plagarism.
Posted by: Anonymous | December 12, 2006 4:52 PM
dmd, A dugout is exactly that. A hole dug in the ground. They were popular in the 60's and 70's where farms did not have adequate wells, and had no surface source of water in the form of natural sloughs, ponds or streams to water livestock. The theory was that if you dug a hole, it would eventually fill with water. It was most effective in low spots where water sat anyway, but was not deep enough to provide clean safe water for your herd.
There are places along highways right across the prairies where you see them because highway crews were famous for taking good clay from deep down for road construction.
Cows are like sheep. They follow along behind a leader and get themselves in all kinds of messes. It happens, its just the number of animals affected that makes this one newsworthy.
I have to wonder what he will do next spring. His water will not be safe for animals.
Posted by: dr | December 12, 2006 4:55 PM
Nope. Not plagarism. The fact that he lifted from a memoir for a work of fiction, and then cited it (albeit vaguely) seems fine to me. It really IS like sampling, especially, if he LIKED the way she had written it, and 'used' it, as opposed to 'improving' it. Actually, if he had changed it more, THEN there may be a problem.
Posted by: cm | December 12, 2006 5:02 PM
I thought the definitions were as follows:
Kerfuffle: an argument or disagreement.
Kerfluffle: a kerfuffle, but involving light or non-contentious issues
CERNfluffle: a disagreement involving the physical properties of the universe
Curfuffle: a disagreement involving dogs
Kerfluffer: someone's who's job it is to keep a disagreement going(see "lawyer")
Posted by: SonofCarl | December 12, 2006 5:05 PM
I thought the definitions were as follows:
Kerfuffle: an argument or disagreement.
Kerfluffle: a kerfuffle, but involving light or non-contentious issues
CERNfluffle: a disagreement involving the physical properties of the universe
Curfuffle: a disagreement involving dogs
Kerfluffer: someone's who's job it is to keep a disagreement going(see "lawyer")
Posted by: SonofCarl | December 12, 2006 5:05 PM
I don't understand why some say its analagous to sampling. Do samplers use seven or eight bars of a musician's riff and claim them as their own? Anyway hip hop would be one of the last places I'd reference for ethical guidance.
Posted by: Boko999 | December 12, 2006 5:32 PM
Posted by: Kermit the Frog999 | December 12, 2006 5:34 PM
I think you missed the real story, almost all the major big shot authors do do it. I could name them for hours (Coleridge, Beckett, etc.). My guess is most of the major literary figures you can think of engaged in some form of plagerism.
Posted by: Scu | December 12, 2006 5:36 PM
>I don't understand why some say its analagous to sampling.
Not only that, but unless you name the other artist in the lyrics there's no way to attribute a music sample, whereas in printed form you can mark the passage and include a reference at the bottom of the page.
I believe the legally acceptable max on sampling is something like 6 seconds.
Posted by: Error Flynn | December 12, 2006 5:45 PM
We're back. Didn't take as long as I thought it would. Just really dehydrated, and need fluids. Gatorade and ginger ale. I'll take the ginger ale, don't like gatorade.
I believe if an author's words move you, and you think they're pretty good, what's wrong with citing the author?
I do wish I could come to the bph, but, alas, it is not to be. Enjoy yourselves, and I hope we get some pictures. Good night.
Posted by: Cassandra S | December 12, 2006 5:46 PM
What's really embarrassing is when one plagiarizes acidentally, from something one read years before. It's happened to me. Doing it deliberately however, deserves derision, if not a hefty fine.
In other news, the Christmas bonus was recovered, turned in to the boss, and re-given to me Monday afternoon. Talk about developing false memories: I had talked myself into believing I vaguely remembered seeing out of the corner of my eye, but not realizing, the EXACT INSTANT someone stole from me! A totally manufactured memory, as it never happened. Fully aware of the vagueries of my own head, I am glad I said nothing to anyone.
I am going to have something flavored coconut and melon soon.
Posted by: Jumper | December 12, 2006 5:59 PM
I'm waiting for someone to mention Ulysses.
I wanted to discuss John Irving's A Prayer For Ownen Meany, which was part homage to Gunter Grass' masterpeice The Tin Drum and visited several gushing sites declaring that OPFOM is the "best novel ever" etc. None I veiwed even mentioned Grass. I'm so depressed. Good night and thanks for all the fish.
Posted by: Anonymous | December 12, 2006 5:59 PM
My favourite movie pointing out the joys of plagarism is the Aristocrats.
Posted by: Less Now999 | December 12, 2006 6:07 PM
I plagiarized the holy crap out of my dissertation. Later, it was published--and, some poor saps have actually bought it.
IF YOU AIN'T CHEATING, YOU AIN'T TRYING! That's what we use to say in the Navy, at least.
Posted by: Ph.D. | December 12, 2006 6:16 PM
Kerfluffy: A cute little bunny rabbit who keeps getting dogs into trouble.
Posted by: dr | December 12, 2006 6:17 PM
DR, if you're still reading the comments this far down "literature as conversation" is in academic terms called intertextuality (or as a professor of mine said, or rather ranted, "literary allusions!") He was not one for academic posturing.
The idea is that for those well read, or learned souls, these "plagarized" words, lines, ideas connect from author to author, from age to age like a hidden puzzle often missesd by those "lesser minds" who do not know, or do not understand.
This, however, looks like it's gone too far and smacks of laziness. Once the original "allusion" was established, McEwan continues to copy the situation in its entirety, with barely a reword or restructuring.
Posted by: Kevin | December 12, 2006 6:18 PM
Sorry, The Aristocrates was about making existing art your own. *DARN YOU GODFREY*
Posted by: DolphinBoko | December 12, 2006 6:18 PM
MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech was substantially appropriated from others work. Really.
Posted by: MLK"s "I Have A Dream" | December 12, 2006 6:22 PM
I believe the person attacking the wrong person was referring to this editorial not Robinson's column.
Posted by: ThefirstGuy | December 12, 2006 6:35 PM
I, for one, read a novel to gain insight into an author's "take" on events. I relish the extent to which an author's imagination can embellish a scene or event. When their own imagination fails and they must "lift" descriptions of the events from another author, they have failed in one of their most important functions. I find it most disheartening that so many authors have come to the defense of MacEwan's plagarism by claiming that "everyone does it." I have read several of MacEwan's novels and feel that he, in fact, does not warrant all the acclaim that has been bestowed upon him. I do not plan to read another of his books, nor will I read the authors who have jumped so enthusiastically to his defense!
Posted by: MacEwan | December 12, 2006 6:44 PM
Accusations of plagiarism have risen to the level of political correctness run amok. There is a difference between a fiction writer incorporating material in one select passage of a larger work, "acknowledging" the source but failing formally to "cite" it, and a scholar doing the same in an academic work. The standards, quite simply, are different, and it is absurd to hold literary authors to this level of scrutiny.
Certainly if an author rips off most or all of another work, then accusations of plagiarism may have grounds, although even then this is questionable depending on what the new author has done with the material. In artistic contexts, duplication is not necessarily plagiarism, particularly if the new author adds some value to the material. Simply because an author has "duplicated" language doesn't count as plagiarism, or, if it did, how much duplicated language is enough to warrant the accusation? A phrase? A sentence? A paragraph?
If duplicating language is the problem, then what about when a person lifts the entire conceptual framework of a piece, merely putting it in his or her own words? Particularly from an academic standpoint, this is a much more pernicious form of plagiarism than having a few uncited lines in a longer work. And then when we step into a literary venue, is it really fair to lay blame when someone borrows a plot device, image, or anything from somewhere else?
Is Hemingway guilty of plargiarism for ripping off the phrase "for whom the bell tolls" from John Donne's Meditations? Is Shakespeare guilty for copying whole passages in his history plays almost straight out of Ralph Holinshed's Chronicles? Or what about the Comedy of Errors, which is largely ripped off from someone's translation of Plautus' Menaechmi? Or As You Like It, which is ripped off in no small part from Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde, which in turn was ripped off from the 14th century poem The Tale of Gamelyn? For that matter, Chaucer ripped of his Troilus and Criseyde from Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, and scholars can trace the source materials for virtually all of the Canterbury Tales as well. To step outside of literature a moment, I don't think Andy Warhol originally designed the Cambell's soup label either.
Great literature happens because writers rip off from each other and recombine materials in new ways, adding bits and pieces of their own inspiration to the works. Literary production is very much a conversation that takes place among contemporaries and with the past, and I defy you to find any recent novel that isn't directly indebted to something or another, whether conceptually, linguistically, or otherwise. Literature at its core is pastiche, drawing influences from wherever it can, and nit-picking ambulance chasers need to back off.
Posted by: blert | December 12, 2006 6:45 PM
Sort of like when a person can't think of an original handle to use on the internet?
Posted by: Yoki | December 12, 2006 6:47 PM
All novels should be google tested now...see if you can find passages that match more than a certain statistical percentage... Of course I don't know where we are gonna end up with so much originality and so much attribution.
Plagiarism in this individualistic west has been taken to maniacal levels. It is time they get a reality check. All fiction is socially constructed.
Posted by: Spincycle | December 12, 2006 6:58 PM
I loved "Atonement" some much. It was like the author got into my head when I was a kid Briony's age. Uncanny. Hey, maybe Ian was stealing from me? :-) Or every other arty, imaginative/slightly melodramatic brat who hungers for attention and love and mild revenge.
I clearly recall he referenced the diary at the end. I am suprised to learn he left a bit of a mess behind, but he clearly meant no harm or he wouldnt have credited the diary in the first place.
As for originality being myth - that's cowardly, imo. The fact is that societies frown (at the least) on originality but brilliant people pop up anyway.
Posted by: Judith | December 12, 2006 6:59 PM
So Yoki, hypothetically speaking, if you're a premier and you're writing a paper on Allende and Pinochet, do you cite several pages of lifted material found on-line as (internet) or [internet]?
Posted by: SonofCarl | December 12, 2006 7:00 PM
Kevin, I thank you. Sadly I boodle all day long. I am a total Achenaddict.
I had to laugh at allusions. Instantly it switched in my head to illusions. Sadly your second paragraph is everything that makes me find the phrase pretentious. I understand what you are saying, but when you say it out loud... It's one of the things that makes readers of popular fiction stay away from some very good books.
Publishers are starting to realize that they need to reach that guy reading the schlock novels. Those are the people spending big money on books.
Posted by: dr | December 12, 2006 7:05 PM
McEwan, "possibly the best novelist in the world"? In English or any language? For my money, the novel Saturday was not world class; both central character and novelist seem preoccupied with property prices, cheering for Blair's Iraq policy and keeping the lower orders at bay. The running times of the surgeon were way too low for a guy who quickly tires in a squash game and the descriptions of the operations had a breathless, corny feel to them. A mediocre effort at best.
Posted by: bp | December 12, 2006 7:16 PM
What an ink-blot test this kit has become.
Posted by: LTL-CA | December 12, 2006 7:22 PM
Yeah, LTL, time for a change in subject. This is getting a bit repetitive. At least we're not discussing the relative merits of one European country vis-a-vis a North American country. That got real tedious, as I recall.
Posted by: Slyness | December 12, 2006 7:36 PM
If we didn't know your birthplace, this would cinch it.
Posted by: dbG | December 12, 2006 8:03 PM
Before drawing any conclusions, I suggest reading his explanation.
Posted by: MC | December 12, 2006 8:22 PM
Who gives a poop about this? America recycles everything -- wars, politicians, and text. Boo-hoo for the people who actually care about this seriously minor piece of "news". Come on, Joel. You are better than this!
Posted by: Nan | December 12, 2006 8:33 PM
Hope the BPH went well. And thanks, Mudge and Yoki, for the insightful responses. Somehow, I guess I had this image of these amazingly well-read interns who did the plagiarism checking. Not my brightest moment.
Posted by: RD Padouk | December 12, 2006 8:50 PM
Looks like I'm the first one back from the BPH. Had a good time; there were 12 of us by the time I left: me, bc, scotty, Wilbrod, omni, yellojkt, TBG, Raysmom, Lostin Thought, Maggie'O, ScienceTim and mo. We were also expecting Annie any moment. None of us were able to get back to Pat in time to meet him at the metro--hope that wasn't why he didn't make it (and hope he isn't still standing on the platform waiting for one of us to come along). Hilarity ensued, and the official Achenwaitress (we learned for the first time her name is Mara) did her usual excellent job. Yep, bc, omni and I established a beachehead on one table by the front window, and patiently waited out two ladies dining at the next table for nearly an hour, and when they left, we pounced like the Marines at Iwo Jima. Soon we had three tables, room for Wilbrodog, and seats for everybody.
dr, to answer your 4:02, the problem isn't finding good editors. The problem is that book publishers no longer put much stock in hiring and keeping them; they no longer view it as very important. Accordingly, they are no longer interested investing the money, yadda yadda. Most of them have learned a few sorry lessons, such as: (1)crap sells just as well (or better) than good stuff; (2) not quite "nobody cares," but certainly less and less people care, so why spend the money; and (3) not only do less people care, less and less people even notice.
Back in the "good old days" the top houses had crackerjack editors who actually worked with writers, spent hours and hours laboring over their stuff, editing, making suggestions, "forcing" them to go back and rewrite, etc. The legendary archetype, of course, was Scribner's Maxwell Perkins, who edited Fitzgerald, Tom Wolfe (the Look Honeward, Angels Wolfe, not the Bonfire/Vanities Wolfe) and Hemingway. Wolfe's work, in particular, wouldn't even be known today if it weren't for Perkins weeding it out, organizing, it reorganizing it, and basically putting as much work into it as Wolfe himself did.
In addition, these editors not only edited, they performed the roles of counselor, mentor, shrink, guru, moneylender, bail bondsman, drinking companion, 12-Step guide--in short, whatever it took to nurse genius through whatever it took to produce capital A Art. (And the first requirment, it goes without saying, was the ability to recognize genius in the first place. The second requirement is/was the willingness to submerge one's own ego and ambitions in favor of helping the author produce his art and stoking his fame and glory instead of your own; no small job, that. Third is having both real talent as an editor as well as talent being the adult babysitter of a bad-boy genius with the maturity of, say, a 12-year-old neurotic [Hemingway, Fitz, Wolfe, Ruark, O'Hara, the list goes on and on].)
For that job description, ya gotta pay some bucks. Of all the publishing houses, only two are ever really talked about: Scribners, first, and secondarily Knopf. Among the other houses there were (and maybe still are) a few individual people who might qualify, but they tend to come and go, and take their own "lines" and authors with them. And they aren't nearly as famous as the old-time editors.
Also to be fed into the equation: nowadays, author's agents often perform the role of shrink, guru, bail bondsperson, etc., that editors used to play. So the bond that used to exist between author and pub house editor is broken and has been replaced by author-agent bond. And indeed, there are some agents who are said to function in part as editors, reading manuscripts, making suggesting, and generally wet-nursing genius wherever it rears its psychoneurotic head. But I suspect these are as rare as the Max Perkins types were in the good old days. After all, why wet-nurse some brooding, inarticulate starving artist genius in his Soho loft when you can be a roadie for a rock star, do the same kind of work, but get paid ninety times as much, plus get all the sloppy-seconds on women, booze, drugs, fame, etc.?
You make the call: wet-nurse Ian McEwen, Bruce Chatwin, Malcolm Lowery, Joyce Carol Oates or John Le Carre (or, god forbid, Hunter Thompson), or wet-nurse TomKat, Kid Rock or Carrie Underwood?
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 9:25 PM
It seems to me that this guy MacEwan ought to apologize for not making clear where the quote was in the book. Until he actually apologizes, I think that he should be held in ill repute.
Posted by: Nate | December 12, 2006 9:29 PM
A few years ago I took some college courses online. One required course was academic writing, and there was a section on plagiarism. When I got done reading it, I felt like I had been plagiarizing all my life! I can't remember the rules, but paraphrasing, changing just a few words here and there while maintaining the tone was plagiarism - kind of what McEwan did.
I have read Atonement and liked it very much. I agree with Joel that the paragraphs in question are a very small part of the book, and while McEwan creates a wonderfully detailed and authentic picture of that time, the plot is what makes it such a good book, IMO. Jealousy, lies, heroics - with an ending I did not see coming.
Posted by: mostlylurking | December 12, 2006 9:30 PM
No more american news stories on Canada I guess.
Posted by: Kerric | December 12, 2006 9:34 PM
Mudge, I'll take the authors anyday, especially Le Carre - but I take your point (I would just choose different rock stars!).
Sounds like a great BPH - awaiting pictures and stories.
Posted by: mostlylurking | December 12, 2006 9:38 PM
One of your compatriots already posted that. And the story says that western Canada will be covered from Seattle (I always say we're practically in Canada anyway). No, it's another sign of the demise of journalism.
Posted by: mostlylurking | December 12, 2006 9:40 PM
Sorry I missed the "kerfluffle" kerfuffle. I just figured Joel was taking some creative license with the word.
Good 'boodle today -- a lot of new faces.
I'm not quite sure where I stand on the McEwan kerflewfal. Perhaps he could have clearly footnoted the text in question, rather than using the more vague approach of acknowledging Lucilla Andrews in his Author's Note. In a sense, Andrews was a co-author -- but only of a small, specific section, and in an ideal world, that would have been more competently clarified.
Posted by: Tom fan | December 12, 2006 9:47 PM
Hey Jumper, glad you got your dough back.
Amazing capacity we humans have to create our own reality.
Posted by: Error Flynn | December 12, 2006 9:55 PM
And this from U2's song The Fly: It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief
Posted by: mostlylurking | December 12, 2006 9:56 PM
RDP, I don't know, but the bit about run-time in the fact checking was classic.
Posted by: Error Flynn | December 12, 2006 10:02 PM
mostly, I'd take the writers, too--but that's what makes you and me a little different from 98 percent of the human race. Most people would take the glitz, glamour, etc., over the anonymous laboring in the vineyard of Art.
I'm a darn good editor. And a darn good writer. And I'll die poor. That's just the way it is, and it has taken 60 years to accept it, and be comfortable with it. But I've still got books to write. Whether they make any money has long since ceased to be of interest to me (the irony, of course, is that even if they do make money, it's way too late in the game for it to do me any good. The ego needs fame and fortune and beautiful women when one is 30 or 35. At 60 all the ego needs is a cerveza con limon, a channel changer, a small heater for the feet, maybe a sweater, some dried fruit (apricots are good).
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 10:09 PM
Ha ha, Mudge - you've got the right attitude. And a fabulous vacation to look forward to - and a boat - and a fine family and imaginary friends too. So you've done pretty well - hope you have a good vacation (remember, don't light any matches on the plane, no matter what!)
Posted by: mostlylurking | December 12, 2006 10:25 PM
I'm LOL, mostly. I'll hoist a cerveza for you.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | December 12, 2006 10:42 PM
Whoops. This is what happens when you don't pay enough attention to whats been said earlier in the day. And is once again proof why I am hereby banned from linking.
Posted by: KerrACK | December 12, 2006 11:02 PM
Mudge, at least write so you have royalties to eke out your meager pension.
So um, have you tested the talents of book editors in wetnursing you? You were rather detailed in that one.
Mostlylurking made a good point-- tone is crucial in whether something feels like a fresh take on another's work or simple plagarism. I think humor novelists can be one of the more creative and original writers because they continually inject the unexpected in rote formulas-- and I mean humor novelists whose works survive more than a decade or two, of course. Topical humor doesn't wear well, since it depends heavily on allusions to people and places that are forgotten.
Some of the top humor stuff from the 40's and 50's are nearly undecipherable unless you know all about the funnymen and culture back then. And course, the jokes are now OLD. Which makes me think of Mark Twain's "Adam's diary"- about how Adam found the very first joke he thought of was already a chestnut (tired old gag). I do like Eve's diary a bit better of course. Mark Twain's humor lasts because he fortunately used basic allusions to the real world, added in detail so all could understand and visualize and then gave us a ride.
I always find it interesting that he basically wrote in every genre we have today (except comic books, although "Just So Stories" do have illustrations by the author).
Besides, inject some of the humor you have on this boodle in you next book, and we'll see if your luck changes before you need to beat off fawning fans with your peg leg just so you can take out your false teeth and take a nap.
Besides, what would you have done with fame at 35? Would you have had 5 marriages in a row, become bankrupt by alimony and scandals, developed drug problems from all the stress of being a famous novelist, and fried 10 vital organs before age 50?
By the way, Wilbrodog says he's happy to heat your feet at need.
I got a fair share of BPH pictures, will forward them to S'nuke.
Posted by: Wilbrod | December 12, 2006 11:12 PM
Joel, just so. On my honor, the center must hold. Or be held.
Posted by: appell8 | December 12, 2006 11:42 PM
kerric, I was afraid I had chased you away - didn't mean to be so abrupt. But many of the Canadian contingent were rightly concerned about this - just earlier, before you got here. Let's see, they've got western Canada covered from here, they say that the northeastern branch will cover the rest - I say some coverage for Alberta is definitely called for, and for Newfoundland too. I bet you know someone who could do bang-up curling reporting.
Posted by: mostlylurking | December 13, 2006 12:10 AM
LOL, SonofCarl. I think if you are that premier you really have no business taking university courses at all, even if your aides do most of the work for you.
I'm sorry if I offend any righteous Albertans, but the man had the brainpower of a flea and the personality of, well, a fruit fly. I'm sure this is an insult to fleas everywhere. I am so happy to see his back going out the door.
Posted by: Yoki | December 13, 2006 12:22 AM
LOL mostlylurking I'm pretty hard to scare. Being stuck at work, working a completely opposite shift from what I've become used to, is causing me to lose my sanity.
Posted by: Kerric | December 13, 2006 12:58 AM
My sister, who's an editor at a major university press (does non-fiction), replied: I read the book in question, and would agree that two paragraphs out of 400 pages is, pht, who cares. Sloppiness.
Posted by: LTL-CA | December 13, 2006 1:43 AM
I think that this would be a common place practice,borrowing someone else's idea and views.I guess the problem here is that he didn't really acknowledge how much he used her writing or that proper credit was not given.
I think writing is a grand profession,We all love to read and i think there is probably a writer in all of us,some just take it to the next level.
Or could it be the fact that he is just old and forgot to make the proper credits.I can't even remember what I had for dinner last night let alone what I wrote 6 months ago.
But I guess that is why there are editors.
Editors,They could probably produce some great works of there own.It would be interesting to see their roles reversed.
Posted by: greenwithenvy | December 13, 2006 6:49 AM
Speaking of a need for editors, this email subject line caught my son's attention. Looks like the Webb staff needs a little lesson in hyphenating:
Senator-elect Jim Webb's Swearing in Celebration Which four-letter words do you suppose he's using?
Posted by: TBG | December 13, 2006 7:20 AM
Just catching up with the Kit and Boodle after spending yesterday babysitting and last night making gingerbread cookies. I am unfamiliar with both authors but feel that if the shoe was on the other foot, romance novelist 'lifted' passages from 'serious' novelist, the furious howls of plagerism would be deafening. To me it's a matter of 'principle,' something that the world in general seems to be losing adherence to more and more.
If someone else has already made this point, I apologize, as I only skimmed the comments. Stating this is a matter of principle to me rather than a way of covering my backside.
Looking forward to seeing the photos from the BPH last night.
Posted by: Bad Sneakers | December 13, 2006 7:32 AM
RDP asked: "Cause I can see how, just as it is easy to regurgitate another tune without really realizing it (seeking the opinion here of the artist formerly known as martooni) it might be easy to accidentally re-write an especially memorable phrase or passage buried deep within one's psyche."
I think "accidental plagiarism" is an oxymoron. To plagiarize is to knowingly try to pass off another's work as your own. Nothing accidental about it (except may forgetting to cite the author of the original). In other words, it's like "accidentally" robbing a bank. Try telling that one to da judge.
As for derivative works (intentional or not), that's more what you're getting at (me thinks). In music, the line between "what's yours" and "what's mine" can blur very easily because music is basically mathematics. 2 + 2 always equals 4 -- no getting around that. A perfect example is Blues -- almost every blues tune (or derivative rock tune) is in a 1-4-5 chord progression. The music for "Hootchie Cootchie Man" is nearly identical to "I Just Want To Make Love To You", and then there's "Bad To The Bone" which lifts both the basic tune and the lyrical content/structure from "Hootchie".
I think this is the musical equivalent to the "seven basic plots" (or whatever the number is) that all fiction boils down to (I think Shakespeare covered them all).
Many of my own tunes resemble others' works in various ways, but I like to think we're all painting/describing/celebrating the same sunrise (so to speak).
Posted by: martooni | December 13, 2006 7:41 AM
That's a good one TBG. It reminds me of a teen beauty pageant many years ago whose literature made the following proud claim:
"there will be no swimsuit competitions"
Posted by: RD Padouk | December 13, 2006 7:46 AM
You remind of of when John Fogerty's former record label was suing him because his new songs sounded too much like his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs. The judge decided that all Fogerty's songs sound alike, so the label had no case.
I don't know why it took a judge to come up with that decision. Don't we all know that?
Posted by: TBG | December 13, 2006 8:06 AM
Enjoyed meeting the newbies, Maggie O'D and Raysmom, last night at the BPH--and of course seeing all the "oldtimers."
Be comforted to know that we solved all the world's problems, so it should be smooth sailing from now on. Of course, that's unless something new happens and then we're all on our own again.
Posted by: TBG | December 13, 2006 8:24 AM
Wasn't it Johnny Mathis who sang "Wonderful, Wonderful?" In any case, that song should have been playing at the BPH last night 'cuz it WAS wonderful seeing the usual suspects AND adding a couple more faces to the lineup.
Not to mention the lovely parting gifts!!!
More on that once I have the time to edit and upload the pics, tonight if at all possible!
Posted by: Scottynuke | December 13, 2006 8:44 AM
Warning : very high canuck/hockey content
I don't know if we should be proud or worried about the fact that most of best and craziest goalies are Quebecers (or quebecois, as per the latest Parliement resolution). They forgot Rogatien Vachon; in his days in Montreal he was spending the intermission between periods compulsively rewrapping his hockey stick.
Posted by: Shrieking Denizen | December 13, 2006 8:49 AM
I've been lurking of late. Skimmed the boodle...and I always thought kerfluffle was in the lexicon as an officially sanctioned word by the White House Office of Communications. Our daughter's marching band has been selected to represent the State of South Carolina in the 4th of July parade in D.C. this summer. WOOOhOOOO. We may be visiting ...
Posted by: jack | December 13, 2006 8:51 AM
whoa, talk about false memories: I met Annie for the first time in person last night, and told her we had met before at a previous BPH. This morning I realized that was one of two BPHs I had missed. This false memory brought to you by a mere photo. Like I said: WHOA!!!
And it was nice to meet three new boodlers to the BPH: maggie o'd; :Raysmom; LostInThought.
And of course Mudge missed Annie by like four minutes...
Posted by: omni | December 13, 2006 9:01 AM
Jack congratulations to your daughter, my town has one of this countries better known marching bands and I know what a big deal it is to be selected for a major event. The band is a great source of pride in town as I am sure your daughters band is to both your family and your community.
Shrieking I am saddened by the article you posted just another long hockey tradition fading away, what's next the end of the post game beer?
Posted by: dmd | December 13, 2006 9:01 AM
Not sure why that line break is where it is in that second paragraph...or where that colon came from...should have previewed that...for sure...time for a walk I guess...SCC.The.Whole.Dang.Thing...
Posted by: omni | December 13, 2006 9:05 AM
Amazing story about Billy Graham, I hope everyone's read it. Will blog on this later. Off to Smithsonian briefly to check out a new exhibit.
On McEwan, yeah, it's not a big deal. I think that's the general verdict. But given the epidemic of term-paper plagiarism (thanks in part to "paper mills" on the Internet) I think our leading lights ought to be careful when they send out the message that this is the normal way of creating literature and that there's no such thing as originality. At the least run it through the typewriter one more time and make it fully your own story.
Posted by: Achenbach | December 13, 2006 9:06 AM
Sorry I missed the BPH, the
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Blog by Joel Achenbach. Visit www.washingtonpost.com/style.
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'Death Square' Blast Kills 70 Iraqi Laborers
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BAGHDAD, Dec 12 -- They arrived Tuesday morning at a place where sudden death intersects with life. They were mostly young men from Basra, Nasiriyah, Amarah and other towns across Shiite-dominated southern Iraq. At a time when men their age were joining Shiite militias or criminal gangs, they sought something more elusive in the new Iraq: jobs.
In Tayaran Square, about a mile from the fortified Green Zone, the day laborers waited for work at the going rate of $10 a day, paltry by Baghdad standards. In recent months, there had been two bombings here, killing several people. Local residents called the place Death Square. Yet scores of men came.
"They came in order to live," said Sadiq Ali, the short, stocky owner of the Salaam Cafe, where many of the young men had their breakfast tea.
About 7 a.m., a red Chevrolet Malibu truck pulled up at the edge of the square, witnesses said. As the men gathered around, it exploded, killing 70 and injuring more than 230. Others said they heard a second blast at about the same time. The bombing was the deadliest assault since car bombs and mortar shells killed more than 200 people in the Shiite slums of Sadr City on Nov. 23.
Tuesday's attack illustrates the immense challenges that lie ahead as the United States promotes an effort to create thousands of jobs in Iraq. Many Iraqi leaders have called for such programs since U.S.-led forces invaded in Iraq in 2003.
"It's a bit late, as usual," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish legislator. "They should have done this three years ago. In this country, they have spent so much money on security without results. If they had spent one-tenth of that on creating jobs, more projects and fighting unemployment, things would have been better now."
In today's Iraq, the violence is often directed at the economic foundations of society. Insurgents have detonated car bombs in crowded bazaars and factories and attacked minibuses carrying company employees. Criminals have kidnapped wealthy businessmen for ransom and robbed banks. Even generators that provide electricity to whole communities have been blown up.
Senior U.S. military commanders now say that a military solution alone will not stem the sectarian violence plaguing Iraq. Initiatives to boost the nation's anemic economy, they say, must become part of their arsenal.
On Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the departing operational commander of the Multinational Corps in Iraq, said he was frustrated that of an initial $18.4 billion in reconstruction funds allocated by Congress, none had been spent to boost Iraq's agriculture industry.
"Not only could Iraq feed itself, but it could feed large portions of the region and have goods and services to export," Chiarelli told reporters.
He expressed pride in some efforts, specifically a U.S. date palm spraying program in which helicopters sprayed thousands of acres of trees with pesticides to eradicate insects that had caused major damage. Iraq once produced roughly 30 percent of the world's dates, its second-biggest export after oil. Today, the date industry is showing signs of recovery.
"Those are the kinds of things that are small victories, probably kind of float in under the radar, but I think over time can have a cumulative effect that can really start to see the level of the violence go down and get people thinking about something else than whether their neighbor is Sunni or Shia," Chiarelli said.
But as recently as September, date farmers in Baqubah complained that sectarian violence had driven families out of villages and that gunmen had ambushed farmers.
All 20-year-old Khalid Nasser wanted was a job. Several days ago, he traveled from the southern city of Basra to seek his fortune in Baghdad. He stayed at the Mustafa Hotel, down the road from Death Square, where dozens of day laborers resided. "They came because they were starving," said Salih Abbas, the tall, burly owner of the hotel.
Nasser's days were spent working, even though he knew of the risks of lingering in the square each morning. His 13 relatives back in Basra depended on him. "I needed the money," said Nasser, a slim, fashionable young man who wore a New York Yankees ski hat.
On Tuesday morning, as he sipped tea, he watched his foreman walk toward the square, where the pickup had pulled up.
"It was a huge explosion," said Mohammed Jabbar Yousef, 37, a shopkeeper whose store is just across the street from the blast site. " People were running in every direction. They were clutching their heads, legs and hands. There was blood everywhere."
Nasser was thrown to the ground unconscious. When he woke up, he saw a huge crater. The left side of his head was bleeding. His right leg was injured. His foreman's body, he said, was "cut into two pieces."
Two hours later, Nasser limped into the Salaam Cafe. His head was bandaged. He joined a group of men, some of whom spoke in casual tones about the bombing.
"We get used to death," said Ali, the owner. "Death is in the hands of God. What can we do?"
"They are targeting the Shia," Abbas said, shaking his head in disgust.
Outside, the sound of hammers filled the air. Shopkeepers were putting their shattered doors back into place. On the street, men washed away the blood, turning the water maroon. Women in black abayas were shopping. Minibus drivers were hailing customers.
Yousef, the shopkeeper, had picked up his tumbled wall of goods and was back in business. He expressed sympathy for the day laborers. "I have a family to feed," he said as a customer entered.
For the most part, life had returned to normal on Death Square, save for one soul sitting in a coffee shop, pondering his future. "I will take my brother and go back to Basra," Nasser said. "I will not return."
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To Stem Iraqi Violence, U.S. Aims to Create Jobs
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As Iraq descends further into violence and disarray, the Pentagon is turning to a weapon some believe should have been used years ago: jobs.
Members of a small Pentagon task force have gone to the most dangerous areas of Iraq over the past six months to bring life to nearly 200 state-owned factories abandoned by the Coalition Provisional Authority after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Their goal is to employ tens of thousands of Iraqis in coming months, part of a plan to reduce soaring unemployment and lessen the violence that has crippled progress.
Defense officials and military commanders say that festering unemployment -- at 70 percent in some areas -- is leading Iraqi men to take cash from insurgents to place bombs on roads or take shots at U.S. troops. Other Iraqis are joining sectarian attacks because their quality of life has slipped dramatically, officials say.
Army Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the top U.S. field commander in Iraq, said that tackling unemployment could do far more good than adding U.S. combat troops or more aggressively pursuing an elusive enemy. He said the project to open the factories and stimulate local economies is long overdue and was born "of desperation."
"We need to put the angry young men to work," Chiarelli said in a phone interview from Baghdad. "One of the key hindrances to us establishing stability in Iraq is the failure to get the economy going. A relatively small decrease in unemployment would have a very serious effect on the level of sectarian killing going on."
The CPA initially hoped private investors would buy or lease the state factories, but that did not happen as security faltered and much of Iraq became inaccessible. As privatization hopes failed, the factories languished; some were in pristine form and others had been looted when the Pentagon task force examined them this fall. The tens of thousands of Iraqis who used to make them run -- the country's second-largest employment group, after the army -- remained out of work.
Pentagon officials say the vast majority of former Iraqi factory workers are still unemployed and are bringing in no pay. A small portion of the workforce receives government stipends, akin to welfare, but the pay system is badly flawed and provides about 20 percent of what the workers would make if fully employed, the officials said.
Economic development is a departure from the military's usual missions, but officials think the Defense Department's heft as a consumer of goods and services can boost the effort. The department has been reaching out to U.S. companies that can place large orders for products from Iraq.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England set the task force in motion in June after Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense, returned from a visit to Iraq the month before.
Brinkley, who returned last night from a trip to Iraq with his team, said thousands of Iraqis lost their jobs and the ability to support their families when CPA projections dimmed. Unrest followed the absence of work.
"After three years of unemployment in excess of 50 percent, there are no people in the world that wouldn't be undergoing violence and militias," Brinkley said. "That's human nature. And I think we have to do whatever we have to do to alleviate that problem if we are going to create stability."
So far, members of the task force have visited 26 factories in some of the worst areas of the country, traveling to Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul, Najaf and Ramadi to inspect facilities that make cement, tile, rubber and textiles. They have identified 10 factories -- their "hot list" of facilities in both Sunni and Shiite areas -- that they think could be open and employing more than 11,000 Iraqis within the next month.
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Illegal Workers Arrested In 6-State ID Theft Sweep
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Federal agents targeting illegal immigrants raided meatpacking plants in six states yesterday, arresting hundreds of workers on the uncommon charge of identity theft and shutting down the world's second-largest meat processing company for much of the day.
About 1,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with search warrants entered plants owned by Swift & Co., of Greeley, Colo., charging that "large numbers" of workers illegally assumed the identities of U.S. citizens or legal residents by using their Social Security numbers to get work, ICE officials said.
Company and union officials said agents, some dressed in riot gear, locked down six beef- and pork-processing plants early in the morning, segregating workers into groups of citizens and non-citizens after questioning. Some illegal workers were bused to detention facilities hours away, labor officials said.
ICE officials would not say how many people were arrested, pending a news conference today in Washington. About 90 percent of Swift's 15,000 U.S. employees work in three shifts at the plants, company officials said.
The crackdown was another step in the federal government's campaign against illegal immigration, and like some recent raids it targeted job sites, the magnet drawing many of the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants. But the move was unusual for several reasons.
U.S. authorities cast the 11-month investigation as an attack on identity theft, not on typical immigration violations. Swift officials were not charged, despite recent administration vows to get tough on companies as well as workers.
The sweep also highlighted flaws in the main program through which the government helps employers authenticate workers' identification documents, underscoring how weak government ID requirements and poor coordination with the Social Security Administration have frustrated enforcers for decades. Swift has been participating in the program for years.
Yesterday's raid "shows the weakness of the current system, the ways illegal workers have been able to find employment in the legitimate economy, and the need for enforcement efforts to focus on the work site and not just the border," said Deborah W. Meyers, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.
Although many illegal workers by definition commit document fraud to get jobs, the government's use of identity theft charges could reframe the immigration debate for the public and spotlight how sharing Social Security data could fight such abuses, she said.
In a brief teleconference with reporters, Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for ICE, said that "the signal we're intending to send here is, 'We're serious about work site enforcement, and those individuals who steal identities of U.S. citizens will not escape action from us.' " She said the government would also pursue vendors of fake documents, former workers and legitimate residents who sold their Social Security numbers.
Raids took place in plants in Greeley; Grand Island, Neb.; Cactus, Tex.; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.
ICE spokesman Marc Raimondi said investigators will decide whether those arrested will face immediate deportation, prosecution or detention pending other legal proceedings. U.S. officials noted the participation of the Federal Trade Commission, which routinely shares data on identity theft victims with federal and state law enforcement agencies.
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Taco Bell
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MONDAY, Dec. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Investigators are no closer to determining the source of an outbreak ofE. colithan they were when the first of 64 people in the Northeast became ill in early November, federal health officials said Monday.
Tests on green onions, believed to have been a possible cause, were negative, they said.
But the outbreak, linked to Taco Bell restaurants, may be winding down. No new cases have been added to those reported in five states since late last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Dr. Christopher Braden, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news teleconference there may yet still be unconfirmed cases of people sickened byE. coli.
"We are not ready to say it's absolutely over, but we haven't had any new cases in the last few days," he said.
Last week, officials from the CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration were focusing on green onions as the likely source of the bacterial outbreak linked to patrons who ate at Taco Bell restaurants. But laboratory tests haven't been able to prove such a link.
But Taco Bell isn't taking any chances. The food chain Saturday announced it had removed all green onions, also called scallions, from its 5,800 restaurants nationwide. "We're focused on working with the authorities to find the root cause," said Rob Poetsch, a spokesman for Yum! Foods, which owns Taco Bell.
"We have obtained samples from the laboratory that Taco Bell used to test samples of green onions," Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer at the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said during the teleconference. "Testing of these samples was negative forE. coli.
"We have been unable to confirm that green onions are the source of the outbreak. We have not ruled out any food items, including green onions," Acheson added.
Acheson said testing of a sample of white onions from a Taco Bell on New York's Long Island by county health officials found the produce was contaminated withE. coli, but not the same strain as the one identified in the outbreak. "It doesn't match the outbreak strain or any strain associated with the illnesses," Acheson said.
As of Monday afternoon, the CDC reported 64 confirmed cases ofE. coliinfection in five states. New Jersey has 28 confirmed cases; New York has 22; Pennsylvania has 11, Delaware has two, and South Carolina has one. The South Carolina patient ate at a Taco Bell in Pennsylvania, according to the CDC.
Of the confirmed cases on the CDC list, 82 percent of the victims required hospitalization and 13 percent developed a form of kidney failure called hemolytic-uremic syndrome, the agency said.
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MONDAY, Dec. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Investigators are no closer to determining the source of an outbreak of E. coli than they were when the first of 64 people in the Northeast became ill in early November, federal health officials said Monday.
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Fast-Order Classic
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Imagine if the curators at the National Gallery walked their halls without ever noticing the "Ginevra de' Benci," Leonardo da Vinci's only painting in the United States.
That's more or less what's been happening for years now in downtown Washington, every time locals have strolled up 10th Street NW between E and F. There, on a jumbled block of storefronts opposite Ford's Theatre, the Waffle Shop has gone 56 years without attracting more than a glimmer of attention. That's a surprise, considering that the ancient restaurant is a stunningly preserved instance of classic 1950s coffee shop design, now almost extinct in Washington -- and with this last example now facing disappearance, too.
The shop is a masterpiece of the high-tech, high-polish, streamlined style properly known as American Moderne -- or, as it's sometimes called, Doo Wop. It's all swooping stainless steel, gold-and-red abstract mosaics and sexy curves of sleek formica. On its own terms, the Waffle Shop is a Mona Lisa that's gone missing.
This talk of art and masterpieces isn't hyperbole. For at least a century, art museums everywhere have preserved great examples of everyday design. The venerable Philadelphia Museum of Art devotes space to a classic Japanese teahouse. The great Metropolitan Museum in New York preserves the 1820s facade of a bank branch from Wall Street, along with 25 period interiors from archetypally American buildings.
Washingtonians get to see a similar historic treasure, but with its context left intact. Visiting the diner at 522 10th St. NW is like visiting a Renaissance altarpiece still standing in its church.
The Waffle Shop continues to speak of the design ideals that reigned when it was made. Its high plate-glass facade dissolves the gulf between outside and inside, public and private, civic and commercial, at just the time that American ideas on markets and marketing were gaining traction all around the world. The Waffle Shop didn't want to be a place apart or refuge from what went on outside; it proclaimed its place in the urban thick of things.
Its lavish steel-and-neon sign (now sadly left unlit) helps with this trumpeting effect. In classic modern style, the sign doesn't add the serifs and flourishes that had made earlier calligraphy stand out. It gets all its decorative force by working on its letters' fundamental, necessary forms. The sign pretends to be a "machine for selling," with forms reduced to the minimum it takes to do its job -- which, of course, is what gives it such a stylish, period edge.
For the Waffle Shop, selling in the public square is good, honest, American work. Soon after the diner opened in 1950 eminent Washington photographer Theodor Horydczak, who took some of the classic shots of the White House and Washington Monument, was commissioned to document its glories in a lavish suite of pictures now at the Library of Congress. He even shot the cutting-edge air conditioners on the roof: With all that glass, AC would have been both necessary and a major selling point. The same year the restaurant opened, a study pushing the new technology claimed that "families living in air conditioned homes sleep longer in summer, enjoy their food more, and have more leisure time."
Even the diner's steeply raked ceiling helps the place embrace the world outside. It starts at the top of the double-height front windows, then runs down to just above head height at the restaurant's rear wall. The ceiling's slope turns the whole diner into a kind of band shell, Hollywood Bowl-style, with passersby as spectators of the latest, modern way to eat your lunch.
The line of horseshoe counters speaks of similarly neighborly ideas. In the Waffle Shop, there are no tables where you sit secluded with the people you came in with. You find a place at the counter alongside patrons who would have got there first, and you're ushered into close camaraderie with them. To this day, the Waffle Shop's layout generates more buzz and energy inside than the most crowded McDonald's.
This crucial social dimension to the Waffle Shop gives it still more in common with important art. The Waffle Shop's mosaic waves evoke Picasso's 1930s curves; the skew grid of its terrazzo floors speaks of a Mondrian crisscross; the red and chrome of its stools descend from Russian constructivism. Yet the diner's not a freestanding exercise in modern forms. Like all good art, it speaks of and with the world around it.
The diner's crowd of regulars doesn't come because of any special food they're served -- regulation breakfast-joint fare. (The waffles -- still cooked, it's said, in the same line of 56-year-old electric irons -- are a relative standout.)
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Imagine if the curators at the National Gallery walked their halls without ever noticing the "Ginevra de' Benci," Leonardo da Vinci's only painting in the United States.
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Conflict Diamonds In the Spotlight
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Read the transcript of a discussion with "Blood Diamonds" director Ed Zwick.
Photo Gallery: Sierra Leone's war victims.
Editor's note: Charmian Gooch was unable to come online. These questions were answered by her colleague, policy director Alex Yearsley. -Posted 3:40 p.m.
Charmian Gooch is a director and co-founder of Global Witness, a worldwide organization that has pioneered campaigns on the link between the exploitation of natural resources, environmental destruction and human rights abuses. Gooch has worked on a range of campaigns, including leading the worldwide conflict diamond campaign in late 1998 and also worked undercover to expose the role of logging revenue in funding the Khmer Rouge. Global Witness were co-nominees for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for the conflict diamond campaign.
Washington, D.C.: Recently saw Mervis Jewelers owner saying his diamonds were from South Africa, not Western Africa as the movie depicts. Therefore, his diamonds were not so-called blood diamonds. Is it not true that all these diamonds are basically at the expense of people of those native countries. South Africa is still suffering from its year of exploitation of its resources. Granted it was not in civil war as recent, the civil strife cannot be minimalized.
Charmian Gooch: Interesting question - the role of diamonds in South Africa is much misunderstood - during the Apartheid struggle the ANC used diamonds to fund their armed struggle - were these conflict diamonds - the same was true in Namibia with SWAPO who stole diamonds from the De Beers mines, then sold them back to middlemen for De Beers - the money raised was then used to fund their war with the South African govt who occupied South West Africa. The main problem is that all diamonds are mixed together to increase the value of the parcel but also to get rid of the junk that no one wants....changing that is gonna be hard...
Washington, D.C.: Do you think Canadian diamonds are a good alternative for people who don't want to support the diamond trade in Africa? or does it just add to global demand - and therefore amount to the same thing?
Charmian Gooch: We believe that African diamond producing nations must benefit from their abundant natural resources such as diamonds - promoting Canadian diamonds over African diamonds is not the answer - there are indeed many problems in Canada in relation to land rights issues and environmental concerns so they are not as pure or as clean as everyone would like....what has to happen is for the diamond trade and diamond producing governments to change...
New York, N.Y.: The diamond industry seems to be pulling out all the stops to confuse the issue. Is there anything consumers can do to send them a message?
Charmian Gooch: Absolutely - consumers have the power - they have the cash and credit cards and are the public face that the industry has to deal with - consumers - be it future wives, girlfriends, husbands, boyfriends whatever - they have to go into stores and demand the the entire industry change - if you want to buy and organic chicken or drink organic milk you need to know that the claims are true...not just some writing on the back of a carton - the same is true of the diamond industry - verifiable guarantees...
New York, N.Y.: What are your comments about Russell Simmons' recent trip to Africa and his close ties to the DeBeers company?
Charmian Gooch: That depressingly he has been swept up by the diamond industry bandwagon and has effectively become a sell out to them....this side of the diamond equation always amazed us - the hip hop and African American community who so coveted diamonds and were so involved in civil rights issues and their history seemed blind to what was going on in West and Central Africa - regions that were incredibly important to their own history - how could the hip hop moguls and super stars so outrageously worship this gem that was causing so much pain and suffering to Africans on a daily basis - it was only when rap artists took it up in song that they were awoken to what was going on - and thank goodness they did - Nas's song is brilliant and lets hear more of them....Russell's heart is in the right place the problem is his wallet is in the right place too - we've asked him to come to visit Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola and the DRC to see what happens when diamonds don't mean anything positive - were hoping he will say yes and then he can put some of that 25% into projects there. The diamond industry raped West and Central Africa for generations and they have done nothing for them - its payback time - I think we should be talking about Raperations! (ok bad joke) But seriously reparations by many western companies complicit in the looting of Africa is long overdue...
Washington, D.C.: Are there any gems that you recommend over diamonds in terms of clean ethical issues?
Charmian Gooch: Tough one as all have problems from rubies in Burma to Emeralds in Columbia...whether it is environmental concerns or human rights abuses....there is a great company called Columbia Gem House that only deal in ethically sourced gems - check them out - I think there based in CA or NV - they go to the countries and develop programs for the miners and the families...
New York, N.Y.: Maybe we should just give up the attraction to diamonds. People can do just fine without them.
Charmian Gooch: The attraction is one of the problems - its worse than drugs - you look at some diamond dealers and they think of nothing else 24/7 - there are many millions of people that are dependent on the diamond industry for a living - from cutters and polishers in India to workers in Africa - what they need though rather than a boycott of diamonds is the value or the diamond to stay in Africa - if rich over indulgent consumers in the west want to spend their money on diamonds we should let them - but the money should stay where the rocks were found - why is that a diamond sold for $15 dollars in Sierra Leone is sold for over $5000 in New York.....
Chicago, Ill.: Are there still "blood diamonds" on the market?
Charmian Gooch: Fraid so - the Ivory Coast has them and also in the Eastern part of the DRC...it ain't exactly a pretty picture in Angola at the moment either..
Reston, Va.: What I don't get is the mindlessness of Americans who think they -have- to buy a diamond - who the heck wants a diamond engagement ring, anyway? It's just playing into marketing strategies and a global monopoly!! I'm a woman, and I buy my own jewelry - you get more for your money with the other precious and semi-precious stones. Who wants to look like everyone else?
Charmian Gooch: You have to thank the diamond information center for that and Hollywood! The diamond industry don't spend over $200 million a year in advertising for nothing!
Rockville, Md.: I have a more direct question along the lines of the Mervis jeweler question. If I feel comfortable purchasing a diamond mined in SA or Botswana can I do that with certainty?
I recall reading a Wall St Journal article that essentially stated that presently, one cannot determine a diamond's origin by analyzing the stone. Therefore, to be comfortable that one is not purchasing a diamond that could benefit al Qaeda or the Sierra Leone butchers, a person has to be comfortable with the chain of transfer from the mine to the store. Is there a way to do that? thanks
Charmian Gooch: Very important question - yes you can but it depends whether the diamond industry will do so...they are worried about other issues relating to taxation and profit.....take De Beers - it has mines in Tanzania, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and it buys diamonds on contract from Russia and Canada - it mixes all the diamonds together in London (but this will soon move to Botswana) where they are then put into the different assortments that it decides need to be sold (nothing about consumer demand believe me!) The diamonds are then distributed to its 'sightholders' who then either manufacture or sell them to other manufacturers. All of these diamonds are covered by the Kimberley Process certificate - the problem is these other dealers and manufacturers buy from other dealers and mix those diamonds together so you get a real mess....can you tell a single rough stones country of origin - not a moment but some claim you can...
Alexandria, Va.: I was very moved by the movie, and feel uncomfortable wearing my diamond jewelry now -- in fact, all jewelry all of a sudden seems less valuable to me. What more can people (without many financial resources) do?
Charmian Gooch: It is a very moving and graphic film and was excellently filmed by Ed Zwick - his research was epic and they had some amazing Sierra Leonian consultants on it - the best thing you can do to prevent resources funding conflict is by putting pressure on the companies that buy the resources and the governments that should be regulating it - for example the World Bank are about to open up the forests in the DRC to commercial logging - you can bet that there will be US and European logging firms queuing up for a piece of the action - look out for groups like Global Witness that work on these issues - we have newsletters alerting the public on how to take action against companies involved in this trade...but also ask the companies difficult questions - that is where the pressure for change comes from - if your going to buy some new garden furniture make sure that the company can prove that it is certified and they know personally where it came from...
Arlington, Va.: Please explain the $15 - $5,000 transformation -- is it really that cheap in Africa?
Charmian Gooch: and worse! I've sat in diamond mines in Sierra Leone and Angola where the diamond sells for that - the problems are many and are mainly ones of education - the diamond miners simply don't know how much they are worth - you have a middle layer of 'supporters' who financially support the diggers with equipment and food - at the end of the month they total how much money they have spent on them and see that that roughly equals what they think the diamonds are worth....and hence they are kept in their cycle of poverty....Sierra Leone used to be a net exporter of foodstuffs until the diamond insanity raged...it can do that again..
Harrisburg, Pa.: Are there any diamonds you would recommend as fine to purchase? If so, how does one learn that these are the proper diamonds to purchase?
Charmian Gooch: That is a tough one - as an independent organization we cant promote or recommend any particular diamond company....however an easy way around it is to purchase antique jewellery...remember as soon as you buy a new diamond as soon as you walk out the door you have lost 25% to 50% of its purchase value.....they don't tell you that when you buy it....
Jackson Heights, N.Y.: Are their other resource issues in Africa besides diamonds?
Charmian Gooch: yes oh yes oh yes...many and the west and now the east are grabbing them all - timber, gold, oil, coltan, copper, humans, fish, tantalum, uranium, cotton, cocoa - you name it they have it and it has caused them nothing but misery and suffering as we in the west compete for these resources and the corrupt rulers fight over the spoils....there is something called the Natural Resource Curse - the richer you are in resources the more unstable and poor you are as a country...
San Francisco, Calif.: Is the Kimberely process working? How can it become much more effective?
Charmian Gooch: Yes it is working - but not as well as we would like - there are nearly 70 countries involved which is no mean feat - the problems that remain are easy to solve if the governments and industry can be bothered to do so - that means time and money....something that is in short supply....the governments need to police the system more effectively, they need to inspect diamond shipments, they need to put 'internal controls' in place in the alluvial diamond areas..for some good info on this have a look at our web site www.globalwitness.org also Partnership Africa Canada who have done a lot of work on the Kimberley process have published widely on the problems and solutions
D.C.: For a while, De Beers was not allowed to sell in the states -- and it recently opened up a huge boutique in NYC. Does that mean the company paid for its penalty? Was the penalty harsh enough?
Charmian Gooch: De Beers have had a few legal issues in the US - one being in relation to alleged price fixing over industrial diamonds with GE - they settled that case for around $10 million I believe - there was another case in NY - a large class action lawsuit that they settled for around $100 million - the reason for that was for artificially fixing the price of diamonds....there might be more on the way too....Collectively the diamond industry have yet to pay for what happened in Africa from the late 1980s to early 2000 and in some places is still going......if the diamond industry paid just 1% a year on its profits into a fund for Africa that would go a long way to alleviate a lot of the poverty and misery that diamonds have caused...would the Oppenheimer family that have made so much from diamonds and other African resources donate part of their $4 billion empire....I doubt it....
New York, N.Y.:"but the money should stay where the rocks were found - why is that a diamond sold for $15 dollars in Sierra Leone is sold for over $5000 in New York."
That is probably more an anti-trust issue than anything. They don't call it a cartel for nothing.
Also, your argument could be applied to almost anything. I'm sure farmers don't get most of the value of crops, and I'm sure the same is true of textile workers.
Perhaps the real problem is not that Africa is getting a disproportionately low part of the spoils, but maybe the problem is that the price of these goods are vastly over inflated.
Charmian Gooch: absolutely it can be applied to anything and there are entities trying to change that particularly as it applies to coffee etc - however the disparities with diamonds are some of the biggest and most disgusting to stomach in terms of taking the rough diamond and the poverty that surrounds it in Africa then seeing how it is promoted as the ultimate symbol of love...
Fairfax, Va.: Has there been any public debate within the U.S. Government (Congress or the White House) over this "blood diamond" issue?
Charmian Gooch: yes quite a bit - there was even a Conflict Diamond coordinator at the State Dept - the USG took quite a major role in the negotiations - slowing them up as usual at key points to ensure that it wasn't affected in other areas - especially concerning the WTO - the Congress were great too and Congressman Tony Hall introduced legislation called the Clean Diamond Trade Act - the question is oversight....
Washington, D.C.: Thank you for this chat,
Africa is a continent rich of natural resources. I am of the mind that as long as the people of these of these countries act as pawns of their brutal dictatorships they will continue to be exploited. The tribes have to stop killing each other, and countries have to invest in their infrastructure rather then put there money in the U.S. We can thank Europe for the current map of Africa, but what can I, as a normal citizen do? When people, in the case the citizens of these nations, become resigned to being ruled and brutalized .it is the major crux of the problem. Stand up for yourself.
Charmian Gooch: What you have to keep in mind is how did those dictators get to where they are....who in the west funded, trained, armed them - I don't know whether you have been living in abject poverty for 20 years in a shanty town in Luanda with no food, no electricity, no water, no clothes etc - simply surviving is a miracle and then you want the population who have been brutalised for over 30 years to rise up against a well fed, paid and armed police and militia - I've seen it happen and its truly depressing - in Angola the state oil company Sonangol bulldozed an entire city of over 50,000 people to make way for office blocks for the oil companies - people resisted and were shot....they stood up for themselves ok whilst the west did nothing...
Moab, Utah: Many years ago there was a Frontline program that basically said that DeBeers holds a monopoly on diamonds controlling 90% of the market - which is why they are not allowed to operate in the U.S.
It also said that there is no shortage of small diamonds (large ones of course are rare.) They use diamonds on the tips of saws to make them more durable. They are on every continent in the world. (Find your own in Murfreesboro, Arkansas!) The reason that even small ones are so expensive is because of the DeBeers monopoly.
It doesn't look like anything has changed in the 15 years since the documentary.
Charmian Gooch: Not much - although De Beers probably control only about 40% of the worlds supply now....diamonds are not rare but supply is drying up - even still they will artificially maintain the price of diamonds...
Austin, Tex.: I read recently that Nelson Mandela is very close to the De Beers company and even opposed the Kimberley process. What are the facts here?
Charmian Gooch: he is very close to De Beers and De Beers fund his organisation - Mandela did not oppose the Kimberley Process - like Russell Simmons he was used by De Beers as a PR spokesman to try and scare off governments and NGOs from working on this issue....they even tried to get him to scare off Warners....
Arlington, Va.: Do you think big Hollywood films like Blood Diamond are useful in creating social change - or do they trivialize real concerns?
Charmian Gooch: when they are done well as is the case with this one then they work - if they are cheap and shabby then they can have the opposite effect - however this is a shocking and real portrayal of the violence in Sierra Leone - the involvement of the diamond trade could have been a lot more as they were directly involved in funding the conflicts in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the DRC....in many ways they got off light....I think this movie will have a significant impact...
Sterling, Va.: Submitting early because of work. I am excited that the recent "Blood Diamond" movie has pushed this particular issue to the forefront of the public mind. I have been following the plight of child soldiers in Africa for the past several years and, of course, blood diamonds are a major factor in their situation. I have a question regarding the economics of this situation: if major jewelers are 99.8% free of blood diamonds (as they having been telling us rather loudly over the past few weeks) then what is the future fate of blood diamonds? I can't imagine they are going to become completely useless to the rebels as currency. If they do, however, I fear this won't stop the different guerilla groups from fighting: what do you think the rebel groups will turn to next as currency in the future? Thank you so much for taking my question and best of luck in your organization's endeavors.
Charmian Gooch: Thanks for the support - the 99.8% figure ain't exactly accurate and has been hijacked as ever by the diamond industry to try show that the situation is ok - that figure came from a statement of the Kimberley Process when Canada was chair - they looked at the annual figures provided by govts on import and export and some production and stated that this was the figure - it is 100% inaccurate - however the percentage of conflict diamonds now is small - thank god - mainly due to the wars ending.....other resources they have moved to already and have used for a while is timber, gold, coltan, copper etc
I am a total novice to the issue of blood diamonds and, in fact, diamonds in general.
I have noticed that a local diamond merchant, Mervis, has taken a proactive public relations approach on this issue in their radio commercials. They state that they have a zero-tolerance policy for conflict diamonds. Also, since they control their South African pipeline the entire way ("From factory to finger", in their words), they can assure you that their diamonds are not conflict diamonds.
Is this true, or is it just good advertising copy? Can any jeweler that does not control their entire pipeline legitimately provide this assurance?
Charmian Gooch: If Mervis can do this then great - however they are going to have to prove it! Just saying so ain't good enough...jewellers can demand from their suppliers that they tell them where they purchase their diamonds - if they refuse then you know they are hiding something...
Fort Bragg, Calif.: Thanks for your work!
How can people be encouraged to buy cubic zirconia? We'd still have all the "bling" without people mining and dying so we can have something sparkly to show off?
My "diamonds" are beautifully cut, no one without a jeweler's eye can detect if they're "real" and there's no insurance/safe deposit hassle! Best of all, I enjoy my "diamonds" knowing there's no suffering attached.
Charmian Gooch: you might have a point there....
San Antonio, Tex.: Do you think director Zwick has done a good job presenting the issues of conflict diamonds through his film "Blood Diamond"? At the end of the film there is verbiage that says that Sierra Leone is at peace? Is this true? Has the blood diamond issue just moved further south to the Ivory Coast or to other African countries? Is Liberia still involved? Too, was the Col. Coatzee character in the film supposed to represent the mercenary force Executive Outcomes?
Charmian Gooch: He's done a brilliant job on this film...historically accurate and visually brilliant....a number of Sierra Leonian friends of mine have seen it and say how real it is...Sierra Leone at peace - yes but for how long...many of the problems remain...corruption being the main one....yes blood diamonds have moved to Cote D'Ivoire but not on the same scale as Sierra Leone or Angola....Liberia is involved in a different way...they are not yet members of the Kimberley Process and so diamonds mined in Liberia now go the other way - to Sierra Leone!
EO - yes indeed - who else could it have been! The actor playing Coatzee I believe even had a relation in EO so he was able to get first hand advice....half of EO probably advised on it too...
Charmian Gooch: Thanks for all the questions - very interesting and well thought out.
I think the film is going to raise awareness and put much needed pressure on the diamond industry and governments - and that's were the consumer comes in - they must be educated and encouraged to do so.
Diamonds must benefit those countries in Africa that have them - not the companies in the West that so easily exploit them - governments must be held to account for the revenues they receive from natural resources - they must be transparent.
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Lohan Says She's Attending AA Meetings
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NEW YORK -- Lindsay Lohan says she's been going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for a year, but hasn't talked about it because "it's no one's business." "I just left an AA meeting," the 20-year-old actress tells People magazine in a story posted Tuesday on its Web site.
"I haven't had a drink in seven days. Or anything," she says. "I'm not even legal to, so why would I? I don't drink when I go to clubs. I drink with my friends at home, but there's no need to. I feel better not drinking. It's more fun. I have Red Bull."
"I've been going to AA for a year by the way," Lohan adds. When asked why didn't she say so until recently, she replies: "Well it's no one's business. That's why it's anonymous!"
Her publicist, Leslie Sloane Zelnik, didn't immediately respond Tuesday to a message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
The New York Post first reported sightings of Lohan at an AA meeting two weeks ago, and Zelnik later confirmed to the AP that Lohan had been attending meetings.
"I was off from work, I was getting ready to start a film, and I was like going out just to get it out of my system," Lohan tells People. "I was going out too much and I knew that, and I have more to live for than that."
Lohan would like to make headlines for her movie roles, which include "Freaky Friday," "Herbie Fully Loaded," "A Prairie Home Companion" and "Bobby."
"I was like, `I don't want to be written about at these clubs with these people,'" she says. "I work, I act, I have a living. That's what I do every day. I work every single day."
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NEW YORK -- Lindsay Lohan says she's been going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for a year, but hasn't talked about it because "it's no one's business." "I just left an AA meeting," the 20-year-old actress tells People magazine in a story posted Tuesday on its Web site.
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Virginia Proposal Aims to Keep Sex Offenders Off Networking Sites
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RICHMOND, Dec. 11 -- Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) said Monday that he will push for legislation requiring sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses and instant messaging screen names so they can be blocked from using popular online networking sites.
If it is approved by the General Assembly, McDonnell said, Virginia would become the first state to forge a partnership with MySpace.com to try to prevent sexual offenders from using the site. MySpace, popular with teenagers, hosts 135 million profiles and allows users to link up with old and new friends, many of whom have never met in person.
"In the physical world, we know where sexual offenders live. We know how to keep our kids away," said Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace.com. "In the online world, we really need to step into the same direction to find out where these [predators] are online."
Already, the 13,500 residents listed in the state's Sexual Offender Registry are required to enter their home and work addresses and fingerprints into a public database. But McDonnell's proposal, which mirrors federal legislation unveiled on Capitol Hill last week, represents a significant broadening of efforts to monitor convicted sexual offenders' use of the Internet.
"This is a major step forward to keep these predators off the Internet," McDonnell said. "We want to be a leader with legislation to protect kids."
Here's how the plan would work: After the state obtained a predator's e-mail addresses, officials would turn them over to MySpace. The company, using new software, would then block anyone using that e-mail address from entering the site.
Last week, Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced that they will seek federal legislation next year that would require all sex offenders to submit their e-mail addresses to law enforcement. That information would also be turned over to MySpace.
"Just like in our actual neighborhoods, sex offenders must make themselves known in our virtual neighborhoods as well," Schumer said in a statement.
Although the details of McDonnell's legislation need to be worked out, he said offenders who do not comply could have their probation or parole revoked or face another felony charge of evading reporting requirements.
Laura Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan's Law, which advocates for reporting requirements, applauded the concept but questioned how it would be enforced.
"It would be effective for those offenders who have registered that e-mail address. But it is easy to change your e-mail address. You can change your e-mail address in 30 seconds," Ahearn said.
Instead of merely blocking offenders, Ahearn said she would like to see a system in which e-mail addresses are also used to monitor what Web sites offenders visit.
In Virginia, offenders have to register for 10 years or the rest of their lives, depending on the crime.
Last year, the General Assembly passed bills to toughen the punishment and monitoring of sexual offenders, including prohibiting sexual offenders from living within 500 feet of a school or day-care center. But some civil liberty advocates said the state went too far.
One measure, which took effect July 1, requires Virginia's public and private colleges and universities to submit the names and Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of students to the state police for cross-checking against sexual offender registries.
Some civil libertarians have challenged the constitutionality of such registries. But McDonnell, who hopes other Web sites popular with children and young adults follow MySpace's lead, dismissed such suggestions Monday.
"We are certainly going to put public safety ahead of these civil liberties concerns," said McDonnell, who pointed to studies that show a high recidivism rate among sex offenders.
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RICHMOND, Dec. 11 -- Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) said Monday that he will push for legislation requiring sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses and instant messaging screen names so they can be blocked from using popular online networking sites.
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Capitals Go Up, Can't Close It Out
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Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby were supposed to be the stars of last night's highly-anticipated game between the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins.
And while each of them had moments of brilliance, their spotlight was stolen by Penguins rookie Evgeni Malkin, who played a critical role in dealing Washington a crushing 5-4 shootout loss at Verizon Center.
Malkin, 20, recorded a goal, an assist and scored the decisive penalty shot, beating Capitals goaltender Olie Kolzig with a dazzling deke and completing the Penguins' improbable rally from a 4-0 second-period deficit in front of 14,793.
The defeat dropped the Capitals to 0 for 5 in games decided in the shootout this season.
"He's done it a million times," Crosby said of Malkin's shootout score. "He looks so smooth out there. He does it in practice and he does it with ease in key situations."
Asked if Malkin deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as Ovechkin and Crosby, Capitals Coach Glen Hanlon said: "Yeah, why not? He certainly has our attention."
The supposed headliners, Ovechkin and Crosby, didn't do so bad, either. Ovechkin finished with two assists and scored in the shootout, snapping an 0-for-9 slump. Crosby, meantime, had a goal and an assist, but misfired on his shootout attempt.
But after the game in the Capitals' sullen locker room, no one was talking about individual performances. All the discussion centered on the blown opportunity to put away a team that sits below them in the Eastern Conference standings.
"It was our mistake," Ovechkin said. "We scored goals and we stopped playing. We not concentrate in defensive zone and they have shot and score more goals. It's our fault. We go 4-0 and we stop playing."
Capitals captain Chris Clark, who had two goals and an assist, added: "I don't know what it was. We played well enough to get a four-goal lead. We didn't try to back off or play too defensively. We just maybe got a little too greedy and got cute."
And if not for the play of Kolzig (31 saves), the Capitals may have come away empty-handed, instead of with a single standing point awarded for reaching overtime. His Penguins counterpart, Marc-Andre Fleury, had 29 saves.
"We have to play 60 minutes," Kolzig said. "We dominated the first period and the first part of the second period and for some reason we stopped playing. It's a tough thing, but for us to be successful, we have to play 60 minutes."
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Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby were supposed to be the stars of last night's highly-anticipated game between the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins.
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Gibbs Expects Coaches Back
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With the Washington Redskins eliminated from the postseason and guaranteed a losing season, Coach Joe Gibbs faced questions regarding the future of the team yesterday, and said that his top assistants, Gregg Williams, who oversees the defense, and Al Saunders, who calls plays on offense, will return next season.
Gibbs said he is focused on winning the final three games despite their insignificance to the standings but is preparing for a lengthy offseason review of the franchise.
"We're comfortable with our coaches," Gibbs said during his weekly news conference. "Gregg Williams has been here, and we've had top-10 defenses and they've played extremely well. I think what happens when you're four and nine, obviously you've got a lot of questions. I know there's things, 'Hey, am I going to be here? Are all of the coaches going to be here?' And I really think that we've got a set plan of what we want to do and we've got the people here we want to do it, and that's our commitment."
When pressed, Gibbs said firmly that Williams and Saunders will be back. Last week, Gibbs, who also is team president, restated his commitment to fulfilling the five-year contract he signed in 2004.
The Redskins rank 23rd in the league in total defense but last in sacks, interceptions per pass play and opposing quarterback rating. The offense has moved the ball at times but ranks 25th in scoring and 17th overall. The Redskins have been beset by penalties in each of the last three seasons and rank second in the NFL in penalty yards this year.
Williams has come under criticism this season after the defense finished third in the league in 2004 and ninth a year ago. The team has yielded big plays and struggled to produce sacks and turnovers. Saunders was hired in January to add explosiveness to the offense and to replace Gibbs as the play-caller. But the shift has led to a season of transition for the offense, with playmakers struggling to get the ball. The Redskins switched from veteran quarterback Mark Brunell to second-year quarterback Jason Campbell last month.
Members of the organization will meet extensively in January, when Gibbs will assess every aspect of the franchise from how it conducts training camp -- it likely will be longer and more rigorous, he has hinted -- to the construction of the roster to the way techniques and schemes are taught to players. It is conceivable other members of the staff will not be back, or that some may be asked to assume different roles, which has occurred in both offseasons since Gibbs's return.
Gibbs has continually defended the team's free-spending approach to free agency, and its willingness to trade multiple draft picks to acquire individual players, and likely will be questioned about that into the offseason. He expects to find answers for the team's deficiencies after the final game.
"How do we keep from making those mistakes again, how do we fix it and how do we get back?" Gibbs said. "That's kind of where I am. My focus right now is on how we finish this thing. I want to finish it so we've got some momentum going forward. Then, of course, there'll be a huge offseason deal here. It'll be nonstop to try and figure out just those things."
For many veterans, especially those who have spent considerable time here, the frustrations of another lost season took hold yesterday. The final three games, including Sunday's visit to New Orleans, will be devoid of any real impact beyond draft order -- at best the team could go 7-9 -- leaving the players to consider all that has slipped away.
"I really thought we'd make it to the playoffs and have a legit shot to win the Super Bowl," said tackle Chris Samuels, the second-longest-serving player on the roster. "But things didn't work out that way for us."
Brunell, the starting quarterback entering the season, asserted in the preseason that anything less than a trip deep into the playoffs would be a disappointment, and after missing the playoffs from 2000 to 2004, optimism was high after two playoff games in January.
Coming to grips with how fast the team has fallen, and how far it must go -- only Detroit and Tampa Bay (a club that beat Washington a few weeks back) have fewer wins among NFC teams -- has not been easy.
"Man, come on, I could not even think of this happening," said lineman Renaldo Wynn, the longest-tenured player on defense. "Nobody thought those types of negative thoughts back at the start of the season. That was like something I was not even thinking about. I couldn't even conjure this up on my mind. But it is what it is, man. Right now we've got to salvage what we can from these three games we've got left."
Gibbs would like a sharper focus in preseason games -- the Redskins were 0-4 and then dropped their first two regular season games. "We lost six straight games. That's the first thing I think of," Gibbs said.
The Redskins will come nowhere close to meeting expectations, and could have difficulty even matching their six wins from 2004, Gibbs's first season back from retirement.
"All 32 teams go into the beginning of the year trying to get to the playoffs, and your ultimate goal is to go to the Super Bowl," cornerback Shawn Springs said. "It's tough when you work so hard for it, and that light at the end of the tunnel is gone. So now you've got to find something else to motivate you, and we'll see what we can get done."
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Info on Washington Redskins including the 2005 NFL Preview. Get the latest game schedule and statistics for the Redskins. Follow the Washington Redskins under the direction of Coach Joe Gibbs.
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Law Passes Retooling Effort on Bioterror
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2006121219
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The House and Senate have passed legislation that will revamp the Bush administration's $5.6 billion effort to counter bioterrorism threats, reorganizing management of the program and providing struggling companies with periodic cash infusions to help fund their research and testing.
"It's a relief," Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), one of the measure's principal backers, said yesterday. "We're a little further ahead of the fear of bioterrorism and pandemic because we've got a solid plan in place."
The House passed the legislation early Saturday morning and it passed the Senate last Tuesday. President Bush intends to sign the legislation, but a date has not been set, according to the White House.
More than a year in the making, the legislation was considered by many to be an effort to salvage the two-year-old Project BioShield, which has been marked by delays and operational problems. Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the incoming majority leader, listed it among his priorities for Congress's lame-duck session.
"I think it's already made a difference," Burr said of the legislation, which was also pushed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "We have more people, more companies, more academic institutions, that have looked at this legislation and planned how they can plug into it. It has brought more people to the table interested" in the program.
The legislation creates the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, within the Health and Human Services Department, to manage the effort. It also allocates $1 billion over three years for research not funded by a Project BioShield contract or the National Institutes of Health and attempts to pump more government money into the private sector sooner.
Under current law, participating companies are not paid until they deliver the drugs. The legislation would speed up the development cycle by allowing Health and Human Services to pay companies up to 5 percent of their contract's value when they reach certain milestones.
The legislation "complements important work that HHS has already begun to improve the BioShield program," Christina Pearson, an HHS spokeswoman, said in a statement. "Passage [of] this bipartisan legislation supports much needed late-stage research-and-development funding. . . . It also supports our efforts to improve coordination of preparedness and response programs across the department."
The program's most significant investment, a nearly $1 billion effort by VaxGen to develop an anthrax vaccine, has been in limbo since the Food and Drug Administration held up human testing last month because of concerns about the drug's reliability. After threatening to end its contract, HHS gave the firm until Dec. 18 to resolve the concerns and begin human testing.
"It is regrettable that we have been unable to engage HHS in a productive discussion regarding how to ensure that this program moves forward," said Lance Ignon, VaxGen's vice president for corporate affairs. "We need to engage in a true partnership or we risk losing all the work on this vaccine and undermining our nation's biodefense programs."
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The House and Senate have passed legislation that will revamp the Bush administration's $5.6 billion effort to counter bioterrorism threats, reorganizing management of the program and providing struggling companies with periodic cash infusions to help fund their research and testing.
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Pelosi May Give Jefferson a Lesser Committee Assignment
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2006121219
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House Democratic leaders, who have vowed to run a more ethical Congress, are struggling with how to respond to the reelection of Rep. William J. Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat whose Washington home freezer once held $90,000 in alleged bribe money.
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), poised to be the next speaker, stripped Jefferson of his seat on the influential Ways and Means Committee in June and has hinted that she may place him on no committee when the 110th Congress convenes next month. But a source close to Pelosi said yesterday that she is more likely to place him on a lower-profile committee and hope the controversy dies down.
Pelosi will decide after consulting with colleagues in coming days, said the source, who would speak about the matter only on background.
Jefferson, 59, surprised many in Washington on Saturday by comfortably winning a ninth term from his New Orleans-based district. He repeatedly notes that he has not been indicted, and he won endorsements from high-level politicians such as New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin.
In August 2005, federal agents raided Jefferson's homes in Washington and New Orleans as part of a corruption investigation into business dealings in Africa. The $90,000 in cash was among their findings.
The source familiar with Pelosi's thinking said that the incoming speaker wants to distance herself and her caucus from Jefferson and legal problems but that she thinks she cannot ignore that voters returned him to office when details of the investigation were well known.
Sources familiar with the probe said Jefferson will be indicted, probably in the first half of 2007. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said investigators have been looking at about a dozen business deals in the United States and Africa in which Jefferson allegedly used his official position for financial gain.
An indictment has been delayed because of a protracted legal battle over documents the FBI seized from Jefferson's office in May, according to sources. U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, who signed the search warrant, later ruled that the raid was constitutional.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington delayed matters further by ruling that Jefferson had a right to challenge the FBI from reviewing documents he felt were protected under the "speech or debate" clause. Recently, the Court of Appeals gave the FBI the go-ahead to begin reviewing materials that Jefferson had acknowledged were not privileged.
The Court of Appeals will address the challenged documents early next year. The ruling leaves open the option for federal investigators to wait for all the seized documents before indicting, or to indict on some of the alleged schemes and return later with additional charges in what is called a superseding indictment, sources said.
Roscoe C. Howard Jr., a former U.S. attorney in Washington now with the law firm Troutman Sanders, said: "There's a lot of reasons for indicting and then going back with a superseding indictment. There's certain reasons for waiting."
One reason for seeking an indictment sooner than later, he said, is that Jefferson is a public servant "who answers to a public body and people want to know answers."
But Howard said that if the prosecutor hits Jefferson with a round of charges and then hammers him again in a superseding indictment, "you're going to end up with allegations of prosecutorial misconduct" from Jefferson, trying to put the government on the defensive.
Two Jefferson associates -- former congressional aide Brett Pfeffer and Vernon L. Jackson, owner of iGate, a Louisville-based high-tech company -- have pleaded guilty to charges they bribed Jefferson to use his political influence to push through a lucrative contract in Africa to sell technology for the Internet and cable television.
Jefferson's press secretary, Melanie Rousell, declined to address the likelihood of an indictment, saying: "The voters have elected him, and he is there to serve them and represent them, and that's what he will do."
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House Democratic leaders, who have vowed to run a more ethical Congress, are struggling with how to respond to the reelection of Rep. William J. Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat whose Washington home freezer once held $90,000 in alleged bribe money.
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Democrats Freeze Earmarks for Now
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2006121219
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Democratic leaders declared a temporary moratorium on special-interest provisions known as earmarks as they attempt to cope with a budget crisis left by the outgoing Republican-led 109th Congress.
Congress adjourned early Saturday, having completed work on two of the 11 spending bills for the 2007 fiscal year that began Oct. 1. As a short-term fix, lawmakers extended current funding levels until Feb. 15. But the incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees announced yesterday that they would extend current levels until the 2008 fiscal year begins next Oct. 1.
The alternative was to attempt to finish work on the spending bills when the Democratic-led Congress convenes in January, a dreaded prospect that could have derailed Democratic legislative efforts and stirred up policy battles around the same time that President Bush is due to submit his fiscal 2008 budget to the Hill, along with a large supplemental spending request for the Iraq war.
The new chairmen, Rep. David R. Obey (Wis.) and Sen. Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), said in a statement: "While the results will be far from ideal, this path provides the best way to dispose of the unfinished business quickly, and allow governors, state and local officials, and families to finally plan for the coming year with some knowledge of what the federal government is funding."
They also said they would place a moratorium on all earmarks until lobbying changes are enacted. Those special spending provisions included in the unfinished fiscal 2007 bills will be eligible for consideration next year, the chairmen said, subject to new standards.
"We will work to restore an accountable, above-board, transparent process for funding decisions and put an end to the abuses that have harmed the credibility of Congress," the chairmen said.
The unfinished bills account for about $463 billion in annual spending and include just about every domestic program other than defense and homeland security.
The announcement appears to be a victory for conservative budget reformers, such as Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.), who circulated a petition last week calling for a resolution that would extend funding through the rest of the year, but without earmarks. That petition, however, called for all domestic programs to be funded at the lowest levels called for in either the House or Senate versions.
In contrast, Obey and Byrd indicated that they would seek adjustments in spending levels to satisfy Democrats and moderate Republicans who were upset by the austere funding bills passed by the House Appropriations Committee. In particular, the measure to fund labor, health and education programs fell billions of dollars short of the Senate-approved levels, and the levels that even many House Republicans said were acceptable.
The biggest victory would be for those lawmakers who have crusaded against earmarks, or home-district pet projects. Virtually all of the bills that pass the Senate and House appropriations committees contain such projects. For the fiscal year that began in October and will end Sept. 30, the slate will be wiped clean.
Obey and Byrd noted that the last time Congress passed all appropriation bills separately and on schedule, and got them signed by the president in time for the next fiscal year, was in 1994, the last year they both served as chairmen. In November 1994, a month after the 1995 fiscal year began, Republicans won control of Congress.
For more or less every year since the takeover, the GOP has struggled to produce a smooth succession of spending bills, creating strained relations between the more ideologically minded Republican leadership in both chambers and their more practical-minded appropriations colleagues. Most recently, the Senate has been the stubborn obstacle, with Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) refusing to advance spending bills during a hard-fought election year.
Those tensions bubbled to the surface on the House floor as lawmakers wrapped up their business early Saturday. "The breakdown of regular order this cycle, indeed the failure to get our bills done, should be fairly placed at the feet of the departing Senate majority leader," said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the outgoing House Appropriations Committee chairman.
Lewis noted that his panel passed each of the 11 subcommittee bills out of the full committee by June 30, and, with the exception of a giant bill that funds health and education programs, all of the bills off the House floor by the July 4 break. The Senate also passed each of its bills out of the full committee, only to see them run aground on the Senate floor.
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2006 elections,campaigns,Democrats,Republicans,political cartoons,opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy,government tech,political analysis and reports.
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School Day Goes Into Overtime
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2006121219
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It's after school, and in a windowless classroom at Henry A. Wise High School in Upper Marlboro, Michelle Guinn is trying to lead 11 students through an algebra lesson.
The sophomores are tired and disgruntled. They're grinding through Question 40, which is meant to test their knowledge of the difference between a mean and a median. To calculate the mean, add the salary numbers together and divide by the number of people, Guinn explains patiently. As she writes the long equation down on a white board, some students punch it into their calculators. Others zone out. And Sydne Kersey starts to get frustrated.
"There's no easier way to do this?" Sydne, 15, asks.
"This is it, baby," Guinn says. "This is algebra."
Starting with the Class of 2009, all Maryland students will be required to pass exams in algebra and data analysis, English, government and biology in order to graduate. All of the students in Guinn's classroom failed the test in algebra last school year. Her class, part of a new program in Prince George's County called the Twilight Academy, is meant to give students the extra push they need to pass the tests, known as the High School Assessments, which they will retake in January.
The county's performance on the tests has improved, and students can take the tests multiple times. But more than half of the 24,000 freshmen and sophomores in Prince George's are still at risk of failing to graduate. In the last school year, the county's passing rate in algebra was 46.1 percent; in biology, 42.5 percent; in government, 55.5 percent; and in English, 45.9 percent. The results were well below state averages. The Prince George's and Baltimore school systems together accounted for 45 percent of the students who did not pass the algebra test.
Prince George's schools chief John E. Deasy has been disappointed by participation in the Twilight Academy, which he introduced after taking over the school system in May. Of 2,404 slots available, 1,225 have been filled. Of about 20 students in Guinn's class, about half attend any given day.
During a forum at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Deasy pleaded with parents to bring their children to the course.
"I am distressed at an enormous level that we put together a program which is the best in Maryland and only one out of six children are going that need to take it," he said. "I need you to get your child to that program. I can build it, I can produce it, I can staff it, but I can't go to your home and make your child go there."
Deasy's plea received a warm reception from the 50 parents at the forum, but he said the students and parents most in need of help are the ones that are most difficult to reach.
In an interview, Deasy said the school system has tried repeatedly to engage parents and students. Those who failed tests have been reminded at school that they need to pass to graduate. Schools sent letters home to parents telling them of the Twilight Academy. The program also is advertised on public access television and in newspapers and school bulletins.
"It's new, so that's an issue," Deasy said. "Unfortunately, in people's minds, it's still in the distance somewhere. They're not seniors yet. Kids live in the present in school."
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It's after school, and in a windowless classroom at Henry A. Wise High School in Upper Marlboro, Michelle Guinn is trying to lead 11 students through an algebra lesson.
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One Last Mission for Ship Sunk in Pearl Harbor Attack
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2006120919
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For 65 years, the wreck of the USS Arizona has been leaking oil from its grave at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, staining the water, visitors often say, as if it were the ship's blood.
The leaks come from about 500,000 gallons of thick, bunker C fuel oil that remain trapped in the deteriorating hulk -- oil whose "catastrophic" release experts now think is inevitable.
Today, on the anniversary of the attack that plunged the United States into World War II, scientists at a federal research center in Gaithersburg are trying to predict when that might happen. In five years? Or 50? And to do that, they are building a model of the ship: not of plastic and glue, but of data.
The experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology think it is the first mathematical model to simulate the deterioration of a sunken ship and could be used to predict the deterioration of hundreds of wrecks around the country.
Similar models, which are run with ultra-powerful computers, are used to forecast the weather, design cars and simulate crashes.
"To my knowledge, nobody has published or spoken of modeling the deterioration of sunken ships," said Timothy J. Foecke, a metallurgist at the institute who is supervising the work.
"What we're trying to do is . . . predict stability of shipwrecks," Foecke said. "In particular, we're working on the Arizona, but it also has application to hazardous wrecks . . . all around the coast, dating back to World War I. There's ships with munitions, with hazardous cargoes, with all kinds of different things."
The work is part of the USS Arizona Preservation Project, headed by the National Park Service and the USS Arizona Memorial.
"The overall project goal is to model and characterize the deterioration processes . . . to predict when we may have potential structural collapse," said Matthew A. Russell, project director. It is impossible to remove the oil from the ship because that would disturb what he said is "an enormous tomb."
On Dec. 6, 1941, the Arizona took on 1.2 million gallons of heavy fuel oil at its berth in Pearl Harbor. The ship was scheduled to make a Christmas trip back to the West Coast the next weekend. The fuel, which was so heavy it had to be atomized for use in the engines, weighed 4,000 tons and was stored in more than 200 tanks, or bunkers, spread across four deck levels throughout the vessel.
In the Japanese attack the next morning, a 1,700-pound bomb plunged through the ship's deck, detonating in an ammunition compartment. The explosion obliterated a section of the Arizona's bow, blasted backward toward the stern and vented out the smokestack. It also ignited much of the oil, which burned for three days.
The battleship -- three times the size of the Statue of Liberty -- settled to the bottom in 34 feet of water, along with the bodies of more than 1,100 sailors and Marines.
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For 65 years, the wreck of the USS Arizona has been leaking oil from its grave at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, staining the water, visitors often say, as if it were the ship's blood.
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Reining in Military Contractors
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2006120919
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It's unlikely that many Americans know Stewart W. Bowen Jr. They should. As the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Mr. Bowen has helped save taxpayers billions of dollars. His audits of reconstruction contracts have turned up waste, mismanagement and fraud; and his investigations led to four criminal convictions and embarrassed excuses from the U.S. government's biggest military contractors.
Yet, for all his good work, some in Congress are not terribly appreciative. On the eve of recent mid-term elections, an amendment, buried deep within a military authorization bill, closed down Bowen's office. After media outrage, congressional leaders scurried to give his job back. But, the symbolism of this surreptitious effort is rich -- after three and half years of abdicating its oversight responsibility of the U.S. military, Congress finally reasserted itself. It's about time, because when it comes to supervising military contracting, there is long overdue work to be done.
Over the past five years, the use of private groups has exploded with an estimated 40 cents out of every discretionary federal dollar going to contractors. While certainly private contractors are sometimes more capable of providing efficient, customized solutions, congressional scrutiny of this growing privatization, particularly in the realm of national security, continues to lag.
In few places is the growth in contracting being felt more acutely than the U.S. military. A recently released Pentagon census of civilians working in Iraq shows that an astounding 100,000 private contractors are supporting the U.S. military effort in Iraq. That's four times greater than the Pentagon's previous working estimate and only 40,000 less than the number of U.S. military troops in Iraq. It's a virtual army of largely unregulated individuals working on behalf of U.S. national interests. To date, more than 650 private contractors have been killed in Iraq -- more than all non-U.S. coalition fatalities combined.
Today private contractors have become an essential element of U.S. military strategy -- with little to no congressional oversight or investigation. Not only are contractors training police, cooking meals, and transporting weapons they are being asked to provide security services that were once the sole purview of the military, including convoy protection and at times, even engaging the enemy. In a 2004 incident, eight Blackwater contractors fought off an attack on the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Najaf. They did so without support from the U.S. military.
And as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the cost of this "private security" has skyrocketed. At the start of U.S. involvement, 7 to 10 percent of total project costs were estimated for security expenses. Today, that figure has doubled, making some essential infrastructure projects prohibitively expensive.
There is real question as to the level of savings that taxpayers are receiving from these groups. A recent investigation of a three-year, $1.1 billion police training program in Afghanistan, headed by the private contractor DynCorp, found that the effort had been an abject failure as police trainees were unable to carry out even basic law enforcement functions. Not surprisingly, the report also found serious deficiencies in U.S. government contracting procedures. Without able management and vigilant monitoring, outsourcing can not only waste money, it can actually endanger U.S. national interests.
But the need for oversight goes well beyond the financial.
The privatization of national security blurs the once clear line where public authority ends and private initiative begins. Many firms continue to operate in a legal gray zone. Contractors are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and while some international human rights conventions apply to armed civilians, enforcement of these rules in Iraq has been virtually non-existent. Civilian contracting also creates operational challenges as private security contractors operate separately from the U.S. military yet are still seen as part of the nation's military force. Finally, without proper congressional oversight contractors can become a political tool of the executive branch, further marginalizing the role of the Congress in national security; these private groups allow policymakers to deploy force without incurring the political costs of sending troops -- or necessarily congressional authorization.
Both the State Departments and Pentagon have been developing ideas for clarifying the role of private contractors. Industry initiatives are also afoot. But Congress needs to engage in this process by not only ensuring that it is gathering input from a wide group of stakeholders, but also confirming that its mandates are being implemented. In the age of an all-volunteer military, the use of private military contractors is likely here to stay. The challenge for legislators and policy-makers is to carve out appropriate spheres of activity for private contractors and military personnel in intelligence gathering, law enforcement, security and criminal justice functions. More than ever, the American public, and their representatives in Congress, must have a say.
Michael A. Cohen and Maria Figueroa Küpçü are co-directors of the Privatization of Foreign Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation.
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It's unlikely that many Americans know Stewart W. Bowen Jr. They should. As the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Mr. Bowen has helped save taxpayers billions of dollars. His audits of reconstruction contracts have turned up waste, mismanagement and fraud; and his...
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Threats Wrapped in Misunderstandings
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2006120919
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They said the report is a recipe, backed by threats and disincentives, that neither addresses nor understands the complex forces that fuel Iraq's woes. They described it as a strategy largely to help U.S. troops return home and resurrect America's frayed influence in the Middle East.
Iraqis also expressed fear that the report's recommendations, if implemented, could weaken an already besieged government in a country teetering on the edge of civil war.
"It is a report to solve American problems, and not to solve Iraq's problems," said Ayad al-Sammarai, an influential Sunni Muslim politician.
The report arrives at a time of turmoil within the Iraqi government. Senior politicians from Iraq's two major sects, Sunnis and Shiites, have been assassinated or kidnapped in recent weeks. Entire ministries are under the control of sect-based political parties with their own militias.
Three weeks ago, as many as 150 employees were abducted from the Higher Education Ministry, run by a Sunni, by men in police uniforms who said they were from the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by Shiites. And last week, powerful politicians loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr walked out of the government, and have yet to return.
U.S. diplomats have been urging Iraq's government to engage in a process of national reconciliation aimed at giving Sunnis a greater role, but the Shiite-led administration has been largely unwilling to do so. It is unclear whether increased pressure, as called for by the group led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton, will result in Shiite leaders moving forward with a new power-sharing agreement.
The mistrust and divisions within the weak unity government are so deep that it is not certain whether the study group's recommendations -- such as using outside powers to exert diplomatic pressure and building a well-trained Iraqi army -- can be effective, or might instead deepen the political and sectarian rifts.
"The main obstacle and challenge is the current government," said Wamidh Nadhmi, a political analyst in Baghdad. "The Baker-Hamilton report is insisting on national reconciliation. This has not been done, only in government propaganda."
For months, the Bush administration has pressured the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take steps toward bringing the warring groups together and tackle Iraq's violent militias and corruption. But the Iraq Study Group recommends withdrawing U.S. support if the Iraqis fail to show advances.
"If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security, and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government," the report's executive summary says.
For some Iraqis, the statement suggested that the report's authors did not grasp, or refused to acknowledge, the diverse ambitions, rivalries and weaknesses that plague the government. The Kurds have dreams of creating an independent state. The Sunnis appear leaderless, yet seek a political voice. The Shiites are riven by feuds. There are disagreements over partitioning Iraq, over whether to restore members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to their old jobs, over whether amnesty should be given to opponents of the government and the U.S. occupation.
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BAGHDAD, Dec. 6 -- The Iraq Study Group's prescriptions hinge on a fragile Iraqi government's ability to achieve national reconciliation and security at a time when the country is fractured along sectarian lines, its security forces are ineffective and competing visions threaten to collapse the state, Iraqi politicians and analysts said Wednesday....
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Conservative Rabbis Allow Ordained Gays, Same-Sex Unions
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2006120919
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NEW YORK, Dec. 6 -- A panel of rabbis gave permission Wednesday for same-sex commitment ceremonies and ordination of gays within Conservative Judaism, a wrenching change for a movement that occupies the middle ground between orthodoxy and liberalism in Judaism.
The complicated decision by the Conservatives Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards leaves it up to individual seminaries whether to ordain gay rabbis and gives individual rabbis the option of sanctioning same-sex unions. Reform Judaism, the largest branch of the faith in the United States, has ordained openly gay men and lesbians since 1990 and has allowed its rabbis to perform same-sex commitment ceremonies since 2000. Orthodox Judaism does not countenance same-sex relationships or the ordination of gay rabbis.
Like many Protestant denominations, Conservative Jews are divided over homosexuality: torn between the Hebrew scriptures' condemnation of it as an "abomination" and a desire to encourage same-sex couples to form long-lasting, monogamous relationships.
Though stopping short of endorsing same-sex marriage, the rabbis wanted to allow commitment ceremonies "because in Jewish sexual ethics, promiscuity is not acceptable either by heterosexuals or by homosexuals, and we do in fact have both a Jewish and a social and a medical need to try to confirm those unions," said Rabbi Elliot Dorff of Los Angeles, one of the authors of the change.
After years of discussion and two days of intense debate behind closed doors at a synagogue on Park Avenue, the law committee accepted three teshuvot, or answers, to the question of whether Jewish law allows homosexual sex. Two answers uphold the status quo, forbidding homosexuality.
But a third answer allows same-sex ceremonies and ordination of gay men and lesbians, while maintaining a ban on anal sex. It argues that the verse in Leviticus saying "a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman" is unclear, but traditionally was understood to bar only one kind of sex between men. All other prohibitions were "added later on by the rabbis," Dorff told reporters.
Four of the law committee's 25 members resigned in protest of the decision.
It takes the votes of just six panel members to declare an answer to be valid -- meaning that it is a well-founded interpretation of Jewish law, not that it is the only legitimate position. Thirteen members voted in favor of allowing gay ordination and same-sex ceremonies, and 13 voted against -- meaning that at least one rabbi voted for both positions.
Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, an association of 1,600 Conservative rabbis, predicted that some rabbis will choose not to preside at same-sex ceremonies, and he said no rabbi would be required to perform them.
There are five seminaries that ordain Conservative rabbis. One of them, the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, is expected to begin ordaining gays in the near future. The movement's flagship seminary, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, is likely to take more time. Its new chancellor, Arnold Eisen, has said he favors the change but will allow the faculty to debate the question, starting as soon as Thursday.
The other seminaries -- in Israel, Argentina and the Czech Republic -- are more traditional and may adopt the change slowly, if at all.
The issue has been particularly difficult for the Conservative movement, which claims about 2 million members worldwide, because it does not lightly depart from traditional Jewish law, or halakha. Conservative Jews generally keep the kosher dietary rules and observe the Sabbath, though perhaps not as strictly as Orthodox Jews do.
Since the mid-1980s, however, the Conservative movement has departed from traditional law in several ways, including ordaining women, permitting Jews to drive to synagogue on the Sabbath, and eliminating special treatment of "illegitimate" children.
Some Conservative Jews argue that the reconsideration of homosexuality is no more significant, in terms of Jewish law, than these other changes. But Rabbi Joel Roth, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary who was among those who resigned from the law committee, said he considers the change to be "outside the pale of acceptable halakhic reasoning."
Rabbi Jerry Epstein, chief executive of the association of 700 Conservative synagogues in North America, said he did not know whether any of them would leave the movement in protest. He said he believes that they are about evenly divided for and against allowing same-sex ceremonies.
As the Conservative rabbis met in New York this week, they were conscious that they were not only deciding an important matter for their constituency but were also contributing to a national debate on the status of same-sex couples. Dorff said he hoped that the adoption of two optional, conflicting positions would serve as a model for other religious groups of how to handle deep disagreements, "so movements don't have to split up over these kinds of things."
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NEW YORK, Dec. 6 -- A panel of rabbis gave permission Wednesday for same-sex commitment ceremonies and ordination of gays within Conservative Judaism, a wrenching change for a movement that occupies the middle ground between orthodoxy and liberalism in Judaism.
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Russian Tied to Ex-Spy Also Ill From Radiation
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2006120919
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MOSCOW, Dec. 7 -- A Russian businessman who met with a former Russian domestic intelligence officer in London the day the man fell ill from radioactive poison has himself become suddenly and seriously sick, Russian news organizations reported Thursday night.
Dmitry Kovtun, a business consultant who met with Alexander Litvinenko on Nov. 1 at a bar in the Millennium Hotel in London, suffered a severe health breakdown from radiation exposure, according to the reports. He had earlier been interviewed by Russian investigators, with detectives from Scotland Yard present as well.
The investigation of Litvinenko's mysterious death has widened with each day, as technicians follow a radioactive trail left by the poison polonium-210 across London and Moscow and in the cabins of jetliners that flew between the two cities.
Critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin have accused his government of orchestrating a covert execution of Litvinenko to silence a detractor; the Kremlin rejects those claims as absurd and says Russia only suffers from the burgeoning international publicity over the death. No one has been formally identified as a suspect in the case, which has strained relations between Russia and Britain.
Kovtun is the second person reported seriously sickened by the radiation, though others have tested positive for low-level exposure to the substance. On Thursday, British health officials added seven people to the exposure list -- employees in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1.
The Russian prosecutor's office, accused in Britain of dragging its feet in the inquiry, said Thursday it has opened its own criminal investigations. "The examination revealed that Litvinenko died after being poisoned with a radioactive nuclide and Kovtun . . . was also found to have been poisoned with a radioactive nuclide," the prosecutor's statement said. Opening criminal cases could be the first step in pursuing a prosecution here.
Andrei Lugovoy, another Russian who was present at the London meeting Nov. 1, is undergoing tests at a Moscow clinic. He was to speak with British and Russian investigators Thursday, but the meeting was postponed.
"We are on hold," Lugovoy's attorney, Andrei Romashov, said in a brief phone interview. He said his client, a former KGB officer, did not ask for the postponement; Russian news agency RIA Novosti said it was requested by Russian investigators for "technical reasons."
Romashov said Kovtun's attorney told him that his client was sick but not in a coma. Russian media, citing medical sources at Kovtun's hospital, continued to report Thursday night that the businessman had slipped into a coma and was experiencing failure of major organs.
Kovtun has said he first met Litvinenko in October to discuss possible business deals with British companies interested in investing in Russia. He described himself in a recent interview as a longtime resident of Germany who had returned to Moscow to set up a business.
He is the latest person to have tested positive for polonium-210 radiation. Litvinenko's wife, Marina, has been told that small amounts were found in her urine but that risk to her health was low. Mario Scaramella, an Italian who also met with Litvinenko on Nov. 1, in a London sushi restaurant, had more significant amounts of polonium in his system, doctors said, but he is not showing symptoms and was discharged from a London hospital Wednesday.
British officials played down any threat to the seven hotel workers. "There is no health risk in the short term and in the long term the risk is judged to be very small on the basis of initial tests," Britain's Health Protection Agency said in a statement.
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MOSCOW, Dec. 7 -- A Russian businessman who met with a former Russian domestic intelligence officer in London the day the man fell ill from radioactive poison has himself become suddenly and seriously sick, Russian news organizations reported Thursday night.
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Shuttle Launch Scrubbed Due to Weather
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2006120919
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Low clouds forced NASA to delay the launch of space shuttle Discovery late Thursday, and a forecast for strong winds prompted the space agency to postpone another attempt by at least two days.
NASA managers waited until the end of the countdown before deciding to call off the launch scheduled for 9:35 p.m. It would have been the first nighttime launch in four years.
"We gave it the best shot and didn't get clear and convincing evidence that the cloud ceiling had cleared for us," launch director Mike Leinbach told Discovery's seven astronauts.
Shuttle commander Mark Polansky responded, "Try not to be too disappointed."
Too many clouds prevent the necessary observation of the shuttle during its ascent, and the commander needs visibility if an emergency landing is required.
A new launch attempt was set for 8:47 p.m. Saturday, although weather forecasters gave the new time only a 30 percent chance of acceptable weather because of expected strong winds at the launch pad.
Each launch scrub costs NASA $500,000.
Earlier, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said if the space shuttle did not get off the ground Thursday night, NASA likely would wait until Saturday before trying again. The Friday forecast was even worse than Thursday's, with only a 10 percent chance of decent weather.
The best opportunity for launching over the next several days was Tuesday, shuttle weather forecaster Matt Timmermann said.
At the beginning of next week, "we see an improving trend," he said. "The winds get lighter and it gets drier."
During the 12-day mission, Discovery's astronauts will rewire the space station, bring up a new 2-ton addition to the space lab and rotate out one of the three crew members at the space station.
NASA had required daylight liftoffs for the three launches after the 2003 Columbia accident to make sure the agency could get good daytime photos of the external fuel tank in case debris fell from it during launch. Foam breaking off the tank and striking Columbia's wing at liftoff caused the damage that led to the disaster that killed seven astronauts.
But NASA officials were comfortable with the acceptable levels of foam loss during the last two liftoffs and believe radar will be able to spot pieces falling from Discovery's tank.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said he felt no pressure to stick to the launch schedule, despite NASA's desire to go up before Dec. 17 so that Discovery is back on the ground for the new year. Shuttle computers are not designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight. The space agency has figured out a solution for the New Year's Day problem, but managers are reluctant to try it if they don't have to do so.
If Discovery is still grounded by Dec. 18, NASA may decide to keep trying anyway through Dec. 26.
"We've got days and days, and we're not even worrying about the clock problem," Griffin said. "The clock problem is an annoyance, but it's not a real problem in the sense that we know how to deal with it."
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Low clouds forced NASA to delay the launch of space shuttle Discovery late Thursday, and a forecast for strong winds prompted the space agency to postpone another attempt by at least two days.
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Carter Book on Israel 'Apartheid' Sparks Bitter Debate
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2006120919
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A veteran Middle East scholar affiliated with the Carter Center in Atlanta resigned his position there Monday in an escalating controversy over former president Jimmy Carter's bestselling book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," traces the ups and downs of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process beginning with Carter's 1977-1980 presidency and the historic peace accord he negotiated between Israel and Egypt and continuing to the present. Although it apportions blame to Israel, the Palestinians and outside parties -- including the United States -- for the failure of decades of peace efforts, it is sharply critical of Israeli policy and concludes that "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land."
Kenneth W. Stein, a professor at Emory University, accused Carter of factual errors, omissions and plagiarism in the book. "Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information," Stein wrote in a harshly worded e-mail to friends and colleagues explaining his resignation as the center's Middle East fellow.
Stein offered no specifics in his e-mail to back up the charges, writing only that "in due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins."
A statement issued by the center yesterday in Carter's name said he regretted Stein's resignation "from the titular position as a Fellow" and noted that he had not been "actively involved" there for the past 12 years. Carter thanked Stein for his advice and assistance "during the early years of our Center" and wished him well.
While acknowledging that the word "apartheid" refers to the system of legal racial separation once used in South Africa, Carter says in his book that it is an appropriate term for Israeli policies devoted to "the acquisition of land" in Palestinian territories through Jewish settlements and Israel's incorporation of Palestinian land on its side of a separating wall it is erecting.
He criticizes suicide bombers and those who "consider the killing of Israelis as victories" but also notes that "some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians."
Accusing the Bush administration of abandoning the effort to promote a lasting peace, he calls for renewed negotiations on the basis of security guarantees for Israel and Israel's recognition of U.N.-established borders.
Formally published three weeks ago, the book quickly became a bestseller. Carter has been prominently interviewed in the media and has been mobbed at book appearances around the country.
Speaking Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," he said he was glad the book had raised controversy. "If it provokes debate and assessment and disputes and arguments and maybe some action in the Middle East to get the peace process, which is now completely absent or dormant, rejuvenated, and brings peace ultimately to Israel, that's what I want," he said.
Criticism of the book, primarily from Jewish groups and leaders, began even before it was published, and it became an issue in the midterm elections last month. The New York-based Jewish Daily Forward noted in October that Democrats were trying to distance themselves from its reported contents as Republicans were seeking to widely disseminate Carter's views in an effort to win Jewish votes.
Speaking to the Forward about Carter, Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matthew Brooks said the coalition had "not shied away from shining a light on some of his misguided and outrageous comments about Israel in the past. . . . So far, there's been nothing but silence on the part of the Democratic establishment in terms of holding Carter accountable."
Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat from New York, told the Forward that the "book clearly does not reflect the direction of the party."
Since then, the controversy has only grown. In a widely published commentary last weekend, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz wrote that Carter's "use of the loaded word 'apartheid,' suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa, is especially outrageous."
In a statement issued Monday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles contended that Carter "abandons all objectivity and unabashedly acts as a virtual spokesman for the Palestinian cause."
In a telephone interview yesterday, Stein said that Carter had "taken [material] directly" from a published work written by a third party but that legal action was being contemplated and he was not yet at liberty to make the details public. He said accounts in the book about meetings he had attended with Carter between 1980 and 1990 had left out key facts in order to "make the Israelis look like they're the only ones responsible" for the failure of peace efforts.
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A veteran Middle East scholar affiliated with the Carter Center in Atlanta resigned his position there Monday in an escalating controversy over former president Jimmy Carter's bestselling book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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No Crowds? No Rush? In Mexico, No Problemo
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2006120919
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It takes a day or two in La Manzanilla to spot the symptoms. There's the flat tire on the rental car that has gone nowhere in seven days, the book buried in the sand facedown, the gringo who can't remember what day it is, the old local waving hola from his hammock.
Expats call the phenomenon "the great sand suck."
Extreme cases become the stuff of legend, like the Oregon tourist plopped in a beach chair who couldn't decide whether to go barefoot or wear sandals. He started mulling the question in the morning. At 5 p.m. he was still in the same spot. Same chair, one sandal on, one off. "I meant to go someplace," he said with a shrug.
Even the roosters seem afflicted in this dusty little Mexican fishing village, a hushed-up spot that's still off the clock and, for a while yet, off the tourist track. The scrawny birds go off at all hours -- midnight, 2 a.m., breakfast time, lunchtime, margarita time -- their hoarse, halfhearted cock-a-doodle-doos signifying nothing in particular.
"Nothing" may have a bad name north of the border, but down here on Mexico's west coast, some four hours south of Puerto Vallarta along the Costa Alegre (the Happy Coast), finding the dada of nada is a fine pastime. "I'm listening to the space between the waves," a music-teacher friend told me, planted in her chair on Day 4 of vacation, eyes closed, face to the sea, listening to the gentle surf that rises, sighs and foams across a long, low-slope beach.
La Manzanilla isn't fancy, not even close, despite a growing number of handsome architect-designed rentals and a smattering of new galerias. There are no resorts, no sports bars, no souvenir shops, no time-share pitches, no prepackaged special deals. Regulars, who urge others to keep this pretty hideout secret, pack pesos: There are no banks, no bank machines, no plastic, no traveler's checks.
What you get for those pesos -- and you won't need many -- are friendly townsfolk used to mingling with gringos, a dreamy sweep of beach backed up to tropical jungle, and time, the kind of soak-in time that untangles thoughts, unknots muscles and transforms foot-tapping Type A's into Type Z's, full on empty.
Laid-back La Manzanilla is often confused with the busy port of Manzanillo, less than an hour to the south. That "a" at the end makes all the difference. Big Manzanillo has a population of more than 100,000. Little "La Manz" may have 3,500 in peak season, including winter residents, native locals and the Mexicans who come from inland, their trucks packed with inflatable water toys, kids and grandparents riding overstuffed chairs in the pickup bed.
The town lies cupped in the protected southeastern reach of the Bay of Tenacatita, and even water-sissies like me can spend hours boogie-boarding the soft, rolling wavelets, riding right up onto the beach, with a bathing suit full of sand and the kind of silly grin you see on a 6-year-old, sure of her safe delivery to shore.
I've been coming to La Manzanilla three years running, staying in beautiful beachfront suites for less than $100 a night in high season. Get off the beach and you can easily halve that. If you hit the street taquerios for $1.50 tacos or cook up a nice pot of refrieds with serrano chilis to put inside the fresh tortillas made steps down the street, you can enjoy slacker paradise on a comfy budget.
Pencil in at least a couple nights out, though. The town has a good, eclectic mix of restaurants serving traditional Mexican dishes, super-fresh seafood and chef creations such as shrimp and spinach crepes, Thai curries and octopus salad.
The first year, I came to La Manzanilla because I'd heard about the fishing. The waters offshore teem with tuna, marlin, sailfish, snapper and dorado, gorgeous pescado that leap neon yellow and green and blue from the warm Pacific. Fishermen cast small, weighted seine nets, or pole-fish with line and jig to bring in roosterfish right off the beach. Locals also offer guided fishing trips in open boats.
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La Manzanilla hosts friendly townsfolk used to mingling with gringos, a dreamy sweep of beach backed up to tropical jungle, and time, the kind of time that untangles thoughts and unknots muscles.
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Apartment Life Live
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2006120919
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Welcome to Apartment Life, an online discussion of the Washington area rental market, featuring Post columnist Sara Gebhardt.
In her monthly exchanges with the audience, Gebhardt discusses rental issues and lifestyle matters.
Got roommate troubles? Our interactive guide is packed with tips and advice to help you make the most of a group living situation. Check it out: Lessons Learned: How to Survive Living With Roommates.
Check out our special feature: Think Smart: Apartment Hunting Made Easy.
Read Sara's latest Apartment Life column.
Sara Gebhardt: Hi to all who are joining me today to talk about all things related to the rental world. Ask me about whatever may be on your mind in your current rental existence, whether that's trouble with pests of any kind in your living space or worry about not getting your security deposit back. Let's get started!
Washington, D.C.: I have a landlord who thinks everything outside the unit is not his problem, only thing is I can get no sleep, since cars going past my window hit steel plates in the street, making massive noise as well as fire engines from the firehouse on the next block. I don't think it's suitable for use as an apartment, and that was before an upstairs toilet overflowed into the unit. What can I do? And happy holidays.
Sara Gebhardt: Happy holidays to you as well. Can you clarify what you mean by "suitable for use as an apartment"? Is it an actual apartment in a building where others also reside? If this is the case, then your landlord may have grounds to leave you to your own devices to deal with noises from the fire department and steel plates in the street. A landlord assumes that you have checked out the area and its neighboring landmarks and street conditions before moving in. If it is some sort of illegal unit, then that is another story.
Philadelphia, Penn.: Thank you for taking my question. What time of the year is considered the one with the best deals in terms of apartment renting? I am considering moving soon, but I can wait until I know I will be finding the best deals, etc.
Sara Gebhardt: There is not exactly a "best" time to look for apartments. If you are flexible in your moving dates, often the best thing to do is remain flexible until you find a gem of a deal, which pop up occasionally and often at the last minute. Still, a good time to find space to negotiate is when you do not have as much competition from other apartment hunters. This means if you avoid heavy turnover times, at the beginning of summer and around Labor day, you may find yourself in a bargaining position with a landlord who needs a tenant.
Fairfax, Va.: I have a beef with tenants who use the phrase "my apartment." It isn't your apartment. A landlord can say "my apartment." They actually legally own it. Tenants have no ownership rights. Just review your state's legislation on tenant-landlord agreements. It amazes me how many people sign a lease and think the place is theirs. They hammer nails in the walls, they paint the walls, they destroy the carpets, the break the appliances. When you sign the lease, you accept the responsibility of becoming the caretaker of the landlord's property. If you don't return it in the same condition that you accepted per your signature on the lease agreement, you will be charged.
Sara Gebhardt: Interesting comment. I am not sure the usage "my apartment" when one is renting the space and inhabiting it with his or her own possessions is totally off base. It's simply a way to communicate a lease agreement. I do agree that renters should be aware that signing a lease (and thereby earning the right to call a rental property "home") does not absolve them from the responsibility of caring for that property.
D.C.: In one of your responses, you mention an "illegal unit." What defines legal vs. illegal?
Sara Gebhardt: Apartment units must abide by housing laws and regulations governing their jurisdiction. An illegal unit is usually one that is not up to housing codes -- which could mean it's a decrepit shed in someone's backyard, an attic, or a basement apartment without adequate exit/escapes.
Another way ...: To get a good deal on rent is to sublet from a student who had to sign a one-year lease, but only needs to be in town Sept.-May. You can get the apt. for cheap June-August and re-up with the landlord at the retail price in Sept.
Sara Gebhardt: Right, this is a good suggestion, though sublets do not necessarily lead to permanent tenancy. Also, there is a high demand for sublets in the metro area, given all the interns who compete for housing in the summer.
Gifts for apt. staff: I live in an apartment complex with a front desk staff. Is it proper etiquette to give them a holiday gift? There's a team of folks down there, so a monetary tip wouldn't work. I was thinking baked goods.
Sara Gebhardt: I think it's a great idea to show your apartment staff some appreciation during the holidays if you want to. They would definitely appreciate baked goods. Really, who doesn't? Flowers, small gift cards to local coffee shops or book stores, a card expressing gratitude, or even healthy snacks would also be possible gift choices.
Maryland: As a former landlord, I'm trying to imagine what, exactly, you would have the landlord do to address noise caused by cars in the street and fire engines.
If you don't think your apartment is a suitable place to live, why not move?
Sara Gebhardt: Exactly my place. If a place is unsuitable by nature--that is, by community noise over which the landlord nor even the neighbors have control--it's probably wise to move on and move out.
Arlington, Va.: What is the best way to gently remind a renter that although the rent includes utilities, the renter should not leave the lights on all day long when away?
Sara Gebhardt: How about devising a going away checklist for renters? It can include some information about environmental impact that may appeal to renters more than a plea to help you (presumably the landlord) save money on your bills. On a flier or poster, remind renters to save energy when they're not home.
RE: Fairfax, Va.: Geez, what are people supposed to say? "The apartment that I inhabit, but that is owned by my landlord"? It's just shorthand. I doubt there is a correlation between people who use the phrase and people who don't take good care of "their" apartments. Of course tenants should be careful. If not, it comes out of their security deposit, but that's part of the territory of being a landlord.
Sara Gebhardt: Yeah, there's that complicated thing we call communicating, which happens to use language to convey meanings that are not always loaded with values or feelings of entitlement. Anyone have other (humorous) ideas for a quick way to denote "my apartment"? I feel a reader contest coming on....
Woodbridge Renter: For the upset landlord: So basically you are saying renters should pay for the privilege to take care of your property? Wow, sounds like quite a deal! Sign me up! People pay rent so they can have a home. When they refer to "their apartment," they are referring to "their home." Get a life.
Sara Gebhardt: Another comment regarding "my apartment."
Maryland: Give your front office staff gifts!!!!!! Guess whose packages will get signed for and who will get access after hours? Yeah, I know, it is a form of bribery, but a tasty one and a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Sara Gebhardt: In the spirit of giving to receive later, here's another reason to do something special for your management staff.
Maryland: Caution against subletting without your landlord's full knowledge and consent ... my niece (who "knew what she was doing") sublet her rental to a guy who doesn't pay rent, and who she can't get out of the place. Courts will be involved, but guess who is stuck with the associated rent and bills?
Sara Gebhardt: Yes, things can indeed get messy with subletting. You still need to sign an agreement for subletting to protect yourself.
Renter who leaves the lights on: I leave the lights on because I hate coming home to a pitch black house. I doubt leaving the lights on all day is going to cost a landlord that much in energy costs.
Sara Gebhardt: I am not saying you have to care about your landlord's energy costs. However, I'm still a fan of doing what's right for the environment, which is not using resources that, contrary to popular belief, are not limitless. There is a solution, in my opinion. Instead of leaving the lights on all day, you can set a lamp up to an automatic timer so that you do not have to enter a dark house. And if your landlord IS worried about energy costs, ask him/her to buy you the timer device.
San Diego, Calif.: Landlord here. Should I get anything for my tenants for the holidays? I was thinking of a Home Depot gift card, but would that be not acceptable?
Sara Gebhardt: Just how much work do you want your tenants doing in the apartment? I'd steer clear of a Home Depot gift card. It may send the wrong message. I do think you can give a gift to your tenant if you'd like, but make it something in the realm of home decorating or a certificate to a local restaurants or shop.
I am moving to D.C. next month for a six month internship. Any tips about where I should look for housing? I've been obsessively checking Craigslist all week. Thanks!
Sara Gebhardt: Craigslist seems to wield a lot of success for this kind of short-term rental. Also look in local papers, this one included, and ask around at your future place of employment (former and current interns may be able to provide help) and among family and friends. Once you spread the word, you'll find more options.
Alexandria, VA: Hi Sara! Thanks for taking my question. My husband finishes grad school in May. We are required to move back to our home state immediately after graduation so he can start working (long story). We have a year-long lease that ends in August. We signed on for another year last August because there was no way we could afford a month-to-month. I won't have a job when we move, so it's very unlikely we'll be able to afford the $1,000 lease breakage fee, so I was wondering: can we sublet to someone else and they fulfill our lease? What are the legal implications of subletting? He did it when we were in college, but it was quite informal, so I'm not sure what we'd be getting ourselves into. Thanks!
Sara Gebhardt: Check your lease. Some landlords have policies banning tenants from subletting. Not that this stops everyone from doing so, but it's worth knowing what you're getting into before doing it. Legally, essentially, you are still responsible for paying the rent, so you need to make sure your sublettor will uphold his/her end of the bargain. It can work, but you'll have to make sure you get a tenant you trust, because you'll be liable for damages that person causes until your lease is up.
Columbia, Md.: Twice this week I've blown a circuit (lived in the relatively new apartment for two years) opening the door to my microwave (yes, I push the button, the power goes off). It knocks off about every other outlet in the kitchen and dining area, one was the fridge so I was able to call it in as an emergency. The guy showed me which circuit it was the second time and I didn't use the microwave last night. Should I be more concerned? This has not happened and I had the normal amount of things on. Could it have been static electricity?
Sara Gebhardt: I'm definitely not an expert on electricity, but make sure you have your landlord (is the "guy" part of the maintenance team?) or someone check this problem out further. Sometimes there are electrical glitches that do not mean you are in any major danger, but you should definitely make sure you understand what is going on with your circuits.
Washington, D.C.: I question that some apartment communities are actually built to code. I'm a defense contractor who, because of contract transfers, has lived in dozens of communities around the country. Some were ok, but most had problems that would not have existed if code had been met. I normally rent out my home while working the contracts, but of late I keep it available for weekend escapes to sanity. There are just too many consistent problems with electrical, structural, plumbing, acoustical, and even basic energy conservation techniques.
Sara Gebhardt: Uh oh ... that's not good inside information for renters. Building codes exist for a reason, and it's true that some communities cut corners in certain ways. For renters, if you are concerned that your apartment is in blatant violation of codes -- though it is often hard to tell unless you are well-versed in engineering -- you can call your local housing office and request an inspection. For contractors who concur with this post, please feel free to email me aptlife@gmail.com and tell me more.
Sara Gebhardt: Well, folks, that wraps up today's session. I'm sorry I did not get to everyone's questions. Look in my future column(s) to answers, or feel free to email me again at aptlife@gmail.com. I'll see you at the beginning of 2007 in this space as we kick off another year of Apartment Life!
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Milan's Beef About Skeletal Models
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2006120919
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This week the trade organization that oversees the seasonal runway shows in Milan announced that it plans to develop a nationwide campaign to fight anorexia. The goal is to keep emaciated and unhealthy-looking models off the catwalks and out of fashion advertising campaigns. How precisely the Camera della Moda plans to do that has yet to be determined.
Earlier this year, officials in Madrid banned from the runways models whose body mass index (a measure of body fat) fell below 18. That announcement barely caused fashion insiders to blink because Madrid is not one of the international centers of fashion. In fact, when Didier Grumbach, the man in charge of Paris's fashion week, was asked about the Madrid ban, he suggested that it was unwieldy, misguided and an inappropriate infringement on the creativity of designers. And in some respects he was right. It is not possible to legislate body weight.
But it is significant when Milan notices that some models look as though they have not eaten in months, because the Italian city -- along with Paris, London and New York -- helps set the global fashion agenda and ultimately the social definition of beauty. With design houses such as Giorgio Armani, Prada, Versace and Gucci based there, Milan has the kind of clout that Madrid lacks.
One of the questions the industry must address is the influence it has over women and their body image. The deaths of two underweight South American models earlier this year, one from anorexia and the other from heart failure, caused a flurry of news stories that suggested a cause-and-effect relationship between fashion's obsession with thinness and anorexia. But anorexia is a thousand times more complicated than a desire to fit into runway samples.
Still, being pounded over the head with the belief that thin, thin, thin is beautiful can chip away at the fragile self-esteem of a young girl . . . and at the confidence and spirit of smart and accomplished women. Any industry that threatens the mental and physical health of its employees and customers needs to engage in thorough self-examination.
The fashion industry did not abruptly embrace skeletal models. These women have always been achingly thin. Remember Twiggy? (And for a time, male models looked as though they were feasting on nothing but cigarettes and air.) But the models have gotten thinner, and now they also look sad, vacant and unhealthy.
In the 1980s, curvy women with big personalities such as Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell dominated the runways. They were the "glamazons" noted for their sexy struts, their figures and their pizzazz. Then along came Kate Moss, the invasion of the waifs and fashion's strange fascination with heroin chic. A wan, homeless look dominated. (In hindsight, Moss looked practically plump next to some of the current runway stars.) The Brazilian models followed. They were led by Gisele Bundchen, who resurrected the industry's love affair with curves. While these models had a hint of hips, they made the stars of the '80s look plus-size.
Many of the models currently in vogue come from Eastern Europe. They are pale, almost to the point of translucent, and astonishingly thin. They look positively rickety. Seeing one in a swimsuit can make you shudder. They are not sexy or even particularly pretty. (How can they be when they look as though the life has been sucked out of them?) They're not making a pouty face for the cameras because they're feeling sexy. They look like they're pouting because they're hungry.
One model who has received a great deal of runway time recently is Vlada Roslyakova. When she first started appearing in shows of well-known designers, she stood out because of her awkward, robotic gait. She had a rigid posture and a tendency not to move her arms. Over the seasons, she has learned how to simultaneously move both her arms and her legs when she walks. But she remains alarmingly thin, without curves or affect. Yet she had no shortage of employment opportunities this past season.
Another emaciated model, Sasha Pivovarova, has been the star of Prada advertisements. She marches down the catwalk with her icy blue eyes staring wide and unblinking from their hollow sockets. If folks saw her looking like that on the street, they'd think she was delirious. They'd throw her a bagel and run the other way.
The designer Giorgio Armani has noted that he doesn't like these featherweight models. And in his spring 2007 show, his models were thin but not distracting. Armani wants to keep the attention focused on his clothes. (That's also one of the reasons he has always shied away from using star models.) Implied in his preference is an element of respect, not just for women but also for the human form.
Many of Milan's female designers use hyper-thin models. A whole phalanx of emaciated young women walked the runway for Miuccia Prada. Their size was especially noticeable because many wore microscopic tunics and bloomers. Their tiny legs, with kneecaps wider than thighs, were clearly visible. They made an appearance at Gucci, too, which is now under the direction of Frida Giannini. And they were sprinkled in at Versace, where Donatella Versace is in charge. These designers say women's power, confidence or intelligence inspire their work, and then they send bony zombies down the runway. How can this be?
For all the emphasis the fashion industry places on creative integrity and individual vision, an enormous part of the problem is that its members all too often can't shake off a junior high school mentality of wanting to be part of the popular crowd. All it takes is for one influential person -- designer, editor, model booker -- to pronounce a girl "major." Everyone wants to use the same in-demand models. Hot models lend status to modest shows and confirm the stature of big shows. Over a typical runway season, the same models appear so often on different runways that it is easy to become immune to how shockingly thin they are. After a while, it seems normal that a model's thighs are the same circumference as a 12-year-old's upper arm.
The industry did not make the leap directly from Naomi to Sasha. Waifs were the steppingstone. These are the post-waifs.
And if the industry does not think carefully about the current aesthetic, what comes next could be truly ghastly.
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This week the trade organization that oversees the seasonal runway shows in Milan announced that it plans to develop a nationwide campaign to fight anorexia. The goal is to keep emaciated and unhealthy-looking models off the catwalks and out of fashion advertising campaigns. How precisely the...
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Oil-Lease Agency Found Inadequate
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2006120919
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The agency that collects royalties from oil and gas producers lacks the data, coordination and manpower to keep track of companies operating on federal land and in federal waters, a report by the Interior Department's inspector general said.
The report criticized the Minerals Management Service for relying on "compliance reviews," which depend on information provided by the companies, rather than detailed audits, independent information or site visits.
The report said record-keeping was so shoddy that a random selection of five supposedly completed audits found that one had never begun and two were unfinished. "MMS could not accurately count the number of audits and compliance reviews that were completed each fiscal year," the report said.
The agency, which collected $12.8 billion in royalties this year, has been criticized by members of Congress for writing leases in 1998 and 1999 that allowed major oil companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to avoid billions of dollars of royalty payments. The MMS is negotiating with companies in an effort to correct that and collect some of the money.
The inspector general's report, written for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, also said the MMS had audited only 9 percent of federal properties and 20 percent of companies in the past three years. It said that many of the same high-dollar properties are reviewed "year after year" while many other properties were never reviewed.
The report also noted that the agency had reduced the number of auditor positions by 45, or 15.7 percent, since 2000. During that time, the number of audits fell to 461 in 2004-05, from 595 in 2000-01. The report said that wasn't enough to monitor the 2,600 companies that paid royalties on about 27,800 leases in 2005.
"The biggest problem is that there's a culture at MMS that is careless, undocumented and fails to consider its fiduciary duty to the American people," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee's subcommittee on energy and resources.
"The Interior inspector general's report underscores how poorly the Bush administration's Minerals Management Service has been overseeing oil and gas drilling activities on public land," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).
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The agency that collects royalties from oil and gas producers lacks the data, coordination and manpower to keep track of companies operating on federal land and in federal waters, a report by the Interior Department's inspector general said.
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Government Considers Banning Lead in Children's Jewelry
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2006120919
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The staff of the Consumer Product Safety Commission has recommended that the commission effectively ban the lead in children's metal jewelry, citing the risk of lead poisoning.
The proposal is subject to public comment and would require approval by the full commission, which is scheduled to vote next week.
Lead paint in older homes remains the top cause of lead poisoning in children. But the potential for children to ingest lead by sucking on or swallowing toy jewelry has led to 14 recalls of more than 160 million items since 2004.
Lead, which is used to add heft to toy and costume jewelry, can harm brain development in children if ingested. Even small amounts of lead can have adverse health effects because it lingers in the body. Jewelry containing lead can be found in vending machines, dollar stores, department stores, and big-box retailers.
In rare cases, lead poisoning from toy jewelry can be fatal. In March, Reebok recalled 300,000 promotional charm bracelets after the death of Jarnell Brown, a 4-year-old Minneapolis boy. He had swallowed a charm that was 99 percent lead.
The proposed ban followed a stepped-up effort by the agency to get producers and importers to meet voluntary guidelines.
"We don't want to have another experience such as the child in Minneapolis," CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson said. "We want to improve safety by being simpler in what our policy is."
The proposal was in response to a petition from the Sierra Club requesting a ban on all toy jewelry containing lead. The CPSC staff recommended that the agency prohibit any piece of metal jewelry with lead content exceeding 0.06 percent.
The Sierra Club also has sued the Environmental Protection Agency over the issue. It unsuccessfully petitioned the EPA to require companies to provide health and safety studies on lead in their products and to make companies that have previously recalled toy jewelry show they have made necessary changes.
Under the Toxic Substances Act, both the EPA and the CPSC have jurisdiction over lead in toy jewelry, according to EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones. The EPA denied the Sierra Club's petition because what it requested would have been beyond the agency's authority, Jones said. The group's lawsuit, filed in September, is pending.
The EPA has sparked controversy about what previously was a prime source of lead exposure: air pollution.
Lead air pollution has dropped more than 90 percent in most of the country since the government started regulating vehicle emissions in the 1970s, driving public attention to other sources of lead, such as paint and toys.
But regulation of lead air pollution could take center stage again after the EPA said on Tuesday that it might consider revoking national lead air quality standards.
The comment, made in a draft staff paper, prompted an angry response yesterday from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who is to become chairman of the House Government Reform Committee in January. He urged Stephen L. Johnson, the EPA's administrator, to renounce the proposal immediately. "A federal abandonment of a national standard for lead air pollution would remove an important federal protection and send the wrong message to state and local governments, health professionals and the American people," Waxman said.
William Wehrum, acting director of the EPA's office of air and radiation, said in a written statement that the EPA was "committed to improving upon our record of protecting the public from lead exposure and is examining the role a national standard plays in accomplishing this goal."
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The staff of the Consumer Product Safety Commission has recommended that the commission effectively ban the lead in children's metal jewelry, citing the risk of lead poisoning.
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Wizards Halt Road Woes
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NEW YORK, Dec. 6 -- When Gilbert Arenas gets it going, he bounces off the soles of his shoes as if they're packed with springs, his eyes narrow as though he's pondering his next move on a chessboard and the basketball leaves his hand as though it's being directed toward the rim by a global positioning device.
Arenas has been one of the league's top scorers for three years now, but this season his knack for putting the ball in the basket has been missing away from Verizon Center.
That all changed Wednesday night, when Arenas and the Washington Wizards earned their first road win of the season with a scorching shooting display.
Arenas scored 38 points, Antawn Jamison scored a season-high 33 and the Wizards connected on a franchise-record 14 three-pointers en route to a comfortable 113-102 win over the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
"You ever heard of a hibachi grill?" said Arenas, who made 13 of 24 shots, including six three-pointers to go along with four assists and three steals. "Tonight was all hibachi, baby. We were cooking chicken and shrimp."
They also were grilling Knicks, who dropped to 2-8 at home and were booed by their disgruntled fans throughout the second half. The startling thing about Wednesday's performance was that it stood in direct contrast to Washington's last visit here.
During a 20-point loss to the Knicks on Nov. 15, the Wizards tied an NBA record by going 0 for 15 from three-point range, shot a season-worst 31.5 percent and scored a season-low 13 fourth-quarter points.
On Wednesday, the Wizards (8-10) looked like a different team after Coach Eddie Jordan called a timeout less than two minutes into the game after watching the Knicks score easily on their first three possessions. The baskets came on a wide-open three-pointer by Quentin Richardson and easy layups by David Lee and Steve Francis.
In the huddle, Jordan reminded his team to close out on shooters, keep the Knicks off the offensive glass and avoid giving them clear paths to the rim.
"We saw three things we didn't like, but after that timeout we went good," Jordan said. "We wanted to pick up the energy and not let them do what they did to us the last time we were here."
Of course, a team can play with all the energy it can muster but winning often comes down to the most important part of the game: making shots.
After shooting 40 percent in their eight road losses, the Wizards found a groove after Jordan's quick timeout. They made 14 of 21 shots in the first quarter, scored a season-high 66 points in the first half and then blew the game open at the start of the second half when Jamison sandwiched a pair of three-pointers around a long jump shot by Arenas and a short jump-hook by Etan Thomas, giving the Wizards a 76-59 lead with 9 minutes 55 seconds remaining in the period.
The most telling sequence of the game came at the 4:27 mark of the third. Arenas was working off the dribble against Stephon Marbury at the top of the key. As he dribbled back and forth between his legs, Arenas looked Marbury in the eye and then drained a three-pointer, stretching Washington's lead to 21 and taking the life out the Knicks.
Those kinds of big shots were missing during the team's 0-8 start on the road.
"The amazing thing is that tonight we were getting the same shots we were getting at Houston or at Dallas but tonight we were making them," Jamison said. "We haven't made shots on the road. For some reason we weren't in a rhythm as a team and we weren't making those shots. Tonight we found that rhythm, we played unselfish basketball and we made shots."
The next road test will come Friday night in Philadelphia, where the Wizards have lost three straight to the 76ers. After three straight home games against Houston, Denver and Miami, the Wizards will embark on a four-game road trip where they will face the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver, Sacramento and Phoenix.
"It would be great to get on a winning streak on the road," guard Antonio Daniels said. "Let's keep this going."
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Gilbert Arenas pours in 38 points and Antawn Jamison adds 33 as the Wizards shoot 14-of-20 from three-point range and win their first road game of the year, 113-102, over the Knicks.
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Capitals Keep On Clicking
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Chris Clark didn't hesitate when the question was posed to him following the Washington Capitals' 6-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators last night at Verizon Center.
"This is our best stretch, definitely," the Capitals captain said, referring to his one-plus seasons here. "And it's everything."
Clark's answer was short and direct, and it couldn't have been more accurate. The Capitals snapped a six-game losing streak on Nov. 28 in Tampa to begin a string of four consecutive victories, including wins over Stanley Cup contenders Dallas and Buffalo.
During the streak, their longest since January, the Capitals have outscored their opponents 22-11. They can win five straight for the first time in five years by knocking off Anaheim tomorrow.
Last night, Clark scored twice, Alex Ovechkin and Dainius Zubrus each had three assists and Olie Kolzig made 35 saves for the Capitals, who controlled the contest from the outset. Ottawa, which had won four in a row, got goals from Mike Fisher and Jason Spezza and 31 saves from Ray Emery.
"There is definitely a special feeling right now," Kolzig said. "We're playing good hockey and closing out games. Our penalty kill and power play are clicking. We're getting contributions for everyone on this team. We're really playing as a unit. If we play like that, we're going to win games."
Although Washington led the entire way, Spezza managed to make things interesting in the third period -- for a moment, anyway. The Senators' sniper put a rebound past Kolzig at 5 minutes 2 seconds to cut Washington's lead to 3-2.
But instead of panicking, as the Capitals might have done earlier this season, they bounced right back.
Alexander Semin scored on the power play 1:19 later. The rout was on.
"With each win that happens, you can draw on positive experiences," Coach Glen Hanlon said. "It feels pretty good right now."
Ovechkin said: "They have a great team, but we play better. We will just enjoy right now. Now we must play the same way."
The Senators came to Washington having won eight of nine, including a 4-2 road victory over the Islanders on Tuesday night. The Capitals never gave Ottawa a chance to get going.
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Chris Clark scores two goals as the Capitals win their fourth straight by cruising to a 6-2 victory over the previously surging Ottawa Senators.
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U.S. Uneasy About Biotech Food
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Ten years after genetically engineered crops were first planted commercially in the United States, Americans remain ill-informed about and uncomfortable with biotech food, according to the fifth annual survey on the topic, released yesterday.
People vastly underestimate how much gene-altered food they are already consuming, lean toward wanting greater regulation of such crops and have less faith than ever that the Food and Drug Administration will provide accurate information, the survey found.
The poll also confirmed that most Americans, particularly women, do not like the idea of consuming meat or milk from cloned animals -- a view that stands in contrast to scientific evidence that cloned food is safe. The FDA recently said it is close to allowing such food on the market.
Michael Fernandez, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, which sponsored the survey, said that overall, Americans are "still generally uncertain" about genetically modified and cloned foods. "How the next generation of biotech products is introduced -- and consumers' trust in the regulation of GM foods -- will be critical in shaping U.S. attitudes in the long term."
In the five years since Pew began plumbing American views of genetically engineered food, U.S. acreage in such crops has grown substantially. Today, 89 percent of soybeans, 83 percent of cotton and 61 percent of corn is genetically engineered to resist weed-killing chemicals or to help the plants make their own insecticides.
Because most processed foods contain at least small amounts of soy lecithin, corn syrup or related ingredients, almost everyone in the United States has consumed some amount of gene-altered food.
That quiet revolution has been punctuated by occasional high-profile problems, including the 2000 finding of StarLink corn, unapproved for human consumption, in many food products, and the recent revelation that the U.S. long grain rice crop has been contaminated with an experimental variety of gene-altered rice.
In this year's survey, conducted by the Mellman Group, one-quarter of the 1,000 adults polled thought they had ever eaten gene-altered food, an indication that Americans have "very little in-depth knowledge of the topic," according to a Pew summary.
Support for marketing of genetically modified food has remained flat since 2001 at 27 percent, with opposition dropping from 58 percent in 2001 to 46 percent this year.
The proportion of Americans who say they "don't know" if gene-modified foods are safe has shrunk since 2001, while the "safe" and "unsafe" camps grew by about 5 percent each: 34 percent think they are safe, while 29 percent say they are not.
Of those who claim to have at least a rudimentary sense of how engineered foods are regulated, 41 percent say they would like to see more stringent rules, and 16 percent say there is already too much regulation.
Consuming cloned animals -- addressed in the poll for the first time -- popped up as a hot-button issue. Even among those who said they had no objection to eating genetically engineered foods, 34 percent were comfortable with animal cloning, while 51 percent were not.
Religion played a big role in those opinions. Among those who said they attend religious services only "a few times a year or less," 30 percent were comfortable with animal cloning, and 54 percent were not. Among those who attend weekly religious services, 17 percent were comfortable with cloning, and 70 percent were not.
Asked which sources they trust "a great deal" for information about gene-altered foods, "friends and family" ranked highest, at 37 percent. Only 29 percent named the FDA, continuing a steady drop from 41 percent in 2001.
The least trustworthy source, garnering 11 percent, was the news media. But remember, you read it here first.
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Ten years after genetically engineered crops were first planted commercially in the United States, Americans remain ill-informed about and uncomfortable with biotech food, according to the fifth annual survey on the topic, released yesterday.
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Peacekeeping Force For Somalia Approved
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UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 6 -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing an East African peacekeeping force to prevent an alliance of Islamic militias from overthrowing Somalia's fragile interim government.
The decision marked the first time the 15-nation council has backed a foreign intervention in Somalia since U.S. and U.N. troops withdrew from the country in the 1990s. It reflected fears that Islamic militias, known as the Islamic Courts Union, may be poised to topple the country's internationally recognized government.
The Islamic movement seized control of Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, over the summer and it has been extending its control throughout the country. It threatens the government's stronghold in Baidoa.
The Islamic militias have imposed a strict version of Islamic law in communities they control. A local Islamic religious leader, Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that residents in Bulo Burto will be beheaded if they refuse to pray five times a day.
Those who do not follow the law "will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law," the news agency reported. "As Muslims, we should practice Islam fully, not in part, and that is what our religion enjoins us to do."
Ethiopia has sent thousands of troops to help prop up the government while its rival, Eritrea, has deployed thousands of troops to fight alongside the militias, a recent U.N. report said. Their presence has fueled concern that the conflict could spread into a bigger regional war.
Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi warned in a recent AP interview that war in Somalia could begin as soon as the rainy season ends later this month.
The resolution was passed after the United States accommodated a European request to exclude participation by Somalia's neighbors, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti, in the new force. It empowers a new force, which is expected to be led by Uganda, to protect the country's transitional leaders and to train a local security force.
Resolution 1725 partly lifts a 14-year arms embargo so the East African force, which will be formed by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, can equip and arm its peacekeepers. And it calls on the Islamic militias to halt any "further military expansion" and negotiate a power-sharing agreement with the Transitional Federal Government.
Critics said the decision to authorize foreign intervention without the approval of the Islamic militias may provoke even greater violence in Somalia. "The United States is leading the authorization of another intervention force in another Muslim country against the will of a large percentage of the people," said John Prendergast, an Africa specialist for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "The use of force as a substitute for diplomacy will have disastrous results in Somalia.
"You've got to get a negotiated power-sharing deal" before sending in a peacekeeping force, he added. "Doing the reverse simply alienates the courts and potentially will drive them to preemptive military action."
The United States and the resolution's other sponsors insisted that it was not intended to challenge the Islamic militias militarily and that they support a political settlement between the two sides. "The primary purpose of this deployment is to help stabilize Somalia by providing security in Baidoa, and protection and training" for the interim government, John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the council. It is "not to engage in offensive actions against the Union of Islamic Courts."
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UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 6 -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing an East African peacekeeping force to prevent an alliance of Islamic militias from overthrowing Somalia's fragile interim government.
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Washington Adventist, Center to Open Clinic
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Washington Adventist Hospital and a District-based health center plan to open a primary care clinic for low-income and uninsured families, an unusual partnership geared toward the burgeoning Latino population in Takoma Park, Langley Park and southern Silver Spring.
The Montgomery County collaboration between the hospital and Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care is expected to serve 1,000 people in its first year.
"There is so much need. . . . It could be higher than that," cautioned Washington Adventist President Jere Stocks.
The clinic is part of parent Adventist HealthCare's promise to expand community access with new facilities and services. That commitment has drawn concern as well as praise because of the hospital's proposed move from its Takoma Park home of nearly 100 years. Officials intend to house the primary care program in a new medical building at Arliss Street and Flower Avenue in Long Branch, but some neighbors' objections and lawsuits have delayed construction.
In the interim, the clinic will be in the eastern down-county area. Organizers hope to have an eight-person staff seeing patients in spring.
Mary's Center has particular expertise with the target population. Founded in 1988 to offer care to pregnant women from Central America, the nonprofit provides bilingual health, education and social services to more than 14,000 families at its two District primary care sites and mobile van. According to founder and chief executive Maria Gomez, 80 percent of the center's pregnant women begin prenatal care during their first trimester.
Stocks said the partnership with Mary's Center, nearly two years in discussion, made the most sense for the hospital. "When you think about stretching the safety net, the best approach is to reach out to organizations that are already there," he said.
If Washington Adventist undertook the primary care clinic on its own, Gomez said, "they would have a lot to learn to outreach to this population." At least a fifth of the people who go to Mary's Center in the District come from Montgomery. Most are working poor and uninsured, and they speak more Spanish than English. The new clinic will help them connect with medical specialists and community programs that assist with housing, legal and youth issues, Gomez said.
The hospital and Mary's Center will share start-up and first-year operating costs, estimated at $1.5 million. Long-term funding is being negotiated.
For Washington Adventist, the project helps fulfill a promise it and other county hospitals made to local government officials to better share the burden of the uninsured. Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring opened the first primary care clinic in 2004, with 5,200 patient visits annually by this summer, but officials have been critical of the other institutions' progress with additional facilities. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 adults lack health coverage in the county.
"We are very pleased that it is . . . coming to fruition," Montgomery health officer Ulder Tillman said of the Washington Adventist-Mary's Center clinic. "We think this will be an asset to the community."
Efforts are underway on other fronts, too. A nearly $1 million donation from Adventist HealthCare recently funded a third medical vehicle run by Mobile Medical Care Inc., which serves low-income, uninsured and homeless residents in Montgomery. That doctor's-office-and-laboratory-on-wheels divides its time between communities in the down-county area and those near Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville.
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Washington Adventist Hospital and a District-based health center plan to open a primary care clinic for low-income and uninsured families, an unusual partnership geared toward the burgeoning Latino population in Takoma Park, Langley Park and southern Silver Spring.
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Largo High Teacher Honored for Efforts
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2006120919
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Jeremiah Murphy is a musician, composer, recording artist and educator.
Now, he has another title.
The Largo High School teacher was named Teacher of the Year for Maryland this fall by the state Teachers' Insurance Plan, a national auto insurance company that was founded in 1992 to provide low-cost coverage to active and retired teachers and their immediate families. He was among 13 teachers across the country who were cited for contributions made to their schools and students.
Murphy, who teaches music and directs the choir at Largo High School, beat out dozens of nominees to win the award, which comes with a $1,000 cash prize and $500 for supplies, equipment or enrichment programs at the winning teacher's school.
"It was a great moment," said Murphy about learning that he had won. "I was totally caught off guard."
Ray Palermo, a spokesman for the insurance company, said the award is meant to recognize teachers who go beyond the call of duty.
"We're looking for teachers that are motivating students, not just teaching them," said Palermo, adding that the company annually looks for someone who is not the "traditional teacher."
Those who know Murphy would probably say he should not have been surprised by his win. Music has been a part of Murphy's life since his childhood.
"I remember being about 5 or 6 years old in youth choir," he said.
At age 9, Murphy began playing piano by ear before beginning formal lessons at age 10. He wrote his first song, a gospel selection, when he was 16. He called the song "Lord, Give Me One More Chance." He also wrote a song -- "When Friends Must Part" -- and performed it at his high school graduation in the District.
Murphy went into teaching 25 years ago. He has taught at Andrew Jackson Middle School, Duval High School and the former Forestville High School -- all in Prince George's County. He has been at Largo High for 18 years teaching vocal music, music theory and music history. Murphy also teaches music theory at workshops across the country.
Murphy is a hands-on teacher at Largo. In addition to instructing students on instruments and voice, he assigns writing projects and often uses part of his classroom time to help students work through their struggles.
"I try to give them a well-rounded education," he said.
Murphy said he likes to see his students flourish, especially those who go on to professional music careers.
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Ask Tom
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2006120619
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In a city loaded with diverse restaurants, from New American chic and upscale Italian to sandwich shops and burritos on the run, finding the best places to eat can be a real puzzle. Where's the best restaurant for a first date or an anniversary? Father's Day? What's the best burger joint? Who has the best service?
Ask Tom. Tom Sietsema, The Washington Post's food critic, is on hand Wednesdays at 11 a.m. ET to answer your questions, listen to your suggestions and even entertain your complaints about Washington dining. Sietsema, a veteran food writer, has sampled the wares and worked as a critic in Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Milwaukee, and can talk restaurants with the best of 'em. You can access his Postcards from Tom to read his recommendations for other cities, read his dining column and the Weekly Dish or read transcripts of previous "Ask Tom" chats. Tom's Sunday magazine reviews, as well as his "Ask Tom" column, are available early on the Web.
Tom Sietsema: The star wattage! The food! The drink! The funny stories!
I've never been to a happier memorial than yesterday's four-star salute to the late "Johnny" Apple, the legendary New York Timesman who wrapped up his stellar, four decade-long career at the newspaper writing about matters of the table.
Be sure to feast on Bob Kaiser's delicious recounting of the memorial in today's Style section.
On to your questions and comments.
washingtonpost.com: Johnny Apple's Service, in the Best of Taste
Silver Spring, Md.: Hey Tom-
Thanks in advance if you take this question. I have a big group of about 13 people wanting to get together for dinner next Friday night. Any suggestions for a place that can accommodate us without breaking the bank?
Tom Sietsema: Think Ethiopian: Dukem or Etete, where you can eat with your hands, eat meat (or not) and spend on dinner about what you'd pay for a first-run movie, popcorn and a soda.
Lyon Park, Va.: Any word on when Tallula's EatBar is supposed to open?
Tom Sietsema: I hear sometime in January now.
washingtonpost.com: The Weekly Dish on EatBar.
Washington, D.C.: Could you recommend a few restaurants in the District or Bethesda where I could get low-sodium meals? I follow a fairly extreme sodium restricted diet for health reasons, making almost all restaurant dining difficult. I would appreciate recommendations for restaurants that have menus that specifically could accommodate this. In addition, perhaps you could recommend some that are generally accommodating of special dietary concerns. Thank you.
Tom Sietsema: The restaurant that leaps to mind is Rock Creek in Bethesda, which lists calorie counts, fat counts, salt counts and more on the back of its menu. The nice surprise is how good so much of the food is, given its good-for-you theme.
washingtonpost.com: Review of Rock Creek.
Just a Comment: Although I enjoy your weekly columns, they really pale in comparison to this chat. The context you are able to provide in this setting is invaluable.
When I read a review of a restaurant by another Post critic, I have no idea who that person is, what their personal biases are, etc... But having seen the rationale behind your reviews for scores of restaurants on this chat, I have a pretty good idea of what you expect from a restaurant.
So I guess the point of this is, thanks for doing this chat.
I am going to Per Se in NYC this weekend with three friends. We plan to bring two bottles of wine. The prix fixe menu charge is $210 each (which includes the gratuity). The corkage fee is $90 per bottle. My question is--should we plan to add an additional gratuity based upon the corkage fee for the wine we are bringing? Thanks and love the chats.
Tom Sietsema: Congrats. You've landed one of the most difficult reservations in the country.
Ninety bucks for corkage, huh? Your bottles must be pretty special. Keep in mind that the sommelier is still offering you a service, even though your own vino is being poured. In other words, I'd be inclined to tip.
Last week you hinted that you'd heard a beloved restaurant institution might be closing soon, but that you couldn't reveal details yet. Any updates?
Tom Sietsema: Sorry, I'm still collecting/verifying the details.
Arlington, Va.: LOBSTAH - any recommendations on where to get good lobster rolls?
Tom Sietsema: The most delicious and most consistent is served at Kinkead's downtown. (I prefer eating mine at the bar.) Zola also makes a very nice lobster roll, and I seem to recall enjoying the sandwich offered at Coastal Flats in Fairfax, too.
Rasika: I'm having dinner at Rasika for the first time tonight. I don't eat meat. Any fish or vegetable dishes not to be missed?
Tom Sietsema: Splurge Alert: Chef Eric Ziebold will be offering a seven-course Christmas Eve dinner at Cityzen from 6-8:30. The price: $150.
McLean, Va. - Wine etiquette question: Is it common for restaurants to pour unused wine back in a bottle? The reason I ask is my husband and I were at the small wine bar in McLean on a Saturday night and I ordered my wine while my husband was still deciding on what wine to order. Well the women working the bar returned with two glasses of wine, one for me and one for my husband even though he had not ordered. My husband mentioned to her that he did not order the wine and the women turned around and used a funnel and poured the wine back in the bottle. I have not seen this happen before and am wondering if this is common practice in restaurants. Thanks!
Tom Sietsema: Your mate's wine was never touched by him, right? I see no reason to waste wine if it hasn't been sampled. (And no, I don't think it's a common occurrence.)
for Lobstah rolls: Legal Seafood also does a decent lobster roll.
Tom Sietsema: Ah, yes. As does Hank Oyster Bar in Dupont Circle.
Your chats are compulsory reading every Wednesday.
I'm heading to Philly tonight. Do you, or any chatters out there, know of any cool spots that have emerged since your last postcard (5/05)? We'd be looking for excellent food in casual and fun surroundings. Price and cuisine are not critical factors.
Thanks for all you do!
Tom Sietsema: The bar at Amada is great fun: sherry and Spanish tapas in handsome digs.
I am planning on buying my friends in Chicago a gift certificate as a Christmas present. I've looked at your post card, but those restaurants are out of my price range. I was wondering if you had any other ideas. When they were in Washington, we enjoyed places such as Mark & Orlando's, Pesce, and Matchbox.
Tom Sietsema: Hot Chocolate -- the restaurant -- is just what you're looking for. It was launched by one of Chicago's top pastry chefs, who offers lots of delicious savory food in addition to terrific sweets.
Washington, D.C.: Tom, I need a great apple strudel to serve at a party - do you have any favorite places where I could get one to serve at home?
Tom Sietsema: Hmmm. Maybe Heller's Bakery? Ann Amernick, the pastry chef at Palena, makes an amazing strudel. To bad her shop isn't open any more!
Washington, D.C.: Tom: Love the chats! I'm going to lunch at Blue Duck Tavern next week. Any recommendations on what to get?
Tom Sietsema: New on the menu: cheese biscuits. Bet you can't stop with just one! And the triple-fried fries are as decadent as ever. My full review follows.
washingtonpost.com: Review of Blue Duck Tavern.
Washington, D.C.: Tom - The talk about steak houses last week got me thinking about Bobby Vans on NY Ave. I work in the building that they are in and ate lunch there 2 times when they first opened and was less then impressed. Have things changed? Do they deserve another shot?
Tom Sietsema: Given all the worthy competition nearby? I think not.
Lunch today: near Farragut North?
Tom Sietsema: Try Wasabi, the newish sushi-go-round purveyor on 17th.
Reused wine: Just a quick comment on the previous poster's question about pouring wine back into the bottle. In my restaurant, that just would never happen. It taints the quality of the wine to have it poured back and forth into different containers. If a wine is exposed to air for an extended period of time, it begins to taste differently and pouring from bottle to glass through funnel back to bottle then ultimately into another glass just speeds that up. It's not fair to the next person who orders that wine. We either won't use it or we'll let the chef use it in a dish or something.
Tom Sietsema: Good point. But in this case, it sounds like the wine was out of the bottle for less than a few minutes.
Washington, D.C.: I have a question regarding the bone marrow at Montsouris. I went there not too long ago and ordered the bone marrow and it was kind of tepid and not really all that satisfying. I realize that you cannot get the whole thing really hot or the marrow will sort of melt away - on the other hand I think it would be more appetizing if there was a certain crusty-caramilization on the top and if it were at least warm through. What is your feeling on how this should be served? Thx!
Also - just wanted to thank you for recommending Greens in London in a chat or a postcard a while ago. We go there every time we are in London and have found the service to be very nice and I love the Crab salad they have and my husband likes the quintessential British cooking that reminds him of home.
Tom Sietsema: I, too, prefer marrow to be warmer than tepid. Maybe a moment under the broiler/salamander would do the trick?
So glad to hear you enjoyed Greens! It reminds me how good British food can be.
Fort Lauderdale, Fl.: Tom, several years age I purchase your dining guide in booklet form from the Washington Post. Do you still utilize the booklet format and if so where can I purchase the Guide. I enjoy immensely reading your critiques and responses to the boarders. I note that you were in my neck of the woods recently and I certainly will check out your choices. Keep up the good work.
Tom Sietsema: Thanks for the kind words. My 2005 book (200 reviews) is available in area bookstores, on the Post's web site and on Amazon.com.
Bethesda, Md.: Holiday Greetings Tom,
Thank you for all your delicious suggestions! My husband and I have enjoyed many fabulous meals following your advice!
This is not a question but an acknowledgment of those restaurants which have treated me so well in the last 2 months. I have celiac disease but adore fabulous food and wine. I am always very polite when I explain my situation to my server (I've been a waitress; everyone should have to be at some time)and have encountered nothing but kindness in return. I would like to highlight these restaurants for their food, service, and heightened awareness: Rasika, Bistro Lepic, Ceiba(love those bartenders), Zaytinya, Cafe St-Ex, and Ardeo. I realize how difficult it is to please everyone, but some establishments have a heart and soul that go beyond just what is expected. A big "Thank You" for making my life and belly more full!
Tom Sietsema: A round of applause, please, for the aforementioned restaurants.
Apple Strudel: Try the German Gourmet 7185 Lee Hwy, Falls Church.
The strudel looked authentic to me---flaky, messy crust, lotsa fruit. Very Viennese looking.
Tom Sietsema: Mmmmmm. Sounds promising. And fattening!
Atlanta, Geo.: The entire world is going to see this online if you don't start reporting the truth
oh by the way 541,342 people have joined the global warming cause and read the link entitled "Mark Foley and The Drug Free America Foundation and at least already 20% of them are from a mass emailing by Davida Shensky and her team of World Patriots, including Jeff Fisher. Mr. Fisher is wondering if you are going to report the truth or is Patrick J Fitzgerald going to have you arrested for obstruction of Justice and for Treason. Mr. Fisher has real Secret Service ,real FBI, real US Marshals, real CIA agents, contract workers and even interpol assigned to him. Do you need phone numbers?
Why don't you start talking now on the show about mark Foley and the Drug Free America Foundation.
This letter will be faxed all over the world, but more important it is going to be spread allover the internet. you have until noontime to comply.
Tom Sietsema: Wrong chat, buddy ...
I read in yesterday's Washington Post that the number of taste buds decreases at age 40 for women and 50 for men. What are your thoughts on this?
Tom Sietsema: I guess I can stick around in this job awhile longer ...
BEBO: You asked a couple of weeks ago whether anyone else had experienced the same poor service at Bebo that another chatter did and I must say that unfortunately I have. I really want the restaurant to work so I tried to overlook the horrible service but if it keeps up even the great food isn't worth that. In a nutshell, I had reservations, when I arrived the hostess was so befuddled it took her 15 minutes to figure out where to seat my party (after help from numerous other people). It wasn't a matter of too few tables or servers, it was just inexperience and confusion. Then during dinner (which was great by the way)we were never asked if we wanted another drink, I had to ask for my wine a couple times before receiving it, and our water glasses were never refilled. The waiter, noticing that it took a few tries to get me my wine and that the service in general was very slow mentioned that he would give us a free dessert. So, when it was time to order dessert we did so. When the bill came out it wasn't free (again, we did not ask for the free dessert, it was offered). When I joked with him about not getting the free dessert he said of course and ended up bringing us yet another dessert of his choosing. At that point I didn't want to give him a hard time over his offer and just chalked the experience up to a new place (this occurred about three weeks ago). This normal weeknight dinner took 2 hours. Like I said, I like the food and its price and I hope that all of the service issues are just due to a new restaurant getting on its feet but if it doesn't change it won't be worth going back there. Good food or not.
Tom Sietsema: Got that, Roberto?
I wanted your opinion on a situation. Recently, I had dinner at Cafe Belga with a large group. We had 6:00 reservations and after drinks, appetizers, dinner, dessert, and after dinner drinks, it was 8:30. The restaurant was crowded and I sensed they needed us to leave to seat other parties. The staff was perfectly cordial and professional, but they did things that I think are reasonable-- clearing our dishes, not bringing more water and coffee, and giving us the "Did you have a nice dinner?" visit from the hostess. I suggested to our group that we should get going and they were indignant-- they felt that as long as they still had drinks they had the right to finish at their leisure. I also suggested we should leave additional tip money, since by the time the table turned over, we would have been there 3 hours and I felt like the staff was losing out on potential tips from other customers. This too was rejected.
What do you think of this type of situation? Is it wrong for a party to take a table for so long, even if they are still ordering? And should they leave a larger tip? I again want to compliment the staff for not pushing us out the door, and also apologize to the people who were waiting for our table!
Tom Sietsema: Lots of questions there.
Just how large was your group? Some restaurants "invite" lingering diners to the bar when their tables are needed, but it sounds as if your party was bigger than a handful of diners. And large groups are frequently presented with a tab that includes a 15-20 percent gratuity. (How was the service, by the way?) Two and a half hours seems like plenty of time for "a group" to eat, but you don;'t mention how quickly the food was delivered, etc.
Anonymous: If you can only take so many chats then why do you so take a chat that so obviously doesn't belong here? Do you think this is funny? Come on give the space to someone who wants to talk about the subject at hand. Thanks.
Tom Sietsema: Where's your sense of humor?!
Maryland: not caring who touched the wine, the wine had been poured into a glass and thus contaminated by whatever dust/bacteria/etc. in the glass. Yeah, even a clean glass has it. pouring it back into the bottle (which may or may not be used up immediately) really just doesn't seem worth the risk to anyone.
by your logic, the restaurant should be able to put my breadbasket on someone else's table if it didn't look like I had touched it.
can I just say "ewww" to these types of practices?
Tom Sietsema: Ever consider just how many fingers have dipped into the nuts and pretzels that adorn the counters of so many bars? That gives ME the willies.
Washington, D.C.: Re: Philadelphia- a beer and the steak frites are not to be missed at Monk's Cafe at 16th and Spruce. 215-545-7005. It's a true Belgian treat!
Tom Sietsema: So I've heard, so I've heard.
Combining two comments: The comment about the marrow came so soon after the request for recommendations at Blue Duck, I just had to comment -- the marrow bone appetizer at Blue Duck is delicious!
Tom Sietsema: Indeed it is!
Help! My mom is fifty-something and not very adventurous, but recently discovered Thai food. We're going to a play Saturday afternoon and thinking about Haad Thai afterward. Is this a good place, atmosphere (clean, not too spare) and food-wise, for someone like this?
Tom Sietsema: I prefer Rice in Logan Circle or Regent Thai in Dupont Circle myself.
Re: unused wine: Actually, I think it's against the law to pour anything back into a liquor bottle to keep unscrupulous restaurants from watering.
Tom Sietsema: Okay, okay, let me amend my previous response:
It's NOT okay (legally, from what I now understand) to pour unused wine back into its (original or other) container.
(Had I received this post earlier, I would have investigated.)
Washington, D.C.: Hi Tom -
I had lunch last Friday at the new Johnny's on the Half Shell and was pretty disappointed. I tried the desserts, which you recommended in your review and thought the chocolate napoleon seemed burnt on the edges. The menu seemed a bit on the small side and there was nothing that really stood out to me as a winning dish that I should order. My luncheon companion and I sadly left and both stated that the Hill still does not have a decent restaurant in the vicinity.
Why can't the folks be persuaded to put a nice fish and chips on the menu? And I'm sorry but $26 for two TINY crab cakes does do it for me. As a native Marylander, I wasn't impressed at all and in this area, you need an impressive crab cake to assure return customers!
Thanks so much for the chats - I love Wednesdays because of them!
Tom Sietsema: The new Johnny's is still working out some kinks, as I detailed in my review last month.
I wouldn't write off the pastry chef's work so quickly. Valerie Hill is a real asset to the sweets scene here. But I'm sorry to hear about the "burnt" tasting chocolate.
Anonymous: I actually have a great sense of humor but I didn't find this "wrong" chat that funny especially since you've done it before. If you (or someone) can pick and choose which questions to post and obviously from the chatters who repeatedly moan the fact that their question never gets posted that perhaps we can stick to the subject at hand. It just doesn't seem that funny to make fun of Global Warming.
Tom Sietsema: Now YOU'RE wasting our precious time ...
washingtonpost.com: Review of Johnny's Half Shell.
Arlington, Va.: After eager anticipation of trying Bebo Tratoria out, we too had a bad time with the hostess as well as awful service. Our waiter would not make eye contact with us for 15 minutes before we ordered and continued to snub us during the lukewarm meal. I was quite disappointed as I had hoped, based on review Bebo Tratoria would become one of my restaurant standards. I cannot say I will return based on my first experience
Tom Sietsema: As Scooby Doo used to say: "Ruh-row"
Bebo and Farrah Olivia: Hi Tom,
Just wanted to share 2 experiences last week at these 2 restaurants. First, we tried Farrah Olivia for the first time and thought it was wonderful. We had a lobster appetizer and I had delicious white tuna for my entree. The service, food and wine were just great. We will definitely be back.
On to Bebo... Had an 8pm reservation, showed up at 8 and were told we would have to wait for a table. Got seated at 8:15, which wasn't a big deal - it was busy. Had a waiter that had some trouble understanding everything we said. Brought the wrong cocktail to my father, wrong salad to me and brought the proscuitto my husband asked to be added to his pasta, as an appetizer. We spoke with the manager, Patrick, who could not have been nicer or more professional. He explained that the waiter doesn't understand English very well and that he was filling in for someone who called in sick. He righted the 3 wrongs that the waiter made and on top of it, took about 20% off of our bill which was unnecessary but very welcome and which will probably make us go back, but next time not on a Friday night. Oh yeah, the pasta was pretty good too.
Tom Sietsema: Thanks for the field reports. I'm not sure why a server who doesn't know much English was put on the floor at Bebo -- isn't that inviting even greater problems than being short-staffed? -- but I like the way the bumps were smoothed over.
In reference to last week's question about Anchorage, there is a great restaurant called Orso on 5th Avenue and G. A wonderful space with a slightly modern, but nonetheless fabulous, take on Italian food. The seafood gemelli is not to be missed, with Bering Sea scallops, clams, mussels, shrimp, and rockfish in a light garlic cream sauce. I made a special effort to go there twice in my short time in Anchorage.
Snow City Cafe is an amazing breakfast spot with tasty coffee and delicious omelettes.
Marx Bros. Cafe is a funky fine-dining establishment with a nice view of Cook Inlet. The owner will create a salad for you tableside while entertaining you with charming anecdotes about his fish-out-of-water life in Alaska.
I was surprised and more than impressed with Anchorage's dining scene. Now if only they could do something about the weather...
After last week's chat, reader Jon Simon sent me the following:
Both Orso and Sack's Cafe, in my experience, have been consistently excellent. Only been to the latter for lunch, but no reason it shouldn't be just as good for dinner as well.
And, if the poster has a car and is willing to venture out a bit, the Double Musky Inn in Girdwood, AK is well worth the trip. It's a fun, Cajun-style place near Mt. Alyeska (a ski resort). Their French Pepper Steak is delicious (for what it's worth, it was featured on one of the Food Network shows as one of the best steaks going), and their eponymous
Doublie Musky Pie (if you have any room left) is to-die-for.
Washington, D.C.: Maybe "Atlanta, Geo." and "Anonymous" just need a good meal to calm their nerves. What would you suggest for some comfort food? I'm thinking a really hearty chili a or juicy hamburger.
Tom Sietsema: Or a hot dog at the bar at Palena ...
like everyone else, I do enjoy your chats very much. I was wondering about your thoughts concerning in some restaurants the chef's present a small taste before you meal arrives. I have had some amazing tidbits from Cityzen, Zola, Maestro and BLT. And yet other places either don't do it or don't put any effort into what should be a peak into what is in store for the diner. what do you think?
Tom Sietsema: I think your comment is worth a column, which I've written for later this month (Dec. 24).
Re: Per Se Tipping: The gratuity is being included at a set rate at Per Se and is pooled amongst all employees. Because of that, an additional tip for the sommelier is not only not necessary, but may be not accepted. Per Se went to this system to try to get all staff motivated to keep service levels high. Think of it this way, you would be tipping the sommelier even if you didn't bring or drink wine.
Tom Sietsema: You're right. This made headlines when it was instituted earlier this year. Thanks for the reminder.
The hour is up, folks. Thanks for tuning in. See you back next Wednesday.
Strudel: Cafe Monti, Duke St, Alexandria!
Tom Sietsema: This just in.... ciao!
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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Post Politics Hour
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Don't want to miss out on the latest in politics? Start each day with The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and Congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.
Washington Post Congressional reporter Charles Babington was online Wednesday, Dec. 6, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the latest news in politics.
Political analysis from Post reporters and interviews with top newsmakers. Listen live on Washington Post Radio or subscribe to a podcast of the show.
Charles Babington: Good morning, thanks for joining. The Baker-Hamilton report (Iraq Study Group) is being publicly released as we chat. The White House and lawmakers were briefed earlier this morning. Happy to hear your questions and thoughts on this and other matters political.
Albany, N.Y.: Isn't the real difference between the ISG and Bush, one of goals now. The ISG's goal is to extricate the U.S. from Iraq in an orderly way, while minimizing damage to Iraq on the way out. Bush's goal is to stay "until we get the job done."
Charles Babington: An interesting question. We may have to read the entire report carefully before fully understanding the answer. I think you capsulize the ISG position pretty well, and there are many people in Congress -- from both parties -- who hope the report will nudge the president into agreement.
Irvinton, N.Y. Thank you for taking my question(s).
Is it a fair interpretation that the conclusion of the Iraq Study Group is that a solution to the sectarian violence in Iraq can only be realized as part of a comprehensive Middle East Peace plan?
Is part of the learning from Iraq that the U.S. is an inappropriate broker of Middle East peace initiatives?
Charles Babington: The report says an acceptable solution in Iraq almost surely will involve the broader Middle East region. More specifically, Iran and Syria must be brought into discussions because they are major regional players. And the U.S. must do a better job of helping to bring about a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian issue and to be seen, especially in the Arab and Muslim communities, as a fair player.
San Diego, Calif.: Morning Mr. Babington. Can you tell me why reporters and other talking heads refer to Hillary Clinton in casual conversation as "Hillary?" Shouldn't they therefore call Romney "Mitt," McCain "John" and Obama "Barack?" It seems condescending to me to call the sole woman in the race by her first name.
Charles Babington: I agree with you. One reason her first name is possibly used (when it should not be), is that a mention of "Clinton" often prompts confusion with her husband (who was president for 8 years, after all). Reporters, commentators, etc., should refer to "Senator Clinton" or "Mrs. Clinton" or "Hillary Clinton" to avoid the confusion and be respectful.
Washington, D.C.: Your article today characterizes the Iraq Study Group as "bipartisan", although you also report the panel is "stacked with ostensible allies of the Bush administration." In what sense is the panel "bipartisan" when it is stacked that way and since there are no progressives or liberals on the panel who favor withdrawal as did the electorate in the recent election?
washingtonpost.com: Bush Calls Iraq Report One Among Many Ideas, ( Post, Dec. 6)
Charles Babington: The panel has five Republicans and five Democrats. I don't know how you can confidently state that none of them is progressive or liberal. What are Vernon Jordan's politics, for example?
Greenbelt, Md.: Can Congress force the President to act on ISG recommendations?
Charles Babington: No. The Congress's main power in the area of warfare is the power of the purse, i.e. cutting off funding to support a military campaign. Congress will not do that.
Atlanta, Ga.: Appointing a seemingly independent (from the Bush administration, anyway) man such as Gates is so alien to the lockstep administrative style of Bush 43 that it arouses the suspicion that he is being imposed upon the President. This has the appearance of being an intervention by Bush 41. Any validity to that impression?
Charles Babington: I see no evidence that Robert Gates, or any other cabinet member, was "imposed" on the president. Obviously the president saw the results of the Nov. 7 elections and realized the need for a change in direction and tone. But no one could tell him who to pick or not pick to run the Pentagon.
Washington, D.C.: Having read only the executive summary, I'm not sure how disappointed I am. Realizing there's more in the report, with time and a colleague, I could have written the executive summary. At best, it's a general statement that says "oh, boy, things could get worse, we need to help"; at best it's a general statement that says, "oh boy, things, things could get worse, we need to help".
I guess you have to see the movie, not the coming attractions.
Charles Babington: Posted without comment.
Portland, Ore.: Thanks for taking our questions.
Roll Call is now reporting that the race in Florida's 13th CD may well go to the House for final determination. With the (Rs) controlling the House Administration Committee in the 109th and the (Ds) controlling the House itself in the 110th, (where the final vote would be held) doesn't this election have the strong possibility of ending up a (D)seat if the votes go on a straight party line vote?
Charles Babington: Or perhaps they will look at all the facts and evidence and reach a conclusion not based purely on partisan interests?
Des Moines, Iowa: Good morning. What do you think of the continued support for Condi Rice in the national polls between 15% and 20%?
If her name has that same amount of support by this time next year, could she step into the race and get her name listed for the primary season of 2008?
Is that a possible viewpoint or is it more likely for her to the VP?
Charles Babington: I would be very surprised if Sec. Rice runs for president. I'd be only slightly less surprised if she agreed to be VP, but I certainly could be wrong.
Arlington, Va.: In today's Washington Post article about the new 5-day workweek for congressmen, Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) stated "keeping us here eats away at families. Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families - that's what this says". Before running for Congress, don't most Congressmen think about how working in Washington would effect their families? Do you think his whining about having to put in a full week will be well received by his constituents in Georgia?
Charles Babington: I think Mr. Kingston wins re-election in his Georgia district by comfortable margins. I doubt his remarks will change that.
Princeton, N.J.: Can the House order a revote in Fla 13th?
Charles Babington: Not entirely sure, but I've never heard of such a thing.
Rolla, Mo.: Interesting point by Al Gore this morning ostensibly saying Pres. Bush needs to understand that Iraq policy now is not about his personal legacy, it's not "about him." It really does seem that the more isolated his position becomes, the more it appears that it really is about saving face, not admitting he was wrong.
Charles Babington: I did not hear Mr. Gore's remarks, so I post your message without comment.
Amherst, Mass.: Why did Gates get a pass on taking an oath that he tell the truth at the outset of the confirmation hearings? How many times before has a Cabinet level nominee been allowed to testify without being sworn in? I suspect it has rarely, if ever happened before!
Charles Babington: Different committees have different traditions. Some swear in all witnesses, some do not.
Washington, D.C.: Spinners will spin, but in the corporate world that many of us live in an operations report with similar conclusions could not be viewed as anything but a total management failure. Isn't that the bare naked truth of this?
Charles Babington: The report says conditions in Iraq are "grave and deteriorating." Isn't that a very strong assessment?
New York, N.Y.: I just got this Breaking News email: "Iraq Study Group's Baker: 'Stay the course' strategy no longer viable." But isn't that the course Bush has been touting? Is this report going to be viewed as reflecting badly on Bush? Or will the spinmeisters on Penn Ave somehow turn this into a positive?
Charles Babington: Let's see how Tony Snow handles it.
Austin, Tex.: My understanding is the ISG is a creation of Congress. Is this correct? If so, since the admin has 2 or 3 other groups generating "solutions", why is there such expectation about the ISG. Why isn't it just one more OUTSIDER'S way to fix things. (You may answer Nov. 7 but the ISG got great press before Nov. 7)
Charles Babington: The ISG is getting a great amount of attention because of its makeup: 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans with longstanding records in public office (elected or otherwise) and solid reputations. They are not beholden to the administration. It's a combination that's hard for other groups to match.
Seattle, Wash.: Some pundits think Senator Collins will have a tough race in 2008, but Senator Snowe won overwhelmingly in a very blue year, and Collins is a lot like Snowe in terms of ideology.
Charles Babington: I'm not an expert on Maine politics, but I understand that Sen. Collins is quite popular with voters. But there's no question that Republicans felt a chill when they saw GOP incumbents lose in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and upstate N.Y. last month. I'm guessing Sen. Collins will take her 2008 reelection race very seriously.
Annandale, Va.: So what's Speaker-designate Pelosi's beef with Jane Harman and Juanita Millender-McDonald. Normally, one might anticipate that they would have benefited from Pelosi's promotion to the speakership. I would think that the California delegation would be big enough for more than one powerful female Democrat?
Charles Babington: I don't know details of Rep. Pelosi's relationships with those two colleagues. But I will note that relationships among members of Congress are not based entirely on politics and policy. They are humans, and personal chemistry matters in Congress just as it does in other workplaces -- for better or for worse.
Power of the Purse: Is there no chance that Congress might tie funding to the president adopting some or all of the ISG recommendations?
Charles Babington: None that I see. A cutoff of funds for the war would be interpreted as undermining the troops.
Parkville, Md.: With the rest of us working 40 hour work weeks, the question must be asked: could Republicans be any more whiny and self-centered? Cry me a river, please! And, oh yeah was it not the right in this country that scoffed loudest when the French government decided to mandate a 35 hour work week some years ago?
Charles Babington: At the risk of incoming rotten eggs and tomatoes, might I suggest: Is it possible that House and Senate members do some work when they are outside of Washington? Perhaps in their district offices? Meeting with constituents? Holding field hearings? Fact-finding trips?
Des Moines, Iowa: What is the best way to find out when potential 2008 candidates are traveling to Iowa, or New Hampshire?
Charles Babington: Some (maybe all) of the candidates note their trips to NH and Iowa on their campaign Web sites. That's where I would start.
New York, N.Y.: I think the Iraq Study Group is WAY overrated! Did people think they would actually come out with some major proposal to fix Iraq and we'd all slap our foreheads and say "of course, why didn't I think of that!" Basically they are going to recommend things that others have already been talking about, Bush will talk a good game for a few days before ignoring them, then these so-called "experts" will go back to their $100,000 speaking gigs.
Charles Babington: Posted without comment.
Washington, D.C.: I don't work for Congress, and I don't particularly care for many Congressmen, but someone should point that that most representatives work BOTH in DC and back home in their districts. In fact, it's the district work that likely accounts for most of the incumbency advantage that reps have. Heck, political scientists have known this since Richard Fenno's pioneering work more than a quarter century ago (they even have a term for it called "home style").
Two questions: Why don't reports point this out? Will this decision to go 5 days come back to bite Hoyer in the rear?
Charles Babington: You, more eloquently, make the point I tried to make to Parkville. thanks
I love these guys. They're so smart, know what they're talking about and are taking everyone to the mat for their failures to make this work.
What a refreshing change in rhetoric.
Charles Babington: Posted without comment.
You mean like the ones where they go play golf across the Atlantic?
HAHAHA Thanks for the laugh.
Charles Babington: Ooh, we are cynical today.
Corning, Ark.: Re: Arlington, VA
The Post's story on how Congress may have to start working a five days a week was very well done. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) comments about the strain of being a Congressman was almost too much for me to handle. Do you believe the Democrats will be able to clean up Congress's image to the average voter who has to work five days a week?
Charles Babington: I'm getting many similar comments. Clearly the Democrats hope to show voters they are hard at work -- in the Capitol -- on the people's business.
Cary, N.C.: You can't cut off funding for the troops, but you can attach a rider that restricts the numbers of tours in Iraq. Say two for volunteer regulars and once for reserves. That would be popular, no?
Charles Babington: An interesting thought. I've not heard it floated in Congress.
At the risk of incoming rotten eggs and tomatoes....:"At the risk of... Is it possible that House and Senate members do some work when they are outside of Washington? Perhaps in their district offices? Meeting with constituents? Holding field hearings? Fact-finding trips?"
It seems that our junior enlisted and officer corp also work when they're outside of Washington, not necessarily constrained by a 40-hour work week. Sorry, not throwing eggs but some jobs are more than 40-hour a week jobs and you take those jobs for reasons other than expecting to work 40 or less hours a week, getting holidays off with the family, or doing what people with normal jobs do or expect to do.
Charles Babington: The only point I'm trying to make is: You can't automatically assume that a House or Senate member stops working as soon as he or she leaves Washington. Some -- like people in many other businesses -- doubtlessly work very long hours at home, on weekends, holidays, etc... And some probably do not.
New York, N.Y.: Is being a political reporter an ok job for a parent? Because you have to travel, or live in an expensive area, or commute fairly long drives with terrible traffic? I'm a college student, and I'm wondering whether to go for consulting, or reporting.
Charles Babington: Well, depending on the job, some consulting positions require a lot of travel... I've raised three children (well, my wife helped), often while being a political reporter. There were times I was away much more than I wanted to be. But the same applies to many other people in many other lines of work. My advice: Pursue the career you think you will enjoy the most day in and day out, year in and year out.
Study Group: Wait a second. The people had to wait for this report until it could be published with a color cover? That's just to sell it at Borders. We probably could have had it weeks ago. Greed I gather.
Charles Babington: C'mon, folks, lighten up.
Fairfax County, Va.: Best one-liner comes from Richard Cohen's column in yesterday's paper:
"Washington is a bad marriage with monuments."
Charles Babington: On that fine note, I bid you all farewell for another two weeks. Thanks for the chat.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Washington Post Congressional reporter Charles Babington discusses the latest buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.
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Read today's column: An Economic Pillar on the Verge of Collapse.
About Pearlstein: Steven Pearlstein writes about business and the economy for The Washington Post. His journalism career includes editing roles at The Post and Inc. magazine. He was founding publisher and editor of The Boston Observer, a monthly journal of liberal opinion. He got his start in journalism reporting for two New Hampshire newspapers -- the Concord Monitor and the Foster's Daily Democrat. Pearlstein has also worked as a television news reporter and a congressional staffer.
His column archive is online here.
Laurel: One element that is usually present in a "bubble" is that investors who would not purchase an asset at the current high price for their own use, will do so because rising prices lead them to they can sell the asset for more later. "Flipping" in real estate lingo.
The scenarios in your column don't seem to involve that element as much as they resemble "chasing the yield." Maybe this is an unimportant semantic distinction, but I don't think yield-chasing crashes nearly as hard as a true bubble.
Steven Pearlstein: Well, I think the distinction between chasing yield and chasing short-term appreciation is a very important one. I don't think today's investors are chasing short-term appreciation. I think they are willing to accept low yield relative to risk, however because they are convinced that the cash flow/yield will soon improve with rent increases, and that they still have lots of upside potential on the value of the property in the five year time frame. Their models tell them they can achieve 8 or 9 percent return, annually, which is what pension funds are looking for. What is not in their models is the possibility that the value of the asset will decline, or the economy will soften quickly and ruin the rising-rent story.
Edgewater, Fla.: Though retired now, I had been a real estate appraiser and broker since 1972. In my opinion the perfect storm for real estate is upon us. I have never seen so many factors come together at one time to inflate prices. It will take some time to unravel but with each event more and more people will recognise that there was a bubble and it is collapsing.
Steven Pearlstein: And no doubt you see that happening most in Florida, Las Vegas, Phoenix.
Woodbridge, Va.: Yet another excellent column. However, I wonder if there are deeper underlying problems that drives all the various financial bubbles. First, the unrealistic promises made to workers in the 60s, 70s and 80s force pension fund to dig ever deeper into the financial bag of tricks in order to meet current and anticipated obligations that simply cannot be funded with more rational rates of return. Second, the real rate of economic growth in much of the developed world has begun to slow, which means there simply are not as many opportunities offering a reasonable risk adjusted rate of return, so capital is forced into ever more risky ventures (including bidding up equity prices to PE ratios unimaginable 20 years ago).
Steven Pearlstein: You've identified two very important, fundamental trends driving all sorts of markets these days, including real estate markets. I couldn't agree more. I'd add one more, however, which is still a bit unformed in my mind: the change in financial intermediation from banks to markets. It used to be that when banks provided the finance for, say, real estate, they new the properties, the markets and would mostly try to make prudent judgments before making a loan. Now, because the credit is coming through impersonal credit markets with risk sliced and diced and repackaged every which way, the onus is really on the bondholder and the rating agencies to know about properties and markets. And they really can't. so when a real estate arm of a private equity firm decides to make an investment, it is not really saying this is a good investment: it is saying this is the best investment in real estate that I can find now that you've given me this money to put to work. And the bank the underwrites the financing isn't really keeping that on its own books, so it has no incentive to say, "This is crazy." In fact, because of the huge fees, it has every incentive to rationalize the issuance of the mortgage-backed bonds. So there is a lot of buck passing here, with nobody really looking out for the real interests of the investor/creditor.
Burke, Va.: Good morning. What have the federal banking regulators said about commercial real estate lending? Could it be that one of the lessons of the S and L crisis -- poorly (or not even) underwritten commercial real estate loans have the real potential to fail banks, especially smaller banks -- has been forgotten? Thanks for the chats.
Steven Pearlstein: Yes, one of the lessons has been forgotten. The bank regulators have sent out warnings to banks saying to watch out for overconcentration in their loan portfolios of commercial real estate loans, particularly loans in any one market. But this is not enough, in my opinion. They've got to get into it more, jamming them on particular loans, requiring that they put more convenants back into the loans, requiring payment of principal as well as interest, and overseeing the underwriting of loans that are syndicated or packaged. The philosophy now is to rely on the bank's risk management models, rather than reviewing particular loans or even loan policies. And yet those models don't really have any experience with the kind of problems we are facing. There's not enough experience yet with the real estate cycle, with today's financing mechanisms, to know how its going to turn out. And let me say that the worst offender here is the Federal Reserve, which has jurisdiction not only over the banks but the whole holding company, where the action is on this.
Danvers, Mass.: A brilliant point made by the NYT this morning adds to your prescience on real estate. That in places like Naples auction house prices are tracking some 20 percent to 30 percent below recent previous same house sales. I note that unlike ordinary broker operated markets, the auction market is necessarily a meeting of willing buyers and sellers, therefore a good indication of the spot house price.
Steven Pearlstein: Right, although Florida is probably at the extreme end of this, because of all the speculation in second home properties. I doubt there is, or will be, that much of a decline in too many other places.
Washington, D.C.: What are your thoughts on the recent merger/acquisition of Trammell Crow Company by CB Richard Ellis? Do you see this type of consolidation as a continuing trend?
Steven Pearlstein: I think it is unfortunate, actually, merging developers and brokers. It will result in less interesting development. Trammel Crow was once a great, great company -- visionary, risk taking, entrepreneurial. CB Richard Ellis is, well....
Baltimore, Md.: When a residential real estate bubble pops, overbuilding is often a critical factor. Witness all the condo projects around DC being abandoned or converted to rental, the luxury single family home communities offering tens of thousands in closing costs help, all while mortgage rates remain historically low. My question is, how much is overbuilding likely to play in to the decline of commercial real estate that you see coming?
Steven Pearlstein: The official line is that there is no overbuilding in the office market. I wonder if that is true. There's a lot of buildings going up right now where the developer is expecting to get rents higher than today's prevailing rents by the time the project is finished. Whether there is enough in the pipeline to overwhelm expected demand, I can't say. But I can say that, at some point, the price of downtown Class A real estate will reach a tipping point, and law firms and others simply won't pay it for so much of their operations. They'll move stuff out of downtown, or they will jettison from their practices the lawyers who don't earn the premiums to justify those rents. IN any case, I think it is folly to assume that demand is price insensitive. So not only is there possible problem in the supply chain, but demand might begin to flag. And that's not even factoring in the chance of a further slowdown or recession.
Silver Spring, Md.: Mr Pearlstein, You commented in your piece on the prevalence new mortgage instruments such as sub prime and interest only loans. While they are common in the personal housing market, including speculators, in the greater DC area are they so in the commercial market as well?
Steven Pearlstein: Much commercial lending now is interest only, at 100 basis points over Treasuries, or even less. As for the subprime part, there are not subprime loans, per se. But loans are packaged and then sliced in such a way that there are AAA rated tranches, AA, BB, B etc tranches, all the way to highly risky "toxic" tranches where the lenders will be the first to lose everything if payments are not met or the collateral proves insufficient in the case of default. That is the commercial version of subprime. And its a hot part of the market right now, with premiums that, in my opinion, don't even come close to reflecting the risk.
Wash, D.C. : Steve, I think your article was great and the analysis is really good, but you made one wrong conclusion. The decline in the value of the dollar will increase the value of commercial property not decrease it. Private equity firms realize the dollar is plummeting and will continue to plummet because of our governments poor fiscal policies (deficit spending, trade imbalances etc.). As the dollar continues to decline, the real costs of building commercial real estate will skyrocket as it has already done over the last 5 years. Steel, bricks, Lumber, concrete, and all of the other basic materials used to make these buildings are set on the global market and the costs of these objects will probably stay flat in real terms, but will cost more due to the dollars lower purchasing power. The tremendous cost of building new commercial properties, is going to scare investors away from building new properties, which will create a supply and demand imbalance, and ultimately continue to push up rents. In other words, they are investing in one of the worlds oldest and safest inflation hedges, real estate.
Steven Pearlstein: You are right, I hadn't thought of that impact from a weak dollar into the supply of new buildings. What I was thinking was that if foreign investors come to expect that the value of their US real estate loans and equity investments are going to decline 10 percent a year, after conversion into their own currency, then a tipping point might be reached where they start pulling out in droves. Over the short term, that will have a big impact on the prices being paid because foreign investors are a big part of the "greater fool" story in the commercial real estate bubble. They are disproportionately the ones paying the higher prices for property. If they leave, prices fall.
Fairfax, Va.: How much (if any) of the bubble-burst will trickle down to the retailers? Will shirts and blankets at Target be cheaper because of lower rents and lower corporate overhead?
Steven Pearlstein: Not much, I'm afraid. Rents will be lower than they otherwise would have been in the future, but that's pretty theoretical. Retail is a bit tricky, because it depends on location and the number of nearby malls, for example. Its a bit more idiosyncratic. But it is not immune.
MacroquantTrader: Hi Steve, Your article is right on. We deal with many hedge and private real estate funds, and the flipping is definitely there. People are not buying commercial for the cap rates, you can get more out of MLP pipelines. They are buying because they think someone else will pay more. Also if you look at financial cycles there does not always have to be a proximate cause for a bubble to burst. Assets of all kinds go from under to very overvalued in long cycles. Bubbles simply exhaust themselves.
We need only to look at the Saudi, UAE, and Oman markets this year. Macro economically the countries are booming and there is ample liquidity. Many of those stock markets collapsed by 50 percent even when crude was over $70/pb. When assets get too expensive an even greater amount of liquidity is required to keep them going.
Steven Pearlstein: Interesting. Thanks for that. Can you define "macroquant."
Silver Spring, Md.: I know your column was about commercial RE, but a quick note on residential if you will? One common theme that I've been reading (and feeling, as a 20-something renter) is that there's a HUGE gap now between those who already owned a home prior to the build up and those who didn't. The thought of saving 20 percent of current home prices is almost unfathomable for people who don't have equity already to use. So while people talk about this burst, slowdown, correction, whatever you want to call it lasting a few years - I see a multiple decade problem here. It seems to me there's a LONG way to go before salary inflation and housing market downturning before any significant number of NEW homebuyers can afford to get into the market again. Am I wrong that there's a long term problem here? Because from a personal perspective, I'm above average income for my age, and even if I could save 20 percent of my take home income, it's at least 8 or so years til I'd have a down payment for even a condo in this area... I'm guessing that proportionally, for every one of me over that 8 years, there's probably at least 2 elderly folks LEAVING the housing market. Do you agree that analysts are perhaps a bit to limited in the scope of this "downturn"?
Steven Pearlstein: Sounds like a PhD thesis to me. The data on affordability doesn't support you concern in the aggregate, but that is for all age groups. I suspect you are right for young people, who in the new economy start out making less, relatively, but make up for that by the time they get to the 30s. On the other hand, they are delaying marrying and having children (cause? effect?). In the long run, however, all this should even out as supply and demand come into some equilibrium at a price people can afford. The house may wind up being smaller, or population may need to shift away from costly urban areas. But I suspect it will happen -- and, in fact, is already happening. So don't worry too much. Save, wait and have a good time.
Tysons vs. Reston: Your piece on "edgy" Tysons Corner had my wife (an urban planner) and I in stitches. Great satire!
Steven Pearlstein: Well, it wasn't meant to be -- but you knew that. Remember, the Tysons I was talking about was as much in the future as the present.
Hedger: If the reader does believe this:
"Steel, bricks, Lumber, concrete, and all of the other basic materials used to make these buildings are set on the global market and the costs of these objects will probably stay flat in real terms, but will cost more due to the dollars lower purchasing power."
There are only two currencies that cannot be printed by central banks: gold and silver. The USD has already collapsed against both since 2001. Gold has more than doubled and silver is up over 250 percent. Most investors are not on yet. I would expect to see a flight to these instruments.
Steven Pearlstein: Ah, a gold bug.
Macroquant: We just look at long waves and historical analysis. The fundamentals tell us what to buy or short. The fund flows and technical indicators attempt to find an optimal point to put on the trade. The macro is that we do any market, currency, option, or commodity across the world where we feel there is value for investors. So right now some of our longs are crude, Japanese yen, Malaysian palm oil, small cap steel makers, Ukrainian equities, precious metals, corn, some farm land. Some shorts with the Russell 2000, wheat, and some of the tech firms (hedged by being long Taiwan).
Steven Pearlstein: Okay, glad I asked. Sounds way over my head.
Steven Pearlstein: That about exhausts this subject for today, folks. Hope to see some of you next week. Cheers.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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Argetsinger and Roberts are online each Wednesday at Noon ET to discuss your favorite gossip, what you thought about their recent columns or who you want to see them writing about in future ones.
Argetsinger is a veteran of all leafy-green, protein-rich sections like Metro and National while Roberts brought you the champagne and bon-bons of Style's society beat.
Amy Argetsinger: Good morning, everyone. Are these exciting times or what? So much HOT celebrity news that we're thinking about breaking away from this hidebound newspaper thing -- with all of its old-fashioned prattle about, oh, I don't know, weather and sports and Iraq -- and starting our own gossip tabloid. Except all multimedia and synergistic and stuff).
Just look at the Reliable Source newsflashes of the past couple days:
VP's Gay Daughter is Pregnant!!!
Jessica Simpson Has KenCen Meltdown!!!
Laura Bush Forced to Change out of $8000 Gown When Three Other Women Show Up In it!!!
Dave Chappelle Crashes Wonky D.C. Office Party!!!
Patrick Kennedy on a Date with "The Nanny"!!!
And all of this in the same week that Lance and Reichen split up, and Maryland's lame-duck governor breaks into show-biz with a speaking role as State Trooper #1, and Britney shows us too much of her special private places. (In Sunday's column, we rounded up some good advice for her from a stylist, and etiquette coach, and a waxer.)
And we haven't even begun to address the day's REALLY big story. I refer, of course, to NBC White House Correspondent David Gregory cleaning out the Cleveland Park Giant's supply of Jell-O pudding snacks. That, and the breakup of Jen and Vince.
Washington, D.C.: So. Was Jessica having support issues with her dress at the Kennedy Center in addition to being nervous? If she were nervous, I would think both hands would have had a death grip on the microphone instead of one hand clutching her stomach. Poor thing.
Amy Argetsinger: That was my immediate assumption -- she was wearing a black strapless dress, and all I could figure was that she was having trouble keeping it up. But apparently that wasn't the case -- she was just nervous as a cat.
Takoma Park, Md.: Did Jennifer and Vince ever confirm they were a couple before recently confirming that they split up?
Amy Argetsinger: Good question. Best as I can tell, they never really confirmed that they were dating until the tabs several weeks ago started reporting that they were finito, and Vince's lawyers started putting out stern warnings, i.e. how dare anyone claim that this couple had broken up.
Y'all forgot one thing ...: Many years ago Ted Danson DID show up at ex-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg's roast in black face. And told very naughty jokes about their sex life.
washingtonpost.com: Baltimore's Channel 13, Preempted by Channel Faux ( Post, Reliable Source, Dec. 6)
Amy Argetsinger: Oh, yes, and thanks for the memories. We were running short on space, and that whole crazy Ted Danson episode takes a few words to describe, but the DatelineHollywood spoof was clearly a reference to that incident.
Mourning in L.A.: Please, may we have a moment of silence for George Clooney's pet pig, who passed away Friday. After 18 years with his pet, this was Clooney's longest-running relationship.
Amy Argetsinger: Good idea. Silence, everyone.
Reality-ville: Where's the reporting on Jane Doe from rural Virginia or Jane Doe from Baltimore City having a baby? Who cares, other than the Cheney family, that the Cheney daughters are having a baby? You are only helping in this whole "putting celebrities up on a pedestal" world we live in. Is that a good thing? No, of course not. It's the same as giving a drug addict their next fix as opposed to getting them into rehab to help their problem. Gossip doesn't help further this country or the world but I guess it pays the bills.
Amy Argetsinger: Uh, thanks for your thoughts. If you're bothered by news of celebrities, you can always just skip over our column, or refuse to join these chats. My feelings won't be hurt.
Arlington, Va.: Was Noah Wyle in town over the weekend? My friend swears she saw him at the National Gallery. I was too invested in my gelato to find out. But Dr. Carter? Was he here?
Amy Argetsinger: It's possible. He's been filming a movie up in Baltimore the past few weeks, "Boy of Pigs." Will give you a link to our previous Noah-Wyle-in-the-region coverage.
washingtonpost.com: HEY, ISN'T THAT . . . ? ( Post, Reliable Source, Nov. 28)
A.U. Park, Washington, D.C.: Any word on where the Poe-Cheney's have registered?
Amy Argetsinger: Alas, no. I'm counting on one of you agile web-surfers will alert us the moment you find the baby registry, though.
Amy Argetsinger: Well, look what the cat just dragged in! It's Ms. Roxanne Roberts! Thanks for joining us, Rox!
Kensington, Md.: Total speculation, but if Maryland courts overturn the gay marriage ban, I wonder if Mary Cheney and Heather Poe would consider a move to The Other Suburbs.
Amy Argetsinger: We can only wonder.
Washington, D.C.: Any truth to the Jay Z/Beyonce weekend wedding rumors?
Amy Argetsinger: Jay hasn't called me, but Jay also didn't pick me from the crowd at his Howard University concert to join his entourage on his seven-city-in-17-hour tour the other weekend, so all's we know is what Page Six of the New York Post is reporting this week....
"WILL Jay-Z and Beyonce Knowles finally tie the knot during his 'surprise' 37th birthday party next weekend? Knowles, Jay and some Def Jam executives were at STK on West 12th Street on Saturday talking about the four-day 'party' - but insiders say it will be more than a birthday celebration. 'Beyonce is throwing Jay a four-day birthday party, but it's really a wedding,' said one source. Guests, including family and close friends, were told to have passport applications filed by last Friday so they can attend the bash on a yacht in St. Barts. But insiders said the guests will also be ferried over to Anguilla for the wedding at Cap Juluca, a five-star resort with Moorish villas. Another spy said Knowles and Jay-Z had toured the site earlier this year and approved it for their nuptials. Reps for Knowles, Jay-Z and Cap Juluca didn't return calls or e-mails. The rapper/mogul has dated the lovely Knowles, now bigger than ever with her star turn in 'Dreamgirls,' for four years."
Charlottesville, Va.: Congrats on getting front-Web page status with the Mary Cheney news! How often does the gossip column get to hold major, 18-pt headline status?
Amy Argetsinger: Not nearly enough! Thanks...
Philadelphia, Pa.: As far as I'm concerned David Gregory can have all the Jell-O Pudding Snacks he wants. It takes a lot of energy to be the new Sam Donaldson in the W.H. Press Corps.
Amy Argetsinger: Yeah, I'm not buying that whole "my kid knocked his tooth out" thing. If I had that many vanilla-chocolate pudding snacks in my possession, I'd be disinclined to share.
Let's talk clothes: Shouldn't the first lady get some kind of exclusive on a dress? Should Oscar de la Renta sell a dress to other D.C. socialites? Don't rich people have this all worked out already?
Who else at the Kennedy Center awards was notable for fashion?
Roxanne Roberts: The dress (actually a jacket and long skirt) was sold in Oscar's boutiques around the country, so I don't think there was really any way of knowing all four women (two who live out of town)would choose the same outfit for the same event. The first lady is actually pretty casual about her wardrobe---she looks good, but she doesn't obsess about it. And she wasn't bothered by the fact that other women were wearing the same thing---but she changed because she was worried they'd be uncomfortable.
Sad: I can't believe Rachel Bilson and Adam Brody broke up. Tell me they're lying to get O.C. ratings up!
Amy Argetsinger: This is what US Weekly was reporting yesterday on their Web site. Very sad indeed. But for anyone who's been watching this season (that would be me and, uh, one other person in America), it's been painfully clear that Seth and Summer are growing apart.
Washington, D.C.: Tell Roxy she's excused from being late.
Boy of Pigs: You're kidding, right? That can't really be the title of a movie.
Amy Argetsinger: It's true! It's the story of a young teenager's coming-of-age in Washington during the Kennedy administration, hence the name. So bad it's good, huh?
Alexandria, Va.: Hi! Re: Laura Bush changing dresses before TKC Honors gala ... I don't think it was 'wrong' for her to change, but I'm thinking it would have been more wonderful for her to keep the same red dress as the three other guests ... after all, they couldn't go home and change!
I'm also thinking Reese Witherspoon was empathetic with the situation, after she wore the same dress that was supposed to be exclusive a while back. I guess that the first lady doesn't get gifts from designers, but don't you think Oscar would be a little red-faced, perhaps the same shade as the quartet of his dresses, and want to make some sort of amends?
washingtonpost.com: A Flock of Frocks and One Weepy Warbler ( Post, Reliable Source, Dec. 5)
Roxanne Roberts: That's one way of looking at it----I'm guessing the other buyers were more embarrassed than the first lady. I sorta hoped the first lady would have scooped up the other women for a group portrait---that would have been fun. In any event, it's actually a great compliment to Oscar's popularity among the upper crust.
I suspect the next Oscar creation for the first lady will be an exclusive---or an early version of something slated to sell in the stores later.
Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C.: First, I love you two. You're a bright spot in the middle of the week. Second, I have to go to meeting. Silly work, interfering with reading a chat. Third, apparently even fictional boxers don't know when to quit.
Amy Argetsinger: We love you too! Sorry about the meeting, but come back and check the transcript when you're done.
Has anyone else seen the trailers for "Rocky Balboa"? I hate to say it, but I secretly think I want to see the movie.
Regarding Jessica's meltdown, I think she has general problems with remembering song lyrics. A friend of mine that works for the USO said that more than once Jessica flubbed lines while singing for troops. I don't think it's really nerves. Also, I have seen her perform in other places and she clutches her midsection for dear life so I don't think she was having any dress issues. I think the Kennedy Center fiasco was just more embarrassing because so many high profile people were present.
Amy Argetsinger: So you're saying that she's maybe incompetent and lacking in professionalism?
All I know is that last year, Beyonce was having horrendous microphone problems, and she just kept going and kept smiling like nothing was wrong. Not that we should be holding mere mortals to Beyonce standards.
Roxanne Roberts: Damn those live performances!
Other Reliable Sources: So which is more reliable: People or Us Weekly? Personally I don't believe anything until I see it on People (or TMZ lately, for that matter) but what do you both think?
Amy Argetsinger: As a scholar of both publications, I'd have to say that US Weekly goes a little further out on a limb than People, which is generally a little more cautious.
Laura's dress: Got any links to photos? I wanna see it!
washingtonpost.com: A Flock of Frocks (Laura Bush Dress) and One Weepy Warbler ( Post, Reliable Source, Dec. 5)
Amy Argetsinger: There you go.
A Dressing Question: So when the First Lady spends $8K on a dress, does the money come from a taxpayer-funded budget, her own pocketbook, or the dress get comped because she's the FLOTUS?
Why do I care? Shouldn't I be mourning Vaughiston or the fate of Britney's kids?
Roxanne Roberts: No tax dollars here----can you imagine the howls? No, Laura pays for her clothes, and can afford to spend that much on a special gown. Most designers would happily give the dresses to her, but Nancy Reagan got in trouble for the same thing, and so most first ladies shy away from anything like that.
As for Jenn and Vince: I'm sick of them.
Severna Park, Md.: Thanks fer the Wire updates.
When will work on the next (reportedly last) season start?
Amy Argetsinger: I think I heard they'll start up again in the spring. They haven't finished writing the fifth season yet. I'm going to have a hard time adjusting once the current season ends on Sunday. It's given my life a lot of structure and meaning.
Beached nuptials: The Beyonce-Jay-Z Caribbean wedding made me wonder. Do the locations of celebrity marriages impact the outcomes? Pam Anderson has been married on the beach (like Sex-on-the-beach without the alcohol) several times and we know how that ended. Anna Nicole Smith drank that cocktail too and we can predict how it will end.
Amy Argetsinger: Good point but.... you're talking about Anna Nicole and Pam Anderson, here! Whereas Jay-Z and Beyonce? That's gonna last forever!
Roxanne Roberts: If only it were that simple. The stupid/implosive factor is probably not site specific. Exhibit A: Ms. Brit.
Jessica Simpson: Why was she even included? She just doesn't seem in the same class as that crowd. Just a flavor of the month.
Roxanne Roberts: To attract young viewers, the golden goose of advertisers.
New York, N.Y.: Hi! I need your help. I read your bit about Dave Chappelle being at the BNA holiday party. My mom works for BNA, but I'm sure has no idea who he is. How do I explain who he is, and how do I tell her that it's significant that he was at her company party?! Thanks for your help!
washingtonpost.com: HEY, ISN'T THAT . . . ? ( Post, Reliable Source, Dec. 5)
Amy Argetsinger: Well, he's a rising young comedian whose Comedy Central show became a huge cable hit, and which had everyone talking about his hilarious Rick James impressions, and who made headlines when he abruptly walked away from the show last year.... Actually, looks like his show is on DVD now, so you can rent that for her on Netflix.
Indianapolis, Ind.: It's so comforting to know, that even in these uncertain times, there is a source we can all turn to with all of our pudding snack questions. God Bless you both.
Roxanne Roberts: We'll be in the history books with that one, I tell you.
Rockville, Md.: The new governor of Alaska was apparently once a beauty pageant contestant, and some Web sites and newspapers are running pictures of her when she was 18 or 19 - -and she was pretty dern cute.
Amy Argetsinger: It's true. AP says: "She will be Alaska's youngest and first woman governor and likely, the first former pageant queen and former point guard on a state championship basketball team to hold the job."
Germantown, Md.: Hey Roxanne, George Clooney's pot bellied pig recently died. I bet if you sent him something warm and fuzzy, he would take notice. Just some advice ...
Roxanne Roberts: Catch him while he's vulnerable and in need of comfort? I like the way you think......
Re: Chappelle: What do I have to do to get Chappelle to come to my office's holiday party?
Although, having attended BNA's party in the past, I can easily see how it would've happened. Three floors of people milling around, no name-tags. VERY easy party to crash.
Amy Argetsinger: Cool -- let's meet there next year, then!
In response to your first question... apparently you have to hire jazz harmonicist Frederic Yonnet to play at your party, and then Chappelle will follow.
Mr. Blackwell: So what do you ladies wear while you're working in the office during the day and doing these chats? Do you have the same fab gowns and high-heeled shoes you wear to all the glamorous balls and cotillions and night clubs you attend at night to gather your news? Or are you sitting at home right now, staring at the computer while wearing flannel shorts and an old worn out "University of Wherever" T-shirt?
Amy Argetsinger: Oh, you want to know what we're wearing right now, do ya? Nuh-huh. First you have to tell us what YOU'RE wearing right now.
Roxanne Roberts: There's only one way to answer "What are you wearing?"
Re: Mary and Heather: Isn't a not-very-well-kept secret of Washington social life that many conservatives are perfectly OK with gay people in private, while bashing them in public?
Eye of the Tiger: Anyone who loves any of the Rocky movies (I love ALL of them, because I am a true fan) must see this movie. It may be a pleasant surprise. Sly's not stupid. I mean, Rocky 5 was pretty bad, yes. But it's COMEBACK TIME, baby!
Winchester, Va.: So, Eva Longoria and Tony Parker are engaged. The last thing I remember reading they were "cooling off" or "taking a break." Did absence make the heart grow fonder?
washingtonpost.com: LOVE, ETC. ( Post, Reliable Source, Dec. 1)
Amy Argetsinger: They do seem to have a complex relationship.
Woodbridge, Va.: In my opinion, Britney should re-marry her first husband Jason Alexander and move back to Louisiana to have the quiet country life she apparently now so desires.
Amy Argetsinger: Good idea! Let's see if we can conference call her right now. Girl needs an intervention.
Bethesda, Md.: The latest report about Britney Spears is that Child Services for L.A. or L.A. County is asking to meet with her about the care of her children. And Spears's family is so concerned about the young kids, they're considering an intervention. And it's amazing that the people consulted for Sunday's column didn't say what everyone in the real world is saying more to the point: This woman has two young kids at home, and the last place she needs to be is drunk and stupid running around with the likes of Paris Hilton, who just had a DWI, and Lindsey Lohan, who just entered AA. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.
Roxanne Roberts: I actually feel a teensy sorry about Brit, who is getting slammed for being drunk and stupid. It may be true, but The kids are probably safely at home with nannies---not ideal, but not in danger. There are millions of parents screwing up left and right, and Brit's meltdown is unfortunate but no reason for Child Services to get involved (probably just a nasty rumor floated in the divorce battle. Like K-Fed would be better? Please.)
But you're right: She's hanging with the wrong crowd.
Bowie, Md.: Wow. Has any celebrity coupling screamed PR stunt more than Vaughniston? (Okay, wait, I guess the answer would be Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley). Every mention in the news of this break-up is quickly followed by, "yeah, like they were really a couple anyway."
Amy Argetsinger: Yeah, the whole "Nooooo! don't look at us!" strategy -- totally begging for attention.
Potomac, Md.: Who was the most drunk at the Honors dinner?
Amy Argetsinger: Honestly, they served dinner and drinks so late -- like, after 11 p.m. -- I don't think anyone had time to get drunk.
Roxanne Roberts: The only practical time to get drunk is BEFORE the show. Didn't notice anyone looking weavy, though.
Regarding the Cheney's daughter and the upcoming birth -- Well, as the Right Wing would say, "God Works in Mysterious Ways."
God bless the new grandchild!
Leesburg, Va.: In your piece on the Kennedy Center Honors, you reported Andrew Lloyd Webber talking to a redhead seated between Josh Groban and himself. Who was it? Was she with Lloyd Webber or Josh?
washingtonpost.com: A Flock of Frocks and One Weepy Warbler ( Post, Reliable Source, Dec. 5)
Amy Argetsinger: If we knew, we'd have told ya!
Don't tell anyone, but Rox developed a huge crush on Josh Groban that night. I'm pretty sure she didn't act on it, but I left before she did.
Anonymous: If Paris Hilton weren't¿t an heiress, or lost all the money she has, would she live in a trailer park? I think it was Jay Leno who the other night referred to her as a 'skank'(during a joke about her turning down an appearance on an awards show since she felt some of the jokes written for her made other people look bad -- which is pretty funny in itself, since she makes everyone around her look bad).
Amy Argetsinger: If Paris Hilton weren't an heiress, then she'd have different and presumably less crazy parents, and .... well, we could have a whole nature/nurture debate if we had more time.
Britney: This partying spree can't be good, can it? How old is that baby, two months? Then again, we could just consider her like any other working mother and count her wild, is-there-a-breeze-here nights as time on the clock. Seems like she's not exactly shoring up her custody case.
Amy Argetsinger: Seriously, anyone else want to get in on this intervention we're going to do for Britney? We can't just continue to sit by and let this happen.
Roxanne Roberts: Re Josh Groban: He's adorable and half my age. Fran Drescher beat me to him.
The Hill: Are you ever overcome with a crisis of conscience from realizing that so many of us are "multitasking" at work because we can't miss your session?
Amy Argetsinger: Oh yes. We try to use our powers for good, not evil. Hate to think we're causing a great nation's productivity to grind to a hat.
Roxanne Roberts: One day, in some meeting, you'll casually drop a tidbit you picked up in this chat, and everyone will think you're a well-rounded genius.
Love Dirda: What is he really like?
Amy Argetsinger: Oh, you don't want us to puncture that shroud of mystery that the best Post writers maintain so well.
Jessica: It was just weird, though, because a few (maybe 5) years ago she sang at the Christmas in Washington thing (some special that gets broadcast every year). The president and first lady were literally about 10 feet away from her and there were a lot of other really important people there and she did a wonderful job and sounded amazing. So it was just so odd to me that she was so "nervous." I wonder if she had something else going on that threw her off her game.
Amy Argetsinger: Good point. Wonder what's going on with her. I think I remember hearing that she's had some romantic ups-and-downs in the past year or so -- some high-profile breakup or something? Eh, I forget...
Albany, N.Y.: Great for Mary Chaney and her partner and we all hope everything goes well, but what makes it our business? I suppose a future pregnancy by Chelsea Clinton or one of the Bush twins would get the same treatment; but can't two people, regardless of whose daughter one of them is, decide to have a child without attaching a lot of public and political baggage to it?
Amy Argetsinger: She's a prominent figure in D.C. who is pregnant. Hard to say that's not worthy of taking note of, at least in a bold-faced names column.
Washington, D.C.: After reading about the pudding pak sighting, I bet Lloyd Grove is regretting his move to NYC. He'd never get a scoop like that!
Roxanne Roberts: We have have to start a special header for Pudding Patter.
Amy Argetsinger: Did someone say pudding? I'm hungry.
Normalcy, U.S.: It seems there's a spate of high profile divorces or splits lately where children are involved. In addition, other celebrity lives don't seem so "kid-friendly."
All I can think of is UGH for the children involved. In my "poor things" category:
- children of Britney Spears and/or Kevin Federline
- children of Pam Anderson, Kid Rock, or Tommy Lee
- child of Anna Nicole Smith
Have you met any celebs whose children you DON'T feel sorry for?
Amy Argetsinger: There are some celebrities who do an amazingly good job of keeping their kids so completely out of the limelight that you don't even know they have kids. I would argue that this is probably the best tactic.
Roxanne Roberts: Again, stupid parents are not limited to celebrities---they're just the ones we hear about.
22033: I saw the video of Jessica Simpson at the Kennedy Center Honors and it wasn't nearly as bad as everyone made it out to be. Thoughts?
Amy Argetsinger: I agree completely. There were lots of news reports about how she had "badly flubbed" her performance, etc. But from my vantage point in the furtherest back row on the uppermost balcony, she basically did fine. Other than the mysterious clutching of her stomach, I didn't pick up on any missed words or anything. If she had just smiled and taken a bow and walked proudly off stage no one would have noticed anything was wrong. But SHE called attention to it by mumbling some weird apology and running off stage. Very unprofessional.
David Gregory and Sam Donaldson: Two serious heads of hair.
What is Sam up to these days?
Amy Argetsinger: He's doing a lot of cancer fundraising these days. He hosts a show on ABC's web programming, and he's a regular panelist on "This Week."
Bethesda, Md.: What's the final verdict on Michael Richards' behavior? Was he genuinely racist? Nuts? Trying to pull off an act? And why was he reduced to performing at the Laugh Factory? You can talk about the 'Seinfeld Curse,' but Jason Alexander keeps working. He's got the KFC ads, he does guest spots on sitcoms, he does character roles in movies. Why wasn't Michael Richards able to do the same?
Amy Argetsinger: I had a rant about this a week ago or so, and I'll just summarize: Actors are crazy.
Fo, MA: How are Mary and Heather going to arrange custody and parental rights since this is blatantly illegal in Va.? Any chance of them moving to a more liberal state?
For the record, I wish both parents and baby good health and a safe pregnancy. Tender love stories like this choke me up. Give us more details on how they met playing hockey.
Roxanne Roberts: Actually, it's not clear what rights Heather has in Virginia as the non-biological parent. I doubt they'll move---they've created a home in Great Falls, and knew what they were getting into when they moved to Virginia.
Ditto for the best wishes for them all. Alas, I have no further details on their first meeting---but wouldn't a little hockey stick be a cute baby gift?
Washington, D.C.: So Amy -- what's it like having your own theme song? Do people start singing "A-meeeee ... whatcha gonna do ..." whenever you walk into the room ... like "Hail to the Chief"?
Amy Argetsinger: Actually, most people don't know that, but my official theme song -- which they play when I come up to bat in home games, or when I'm walking out to my seat on late-night talk shows -- is "Hate It Or Love It" by 50 Cent and The Game. It replaced Willie Nelson's "Whiskey River" last year. That little Vince Gill ditty is just a WTWP thing.
Annapolis, Md.: Surely Josh Groban is half of Fran Drescher's age too? Besides, that's not a problem anymore. It gets you automatic entry into the Demi and Cameron club, which is pretty cool.
Roxanne Roberts: Nah---I'd feel like I was babysitting. Then again, he would be an instant pal for my kid to play video games with....
Farragut West, Washington, D.C.: What was the cause of yesterday's horrendous morning traffic around the White House? Roads blocked off everywhere, gridlock, short commute took one hour at 9 a.m. Please don't tell me Sly visited the 43 -- he was in town.
Amy Argetsinger: Sounds like a normal morning in downtown D.C., no?
Doesn't it seem funny ...: that so many people seem to be criticizing you (us) for gossiping while participating in a GOSSIP CHAT!?
Amy Argetsinger: Peculiar, isn't it?
Oink: Would you two have fallen over yourselves so embarrassingly over George Clooney if you'd known he had a pet pig? I mean, a pig? You may have to reassess your tastes in men.
Roxanne Roberts: I knew! And loved him for it. I've liked pigs ever since I read "Charlotte's Web." Besides, Max was a little pot-belly pig---like a dog, but not really. Oink!
Theme Song: And what about Roxanne's theme song?
Rooooxanne ... you don't have to put on the red light ...
Gaithersburg, Md. : The buzz -- I gather out of Hollywood is that Rocky may be pretty good and may be a good film to conclude the franchise.
I am related to a low-level screenwriter wannabe
Roxanne Roberts: Good for Sly, then. (I'm in the annual grip of good cheer.)
Eastern Market, Washingtion, D.C.: Regarding Mary and Heather's baby: As Don Rumsfeld would say, "Stuff happens."
On a totally unrelated note, it appears that Michigan Sen. Carl Levin has given up his Ford Escape Hybrid SUV in favor of a Chevy Impala Flex Fuel sedan. It's nice to know he divides his loyalties among domestic carmakers and shows environmental concern at the same time. (FYI, I saw him and his wife getting out of the car on Sunday morning after his "Meet the Press" appearance.)
Amy Argetsinger: Stuff happens, indeed!
Photos from the Kennedy Center?!: I want to see the red carpet! Why didn't the Post post the photos?
washingtonpost.com: The Kennedy Center Honors
Amy Argetsinger: There you go.
White House: Traffic yesterday was because some lady threw an envelope over the fence of the office building next to the W.H. It turned out to be nothing.
For this, they closed something like eight blocks. It affected 17th street up to L street!
Nooo, we're not overreacting at all.
Amy Argetsinger: Oh, that. Right.
Is it too late for a Sly story: Many years ago, my sister who works in the entertainment field was in the Brill Bldg and got on the elevator.
There was just room enough for her as five tall, burly men were also there and they seemed to be surrounding something in the corner of the elevator but she couldn't tell who or what it was.
The elevator stopped and the group got off and who was there way back in the corner too small to see? Yes, Rocky himself.
Amy Argetsinger: Yeah, they say he's just a wee fellow.
Roxanne Roberts: Don't you all have to sneak out and do a little Christmas shopping? (14 days and counting.....) Time for us to dash and see which celeb is buying diamonds or pudding for their loved ones. Send us your favorite sighting at reliablesource@washpost.com. Next week, everyone---I'll bring the eggnog.
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Federal Diary Live
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2006120619
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Postal Service, Union to Take Their Differences to Arbitration, ( Post, Dec. 5)
Stephen Barr: Welcome to this discussion! We've got Congress in the wind-down mode, hoping to make an exit before Friday. Lawmakers have not acted on the 2007 federal employee pay raise, but President Bush has laid down his marker -- a 2.2 percent average increase. By most accounts, Congress will approve an interim spending bill to keep the government open through mid-February, and that will likely trigger hiring freezes across many agencies. We don't know the specifics of the interim bill, but some aides predict it will address some of the tougher situations, like the Social Security Administration shortfall, and keep agencies from laying off employees. With that summary, on to the questions. Thanks for your participation!
Philadelphia, Pa.: I believe a small part of the reason for the Republicans' loss in Congress was due to their treatment of the middle and lower middle class. Denying the minimum wage boost, small federal salary increases with massive war spending and great benefits for the wealthy are just some of their mistakes. Now they won't even pass budget legislation that includes these raises. Do you think that they just don't get it?
Stephen Barr: Perhaps. But exit polls on Election Day suggested that the war in Iraq and questions about "corruption" in Congress were issues that tilted views and gave the Democrats control of the Hill.
Clearly, the inability to get the nation's work done played into that, to some extent. In today's Post, you'll see a report that says Rep. Steny Hoyer, the next majority leader, expects the House to work five days a week next year. Now, that's a change!
Fairfax, Va.: Is the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)broken out anywhere in the ranking for the "Who's Hot" list?
Stephen Barr: No. The Gallup Organization asked survey respondents to give their views on just a few departments and agencies. I talked with the Gallup project director yesterday and he said the pollsters will be drilling down into this data and conducting more surveys, and will try to break out some agencies for more attention.
For those of you confused by this exchange, please see today's Federal Diary, a summary of a report on whether key segments of the population are interested in working for the government and what views they hold. Also would encourage you to read the comments being attached to the column, and to add your own, if so moved.
washingtonpost.com: Today's column: Potential Employees Express Lukewarm Interest in Working for the Government, ( Post, Dec. 6)
NOVA: So, what exactly happens if Congress does not pass federal pay raises? Do the President's go into effect? What happens if Congress then passes higher or lower raises later? When would those go into effect? Would they be retroactive to the first pay pd. in January?
Stephen Barr: Many questions with no clear answers.
Assuming that Congress adjourns without legislating a specific raise, the 2.2 percent increase in the president's order would take effect with the first pay period of January, which starts Jan. 7 for most people.
It seems very unlikely that Congress would decrease that amount after it comes back to work in January. There remains an outside chance that Congress would increase the number to 2.7 percent. If it does so, the raise would be retroactive to Jan. 7, assuming that past practice in similar situations is followed.
That is speculative, however, and for now, you should think in terms of 2.2 in 2007.
After retiring as a fed and having spent time with CIA, DoD and FDA I am surprised by the public perception. I think if I were to start all over I would want to work at OPM. They seem to be the real movers in town. Or for OMB.
Were you surprised to see OPM so low?
Stephen Barr: You must jest.
Seriously, most of the public does not know anything about OPM or OMB. I think the larger point from this survey is that each agency needs to get serious about marketing and branding itself because the public's perceptions about "the government" seem set in stone.
I was just called yesterday to come in for an interview at an agency that I also found out yesterday is probably going to lay off about 20% of it's staff due to an upcoming reorganization. Is it even worth my time to interview or do you think that since they are actually interviewing candidates at this time that the position is probably a safe one? I don't want to go through all the hassle just to find out that the new position is one that is not going to be funded (since it is brand new) or worse, filled and then eliminated a couple months later.
Stephen Barr: You'll need to make this decision for yourself, and, of course, it never hurts to talk to them.
But, as a general rule, I think most people are interested in agencies with growth potential, not downsizing. Best of luck!
St. Louis, Mo.: While it's true that the federal government needs to hire and attract young talent, are you aware of an agency programs focused on retaining early to middle career employees, (what I would call the 40 year old crowd with more than 10 years of service, but more than 15-20 years left until retirement)?
Stephen Barr: My general impression is that most agencies are eager to retain their managers and mid-career employees. The general view in D.C. seems to be that the government faces shortages in the mid-career ranks, and OPM and some agencies are looking for ways to spur hiring from the outside to fill such jobs.
I'd be eager to hear from others on the mid-career issue.
Arlington, Va.: One of the most disheartening experiences I saw as a federal employee is to have all my worked contracted out. My research and project design would get a standing ovation, but then I wouldn't get to work on the project any longer. When did the federal government become more oversight of tasks and not performers of tasks? Do you think the contracting philosophy has taken much interest in federal careers as the opportunity to innovate leaves for the private firms ?
Stephen Barr: You get to the heart of the matter--in terms of contracting and in terms of recruitment (see today's column).
What you have experienced may be an economic solution -- that private companies can provide cheaper labor to carry on projects, etc. The government is in transition, and, from my perch, seems on its way to becoming a "knowledge" industry rather than a worker-bee factory. The problem, as Diary readers well understand, is that Congress does not act in rational ways when it comes to workforce policy and it remains unclear whether agencies will ever have enough payroll dollars to compete for top talent, a necessity for a knowledge business.
I should note that I'm way in over my head here, so other views are appreciated.
Re: Alexandria Interview: The agency may be cutting staff in only certain areas. I think the issue here is a good question for the interview.
Stephen Barr: Superb suggestion. Thanks.
Can you shed any light on the current status of the conversion to HR Max at DOD and DHS? I'm a DHS employee, and it seems to have fallen off the radar.
Stephen Barr: That is a good assessment. The White House has nominated a new DHS undersecretary for management, and, if lucky, he might get confirmed this week. I suspect MaxHR is in a holding pattern until that job is filled and Secretary Chertoff and the White House can find time to sort out how they want to handle the court's order to redo labor relations and related provisions.
Washington, D.C.: I know I am a little late in looking at my Open Season options, but I was thinking about dropping FEHB and just going with my husband's insurance. His policy is actually better than what I have now but I've always had my own policy and am just wondering if you know of any downsides to not enrolling? And no, I'm no where near retirement.
Stephen Barr: You are right -- the mainside of not carrying FEHBP is the risk of not being able to take it with you into retirement.
The general rule is that you need to be enrolled for five years leading into retirement in order to keep FEHBP. (It's drug coverage is superior to Medicare's, etc.).
Longer term you need to think about your husband's job and health coverage are totally secure; if he loses either, you could be without insurance until your next open season opportunity. You would also want to look at the terms of the employer premium contribution, the coverage levels, plan options, and so on.
This is a big personal decision, and I urge you to review all these aspects with agency personnel officials or some independent party before moving ahead. Best of luck!
Washington, D.C.: The problem with mid career is this - at my agency, they tend to hire SES and higher level GS people from the outside. So, although I'd love to stay at my agency for my career, if I really want to have a career and not be a staffer all of my life, it looks like I have to go work in industry, then come back. I just had a division director ask why people left and I told him this - he just didn't see it as a problem, but knows we need more people to stay longer than 3-5 years.
Stephen Barr: Thanks for providing some clarity to this for me. I hear from many employees that their colleagues drop out of government at the three and five year mark. Many managers prefer the fresh-baked loaf (a new hire from the outside or another agency) to the day-old loaf (you and me, plugging away at our jobs). Still, it seems to me that your agency, if hiring SESers from the outside, must be an exception, and so perhaps you should try to transfer into another agency and experience how it works before jumping into industry. Best of luck!
Not saying: I think my agency would be thrilled to see all of us middle-aged, middle career GSers leave to be replaced by Generation Y. Lately that seems like where all the internal policies and external hiring and promotions are going anyway.
Stephen Barr: Yes, some managers like the excitement that Gen Y brings to the workplace. Youth, technology skills, mobility, etc. We are in for an interesting transition as the baby boomers retire.
SSA: I did see your article on movement in the senate on the Social Security appropriation, but what is your best guess of what the final resolution will be, and what do you base it on?
Stephen Barr: I don't know what funding number is in the works, but congressional aides tell me that lawmakers are not the least bit interested in being held accountable if SSA field offices have to close because of employee furloughs, as is now predicted. I'm hearing from the Hill that the issue will be addressed in the interim funding bill, the CR. Hope I'm right!
NSPS Land: My agency head said this morning the date (goal) for conversion to the NSPS is 3/18/07.
Stephen Barr: Assume you are talking about Spiral 1.3?
The Pentagon has said that it will begin in the spring, although so far there has been no specific announcement regarding dates or who is in, as best I know. It's possible your boss has seen something that is not ready for prime time. Don't hesitate to write me back.......
Falls Church, Va.: As a recent federal retiree, I know that I will only receive a prorated portion of the 3.3% COLA in my January payment. Are these increases always rounded to the nearest 0.1% so that 5/12 of 3.3% becomes 1.4% instead of 1.375%? And does tat slightly larger dollar payment amount then become the basis for the following year's COLA?
Stephen Barr: Yes, it is added on top, the following year. And yes, it is rounded to the nearest tenth of a percentage point.
Washington, D.C.: Just wondered but is it legal for a supervisor to call around to people someone works with just to get dirt on them or in my case, to keep calling until he finds some? Can't they give supervisors something to do besides criticize?
Stephen Barr: Hmmm. Perhaps your supervisor has an issue with your performance or conduct? I would try to get this straightened out as soon as possible. Don't let workplace problems fester.
Baltimore, Md.: Is there a noted reaction from federal employees to the recoil by politicians who are told that they need to work a more normal length of week? I am not a federal employee, but for an entire career I have worked 40+60+ work weeks, traveled canceled vacations, worked while home and on and on.
Stephen Barr: Federal employees understand that members of Congress spend a lot of time traveling to and from their home districts. That is a hardship for members from out West. Employees also understand that lawmakers are at work in their district offices when not in D.C.
And, I must quip, some federal employees want Congress on the road. It makes for some peace and quiet in their offices.
Tracy, Calif.: I've been curious about the cost of the war in Iraq. Figures are given but it's not clear whether figure is the total cost or just the portion that appears in the Defense budget. Might there be other cost in other depts that support the war effort somehow? And what is the total impact of this cost on the total budget and the government's ability to respond to need such as levees and the rebuilding of New Orleans?
Stephen Barr: The Iraq Study Group report, out today, estimates the war's cost at $400 billion. I'm sure other tallies will be made in coming months, including some from Democrats who will control key committees in the next Congress. How you count may hinge on definition -- for example, do you include the extra costs at the VA for treating the war injured?
I urge you to read the Iraq Study Group report, which is posted on washingtonpost.com's home page today.
Bethesda, MD: Re: losing your project
Clearly what someone, or lots of someone's, have forgotten is that for many of us, coming up with the idea for a project is only the beginning of the fun. It's getting a chance to WORK ON OUR IDEA that is rewarding, in and of itself.
I mean, I'm a researcher myself and I WANT to work on my ideas, and no, the fun isn't minimized with others sharing it. But don't take away all of my ideas, pat me on the head, and then go blasting me (fed) in the press as a "blundering bureaucrat" and damn me with faint praise (anemic yearly pay raises).
I am curious as to whether Congress gets ITS pay raise the first pay period of the year, while the rest of us wait in economic limbo.
Stephen Barr: Thanks for making that point. I know I often like to hang onto my ideas because I always think I'll do it the "right" way or do a better job, but, sigh, some people can probably take the ball and run farther than I can.
As for Congress, just for the record, federal employees will receive a raise in January, and so will members of Congress. And remember, if it makes you feel better, while you are getting 2.2 percent, lawmakers will be getting 1.7 percent.
Once again, we've run out of time today. Thanks for taking the time to join us, and thanks to all of you reading this transcript. We'll see you back here at noon next Wednesday!
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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Holiday Tech Guide: Accessories
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2006120619
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In this year's Holiday Tech Guide, he outlines some of this season's best gadget accessories and high-tech stocking stuffers.
For more advice on holiday tech giving, check out this year's Holiday Tech Gift Guide.
Daniel Greenberg: Hi All. Welcome. Let's get started.
Washington, D.C.: Daniel, What's the best gadget gift for the guy who basically has every gadget imaginable? (And yes, I mean everything - laptop, Blackberry, satellite radio, GPS navigation system, digital camera, video camera, car phone system!!!) Help, I really am at a lost!
Daniel Greenberg: Ah, but does he have every gadget IN ONE?
How about a portable device that can replace just about all of them? Runs a version of Windows, makes phone calls, takes photos and video, AND gets XM satellite radio?
Intrigued? It's Samsung's new BlackJack, available from Cingular. I covered it in the Tech Gift Guide Nov 6. It is also the most elegant executive-chic phone I have tested.
If that doesn't do it, I suggest the gift of a vacation to a deserted island far from tech gadgets.
Lyndonville, Vt.: I'm thinking about buying myself an MP3 player for Christmas. Here's the dilemma. I like the looks of the iPod but I'm not a popular/rock music fan. I would like to download things from satellite radio and the web. Is there a best bet among the alternatives? I'm serving on a citizen vote recount team so won't be available during your chat. Thanks.
Daniel Greenberg: iPods are fine for non-rock music, too. I like acoustic folk and classical, and the iPod (with upgraded earbuds) is great for even the quiet passages.
For downloading from satellite radio, consider the Samsung Helix or the Pioneer Inno for XM. For Sirius, consider and the new Sirius Stiletto 100.
Alexandria, Va.: Hi, Daniel: what is the best inexpensive mp3 player (flash drive) $50 to $70 for which I can buy songs online (not just pay a monthly fee for streaming). for some reason I'm not that into the iPod shuffle/nano, but am open to suggestions. Thanks!
Daniel Greenberg: Could that reason be the lack of a screen? Maximum PC magazine had a how-to guide to "upgrade" a low-cost flash MP3 player to iPod shuffle- put a piece of masking tape over the screen.
SanDisk makes some very good flash-based MP3 players in your price range- and they have screens. The 256MB SanDisk Digital Audio player is decent. The 1 GB Sansa c240 has a street price around your high end. If you can go closer to $100, you can get a player with even better sound quality- the 1 GB Creative Zen V.
Georgetown, D.C.: Hi: Can you recommend a decent digital camera for $200 or less that doesn't have shutter lag? This seems to be the number one complaint most people have about their digital cameras and I haven't been able to figure out which ones have that problem when looking at them in the stores. Thanks!
Daniel Greenberg: Higher-end digital cameras have virtually eliminated the kind of shutter lag that plagued models, and many low-end cameras show big improvements. If you have not tried a digital camera in a while, you may be pleasantly surprised. Two brands that have done a good job on eliminating shutter lag in even low-cost cameras are HP and Sony. HP makes a PhotoSmart in your price range with low lag. Sony's Cyber-Shot line has several with extremely low lag.
However, I recommend buying from a store where you can test this before buying to see what feels right to you, or buy from a store with a liberal return policy (good advice for any tech purchase).
Be aware that a camera's attempt to auto-focus in low light can cause a considerable lag between shutter click and photo even on the best camera, so control your light or switch off the feature.
Here's a site I like which has done a lot of legwork for you- including breaking down shutter lag not just by one photo, but also five photos. It is missing a lot of cameras, but it looks like a good start.
Bethesda, Md.: Daniel, thanks for your contributions to Rob's chats. A question for you, not technically gadget-related, that Rob didn't get the chance to address on Monday. Are you aware of any add-on or workaround that would allow iTunes to pipe music to two Airports at the same time? That is, is there a way I can play iTunes over speakers in the living room and the bedroom at the same time? Thanks in advance.
Daniel Greenberg: It is theoretically possible, but I don't have an Airport to test (let alone two Airports). From the spec it looks like you can, but only if you stream the same music to each set of speakers (use the multiple speakers option in iTunes).
For separate music streams, try sending it from a separate computer or from the same Mac as a separate user. If that trick works, please tell me.
I agree that multiple-music zones in the home is a very desirable setup. I am currently testing a few potential solutions, including VLC, and a new streaming music product from Logitech. I may have more to report on soon. Stay tuned.
Louisville, Ky.: Daniel, Not too high-tech, but can you recommend a good FM radio for the gym (i.e. one that can go on an armband)? I take my iPod to the gym usually but sometimes want to be able to listen to the TVs with their sound on FM radio. Thanks!
Daniel Greenberg: Actually, I can't, since I haven't even seen an FM-only portable player in years, apart from some nickel-sized giveaways at trade shows. Sign of the times.
May I suggest that since you already have an iPod, you avoid carrying multiple devices by adding with an accessory that delivers FM? Apple makes Radio Remote for $50 that adds FM. Third party makers have even cheaper versions of the same thing.
Also, you can buy a sub-$50 flash memory MP3 player with FM, like the Creative MuVo TX FM. Consider the MP3 portion a value-added freebie in your FM radio.
Los Angeles, Calif.: Is the DVD recorder Sony VDR-MC3 as good as its ad claims?
Daniel Greenberg: I wish I knew. They haven't sent one for testing. (This is a device that records video to DVD without a PC.)
It looks fine for straight recording, but most camcorder to DVD projects could stand some editing. And all but the oldest PCs can do video editing, your money may be better spent elsewhere.
Washington, D.C.: I plan on purchasing an iPod soon, not as a gift but for myself (I guess it'll be a gift to myself). Is there any hope that prices would go down a bit after Christmas, or that one of those things that never really go "on sale"? Is there any reason to wait to purchase this item?
Daniel Greenberg: iPods sell too well and are too fashionable for Apple to have much incentive to discount them. However, Apple is very good at continually offering better models at the old price points, so that's KINDA like a sale. This cycle will likely happen again after the big MacWorld expo in January. But iPods are available in many price points, and competitors offer even better deals. If you want an iPod or other MP3 player now, get one. You have my permission to jump right in.
Rockville, Md.: How important is a hard drive to a DVD recorder? I want a VCR / DVD combo, but those with drives are more expensive. Are they worth it? Or should I wait for blu ray?
Daniel Greenberg: I recommend waiting a long time for Blu-Ray. Unless you like spending close to $1000 for a player that could be the next Betamax.
VCR/DVD combos are great without a hard drive. The hard drive feature is more convenient, but if you are just interested in just backing up your VHS tapes straight to DVD, you don't need it.
Arlington, Va.: My 10 year-old son is pleading for an I-Pod Video for Christmas. While I can appreciate his desire to be fully wired, it is unlikely we will invest in something that can easily be broken or lost. Can you recommend anything similarly entertaining that could substitute for an I-Pod Video? Thanks in advance.
Daniel Greenberg: Other than a cheaper portable video player from a less popular brand, there really isn't anything that will fill this very modern niche.
They are reasonably durable. I have not destroyed mine after a lot of rough treatment (though I have scratched the screen- get a screen protector on day one) and Apple has good repair support. One thing you might consider is buying it from a store with a liberal return policy (I start to sound like a broken record).
And if he loses it... well, consider this an object lesson in responsibility that will be far more valuable than the cost of the iPod.
Alexandria, Va.: For the person who wants to take a radio to the gym, you can still find Sony Walkman radios that have TV bands. There's at least one sports-specific model as well.
NY, NY: Hi Dan, Quick but desperately important question. Those HP iPaqs, do you think that they are a waste because PDA phones will eventually be that fast in terms of internet? Or are they good? They don't seem to be able to hold much memory so I doubt I can unload my C Drive there. I'm lost. Just tell me if I should get one. They're pretty cool looking. Oh, is HP even the one to be looking at? I'm interested in something that can hold a lot of stuff and be small and compact (ironic request, right?) Ha, I appreciate your input.
Daniel Greenberg: Sorry, but after trying to juggle both a PDA and a phone for about a year I found it frustrating. The best device in my opinion combines both. Also, the iPaq line is aging and could use a refresh. I have not seen a new one lately (HP, if I am wrong please let me know.)
Uploading your whole C Drive is tough. Whatever pda you get should have removable memory. I'd look at the best smartphones like the Treo.
Washington, D.C.: I can vouch for the video iPod's durability. I had mine in my bag with a bottle of water that spilled inside the bag, soaking the iPod. I discovered it when I got to work--the water was sloshing around inside the screen--I was sure it was ruined. I carefully used tissue to remove as much water as I could from every crevice and then put it under the low heat of a desk lamp to evaporate moisture. It was dead for a week, but slowly over the course of three weeks it came back to life--the screen cleared up completely, it was able to hold a charge, and I reset it and uploaded all its content. Months later it's still in perfect working order.
Los Angeles, Calif.: My wife and I want a computer in the kitchen that will also double as a television. What components do we need? K
Daniel Greenberg: I'd get a laptop, and not a desktop (at least a laptop has a chance of being closed in the event of a kitchen-related hazard like a spill). You'll need a TV tuner like the ADS Tech MiniTV USB external TV Tuner for about $70. HP makes an internal TV tuner with Media Center features for about $200.
Or look at the Toshiba QOSIMO laptop with a built-in TV tuner. New ones with the very fast Core 2 chip are around $1500, but older models are under $1000.
Grantham, N.H.: What can you recommend for a good digital camera that I can purchase for $150 to $200.
washingtonpost.com: For Cameras, Zoom In on Your Resolution Needs
Daniel Greenberg: An older model, the Canon PowerShot A520 is terrific and can be found for around $150.
Annapolis, Md.: A wife has hundreds of VHS tapes of her high school cheerleading days she would like to convert to dvd. Is there any device that I can buy that will enable her to do that (without too much frustration)?
Daniel Greenberg: Check out the story I did on this earlier this year.
Brit in Alexandria, Va.: IPods and Cars. I am looking for your thoughts on Car IPod Integration Sets. I drive a Jeep Liberty and am considering buying a Mopar Integration set as part of a Christmas gift. Do they work? Has anyone got one that can offer comment?
Daniel Greenberg: We rarely get evaluation units of things that require dealer installation, so I have not been able to do a full eval of these systems. I will be taking a look at some at CES, and may have more to report then.
Washington, D.C.: Hi Daniel, My partner wants me to get him an FM transmitter for his iPod, so he listen to it in the car. I had heard that AudiaX made a good one, but it doesn't appear to be for sale anymore. Do you have any suggestions for a different brand that would be good?
Daniel Greenberg: I've never had a problem with the Griffin iTrip I've been using, now in a new version with a screen.
Tahoe City, Calif.: I'm looking at getting a Slingbox so I can watch my TiVo when I travel... also moving to Geneva soon and don't want to miss the Daily Show. Is the Slingbox a good choice for this application? What are the alternatives?
Daniel Greenberg: Slingbox is a terrific product. I think that place-shifting will become the new time-shifting as soon as people get to experience all that it can do. Slingbox also makes an HDTV unit, too, which I have not yet tested (overkill for the Daily Show).
Sony makes a rival product, and I've gotten press releases on some new models. I hope to do a roundup soon.
When you move, remember that the Slingbox must be hooked up to a TV here where the broadcasts are, not in Geneva. If all you want is the Daily Show, Comedy Central makes downloads available from their Website.
Bethesda, Md.: Hi Daniel, Okay what's the best deal in the large, flat-screen TV department? Should I wait until after the holidays for a better deal?
Daniel Greenberg: The best deal changes week to week (and by size- what size are you looking for?
My informal, non-scientific price check shows Costco as seeming to have the best overall range of prices, but wild sales on one unit from the big box electronic stores undercut them periodically.
Yes, you will invariably find lower overall prices after the holidays, but some sales are tough to turn down now. If you can wait, go ahead. (But be aware that you could always wait for prices to come down.)
If you can control the light and have a lot of wall space, the very best deal in flat screens is the flattest screen of all- an HD projector. I've been enjoying a crystal clear, movie-sized 120 inch HDTV screen for over a year on a $1000 projector. Beat that!
New York: My boyfriend's parents are an interesting couple - he (dad) is very specific/rigid with his hardware/software setup, and so sort of dislikes her (mom) touching the computer in anyway. She was not tech savvy to begin with and with this 'fear' doesn't really use the computer at all, which is a shame, because I've helped her and I can tell she's very intuitive about it. Having access to the internet would enhance her life so much. Very broad question: is there a gift that would help make the situation better? I suppose, her own laptop?
Daniel Greenberg: Yes, and probably a Mac. Easier to learn, less intimidating, fewer Internet microbes, and anathema to specific/rigid PC types.
(I say this as a huge fan of PCs- I'm using one right now.)
Tucson, Ariz.: I want to get my husband a new LCD monitor, but I'm not sure what features to look for. He uses the computer mainly for gaming and I use it for photos and music. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Daniel Greenberg: Yes. The bigger the better. Gamers tend to have better graphics cards that can drive over-sized monitors in higher resolutions. Using a small monitor is a waste of how gorgeous they can look. Just make sure it has a fast refresh rate.
Big LCDs also can make multitaskers a lot more productive.
Daniel Greenberg: There are still a ton of questions, so I'll go into extra innings.
Arlington, Va.: My wife and I have an eight-month-old son, and as such are spending more and more time at home. As a Christmas present to each other, we've decided to upgrade our 15-year old TV and stereo. In doing some shopping, I am trying to find a reasonably priced stereo system that will allow us to dock an iPod that has an am/fm tuner as a replacement to our current all-in-one stereo system. The best I could find is one from iLive for $150. That fits our budget, but it got mixed reviews. Ideally, I would also like to hook our new TV through the stereo as well. Any suggestions? (We already have an iPod.)
Daniel Greenberg: The good ones tend to be expensive, like the Onkyo A-9555. I have not reviewed any of the low-end models. But be aware that with a simple iPod connection kit you can buy any stereo you like and connect both the iPod and your TV.
Washington, DC: I'm looking to get a new flat panel TV. I'm having a hard time deciding between 720p and 1080p. Is the upgrade to 1080p worth the extra 1000 to 1500?
Daniel Greenberg: I hate to burst the marketing rap on this, but my eyes have not seen much difference in 1080p on current sizes of HDTVs.
Also, remember that your DVDs, your HD cable TV, your HD satellite TV and your over the air HD broadcasts are all in lower resolutions than 1080p (like 1080i and 720p), and they still look great. Only the new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs are 1080p, and they still look exquisite in 720p and 1080i.
The place that 1080p could still shine is with really big screens (I'm talking projector-big) and with the coming 1080p games. Time will tell.
We are in the midst of some testing as this comes available, and we'll let you know what we find.
If your flat panel is under 50 inches,, 720p should look fine at standard viewing distances. Save some money while you wait for screens big enough to possibly fulfill the promise of 1080p.
Arlington, Va.: Help! I'm trying to find a decent upgrade for the uncomfortable earbuds that came with my husband's iPod, but don't want to spend upwards of $100 on the very high performance ones. Is there anything in the $50 range that is worth buying?
Daniel Greenberg: The excellent Creative Zen Aurvana's I reviewed in the Tech Buyer's Guide have a street price of under $100. High-end maker Etymotic has the ER-6 Isolator in the same range. Sennheiser's MX500 is a mere $20. It blows away the iPod buds.
For the 10 year old who wants a video iPod: Just buy the Apple Care Protection Plan for the iPod. In my experience, once you buy the plan Apple will repair/replace the iPod for just about any reason.
Daniel Greenberg: Great point. Thanks.
Bethesda: to Brit in Alexandria - I have a dealer-installed iPod in my Honda Accord. It works perfectly. It rests in the glove box so I don't see the iPod screen and it doesn't identify what's playing on the car's video screen. It has some software that does that by voice but I could never figure out how to work it so I don't use it. Music-wise tho' it's terrific.
Daniel Greenberg: Thanks for the report. How much did it cost including installation?
Re Arlington upgrading 15yo TV and stereo: I have to put in a plug for the people at Graffiti on Connecticut, they helped me set up a great surround sound system that didn't break the bank. They were very helpful and really seemed to know their stuff. When I checked out (on the internet) what they were proposing on my own, I found that they were on the mark in terms of consumer reviews and costs.
Daniel Greenberg: Another report from the field for DC folks.
I have bought from Graffiti for over a decade, and I like their prices, knowledgeable team, and service. I don't know their latest return/exchange policy, but they are a good source.
NOVA: A Christmas idea for myself: I need to backup my music and photos on something other than my computer. I'm not too tech-savvy. What do I need and how easy is it to move stuff (I can figure out my photos, but worry about moving my mp3s b/c 1. I'm not 100 percent sure where they are stored and 2. I don't want iTunes to lose them). thanks!
Daniel Greenberg: Good for you. My pet cause is backups. You want an external hard drive that plugs in via USB 2.0 (the old version USB 1.1 is too slow) or Firewire. You can unplug it and move it to another PC.
I have had good experiences with Maxtor's One Touch external drives, which also come with decent backup software. Prices have been falling lately, and everyone should get them.
If you have multiple computers on a home network, get one of the new network-attached external drives (Maxtor also makes a few). They are more expensive, but they will back up all your PCs even when your main PC is turned off.
Also remember that if you have an iPod or other MP3 player, that is also a backup, and can backup more than music. But don't rely on this alone, since you could lose or damage the iPod.
Annapolis, Md.: What portable GPS do you recommend?
Daniel Greenberg: I wish I could- I have not yet done a roundup of them. I hope to test them soon. Anyone have one they prefer, and why?
silver spring: I want a big old reliable USB hub. Any recommendations? Every single one that costs under $50 gets lots of bad reviews. Should I take a lesson from that, or is there a cheap good one?
Daniel Greenberg: Get a cheap one. I've been using a D-Link hub for years with no hiccups, and that one is about $20.
Just make sure to buy one with USB 2.0 and not 1.1 (most are now, but you never know...)
And if the one you buy dies, definitely return it and get a new one or get your $20 back.
Tenafly, N.J.: Is there a gadget that lets me listen to AM/FM radio on my iPod nano?
Daniel Greenberg: Apple makes the FM Radio Remote for the Nano. Third party makers have cheaper ones, too, like Belkin's TuneFM.
Alexandria: Too Many Gadgets. I have a cellphone, PocketPC and am looking to add an MP3 player. But I cannot carry a third device. Are there any phones that have decent MP3 capability - or would be worth it as a PocketPC/Phone?
Daniel Greenberg: I use a Treo 650 to accomplish all those tasks because I too got tired of a pocketful of unintegrated gadgets. The audio quality is fine with decent earbuds (and an adapter for the mini connector).
Bethesda: On the integrated iPod for a vehicle, I don't remember the cost. But I just checked the website of the dealer from whom I bought the vehicle and the accessory - now listed as a generic mp3 player is - is priced at $544 which I believe includes installation.
I would think that Circuit City or some other seller could sell a generic and install for slightly less but that's just a guess.
Jason, DC: Hi Daniel, My wife wants a PDA, but is also due for a new phone. I was thinking of getting a smartphone, but I know she doesn't need the push email, web access etc. Is it possible (affordable?) to get a smartphone without some sort of data plan on any provider? Thanks.
Daniel Greenberg: Yes. The Sprint phone I have has an optional data plan.
Arlington, Va.: Are the higher end in-ear buds worth their price. I'm talking the Etymotic's et al. I have a pair of $30-40 Sony EX71's that I like well enough and they provide a pretty good fit in my ears. The wires are a little fragile though which is something I worry about on the higher end ones as well. I don't want to lay out big bucks only to have the wires break.
Daniel Greenberg: Yes. Higher end earbuds make iPods sound like they had an audio upgrade. All the high end models come with good warranties. I wouldn't let that deter me.
Columbia, Md.: I am in a position this year to spend a little more money for Christmas and am willing to spend up to $275. for a DVR/VCR combo. What would a good choice be?
Daniel Greenberg: I have not tested many, but I like the Samsung in the DVD/VCR story mentioned above.
Tampa, Fla.: Just wanted to let everyone know my husband bought me a Garmin Nuvi 350 and I got it early. I (was) always getting lost and late for everything. I love my Nuvi b/c it is very simple to use right out of the box, and because it talks so I don't have to look at a screen. Also, when I am in an unfamiliar part of town I can type in a restaurant chain or a car wash or whatever and it will tell me where the closest ones are. It's awesome! $488 at Wal-Mart. -Melissa
Daniel Greenberg: Thanks. It costs more than others, but I have heard good things about that model.
Washington, D.C.: Thanks for taking my question. I'm looking for an standalone internet radio to allow me to listen to music from around the world without having to fire up my PC. The only one I've been able to find is the Acoustic Energy Wi-Fi radio. Do you know of any other standalone internet radios?
Daniel Greenberg: I have not tested those, but I hope to soon. If you have a smartphone, software like pTunes can stream Internet radio to your phone.
Burke, VA: The lovely bride wants a better cell phone, and would like to dump her old Handspring. Obviously solution: a Treo. BUT -- and here's the question -- is the iPhone (that legendary, but yet unseen, beast) actually coming in January? We're a happy iPod family.
Daniel Greenberg: Good luck guessing and speculating with the rest of us. If you don't need one in the next two months (at least), cross your fingers and wait.
Alexandria, Va.: Thanks for your help in suggesting the SanDisk players. Do you know which download series (let's say $1/song) would be compatible? I'm trying to avoid paying $15 for streaming but not owning media...or whatever it's called. Thanks!
Daniel Greenberg: SanDisk is starting a service with Real Rhapsody. With Microsoft appearing to be abandoning its own PlaysForSure, it could be worthwhile.
College Park, Md.: I'm getting a Canon digital camera for Christmas (sd600). In your opinion, would I be better off using the photo software that comes with the camera or scrapping that for Google's Picassa? Is it necessary to have Canon's software in order to get the pictures onto the computer in the first place?
Daniel Greenberg: Google Picassa should import photos from Canons. If you are already familiar with the free Picassa and it does all you need, why learn new software?
Arlington, Va.: I was looking for a "docking station"(?) for an MP3 player for my child where the MP3 player is not an IPod. All the ones I saw said they were made for IPods. Can you use an IPod station for any MP3? Or do you need to get some other kind?
Daniel Greenberg: What is the model? There are docking stations for Creative's MP3 players and others. Some iPod docking stations have a standard input jack so you can play the audio- but not charge the portable. You'll still need to plug in the charger.
Herndon, Va.: What do you think of the less expensive LCD 37 and 42" LCD HDTV brands that can be 2/3 to 1/2 the price of the majors? I've heard they use the same panels and components, so performance is often comparable.
Daniel Greenberg: I have seen great cheap HDTVs. Some of the majors, like Sharp and Panasonic make more exquisite TVs than the cheap ones, but not all name brands do. Brand is helpful, but not perfectly helpful. Minor maker Vizio has come from nowhere with some outstanding models at rock-bottom prices, including their 42 inch model.
You need to do your own eyeball test in a store (though even that is not a perfect test, since stores can tune up some models and de-tune others.
Arlington, Va.: My son wants an iPod shuffle for Christmas, but our home (dinosaur) PC runs Windows 98. Any thoughts on a stripped-down desktop or laptop that'll let him transfer music? Thanks much
Daniel Greenberg: Many models still work with Windows 98. Creative's Muvo NX, for one. Also, you can buy a very inexpensive early models like a Rio on Ebay for a song.
Washington, D.C.: Dear Dan, do your readers have any experience using a service that will put your CD collection on your IPod for you? My son mentioned a service called Riptopia where you send them your CDs via mail they "rip" them, whatever that means, and they put them on your IPod so all you have to do is turn it on. This sounds perfect for a person, such as myself, who doesn't know much about computers/tech. However, since I don't know much about computers/tech I would prefer a more informed opinion. Thanks
Daniel Greenberg: Unfortunately, I don't. Though this would make a great story idea. Especially since I have fallen behind in my CD ripping recently, and now have maybe 200 CDs in need of conversion to MP3 format. Stay tuned...
Silver Spring: My Husband likes to listen to audio books. Which MP3 player would you recommend for just that purpose? He doesn't need it for music since he already has a Sirius system. Really enjoy your information!
Daniel Greenberg: The iPod is fine. Even the Shuffle lets you use bookmarks. Also check out the Zen V from Creative, since it has extra features for audiobooks.
Washington, D.C.: Hi Daniel, As an early Christmas gift, I bought myself the Treo 680. As a new Treo owner, what should I be looking for to make the most of out my new toy? For what it's worth, I'm a woman.
Daniel Greenberg: Extra memory. An SD Card (maybe one that converts to USB without an adapter-- see the Gift Guide.)
And also a visit to http://www.treocentral.com. You'll be glad you visited. The forums are very helpful. Enjoy your new toy.
London, U.K.: I'm looking for a digital camera that is great in low-light, has very quick shutter lag time, large screen (tiltable?), and has image stabilization. Recommendations?
Daniel Greenberg: The Canon PowerShot SD630 would be your camera if it had image stabilization. Try the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1. I have not tested it, but on paper it should do what you want.
Daniel Greenberg: OK- 2 and half hours is too long- we all have work to do. Apologies to all the people with unanswered questions. Maybe Rob can pick up some in his next chat.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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Why We Persevere
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BAGHDAD -- I don't see a civil war in Iraq. I don't see a constituency for civil war. The vast majority of the people want hope for their families, not to massacre their neighbors or divide their country. A poll conducted in June by the International Republican Institute, a nonpartisan group that promotes democracy, found 89 percent of Iraqis supporting a unity government representing all sects and ethnic communities. No wonder no "rebel army" steps forward to claim credit for vicious car bombs and cowardly executions of civilians.
I see debates among Iraqis -- often angry and sometimes divisive -- but arguments characteristic of political discourse, not political breakdown. The Council of Representatives meets here in Baghdad as the sole legitimate sovereign representative of the people, 12 million of whom braved bombs and threats last December to vote. No party has seceded or claimed independent territory.
I see a representative government exercising control over the sole legitimate armed authority in Iraq, the Iraqi Security Force. After decades in which the armed services were tools of oppression, Iraq is taking time to build an army and national police force loyal to all. There have been setbacks, but also great successes. In Fallujah, a city almost lost two years ago, I have seen the cooperation between the local army commander, a Shiite, and the police chief, a Sunni.
I don't see terrorist and criminal elements mounting campaigns for territory. Al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't use roadside bombs, suicidal mass murderers and rocket barrages to gain and hold ground. Extremist Shiite death squads don't shoot people in the back of the head to further their control of the government. I do see random executions seeking to instill fear and insecurity. I don't see a struggle between armies and aligned political parties competing to rule.
I studied civil wars at West Point and at the Army Command and Staff College. I respect the credentials and opinions of those who want to hang that label here. But I respectfully -- and strongly -- disagree. I see the Iraqi people suffering from overlapping terrorist campaigns by extremist groups combined with the mass criminality that too often accompanies the sudden toppling of a dictatorship. This poses a different military challenge than does a civil war.
As the Iraqi people labor to build a country based on human rights and respect for all citizens, they are moving from the law of the gun to the rule of law. Violence will increase before life gets better. Those who know that freedom and democracy offer more hope than anarchy will not give up.
Regardless of what academics and pundits decide to label this conflict, hundreds of thousands of brave Iraqi soldiers, police officers and civil servants will continue to go to work building a free, prosperous and united Iraq. And every day more than 137,000 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen will lace up their boots, strap on their body armor and drive ahead with our mission to support these courageous Iraqis.
Army Maj. Gen. Caldwell is the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.
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The vast majority of Iraqis want hope for their families, not to massacre their neighbors or divide their country.
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A Commission Made in Heaven
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2006120619
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Forget the Baker-Hamilton commission. I have high hopes for the Clinton-McCain Commission to Fix Social Security. Haven't heard of it? Actually, neither have Hillary Clinton and John McCain. It's my long-shot scheme for tackling the problem.
First, if not now, when? Third-rail political issues such as Social Security benefit from -- maybe even require -- divided government, to share the blame. They can't be touched in an election year. They're difficult to do during a president's first term, if he -- or she -- wants a second. So 2007 offers the last, best hope for some time.
Second, if not Social Security, then what? The political system right now is too broken, and relations between President Bush and congressional Democrats too frayed, to deal with the truly daunting entitlement issues, Medicare and Medicaid. Social Security is entitlement reform on training wheels.
Third, if not them, who? As the front-runners for their parties' presidential nominations, Sens. Clinton (D-N.Y.) and McCain (R-Ariz.) have a shared interest in getting Social Security off the presidential plate before January 2009.
Clinton and McCain have a track record of bipartisan cooperation; working together on Social Security would only serve to burnish a credential that voters seem to crave. By teaming up, they could neutralize Social Security as a general election issue -- neither could use it as a cudgel against the other. Both have expertise in this area without having burrowed into a rigid ideological framework.
Wouldn't each risk attack from rivals for the nomination? Yes, but the counter-argument is that voters will reward gutsiness and bipartisanship. So the short-term political benefits could offset -- if not outweigh -- the potential costs.
For McCain, the political peril is probably less than for Clinton, since his party hasn't made it a near article of faith that benefits can't be cut, retirement ages raised, payroll taxes diverted to private accounts, etc. He has more leeway to embrace alternatives.
For Clinton, the stakes are admittedly higher, but so is the upside. Sure, it's easy to imagine the ominous narration, "Hillary Clinton wants to slash checks for seniors," over the picture of a crying grandma. But some of Clinton's potential opponents serve in the Senate and might be swept along with the momentum of a bipartisan plan. And Clinton could use boldness on Social Security to combat her image as an overly careful, overly poll-driven calculator.
A bigger-tent commission -- Clinton-McCain-Romney-Obama? -- would be just fine, too.
So how to launch? The president should issue an order creating the commission, announce, LBJ-style, that he wants Clinton and McCain at the helm, and impose a tight deadline -- six months at most. That sounds short, but the potential fixes and trade-offs are well known, and, politically, there's little time to spare.
Then he should set up the commission in a way that's doubly tilted against him.
For one, he should forswear any preconditions, which seems to be where the administration is already heading. There's no harm to the administration in dropping its focus on private accounts funded out of payroll taxes--that's the political reality. On taxes, similarly, there's not much to fear: The president's already opened the door to increasing the ceiling on payroll taxes, and the new Democratic majority will be wary of looking like rabid tax-hikers.
More than that, Bush should give Democrats a structural advantage. In a twist on the Greenspan Social Security commission, the president would appoint five members from the executive branch or private life; the Senate majority leader would pick five from among sitting senators or private citizens; and the speaker of the House would similarly name five. But, as with the Greenspan commission, two out of each five would have to be from the opposite party. This would create a commission of eight Democrats and seven Republicans, and drive the membership in a centrist direction.
Why would the president stack the deck against himself? Because he'd be giving Democrats an offer they couldn't afford to refuse -- or be perceived as refusing. Democrats couldn't complain about being rolled by a Republican-dominated panel. Given the toxic level of distrust between the administration and congressional Democrats, it may be the only way to get action. And Bush could protect himself against Democrats Gone Wild by requiring a supermajority of the panel to agree on recommendations.
As it happens, the 25th anniversary of the executive order creating the Greenspan commission is Dec. 16. That would be a nice touch, too. And, Mr. President, senators, consider this headline that ran in The Post 16 months after the Greenspan panel was created: "President, on a Note of Bipartisanship, Signs Social Security Bill." Not a bad end to a troubled presidency -- or a bad launching pad for a new one.
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Haven't heard of the Clinton-McCain Commission to Fix Social Security? Neither have Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
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Iraq Panel Calls Conditions 'Grave and Deteriorating'
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2006120619
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Conditions in Iraq are "grave and deteriorating," with the prospect that a "slide toward chaos" could topple the U.S.-backed government and trigger a regional war unless the United States changes course and seeks a broader diplomatic and political solution involving all of Iraq's neighbors, according to a bipartisan panel that gave its recommendations to President Bush and Congress today.
In what amounts to the most extensive independent assessment of the nearly four-year-old conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 2,800 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, the Iraq Study Group bluntly warns that "current U.S. policy is not working." Citing rising violence and the Iraqi government's failure to advance national reconciliation, the panel paints a grim picture of a nation that Bush has repeatedly vowed to transform into a beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
VIDEO | Key Washington policymakers and journalists react to the release of the Iraq Study Group's report.
Despite a list of 79 recommendations meant to encourage regional diplomacy and lead to a reduction of U.S. forces over the next year, the panel acknowledges that stability in Iraq may be impossible to achieve any time soon.
"We do not know if [Iraq] can be turned around, but we think we have an obligation to try," former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), a co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, told a Capitol Hill news conference after the report was made public. "The task ahead of us is daunting . . . but it is not by any means lost."
The group's Republican co-chairman, former secretary of state James A. Baker III, said the report "doesn't bind anyone," but he suggested that its recommendations carry extra weight because they have "complete bipartisan support."
"We do not recommend a 'stay the course' solution," Baker said in summarizing the group's findings at the news conference. "In our opinion, that approach is no longer viable." But he said the group "also did not recommend a precipitous withdrawal of troops because that might not only cause a bloodbath, it would also invite a wider regional war."
At present, Baker said, Iraqis are "struggling in a world of fear" and "dare not dream" of a better future. "They have been liberated from the nightmare of a tyrannical order only to face the nightmare of brutal violence. . . . It is time to find a new way forward."
The group's recommendations for that new approach focus largely on building a broad international consensus for helping the nation, pushing Iraq to meet a set of rather ambitious deadlines for internal progress, and gradually reducing the U.S. troop presence there while boosting support for Iraqi army control of the security situation.
"No one can guarantee that any course of action in Iraq at this point will stop sectarian warfare, growing violence or a slide toward chaos," Baker and Hamilton warn in a joint letter accompanying the report. "If current trends continue, the potential consequences are severe."
The letter adds, however, "All options have not been exhausted. We believe it is still possible to pursue different policies that can give Iraq an opportunity for a better future, combat terrorism, stabilize a critical region of the world and protect America's credibility, interests and values."
The report spells out in language both blunt and bleak the consequences of continued strife and deterioration in Iraq: the collapse of the economy and fledgling government; growing civil strife between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that could spread to neighboring countries throughout the Middle East; new power and influence for Iran and al-Qaeda, diminished respect worldwide for the United States and a growing burden on the U.S. military that could hamper its ability to defeat militants in Afghanistan.
It raises the specter of a humanitarian catastrophe that could spark a flood of refugees across the region, as well as the possible return of Iraq to dictatorial rule.
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Conditions in Iraq are "grave and deteriorating," with the prospect that a "slide toward chaos" could topple the U.S.-backed government and trigger a regional war unless the United States changes course and seeks a broader diplomatic and political solution involving all of Iraq's neighbors,...
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Iraq Study Group Report
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2006120619
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The following are excerpts from the Iraq Study Group report released Dec. 6, 2006:
"The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating . . . [the government] is not adequately advancing national reconciliation, providing basic security, or delivering essential services." (p. xiv)
VIDEO | Key Washington policymakers and journalists react to the release of the Iraq Study Group's report.
"There is no guarantee for success in Iraq . . . There is great suffering, and the daily lives of many Iraqis show little or no improvement. Pessimism is pervasive . . . the ability of the United States to influence events . . . is diminishing." (p.1)
"The Iraqi government cannot now govern, sustain, and defend itself without the support of the United States. Iraqis have not been convinced that they must take responsibility for their own future. Iraq's neighbors and much of the international community have not been persuaded to play an active and constructive role." (p.32)
"U.S. forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no foreseeable end." (p.12)
"A collapse of Iraq's government and economy would further cripple a country already unable to meet its people's needs. Iraq's security forces could split along sectarian lines. A humanitarian catastrophe could follow . . . Ethnic cleansing could escalate. The Iraqi people could be subjected to another strongman who flexes the political and military muscle required to impose order amid anarchy." (p.33)
"The United Nations estimates that 1.6 million are displaced within Iraq, and up to 1.8 million Iraqis have fled the country." (p.4)
"Iraqis may become so sobered by the prospect of an unfolding civil war and intervention by their regional neighbors that they take the steps necessary to avert catastrophe. But at the moment, such a scenario seems implausible because the Iraqi people and their leaders have been slow to demonstrate the capacity or will to act." (p.36)
"The United States should embark on a robust diplomatic effort to establish an international support structure intended to stabilize Iraq and ease tensions in other countries in the region. This support structure should include every country that has an interest in averting a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq's neighbors--Iran and Syria among them. Despite the well-known differences between many of these countries, they all share an interest in avoiding the horrific consequences that would flow from a chaotic Iraq, particularly a humanitarian catastrophe and regional destabilization." (page 43)
"Iraq's neighbors and key states in and outside the region should form a support group to reinforce security and national reconciliation within Iraq, neither of which Iraq can achieve on its own." (p. xiv)
"There is no action the American military can take that, by itself, can bring about success in Iraq." (page 70)
"Because events in Iraq have been set in motion by American decisions and actions, the United States has both a national and a moral interest in doing what it can to give Iraqis an opportunity to avert anarchy." (p.2)
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The following are excerpts from the Iraq Study Group report released Dec. 6, 2006:
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Iraq Study Group Holds a News Conference on Its Report
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2006120619
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SANDRA DAY O'CONNER, MEMBER ED MEESE, MEMBER
HAMILTON: Good morning. Earlier today, we presented the report of the Iraq Study Group to President Bush and to members of the United States Congress.
We are pleased to present our report now to the American people. It represents the unanimous views of our 10 members.
On behalf of the Iraq Study Group, Jim Baker and I thank Congressman Frank Wolf who took the initiative to create the study group; Senators John Warner and Joe Biden, Congressman Chris Shays and others for supporting our efforts. And, of course, we thank all of the members of the Congress on both sides of Capitol Hill, on both sides of the aisle.
I want to say a word of appreciation to Jim Baker for his extraordinary leadership. It has been a high personal privilege for me to work with him.
And, of course, I extend my thanks to all members of the Iraq Study Group, who have worked very hard and have come together to support this report.
The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. Violence is increasing in scope and lethality. Attacks on U.S. forces and U.S. casualties continue at an alarming rate. The Iraqi people are suffering great hardship.
The democratically elected government that replaced Saddam Hussein is not adequately advancing the key issues of national reconciliation, providing basic security, or delivering essential services.
HAMILTON: Economic development is hampered.
The current approach is not working. And the ability of the United States to influence events is diminishing.
The United States has committed staggering resources. Our country has lost almost 2,900 Americans; 21,000 more have been wounded. The United States has spent an estimated $400 billion in Iraq, and costs could rise well over $1 trillion.
Many Americans are understandably dissatisfied.
Our ship of state has hit rough waters. It must now chart a new way forward.
No course of action in Iraq is guaranteed to stop a slide toward chaos. Yet, in our view, not all options have been exhausted.
We agree with the goal of U.S. policy in Iraq as set forth by President Bush: an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself.
HAMILTON: We recommend a new approach to pursue that goal. We recommend a responsible transition.
Our three most important recommendations are equally important and reinforce one another.
First, a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.
Two, prompt action by the Iraqi government to achieve milestones, particularly on national reconciliation.
And, three, a new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and in the region.
United States must encourage Iraqis to take responsibility for their own destiny. This responsible transition can allow for a reduction in the U.S. presence in Iraq over time.
The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations.
As this transition proceeds, the United States should increase the number of troops embedded in and supporting the Iraqi army. And U.S. combat forces could begin to move out of Iraq.
HAMILTON: By the first quarter of 2008, subject, of course, to unexpected developments on the ground, all U.S. combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq. U.S. combat forces in Iraq could be deployed only in units embedded with Iraqi forces, in rapid reaction and special operation teams, and in training, equipping, advising and force protection.
A key mission for those rapid reaction and special forces would be targeting Al Qaida in Iraq.
It is clear that the Iraqi government will need assistance from the United States for some time to come. Yet the United States must make it clear to the Iraqi government that we could carry out our plans, including planned redeployments, even if the Iraqi government did not implement their planned changes.
The United States must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of troops deployed in Iraq.
We also make several recommendations to reset the U.S. military, as these redeployments go forward.
A military solution alone will not end the violence in Iraq. We must help the Iraqis help themselves.
HAMILTON: President Bush and his national security team should convey a clear message to Iraqi leaders: The United States will support them if they take prompt action to make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security and improving the daily lives of Iraqis.
If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones, the United States then should reduce its political, military or economic support to the Iraqi government.
Let me now turn over the floor to Secretary Baker.
BAKER: Thank you very much, Lee.
Thank you, Lee Hamilton, for your hard work, and I might add, your distinguished service to our nation in the past.
And thanks, as well, to all of our colleagues on the Iraqi Study Group who've worked on this difficult issue and they worked on it in a bipartisan spirit and in a very collaborative way.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no magic formula that will solve the problems of Iraq.
BAKER: But to give the Iraqi government a chance to succeed, United States policy must be focused more broadly than on military strategy alone or on Iraq alone. It must seek the active and constructive engagement of all governments that have an interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, including all of Iran's neighbors -- Iraq's neighbors.
To gain this constructive engagement, the United States should promptly initiate a new diplomatic offensive, and working with the government of Iraq should create an international Iraq support group to address comprehensively the political, economic and military matters necessary to provide stability in Iraq.
That support group should include Iraq, of course, but also all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, the key regional states, including Egypt and the Gulf states, the United Nations Security Council Perm 5 member countries, a representative of the United Nations secretary general, and the European Union.
Given the central importance of the Arab-Israeli conflict to many countries both in and out of the region, the United States must again initiate active negotiations to achieve a stable Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts and in the manner that we outline specifically in the report.
Ladies and gentlemen, altogether in this report we make 79 recommendations. In addition to military, political and diplomatic recommendations, which, as Lee has said, are equally important and reinforce each other, these recommendations cover a range of other areas: criminal justice, oil, reconstruction, the United States budget process, the training of U.S. government personnel, and United States intelligence.
BAKER: These recommendations are important and they will greatly increase our ability to achieve a responsible transition in Iraq.
We agreed upon our recommendations after considering a full range of other approaches. I suppose some of you will have questions about some of those other approaches, so let me say a word or two about them.
We do not recommend a stay-the-course solution. In our opinion, that approach is no longer viable.
While we do recommend a five-fold increase in U.S. forces training Iraqi troops, from let's say from a high of 4,000 to a high of 20,000, we do not recommend increasing U.S. forces by in excess of 100,000 troops, as some have suggested.
Additional fully combat-ready United States forces of that magnitude are simply not available.
We have not recommended a division of Iraq into three autonomous regions based on ethnic or sectarian identities but with a weak central government.
As a practical matter, such a devolution, in our view, could not be managed on an orderly basis. And because Iraq's major cities are peopled by a mixture of warring groups, a disorderly devolution would likely result in a humanitarian disaster or a broad-based civil war.
We also did not recommend a precipitous withdrawal of troops because that might not only cause a blood bath, it would also invite a wider regional war.
BAKER: The approach we do recommend as its own shortcomings. We recognize that implementing it will require a tremendous amount of political will and will require a unity of effort by government agencies.
Most of all, it will require cooperation by the executive and the legislative branches of our government.
Events in Iraq could overtake what we recommend. And for that reason, we believe that decisions should be made by our national leaders with some urgency.
As it is now, people are being killed day after day: Iraqis and the brave American troops who are trying to help them.
Struggling in a world of fear, the Iraqis themselves dare not dream. They have been liberated from the nightmare of a tyrannical order only to face the nightmare of brutal violence.
As a matter of humanitarian concern, as a matter of national interest and as a matter of practical necessity, it is time to find a new way forward, a new approach.
We believe that a constructive solution requires that a new political consensus be built, a new consensus here at home and a new consensus abroad And it is in that spirit that we have approached our study group's task on a bipartisan basis.
So I'm especially pleased to note for you that our group offers and supports each and every one of our recommendations unanimously. We, of course, recognize that some people will differ with some of these recommendations.
BAKER: We nevertheless hope very much that in moving forward others will wish to continue to broaden and deepen the bipartisan spirit that has helped us come together.
We'd be delighted to respond to your questions.
QUESTION: You talked about no course of action guaranteeing to stop the slide. But what do you think the odds are, if every single one of your recommendations is implemented, that this situation in Iraq can be turned around?
And secondly, you talked about urgency. Your process took nine months. Was there ever any concern that, with the situation sliding so rapidly, that your own report might be too late?
BAKER: Well, I'll take the last part of that, and then maybe we'll both answer the first part.
There was never any concern on the part of our group. We felt it was extraordinarily important to try and keep this process out of politics if we could. And therefore we did not want to bring it out during the political season, during the midterm election.
So we decided right off the bat that we wanted to wait until after the election. We did so. We only took one month to get the report out after the election was concluded.
With respect to the chances for success, I don't know whether anybody has a crystal ball that could put a percentage on there for you. I'll tell you this, and we say this in our report: If we do what we recommend in this report, it will certainly improve our chances for success.
HAMILTON: We cannot, of course, predict the future.
We believe that the situation in Iraq today is very, very serious. We do not know if it can be turned around. But we think we have an obligation to try. And if the recommendations that we have made are effectively implemented, there is at least a chance that you can see established a stable government in Iraq and stability in the region.
The task ahead of us is daunting -- very, very difficult. And we recognize that. But it is not by any means lost.
QUESTION: Just to follow up on that, can the president pick and choose what recommendations he decides to implement, or is this approach, as far as you're concerned, an all-or-nothing approach if it is intended to work?
BAKER: Well, this is not legislation, and it's not an executive order. And it doesn't bind anyone: doesn't bind the leadership on the Hill, and it doesn't bind the president.
But it is the only recommended approach that will enjoy, in our opinion, complete bipartisan support, at least from the 10 people that you see up here.
HAMILTON: I think it's very important to emphasize, as your question suggests, that in order to solve the difficulties in Iraq you do have to have a comprehensive approach. And we tried to put together a comprehensive approach with these 79 recommendations.
HAMILTON: Now, we're not the only group in town making recommendations here.
But you cannot solve this problem by dealing with the military problem or by dealing with the economic reconstruction problem or by dealing with the political problems in Iraq. It's too far along the way for that.
So a comprehensive approach has to be taken.
We were immensely pleased today when President Bush indicated to us that this report presents to the American people a common opportunity to deal with the problems in Iraq. And if that kind of attitude prevails, then you will see a bipartisan solution that we put together in the country.
And I think it's a matter of faith for all of us up here that American foreign policy is going to be much stronger if we're united -- executive and legislative but, also, the American people are supporting the foreign policy.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, Congressman Hamilton, commissioners, gentlemen, Madam Supreme Court Justice, I've only had a chance to briefly read this, but I searched in vain for a phrase or a word the president uses routinely: victory.
And I'm wondering if it is fair to say that the conclusion of the Iraq Study Group is that victory is so difficult to define right now, the more important and more immediate policy objective of the United States government and the Iraqi government is to avoid catastrophe in Iraq.
And if that is, in fact, what the Iraq Study Group is saying, isn't that going to be part of an elaborate communication process with the American people to rally around avoiding catastrophe, as opposed to rallying around definable victory?
BAKER: We stayed away from a lot of terms that have been bandied about during the campaign season and the political debate. You probably won't find "civil war" in here either. You won't find "victory." But you will find "success."
And so I think what our report says on balance, if you read it, is that if you implement the recommendations we make, the chances for success in Iraq will be improved.
QUESTION: You're certainly a group of distinguished elder statesmen, but tell me, why should the president give more weight to what you all have said, given that -- as I understand, you went to Iraq once, with the exception of Senator Robb; none of you made it out of the Green Zone -- why should he give your recommendations any more weight than what he's hearing from his commanders on the ground in Iraq?
HAMILTON: The members of the Iraq Study Group are, I think, public servants of a distinguished record. We don't pretend now, we did not pretend at the start, to have expertise. We've put in a very intensive period of time. We have some judgments about the way this country works and the way our government works, and some considerable experience within our group on the Middle East.
We recognize that our report is only one, and there will be many recommendations. But the report will stand on its own and be accepted or rejected on its own.
We tried to set forth here achievable goals. It's a very easy thing to look at Iraq and sit down and set out a number of goals that really have no chance of all of being implemented. We took a very pragmatic approach because all of these people up here are pragmatic public officials.
HAMILTON: We also hope that our report will help bridge the divide in this country on the Iraq war and will at least be a beginning of a consensus here. Because without that consensus in the country, we do not think ultimately you can succeed in Iraq.
BAKER: Let me add to that that this report by this bunch of has- beens up here is the only bipartisan report that's out there.
QUESTION: One of the aspects of your report is outreach to Iran and Syria. What indications do you have from the discussions that you had in preparing the report that these two countries are prepared to be at all helpful?
And I notice that you've taken the nuclear issue out of the equation. You say that should not be discussed in connection with Iraq. Why would the Iranians agree to come to a table and talk about Iraq unless the nuclear question and other questions were addressed?
BAKER: Why did they agree to come to the table and talk about Afghanistan without talking about the nuclear issue? They did, and they helped us, and it was important.
In our discussions with them -- and the report points this out -- we didn't get the feeling that Iran is champing at the bit to come to the table with us to talk about Iraq. And in fact, we say we think they very well might not.
But we also say we ought to put it to them, though, so that the world will see the rejectionist attitude that they are projecting by that action.
With respect to Syria, there's some strong indications that they would be in a position, if we were able to enter into a constructive dialogue with them, that they would be in a position to help us and might want to help us.
BAKER: But we're specific in the report, there must be 10 or 11 or 12 things we say there that we will be asking of Syria. The suggestion that somehow we're going to sacrifice the investigations of Pierre Gemayel and the assassinations of Gemayel and Hariri or others is just ridiculous.
So we're talking not about talking to be talking. We're talking about tough diplomacy.
HAMILTON: May I simply add to that that I think all of us feel here that both Iran and Syria have a lot of influence in the region and have a lot of impact on Iraq?
Iran probably today is the national power that has the single greatest influence inside Iraq today.
We will be criticized, I'm sure, for talking with our adversaries. But I do not see how you solve these problems without talking to them.
We have no exaggerated expectations of what can happen. We recognize that it's not likely to happen quickly.
On the other hand, if you don't talk to them, we don't see much likelihood of progress being made.
You cannot look at this area of the world and pick and choose among the countries that you're going to deal with. Everything in the Middle East is connected to everything else. And this diplomatic initiative that we have put forward recognizes that.
BAKER: And let me just add to that, if I might, that for 40 years, we talked to the Soviet Union, during a time when they were committed to wiping us off the face of the Earth.
BAKER: So you talk to your enemies, not just your friends.
QUESTION: As clearly as you can, can you talk about this notion of significantly increasing the number of U.S. troops embedded with Iraqis? Does that imply a top line increase to the 139,000 troops in Iraq right now or simply shifting a greater proportion of those in Iraq to embedded units?
BAKER: Secretary Perry will answer that.
PERRY: We're talking about an increase from about 3,000 or 4,000 we now have to maybe 15,000 to 20,000. So there's about an extra 10,000 troops we're talking about. Those can come out of the combat brigades that we now have there if the commanders in place determine that's the best way to do it.
There is the training time involved, so there'll be some lag time. But it can be done, I believe, with the existing combat brigade troops.
Part of this plan involves pulling the combat brigade -- redeploying the combat brigade to the United States. As they redeploy, some of the troops can be held back for doing this mission.
QUESTION: You write that by the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq. What does that mean for who's left in Iraq -- what residual force there will be for the training mission? And to the degree foreseeable, how long do you anticipate that training mission lasting?
MEESE: It would indicate that there would be a considerable force there, which would include logistical support, it would include, obviously, the trainers themselves, force protection. We don't say in terms of numbers specifically, but it would be adequate to take care of those responsibilities.
It will take longer for the Iraqi army to develop its own logistical and support capabilities in addition to intelligence, communications, transport, things such as that.
MEESE: So it means that, over a sustained period of time, we will be backing up those trainers, particularly with ready response forces and special forces; the latter being also devoted to dealing with Al Qaida in Iraq and other terrorist groups.
QUESTION: You said, "Urgent action is needed because events could overtake what we recommend." Could you be more specific about what those events are, and might they make your report ultimately moot?
HAMILTON: Well, from the very beginning we recognized that events could overtake our work, could overtake policy -- American policy in the region. And that may still be the case: We could look at your reports tomorrow and find out that it has happened.
I think the recommendations that we make here would apply to any government of Iraq, not just the one in power today.
But what are the events? Well, the events are just anarchy, total chaos, the collapse of the government without a new government taking its place, and rampant violence throughout the country.
We do not underestimate the difficulties of the problems in Iraq, and we do not underestimate the possibilities that could happen.
We've got a specific situation in front of us now. We have to try to deal with it the best we can. And that's what our report is aimed for.
QUESTION: You say in the executive summary that you recommend the renewed diplomatic effort, and you talk about incentives and disincentives to Iran and Syria, and especially on the Arab-Israeli front.
Yet the Bush administration has said that it's offered Syria and Iran in different contexts incentives and disincentives. And it also says that it is actively engaged on the Palestinian-Israeli front.
What particularly are you recommending?
BAKER: Well, it's pretty specific. If you go to the report itself and read beyond the executive summary, we're quite specific in what we recommend vis-a-vis the Syria-Lebanon track. We're also specific about what we recommend on the Israel-Palestinian track.
So I refer you to the report. I could answer it, but I think we'd be wasting the time of others. You can read it in the report.
QUESTION: All of you have considerable experience at helping presidents change course when they find themselves in a blind alley. What do you intend to do from now on to help President Bush embrace the wisdom of all of your recommendations?
He's already expressed some discomfort with several of them, including engaging Syria and Iran, and including giving the Iraqi government what might look like ultimata for changing its performance with the negative outcome of a troop disengagement if they don't comply.
How will you act from now on to get him closer to where you are?
BAKER: I think it would be appropriate for President Clinton's former chief of staff to answer that question.
PANETTA: As I told the president this morning, this war has badly divided this country.
PANETTA: It's divided Republicans from Democrats, and to some extent, the president from the people. And policy sometimes, with those divisions, has been reduced to a 30-second sound bite that runs the gamut from "victory" or "stay the course" to "cut and run."
And what this group tried to do, five Democrats and five Republicans, is try to set aside those code words and those divisions and try to look at the realities that are there.
And I would suggest to the president and to the American people that, if you look at the realities of what's taking place there, the fact that violence is out of control, the fact that Iraqis ultimately have to control their future; they have to take care of security; they've got to deal with the region in that area, that ultimately, you can find consensus here.
This country cannot be at war and be as divided as we are today. You've got to unify this country.
And I'd suggest to the president that what we did in this group can perhaps serve as an example to try to pull together the leadership of the Congress and try to focus on the recommendations that we've made.
We have made a terrible commitment in Iraq in terms of our blood and our treasure. And I think we owe it to them to try to take one last chance at making Iraq work, and more importantly, to take one last chance at unifying this country on this war.
I think the president understands that he simply is not going to be able to proceed with whatever policy changes he wants to implement if we're divided. That is the principal goal, in my mind, that he has to accomplish.
O'CONNOR: I would be willing to add a comment about what Leon Panetta has just expressed so well.
We've said in the report that we agree with the goal of U.S. policy in Iraq, as stated by the president: an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.
O'CONNOR: And to do that, we've made these various recommendations on a consensus basis.
It's my belief that if a large segment of our country gets behind that on a consensus basis that it's very likely we can move forward and make some progress toward that statement of goals.
And this is not an ongoing commission. It really is out of our hands, having done what we did. It's up to you, frankly. You are the people who speak to the American people. You're there interpreting this and talking to America. And I hope that the American people will feel that if they are behind something in broad terms that we'll be better off.
I think we will, and I hope in general others think so, too.
SIMPSON: Well, you better listen to the associate justice there, because when I was working on this, word for word, she said I was using "split infinitives."
And I told her I didn't even know what they were; I had trouble with adverbs and things like that.
But I can tell you this: Since leaving public life and this chamber, where I was the toast of the town one day and toast the next, it's a strange place.
But I see the American people -- and the sadness to me is the American people see the Congress and the administration as dysfunctional, which is very sad for someone who loves the institution.
This group -- and you heard Leon speak -- it's so clear. Leon and I used to work together. He was at the White House. I was chair; I was assistant leader. We'd meet together, have lunch, say, "I've got a bill here. What are you going to do with it when it gets there?"
SIMPSON: Said, "Well, we're not going to keep this piece in there. That's history. We'll take that, we'll take that, then we'll approve it." We work that way.
And the sad part to me is that you see people in this who are 100-percenters in America. A 100-percenter is a person you don't want to be around. They have gas, ulcers, heartburn and B.O.
And they seethe. They're not seekers...
... they're not seekers; they're seethers. There are a lot of them out there. And we're going tot get it from the right, far right; we're going to get it from the far left. We're going to get bombs away and everybody'll say it can't work.
Well, we're just sincere enough to believe that it will and that all people would with a D behind their name did not become a guard at Lenin's tomb and all the people with an R behind their name did not crawl out of a cave in the mountains, and that maybe we can do something.
And that's what we're here for -- people of goodwill, in good faith -- maybe it's corny, maybe it won't work, but it sure as hell better than sitting there where we are right now.
MEESE: One of the toughest parts of this, of course, is the governance and reconciliation parts of this on the part of the government of Iraq. And I think one of the things is the commitments they've already made to a series of milestones, which are incorporated in our report, to deal with some of the governance and reconciliation issues. And so that there is some commitment already on their part to resolving some of these difficult issues.
HAMILTON: The question was what we will be doing. We are not a statutorily based commission. We will go out of existence. Specifically what we do -- I think some of us, at least, will be testifying. I think we have 15 or 20 invitations to testify in both this Congress and the one in January.
HAMILTON: So we will be interested -- in our recommendations -- we will do what we can to put them forward. But, obviously, the policymakers have to take over from this point.
QUESTION: You picked very carefully the goals of the presidents that you choose to embrace. It's actually one of his later iterations of this, an Iraq that can defend itself, sustain itself, and govern itself.
There's no place I saw in the executive summary where you refer to his older goals, which was a democratic Iraq or an Iraq that could spread democracy throughout the region.
Are you essentially telling the president, in this case, that he should abandon that as an either medium-term or long-range goal?
HAMILTON: We want to stay current.
BAKER: This was the latest of elaboration of the goal, and that's the one we're working with.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Of all the distinguished men and women in front of us today, you have the closest relationship with the Bush family.
When you recommend something like engaging Iran, which the president has been a very clear will only happen after they verifiably suspend, it seems to set up the need for the president to pull a 180.
Does he have the capacity to do that, in your opinion, sir?
BAKER: You know, I've worked for four presidents and I used to get questions all the time: tell me about this president versus that president or the other president. And I never put presidents I worked for on the couch.
So I'm not going to answer that, because that would mean I'd have to psychologically analyze the inner workings of his mind. And I don't do that.
QUESTION: Time and again, as we sit in rooms like this, and as early as yesterday we've heard members ask, various members of the administration and in the military, ask them, it's been going four years now, and training's been going on for four years, and something is not working.
I wonder if you could answer that question why to now training does not seem to be working with Iraq forces. And what's the expectation that it will somehow improve? Is that just by increasing the numbers of troops embedded with Iraqi forces?
BAKER: Well, Secretary Perry can talk to you about why the training mission has not worked as well as had been hoped in the past, and then maybe General Meese would have something to say.
And we'll take one more question after this.
PERRY: First of all, the training was slow to get started. It's been going on I think very effectively in the last year or so. But the training is a basic training, and as the Iraqi soldiers go into their units, they don't have any combat skill, they don't have leadership.
So we believe that the best -- the thing that they needed at this stage to be able to come up to the task they have is effectively on- the-job training. And that on-the-job training can be best done when they have role models of American teams in front of them.
So the key to doing what this, we thought, was to substantially increase the number of American military teams embedded in Iraqi units, right down to the company level. This, I think, can make a big difference in effectiveness.
BAKER: Which is something that hasn't been tried before, down to the company level.
MEESE: We have talked also in the report about increasing the amount of training that the trainers themselves receive and special selection of trainers from units both overseas and in the United States, so that we get career-enhancing assignments for military trainers to be in these particular positions.
ROBB: Let me just say that this represents a dramatic change in the way we have been doing business. It is one that the senior military leadership of this country are supportive of, believe can be very helpful. But it represents a clear break from the past tradition of being the principal combat unit to a role of combat support.
But by embedding our forces at greater levels in the Iraqi military, we will have more capacity, more trust, more capability in the Iraqi forces.
But it will have the U.S. technical skills, all of the other support missions as well as the outside support. And it will provide a more robust capability with an Iraqi face on it.
This will diminish the American face that's currently so much associated with our presence, give it an Iraqi face, but give them the capability on which they still depend on the United States of America to fulfill our missions.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) one last chance to make this work. We've been told over and over again that the war in Iraq is critical to our national security (OFF-MIKE). We're also told that much of it is out of our hands, including the Iraqi government.
What if it doesn't work? What then? Is this a war that we can afford to lose?
HAMILTON: Well, we understand the possibilities that things fall apart. That's not where we are now.
And we have addressed our recommendations to where we are and with recommendations we hope are achievable in the context of the political environment, both in this country and in Iraq as well.
Now, if those circumstances change radically, if things fall apart, whatever that may mean, then we'll simply have to make adjustments to it. But we are not there yet.
BAKER: Also, I might point out that in the report, we call for -- we note the fact that there will be, for quite some time, a robust American force presence, both in Iraq and in the region, because of our interest in preventing just such a result and also because of our national security interests in the region.
Thank you all very, very much.
Dec 06, 2006 12:00 ET .EOF
? 2006, Congressional Quarterly Inc., All Rights Reserved
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Iraq panel discusses its findings on U.S. involvement in Iraq at a news conference on Capitol Hill.
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Iraq Study to Reshape National Debate About War
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The Iraq Study Group's report promises to reshape the national debate about a war that even President Bush's nominee for defense secretary says the United States is not winning, but its implementation would require the president to abandon many of the goals that have been the foundation of his second-term national security policy.
Bush offered a tentative reaction this morning to the harsh findings of the bipartisan commission headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Indiana representative Lee Hamilton. He described the report as offering "a very tough assessment" of conditions in Iraq and "some really very interesting proposals" for changing course. But he stopped well short of endorsing any of the recommendations.
VIDEO | Key Washington policymakers and journalists react to the release of the Iraq Study Group's report.
Government gurus and IT experts needed to fill positions in the D.C. area.
The report marks the second repudiation of Bush's Iraq policy in a matter of weeks. Last month, the public delivered a vote of no-confidence in the president's Iraq strategy, turning the House and Senate over to the Democrats in a midterm election that was in large measure a referendum on a war that has divided the country like nothing since Vietnam.
Now the Baker-Hamilton commission has rendered a verdict on the particulars of Bush's approach by proposing a new way forward that encompasses a series of steps the administration has been reluctant to embrace.
Those recommendations include a plan for removing almost all combat forces by early 2008, pressuring the Iraqi government to accept benchmarks for progress and penalizing them if they don't, opening a dialogue with Iran and Syria and becoming more deeply engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to avoid a collapse of the administration's entire Middle East strategy.
The president clearly understood the midterm election returns. Even before the voting took place, the administration jettisoned its stay-the-course rhetoric. It took Bush only a matter of hours to announce that he was replacing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates, a veteran of his father's administration.
How far the president goes in changing course in the wake of the Baker-Hamilton report -- and how successful those changes turn out to be -- will shape his legacy and the political fortunes of the Republican Party. It will also influence the early stages of the 2008 presidential campaign that is off to a quick start already.
Many of the recommendations included have been floated before, some by Democratic critics of the administration, some by military leaders. Although the president has generally ignored those critics, he will have a far harder time turning back the pressure generated by the Baker-Hamilton report.
Still, in the run-up to the release of the report, the president has offered a stubborn defense of his own goals for Iraq that runs contrary to the idea that he is anxious to change course.
Last week, after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Jordan, Bush appeared dismissive toward the pending recommendations from the Iraq Study Group for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. He said talk of a graceful exit "has no realism to it whatever" and said the United States would stay "to get the job done, so long as the [Iraqi] government wants us there."
Nor has he abandoned his rhetoric that the goal of U.S. policy is to win the war. Baker noted that the commission had pointedly avoided using certain words that he said had been "bandied about" during the midterm campaign, and the thrust of the report is that significant policy changes might make a bad situation better, but did not set out victory as a goal.
In his confirmation hearings on Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates delivered a gloomy assessment, saying the United States is not winning in Iraq and even that it is too early to say whether the decision to invade in 2003 was a mistake. That is the kind of candor long missing in the administration's public discussions of the war.
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The Iraq Study Group's report promises to reshape the national debate about a war that even President Bush's nominee for defense secretary says the United States is not winning, but its implementation would require the president to abandon many of the goals that have been the foundation of his second-term national security policy....
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Rising Interest in Nuclear Power Brings New Life to Uranium Mining
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ARANDIS, Namibia -- This sandy little company town, with its tree-lined streets and concrete homes set amid a vast, forbidding desert, had all the signs of terminal decline just a few years back. Both banks closed. The only gas station shut off its pumps. And employable young men, realizing the bleak future of the giant uranium mine that gave Arandis life, began drifting away.
But something unexpected happened on the way to the funeral for Arandis: The nuclear industry, stagnant for two decades, reversed its fortunes at a time of rising oil prices and growing realization that burning fossil fuel caused global climate change. Nuclear went from being seen as a dirty source of energy to a comparatively clean, efficient one.
From that shift in perception, mainly in the minds of Westerners thousands of miles away, the fate of this remote African town went from doom to boom.
"The future was very dark," said the energetic mayor of Arandis, Daniel Muhuura, who like hundreds of residents here has spent his entire professional life working for Roessing Uranium Mine. "Now the future is very bright."
Dramatic turnarounds have happened across the continent as a quest for mineral riches, similar to the one that helped fuel the 19th century's "Scramble for Africa," has become a hot economic story of the decade. Decisions in boardrooms around the world have sent prices soaring for copper in Zambia, coltan in Congo and oil in Angola, Nigeria and Sudan.
From rising demand for these commodities, sub-Saharan Africa's economic growth has hit rates not seen in three decades.
Perhaps no renaissance, however, has matched that of the uranium industry's.
Roessing Uranium Mine opened in 1976 during nuclear power's heyday. But the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 caused a profound political backlash that nearly halted new reactor construction. Uncertainty about how to handle the dangerous radioactive waste created by nuclear power plants also contributed to its unpopularity.
By 2001, the price for uranium oxide had fallen to about $7 a pound, one-sixth of its peak. Two years later, facing massive losses, Roessing announced plans to close.
Under that plan, the mine was to cease operations in 2007 after having dug 1 billion tons of rock out of a jagged, bleached landscape often compared to the surface of the moon. Instead, oil prices soared and global warming became the stuff of newspaper headlines and Hollywood movies. Interest in building new nuclear reactors grew, and the price of uranium oxide rose to $62.50 a pound.
Roessing, which recently made its first delivery to an increasingly energy-hungry China, has decided to continue mining until at least 2016, mine officials say.
They expect to end this year with Roessing's first substantial profit, and tax bill to the Namibian government, in five years.
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FEMA Wasting Millions in Katrina Aid, Audit Finds
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The government is squandering tens of millions of dollars in Hurricane Katrina disaster help, in some cases doling out housing payments to people living rent-free, investigators said yesterday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has recouped less than 1 percent of the $1 billion that investigators contend it wasted on fraudulent assistance, according to the Government Accountability Office. The report illustrates the disaster relief agency's struggles, more than one year after the deadly storm, to rush aid to those in need while also preventing abuse.
Last week, a federal judge in Washington ordered the Bush administration to resume housing payments for thousands of people displaced by Katrina. The ruling, which FEMA is appealing, cited a convoluted process for applying for help.
"Our work shows for individual assistance payments, at least tens of thousands of individuals took the opportunity to commit fraud," said Gregory Kutz, who works for Congress's investigative arm. He said that his previous $1 billion estimate of wasted aid was now "likely understated."
"I hope FEMA has learned the costly lesson and will make reforms for future disasters," Kutz said at a Senate hearing.
In its latest report, the GAO found that numerous applicants received duplicate rental aid. In one case, FEMA provided free apartments to 10 people in Plano, Tex., while sending them $46,000 for out-of-pocket housing expenses.
FEMA arranged for a free trailer to a family in Lacombe, La., in January, yet continued to provide monthly rental payments in late January, February and April totaling $5,500 -- a mistake resulting from poor communication within the agency, according to the report.
In addition, $20 million was wasted on thousands of people who claimed the same property damage from two hurricanes, Katrina and Rita. FEMA paid at least $3 million to more than 500 ineligible foreign students in the stricken Gulf Coast region, the report said.
FEMA spokesman Pat Philbin did not challenge the findings. He did say the agency has sought to upgrade the registration process and strengthen its procedures for verifying names and addresses.
"FEMA continues to focus our rebuilding efforts to greatly improve our reliability, accuracy and response in providing aid to disaster victims," Philbin said. "The agency will consider and evaluate any new findings."
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Senate Panel Approves Gates
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Robert M. Gates was unanimously approved by a Senate committee yesterday to become President Bush's new defense secretary, after a day-long confirmation hearing in which he bluntly stated that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq.
Gates also told the panel that "it's too soon to tell" whether the Bush administration made the right decision in launching the invasion in March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.
VIDEO | Clips of the Gates Confirmation Hearing
In confirmation hearings that left both Democrats and Republicans praising his candor, Gates warned that the war risks provoking a "regional conflagration" in the Middle East unless a new strategy can arrest Iraq's slide toward chaos.
"My greatest worry, if we mishandle the next year or two and if we leave Iraq in chaos, is that . . . we will have a regional conflict on our hands," he said. "You could have Saudi Arabia, you could have Turkey, Syria, Iran -- all would be involved. We're already seeing Hezbollah involved in training fighters for Iraq. I think all of that could spread fairly dramatically."
Gates's cordial reception by the Senate Armed Services Committee signals he will almost certainly be confirmed as the nation's 22nd defense secretary. He would replace Donald H. Rumsfeld, who announced his resignation a day after the Nov. 7 elections, in which Democrats regained control of Congress. Gates's view that the United States is not winning the war stood in sharp contrast to Bush's own statement on Oct. 25, when he declared, "Absolutely, we're winning."
"What we heard this morning was a welcome breath of honest, candid realism about the situation in Iraq," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said during a midday break. Levin, who will become committee chairman next month, said this "bodes well . . . for a speedy confirmation."
At the end of the session, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said, "I think you're going to be a good secretary."
In return, Gates emphasized "the importance of the bipartisan approach" and laid out several ways in which he would operate differently than Rumsfeld. "I think the first step is the tone at the top," he said.
Gates promised to treat the top brass respectfully, a subject that became an issue earlier this year after several retired generals called for Rumsfeld to be fired, in part because they felt he ignored their professional advice.
Gates said a "great deference" should be shown to the judgment of generals once a policy is decided that they have to implement, and he emphasized that one of his first steps as secretary would be to "urgently" consult with U.S. ground commanders in Iraq. "When you treat the professionals in an organization who deliver the mission . . . with respect and you listen to them . . . I think that everybody is better served," he said.
Gates, who was CIA director from November 1991 to January 1993, was also critical of a Pentagon office that had independently examined intelligence on Iraq during the run-up to the war, second-guessing the CIA and other agencies. "I have a problem with that," he said.
Against fairly light probing by senators, Gates defended his record over past allegations that as CIA deputy in the 1980s he had skewed intelligence reports to fit his views. He said such charges grew largely out of personal animosity between then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz and then-CIA chief William J. Casey.
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Robert M. Gates was unanimously approved by a Senate committee yesterday to become President Bush's new defense secretary, after a day-long confirmation hearing in which he bluntly stated that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq.
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Senators So Very, Very Not Contrary Toward Gates
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And so it came to pass, in the 12th month of the sixth year of the reign of Bush, that a prophet came forth to deliver us from the war in Babylon.
Actually, it was only Bob Gates at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, but the rapturous senators seemed to regard the president's second defense secretary as a harbinger of the Second Coming.
"We're very pleased," Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) said twice.
"Very, very pleased," added soon-to-be-chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.).
"We're very grateful," proffered John McCain (R-Ariz.).
"We're all very impressed," Warner continued.
"Very proud," contributed Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). "Very enthusiastic . . . and very happy."
Gates earned these very, very nice words because of one very important attribute: He is not Donald Rumsfeld. He gave no wiseacre answers, asked himself no questions and said nothing to disparage the "Army you have." Instead, he made the obvious statement that the Bush administration, until yesterday, had refused to utter: We are not winning in Iraq. Where Rummy was incurably aloof -- he originally used an automatic signature machine to sign letters to the kin of dead troops -- Gates sounded human.
"The pressures of the hearing are nothing compared to the pressures I got from a woman who came over to me at the hotel while I was having dinner the other night, seated by myself," the nominee said. "She congratulated me on my nomination and she said, 'I have two sons in Iraq. For God's sake, bring them home safe.' "
The room went quiet as Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who had been questioning Gates, smiled and nodded in agreement. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) joined the nodding, and the smiles spread down both sides of the dais as Gates vowed independence. "I can assure you that I don't owe anybody anything," the nominee promised.
Gates, who won the committee's unanimous support by day's end, was confident enough about his prospects that he told the senators his wife had skipped the hearing to accompany "the Texas A&M women's basketball team to an away game in Seattle."
The senators, too, exhibited few signs of tension: Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) read a news clipping about himself headlined "Nelson Defeats Harris," then perused a housing report. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) worked his way through a box of candy and a large cup of coffee. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) thumbed their BlackBerrys. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) rehearsed her questions, written in large type on numbered index cards. An evidently distracted Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke of communing with fallen troops. "I talk to those who've lost their lives, and they have that sense of duty and mission," he reported.
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And so it came to pass, in the 12th month of the sixth year of the reign of Bush, that a prophet came forth to deliver us from the war in Babylon.
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Delhomme Sits Out Panthers' Practice Because of Ailing Thumb
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Quarterback Jake Delhomme missed the Carolina Panthers' practice today because of a sprained right thumb. The right-handed quarterback was hurt early in Monday night's loss at Philadelphia but finished the game, throwing three touchdown passes but also two crucial late interceptions. He has thrown at least one interception in seven straight games. Chris Weinke worked with the Panthers' starting offense during today's practice and would start Sunday's game against the New York Giants if Delhomme is unable to play. Both teams are 6-6, tying them with the Eagles and Atlanta Falcons for the lead in the race for the two NFC wild-card playoff berths. Tailback DeShaun Foster participated in the Panthers' practice today after missing two games because of a sprained elbow.
By Mark Maske | December 6, 2006; 2:45 PM ET | Category: Panthers Previous: Mora Reportedly Leaves Radio Job In Wake of Vick Comment | Next: Lions Place S. Rogers on IR
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Read about trades, news and exclusive analysis of the NFL. Visit blog.washingtonpost.com/nflinsider.
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The Anniversary Issue
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IN THE FALL OF 1986, THE SHINY NEW WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE LAUNCHED amid a flurry of promotion and great expectations. But one thing happened that -- stunningly, in retrospect -- nobody expected: For three long months, African Americans protested, outraged by that first cover story featuring a rap artist accused of murder and a column arguing that it was reasonable for upscale shopkeepers to be suspicious of young black males. The climax came when protesters dumped thousands of copies of the Magazine on the steps of The Post building as a crowd chanted, "Take it back, take it back."
Boy, did we wish we could have.
That might have been a good time to call a bookie and place a large bet that the magazine would still be around in 2006. Talk about long shots.
But, as we think you'll see in the following pages, the Magazine's 20-year survival wasn't really about luck. It was about great writers who could make the people, trends and institutions of our time come vividly, and in some cases, shockingly, alive. It was Walt Harrington burrowing uncomfortably deep on the subject of class privilege with George Bushes I and II. It was Peter Carlson revealing Arnold Schwarzenegger as the 3-D comic book hero he actually is; Marjorie Williams's prescient sense that the go-go '90s were going to crash; David Finkel's dumbfoundingly intimate look inside a TV-addicted family; Dave Barry's evisceration of Washington's multitudinous hypocrisies; Steve Coll's stunning re-creation of Sierra Leone's butchery; Peter Perl's penetration of Tom DeLay's bizarre estrangement from his family. It was Sally Jenkins on Kwame Brown's crash and burn; Gene Weingarten on the magic and mystery behind the Great Zucchini, among many other articles through more than 1,000 issues.
So today, to celebrate what can only be considered an unlikely anniversary, we've assembled a smattering of highlights from two decades of Sundays, a time capsule, and a reminder of just how long, and short, 20 years really is.
Tom Shroder, editor of the Magazine, will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at noon.
. . . or just born on third base?
I WAS INVITED TO WALKER'S POINT, the Bush family compound in Maine, where Bush, his wife and their children and families were vacationing. They worshiped at St. Ann's Episcopal Church, ate hot dogs on the deck at Walker's Point, sang "Happy Birthday" to a Bush grandson. But George Bush and I also sat in the old caretaker's cottage and talked about what I had learned of his life and its two recurring themes -- great ability and great privilege.
Bush is magical -- smart, funny, charming -- and I found myself wanting him to like me. Intimacy is his gift. But let's face it: Bush was handed opportunity after opportunity because of his family's wealth and influence, making him also a child of a lasting American inequality. As a boy, Bush wanted to be president, and his rare mix of ability and privilege has given him a shot.
Let me tell you, the vice president of the United States is very tired of hearing this. When I return to Walker's Point later that day for a fishing trip, Bush's wife, Barbara, pulls me aside. George had come back from the caretaker's cottage and said Barbara shouldn't be surprised if the boat returned one person lighter. I'm sure he was joking. But imagine his distress. One more story calling him just another rich man's kid. This story doesn't say that, but Bush couldn't have known that then. And as Bush, his 40-year-old son, George W., and I bob lazily on the Saco River, the vice president becomes suddenly reflective.
"I think you think 'class' is more important than I do," he says.
I suggest -- I'm smiling when I say this -- that people at the bottom of society often think social class is more important than do people at the top. But Bush will not be deterred. What did I mean when I said he was a product of America's upper class? Bush believes "class" is the snottiness and arrogance found in some rich people, those who think they are "better" than the less well-off. He says he has never felt that way. Exactly what does the word "class" mean to me?
This is an uncomfortable turning of the reportorial tables, and I am less than eloquent. But in fits and starts I say that "social class" is all about family connections and money and expectations and training, and what those can mean. I say the sons of fathers in high-level jobs end up in high-level jobs about half the time, while the sons of manual workers end up in high-level jobs about 20 percent of the time. I say that social class shapes everything from our self-esteem to our child-rearing to our sense of control over our lives. I say that education is the great American leveler -- but that rich kids get more of it. And that families like the Bushes often send their kids to expensive private schools to ensure their leg up.
This sounds, well, un-American to George W., and he rages that it is crap from the '60s. Nobody thinks that way anymore!
Jeffrey Levitt Stole $15 Million
Sometimes $15 million isn't enough
JEFFREY LEVITT STOLE AND MISAPPROPRIATED a grand total of fourteen million, six hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred forty-seven dollars and fifty-eight cents. He stole all that. It was the largest single white-collar crime in Maryland history, almost bringing down the state's entire savings and loan industry. About 35,000 depositors in Levitt's own Old Court Savings and Loan had their accounts frozen. And the cost to Maryland taxpayers to clean up the mess would run into millions of dollars.
During the period when they were ordered to spend no more than $1,000 per week, Jeffrey and wife Karol continually overspent their limit. Indeed, they casually wrote checks to cover their country club dues, to feed their racehorses, to buy jewelry ($7,857) and bathroom fixtures ($4,781). Once, before the troubles began and after a full dinner, in front of witnesses at the Belvedere Hotel in Baltimore, they each ate six desserts.
The Couple That Ate Baltimore.
The Levitt jokes have been base and cruel but part of the social price for such massive theft and gluttonous indulgence. What do you call their waterbed? Bay of Pigs. How did they get her into her jail cell? Greased the bars and threw in a Twinkie. What do they sing when she walks down the street? There she is, North America.
If ever a couple made themselves into a cartoon, the Levitts did. They were fat cats, symbolically and literally. The richer they got, the fatter they got. At this rate, by Thanksgiving 1995 they'd have been floats in the parade. Perhaps had they been more sympathetic, people might not have fixated on their size. But what is it that defines them if not their size? Their size, their appetite, their apparent insatiable piggishness: 17 cars, not counting the ones they actually drove. The Rolls-Royce golf cart with the TV and the stereo tape deck in the dashboard. From the Lutherville, Md., house alone, the IRS confiscated silverware including 15 sterling creamers and 33 sterling trays. Who did they think would come over for dinner, the Sixth Fleet? Theirs was a nearly incomprehensible gluttony, hyperphagic shoppers poised to devour us all. Isn't that why we hate them so much? Isn't that why we made up those jokes? The thievery was regrettable, but you can shake a high-rise office building and 100 embezzlers will fall out. Wasn't it the Levitts' vulgarity that really got to us?
WHAT VILLAGE DO YOU BELONG TO?" They ask me again and again in India, over tea and mutton, or meat substances I prefer to think of as mutton.
It's an unsettling question. On the subcontinent, you aren't just "from" somewhere, a word that might suggest having left a place without plans to return; instead, you "belong" to the place of your origins. When an Indian tells another Indian what village he belongs to, he defines himself -- he reveals his caste, wealth, ethnicity, language and probable political leanings. He's exposed.
For months after I arrived last summer to take up the strange business of foreign correspondence, I tried to dodge. "I was raised near Washington, D.C., but I've lived in Los Angeles and New York as well," I said.
But this only provoked glassy, uncomprehending stares, followed by, "What village do you belong to?" In time, I gave in. I tell them now, "I belong to Montgomery Village."
Montgomery County is a terrible place to be from, never mind belonging to it. Although I lived there for 17 years, I have trouble thinking about the place as anything besides lines on a map, an uneven parallelogram affixed to the broken diamond of Washington, D.C. I imagine that for many people the very mention of their old home ground conjures sensual memories -- the smell of smoking sausages, for instance, or the sounds of city or countryside awakening, the angle of summer light through shade trees beside a house, the wet bite of a winter fog. The Montgomery County that I grew up in evokes other recollections. Cement comes to mind. Telephone poles. The smell of tar where they're widening the road again. The angle of light through the steel girder skeleton of that new office building on Rockville Pike.
Memory usually arises from something fixed, something tangible, but Montgomery County is possessed by an ethereal transience. We didn't live in neighborhoods; we lived in developments. Everybody used that word in high school, as in, "I hear there's a kegger Saturday in your development." The word implied a kind of progress -- here was a notable development where before there were only mud and trees -- but also impermanence. In real estate as in life, one development usually led to another, overtaking what came before.
We changed developments on the day I finished fifth grade, moving from Kemp Mill in Silver Spring to Copenhaver in Rockville, one of those Orwellian Kettler Brothers villages where the homeowner bylaws read like an upper-middle-class prescription for the New Order. When we first arrived, the view from our back porch stretched a mile to a wooded horizon, across grassy fields and past a rustic barn. First Kettler Brothers knocked down the barn, according to some 20-year master plan, until the cul-de-sacs and colonials multiplied like mutant Lego blocks and burst through the forest in the distance, connecting streets and sewer pipes and telephone wires to a development on the other side. By the time I entered high school, it was possible to ride a skateboard straight into the classroom two miles away. Even then it was clear that growth came at the expense of a sense of place. We would return from summer camp and have to learn the street map all over again. The scale of industrial accomplishment was dazzling in its way, but it also produced anxiety -- a fear that if you overslept you might wake up at a different address.
'Is He Happy? Is He All Right?'
The strange saga of Larry King and Sandy Koufax
THIS IS A TRUE STORY."
Larry King says this in that perfect radio voice of his, deep in pitch, confiding in tone, a voice that fills the room where he has come this evening to give a speech.
He is in a synagogue, looking out at 700 people who have paid $20 and up to see him . . .
He is a good speaker, instantly likable, and when he is done, and the synagogue fills with applause, he decides to tell one story more.
"This," he says, "is known as the Carvel story. I've told it on the air. It's in an earlier book. I haven't told it in a while, but you've been a wonderful audience, very warm and nice, and so I'll tell it."
And with that, out comes the most remarkable story of the evening. It involves the neighborhood in Brooklyn where King grew up, and a snowy night in November 1950, and two of King's boyhood friends. One was Herbie Cohen, who remains one of King's closest friends to this day. The other was "Sandy Koufax, later to become a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher."
"We were having a vicious argument -- about ice cream," King says. "I loved Borden's. Herbie loved Breyers. Sandy loved Carvel . . . Finally, we got to price, and Sandy says he knows a Carvel in New Haven, Connecticut, that serves three scoops for 15 cents. Herbie says: 'That's impossible, Sandy. I'll bet you.' I said: 'That's impossible. They can't serve three scoops for 15 cents.' So there's only one way to prove the bet: Three 17-year-old kids are going to drive to New Haven, Connecticut, on this Monday night to find this Carvel and check it out -- because we bet Sandy."
The story goes on from there. They drive and drive, Larry and Herbie up front, Sandy and another kid named Bernie in the back. They find the Carvel, where the price for three scoops is indeed 15 cents, and then they pile back in the car.
"Sandy knew New Haven pretty good," King goes on. "He says: 'Listen, I'll drive you around. Cut down this street, and we'll be on Broadway, and I'll show you the main drag.'" Somehow, they end up at an election rally. Somehow, Larry and Herbie end up on stage introducing the mayor. "Sandy can't believe it," King says. "He collapses. He's on the floor . . . he couldn't stop laughing."
It takes King more than 10 minutes to tell the entire story, and when he is done the ovation is loud and long.
"Every inch of this story is true," he says. "It seems like it's not, but it's true. I swear to God."
"This is Sandy Koufax," the man on the phone says a few days later. "I've never been in New Haven, not to this day."
Furthermore, he says, he and Larry King have never been friends. In fact, he says, even though they grew up in the same neighborhood, he didn't get to know King until long after both had left Brooklyn behind. King was on the radio by the time they met, and the Carvel story had already become a part of his life.
"I asked him about it," Koufax remembers.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's recipe for happiness
SO THERE WE WERE, ME AND ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, sitting in the Jacuzzi, talking about movies and the meaning of life.
It had been a long day of frenetic activity. Schwarzenegger -- the chairman, or "Main Man" as he puts it, of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports -- was in the middle of a six-day, 11-state tour to promote the idea that American kids ought to get off their fat butts and exercise. That morning, he'd breakfasted with Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer, led exercises at a gym class in a Maryland elementary school, held a news conference, spoken at a "fitness rally" and then flown on his private jet to Maine, where he'd lunched with Gov. John McKernan, led exercises at another elementary school, held another news conference, spoken at another fitness rally, delivered a "distinguished lecture" at the University of Maine, held a "fitness summit" with state leaders and then flown to Albany, N.Y., where he would begin a similar schedule the next morning.
After checking into the Albany Hilton, Schwarzenegger, 43, had headed down to the basement, where he'd spent about half an hour pumping iron on the hotel's exercise machine. Then he'd stripped down to his bathing suit and plopped into the Jacuzzi. So there we were, sitting in the hot, swirling water, while Arnold regaled me with stories about the filming of his latest movie, "Terminator II," which premieres on July 3, and about the filming of some earlier movies, too, such as "Conan the Barbarian," a film in which Arnold, playing the eponymous hero, bit the head off a vulture and chopped the head off James Earl Jones.
His stories were great, and he told them well, particularly the one about the schnapps-drinking contest he had with a reporter during the filming of "Conan" in Spain a decade ago, a contest Arnold lost because he was actually drinking shot after fiery shot of the schnapps, while the sneaky reporter was surreptitiously pouring his shots into a potted plant, a ruse that enabled the puny scribe to walk away unscathed while the great bodybuilder collapsed like a felled oak. Anyway, we were sitting there in the Jacuzzi, with the steam rising and the sweat falling, and I figured it was time to ask Arnold a heavy, profound philosophical question.
"So, Arnold," I said, "what is best in life?"
Chairman Schwarzenegger smiled. "Crush enemies," he said. "See them driven before you. Hear the lamentation of their women."
So what could go wrong with the '90s?
WE'RE STILL WAITING FOR THE '90S TO START, that good, green, family-centered decade we've heard so much about. No doubt the vaunted post-'80s altruism will be along any day now. But in the meantime, all we have is this strange transitional twilight, this year-by-year struggle to determine our whereabouts, as we bid a divided goodbye to 1991.
Call it the Tale of Two Countries:
One of them was the good old U.S. of A., back in the saddle, bigger and better. It was Bush country, Lee Greenwood country. It was the kind of country that takes names and wins wars, and in 1991 it became the world's only superpower.
The other country was us at home, America, perceptibly limping as we crossed the threshold of the new year. This America was stuck in a different kind of war, the subtle, intractable, constant conflict that is all in the family.
We were like one of those scary teenagers who go forth into the world every day to captain the team and sing in the choir and bring home straight A's, and never let on about the blank confusion inside. Tension City, the president might say, if he were ever to acknowledge the sharp split in America's personality. But Dad was the first to delude himself, bragging to his buddies down at the NATO club about how well we did at our science projects: Johnny's Patriot missile won first prize, and Sally baked brownies for the big homecoming parade. What more did he need to know?
Iraq was not a living room war, in the Vietnam-era phrase; it was a Barcalounger war, taking less time to arc its course than the average network flop. The brief anxiety of it -- gas masks in Tel Aviv and the stomach-hollowing moments of wondering how Israel would retaliate; the imagination's power to summon gruesome combinations of men and machinery and blood and sand -- all this was swept away with astounding efficiency.
We loosed the fateful lightning of our terrible, swift sword (so we felt): The weapons worked; the strategy was smart; we won, and at a blissful remove. It seemed a clean war as wars go. There was evidence to the contrary, of course: the long line of dead cars and dead men that smoldered single file on the road from Kuwait City to Basra; the Kurds driven into exile for the error of believing that we'd meant to force Saddam Hussein from power; the eventual pellets of information that were finally squeezed forth about the Iraqi dead -- the ones who, for example, had been buried alive in their trenches by plows affixed to the tanks of the 1st Infantry.
In the past, Americans have wondered a lot (as teenagers will) about consequences like these. But if we did so this time, it was largely in private, locked in our rooms. Publicly, all was celebration. The war, gloated Time magazine, had finally killed off the ghosts of Vietnam: "Self-doubt, deep divisions, suspicions of national decline -- the very words suddenly seem quaint."
Ten months later, well: The very words . . .
Get Outta the *%? Way!
Taking the jam out of traffic
WALT STARLING HAS SOLVED THE RIDDLE that has baffled countless Washingtonians for years: "How do I get out of this (word you never hear in church) traffic jam?" His elegantly simple answer: Just fly over it.
"The great thing about this job is that there's no boss looking over my shoulder," Starling says.
Well, I guess not. Starling's boss would have to be hovering 1,405 feet above the ground to get a good look over his shoulder. We're flying in Starling's brown and white Cessna Skyhawk II prop plane on a hazy afternoon, gently banking over the I-95/495 split north of College Park, the evil majesty of another Beltway traffic snarl unfolding below us. For most rush hours during the past 18 years, Walt Starling has had the best seat in the house to observe the hopeless mess Washington traffic has become, working as an airborne traffic reporter. Down below us are all of the poor souls sitting in the cheap seats, eyes locked on the brake lights in front of them, hands gripping steering wheels in murderous chokeholds. It's not a pretty sight.
Starling feels sorry for the drivers trapped in traffic below him, but it's an aloof sympathy, like the distant pity Americans feel for Russians waiting in long lines to buy meat. Starling, you see, hardly ever gets stuck in traffic jams himself. During the morning and evening rush hour, he's always gliding high above the melee. And when he finally does land, Starling simply walks down the runway of the College Park Airport, past a clump of trees and steps into the back yard of his home. Rush-hour snarl? Not unless there's a bike blocking his path. In this respect, Starling is the quintessential Washington expert: a person whose deep knowledge of a subject remains unsullied by personal experience.
"I took a day off from work last Thursday, and had to drive around the Beltway during rush hour," Starling, 40, a Washington native, tells me. "It was a real eye-opener. I have to say, I didn't care for it much."
We gently bank westward toward Silver Spring, hugging the Beltway. It's only 4 p.m., and already, below us, the mad procession has begun.
"It's really neat to watch a lot of little backups form into one big long backup," Starling says, an observation, I'm guessing, few on the ground are currently making.
And yet, there is something fascinating, even beautiful about a Beltway traffic jam viewed from above. The Beltway snaking like a great, silvery umbilical cord 64 miles around the city. Legions of tiny Matchbox-size cars assembling and reassembling in rhythmic patterns, like colored squares in a Mondrian painting. And the aching beauty of not being part of it.
No doubt about it, Starling's life is truly blessed. But for most of the rest of us on the ground, driving in Washington is life in the slow lane, a horror movie perpetually stuck on half speed. Oh sure, New York and Chicago have many more cars on the road, Atlanta has its famous "Spaghetti Junction" northeast of town, Philadelphia has its murderous Schuylkill Expressway, fondly known around town as the "Sure-Kill Expressway," and Los Angeles has the added thrill of sniper fire. But Washington, it could be argued, is a uniquely rotten place to drive.
Where to start? The failure of L'Enfant to foresee that hundreds of thousands of motorized carriages would one day fill the streets he designed for horses and pedestrians, and that maybe diagonal streets and traffic circles aren't such a good idea? The explosive and largely unplanned expansion of the Washington suburbs into teeming "edge cities" with woefully inadequate road systems? The area's many river crossings, resulting in continually bottlenecked bridges? The more than 50,000 federal employees who receive free or discounted parking at their workplace, removing any incentive they might have for taking public transportation? More traffic-snarling VIP motorcades per capita than any other city on the planet? An unusually high percentage of cabdrivers hailing from countries that don't regard traffic laws with the same reverence as we do here in America? An unusually high percentage of natives who don't regard traffic laws with the same reverence as do Americans "Outside the Beltway"? And what about that Beltway anyway? Is it someone's idea of a bad joke? Could that someone be . . . Satan?
The trouble with being the smart girl
THE SOUND COMES FROM THE BACK OF THE THROAT, a tiny noise that is doomed to failure even as it begins. "Wait," Elizabeth Mann is trying to say, attempting to slip into a discussion that is swirling around her. It is a loud discussion with overlapping voices, but Elizabeth is a close listener, and she has heard something that needs correcting, or at least elaboration. She also is a patient listener who doesn't blurt out her thoughts, but waits for an opening to fit into. Now, hearing the other voices drop off, sensing her moment, she begins to speak, only to realize immediately that she has miscalculated, that the opening has already closed, that she doesn't stand a chance, that she is on the precipice of another of those moments in which, sooner or later, she will end up awkwardly trailing off into silence without having been heard. And so she does what she often seems to do in these situations: She gives in, chokes off the word, lets it die as a squeak and goes back to listening, patiently listening, waiting for the next opportunity. She doesn't seem bothered, and neither does she seem surprised.
The setting for this is Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. It is third period, quantum physics, the most difficult class in the school's math, science and computer magnet program. The class's mission is nothing less than trying to understand the forces that rule the universe, and to that end, seven of the country's brightest high school seniors sit around a table, working their way through a book on Einstein's general theory of relativity. There is Steve Chien, Blair High's valedictorian. There is Josh Weitz, the salutatorian. There is an intense-looking boy named Sudheer Shukla, and another boy named Danilo Almeida, and another named Jeff Tseng, and another named Jeff Wang, and lastly there is Elizabeth. The girl.
This day's topic: something about the failings of Euclidian geometry and an equation called the generalized Pythagorean theorem for Gaussian coordinates. It all seems indecipherable, but as soon as the bell rings, the discussion is off and running, and very quickly, as is usually the case, it is dominated by Steve, who sits to Elizabeth's right, and Josh, who sits to her left.
Steve talks. Josh interrupts. Steve mumbles. Josh interrupts that. Steve grabs a marker, goes to the board and tries to work something out. Josh goes to the board, too, using one hand to draw and the other to hold a cheese sandwich, which he has been wolfing down.
And through it all, Elizabeth sits, listening.
She tries to say, "Wait," and falls silent.
She tries again. "Soooo," she manages to get out.
She tries a third time, this time snapping her fingers and lightly slapping the table, and finally, after that has failed, she gets up, draws something on the board and explains in her always polite way, a way that often turns a statement into a question, that maybe this is the way to look at what they've been talking about? Then she sits and resumes listening, not to Steve or Josh or any of the other boys, but to the teacher, who is complimenting her for what she has done. "Beautiful," he says. "It really simplifies what we've been talking about. Very nice. Very nice."
The moment, surely, is sweet, but vanishes in an instant. This seems not to surprise Elizabeth either. She is in her second year of this class, of being the girl among the boys, and by now she knows the pattern. The discussion resumes, voices again overlap, and Elizabeth says nothing more, not until long after the bell has rung, when she tries to explain why the class, once her favorite, has lately made her feel uncomfortable. She says, "All last year I loved it, and for most of the beginning of this year I did, and now sometimes I'm just scared." She says, "I feel like 'The Girl' in the class. It's something I'm very conscious of, almost every minute in there." She says, "I have a certain fear that somehow when I'm in that class, I'm this impostor who doesn't really understand."
She does understand, though. She gets nothing but A's in the class, and the teacher, Harvey Alperin, says if she isn't the best student, she is one of the top two. Her discomfort, it turns out, has nothing to do with studying the forces that rule the universe. Those she can figure out. Instead, it comes from forces far more puzzling, the ones that rule the life of a 17-year-old girl who happens to be smart.
Silence in the Killing Zone
Never taunt men with machine guns
WAR WAS ON AGAIN IN SRI LANKA, and for reasons no longer retained, it seemed important to record what we had seen in a brief news story. The difficulty was that we were stuck in the jungle, and the light was going. To get back to the land of international telephone lines from the bishop's place, we would have to drive along narrow dirt roads through checkpoints manned by Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese security forces.
Of course, I was not planning to do any actual driving; I would leave that to Ron, the cherubic Sri Lankan madman who had developed a highly lucrative, monopoly-by-default business driving journalists around his island's several wars . . .
For 30 minutes, we raced along abandoned narrow tracks through elephant grass and groves of palm. We had the windows down and the tape deck on at high volume. We passed a couple of checkpoints with ease and thought we were nearing the edge of the fighting zone. Darkness fell quickly, and the passing palms faded to black.
Suddenly Ron slammed on the brakes. He killed the headlights and the tape deck and the motor.
Somebody was shouting at us in Sinhalese from a distance. Ron interpreted under his breath. Put your hands up. Open the car doors slowly. Step with your hands in the air to the front of the car. Get down on your knees. Move forward down the road on your knees with your hands still up.
Flashlights glanced across us as we followed these instructions. Gun bolts clicked. We couldn't see a thing. Ron began a dialogue in Sinhalese with somebody in the shadows. I could not understand a word, but it did not sound as if it was going very well. We moved 20 yards down the road, shuffling humbly in the dirt. Ron, still talking like a Gatling gun, finally rose to his feet and walked forward, telling me under his breath to stay still. I knelt like this, reaching to the sky, physically and emotionally frozen, until I heard Ron begin to chuckle. Then he began to laugh. Now three or four people were laughing.
"It's all right," Ron said. "Come ahead." An army captain in fatigues and a T-shirt stood near a barbed-wire bunker. He had a pistol in his hand. Soldiers with assault rifles and shoulder-fired grenade launchers joined the group. They were chattering in rapid Sinhalese and still laughing. Ron, now in full salesman's mode, had his arm on the captain's shoulder to express collegial intimacy.
"The captain says this is our lucky day" -- really our lucky day, Ron said jovially. "He thought we were the enemy. He was this close"-- Ron squeezed his thumb and forefinger together together -- "to ordering his men to open fire. Then I heard him shouting and stopped the car. They had machine guns and grenades trained on our headlights. He was about to yell 'fire' when we stopped. He says this is really our lucky day."
Ron was gritting his teeth but laughing nonetheless. The captain now felt a need to explain six or seven times what a lucky day this was for us, since he had not killed us. He even digressed into the field of astrology to describe the scale of our good fortune.
By now I was feeling annoyed. I said to Ron, "Tell him that this is certainly our lucky day, but it is also his lucky day, because killing an American reporter, even by innocent mistake, would not be a good thing for a fine officer like himself."
Ron passed this thought along, and the captain seemed puzzled by it. He answered in Sinhalese. "He says," Ron explained, "that this is Sri Lanka. If they had killed us, they would have just burned the bodies. Nobody would have ever known."
Right. I had forgotten about that.
"LET'S SEE," SAYS BONNIE DELMAR, 35, a housewife and former restaurant hostess with a bachelor's degree in elementary education, totaling up how much TV she watches a day. "It just depends on if I'm home or not. Almost always, the TV is on from 4 o'clock to the end of 'David Letterman.' It depends, though. If I'm home, I'm watching. Probably nine hours a day is average. There are some days I might actually watch 16, 17 hours, but there are some days I'm out and about, and I don't get to watch as much."
At the Delmars', there are six TVs, counting the old Sony console that is now in the guest room, and plans are to refinish the basement and add two more. At the Delmars', not only is TV always on, it is virtually a member of the family, part of nearly every significant moment in their lives.
Bonnie remembers her honeymoon. "The cable went out," she says. "It wasn't out for long, six hours maybe, but I was pretty mad."
She remembers Steven's birth. "Steven was born during the halftime of a Redskins game," she says. "It was a Monday night, 'Monday Night Football,' a big game. I was actually pushing, and Steve and the doctor were watching the game right down to the last second."
She remembers Ashley's birth. "I cut out the TV guide the day she was born," she says. "I thought that would be interesting." She gets Ashley's baby book. "Look -- 'Webster' was on, in first run. 'Mr. Belvedere.' 'Diff'rent Strokes.' 'Falcon Crest.' 'Fall Guy.' 'Miami Vice.' 'Dallas.' 'Dynasty.' 'Knight Rider.' God, can you believe it? Wow."
She remembers when Ashley and Steven were conceived. "I don't watch TV during sex, if you want to know," she says, laughing. "I'm capable of turning it off for five minutes."
But not much longer than that. Certainly not for an entire day, Bonnie says. In fact, she says, she can't remember the last time a day passed without her watching something. "It would be very hard for me to make it through a day," she says. "It's almost an automatic reflex at this point."
The same goes for the kids, who, until recently, were allowed to watch as much TV as they wanted. Then came the night when Steve awakened well after midnight -- Bonnie says it was toward 4 a.m. -- and found Ashley sitting up in bed watching the Cartoon Network. Now the rule for the kids is no TV after 11 p.m. on school nights, but other than that, anything goes. "The kids watch everything from 'Barney' to 'Beavis and Butt-head,'" Bonnie says. There is no embarrassment in the way she says this, not even the slightest hint of discomfort. There is nothing other than brightness and happiness, for that is what she feels about TV.
"I love it. I love it. I can't help it. I love it," she says. "Why should I be ashamed of saying that?"
'This City Is Nothing Like the Planet Earth'
Dee Dee Myers and the media's lust (for numbers)
DEE DEE MYERS IS THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY, which means her primary responsibility in the briefing is to never reveal anything remotely newsworthy to the press. The press, for its part, is responsible for repeatedly badgering Myers with questions that she has already refused to answer, until the hostility level in the room reaches the point where the smoke detectors go off. It's a ritualistic, decades-old dispute carried on by whoever happens to be the White House press secretary and whoever happens to be in the press corps. It reminds you of an elderly married couple who are still arguing about a remark one of them made at a cocktail party in 1953.
The major topic of discussion at the press briefing was -- brace yourself -- health care. Specifically, the press wanted to know what "universal coverage" means. Myers said it means coverage for every American. This did not satisfy the press, which immediately demanded to know what "every American" means. Clearly this discussion had gone on before, because Myers immediately became a little testy and said, "I am not going to be drawn into a debate about numbers." This was followed by a lengthy effort on the part of the press to draw her into a debate about numbers, involving all kinds of hypothetical questions ("Dee Dee, IF the Congress passes a health care bill covering 96 percent of all Americans, and IF it has a triggering mechanism mandating total coverage by the year 2002 contingent on certain conditions, and IF Train A leaves Cody, Wyoming, traveling east at 47 miles per hour . . .").
But Myers did not budge. I liked her. I sensed that, underneath her tough-gal exterior, she's a fun person, the kind of person you could go to a bar and have a few beers with and maybe, late at night, if you got lucky, draw into a debate about numbers.
In search of the juicy parts at the trial of the century
WHEN THE PROSECUTION FINISHED ITS OPENING STATEMENT, I felt that it had been so powerful, so overwhelming, so startlingly thorough, that I wouldn't have been surprised if O.J. had suddenly stood up and said, "Would anyone entertain a crime of passion defense?" But then Johnnie Cochran had his turn, and he was dazzling, and the prosecutors were almost literally having heart attacks, and for a few days the zeitgeist of the trial was inverted. Then the prosecution resumed what, to me, looks like a slam-dunk. Of course sometimes slam-dunks clang off the rim and bounce back to the half-court line.
I don't know what surprises are left -- I assume that after I finish writing this and before it actually appears in the Magazine the conventional wisdom will have gone topsy-turvy again, and that something really unbelievable will have happened, like Simpson tunneling out of jail, or Judge Ito posing nude in Cosmo, or Marcia Clark revealing that, in a previous life, she was Joan of Arc. It's that kind of case.
For Better or For Worse
VALERIE IS IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE, gardening. She is trying to get the house in shape to sell, in case it comes to that. She has already replaced the hot water heater, and painted, and now she's trying to grow some flowers around the mailbox.
Lindsey is having a hard time in school.
Laura has begun pulling out her hair.
A letter arrives in the mail.
This one is one page.
"Let me begin by saying once again that I think you've made a very big mistake . . ."
This time, Valerie takes the letter to a store down the street.
"A 'deal' could have been worked out between us without having to give up a portion of our estate to the legal system . . ."
Where she pays to have it faxed to her divorce lawyer.
"Vengeance and spite are my only explanations for your recent choices . . ."
"Also, for your information, I have separated our automobile insurances . . . You will also soon receive notice that you are being removed from my health insurance . . . I'm sorry that it has come to this, however, I tried to be both fair and civil."
And faxes a response to the lawyer Valerie's husband has retained.
"Once again, [your client] has made unilateral determinations which further cloud any possibility for an amicable resolution of this matter. I anxiously await [his] testimony regarding his decision to terminate the health care coverage of his wife.
"Please ask [him] to terminate his condescending communications to his wife. Furthermore, please accept this letter as our demand that he immediately restore both the automobile and health insurance at once . . ."
It is an easy letter for Mark Barondess to write.
This is what he does. All day long, he's either in court, or in his Mercedes, or in his very nicely appointed office with the photograph of the Doberman, dealing with the messiness that is another marriage's demise. Bitterness. Grief. Despair. Hate. Revenge. These are the emotions of his day. What he gets for dealing with this is $275 an hour, and what his clients get is someone who is sympathy and sarcasm and expensive shirts, who goes into court one afternoon and, in the process of cross-examining a particular client's wife about her expenses, zeroes in on the costs she has listed for chemotherapy. He asks, because he thinks it is in the best interest of his client: Are all the charges essential? He asks:
Is the chemotherapy for preventative purposes? He asks: Is it absolutely necessary? She looks at him. "How can you be so cruel?" she says. "Have you no heart? I'm not trying to fake this." And with that she reaches up and removes her hat and shows him her bald head, and there is nothing for him to do but turn to her lawyer and say, very quietly, "Nice move."
WE NEED TO IMMEDIATELY STOP WHATEVER WE ARE DOING, especially if it is fun, and start worrying about the Millennium Bug.
Q. What, exactly, is the Millennium Bug?
A. In a nutshell, computers don't know what century it is. For example, they can't tell the difference between 1904 and 2004.
Q. What IS the difference between 1904 and 2004?
A. In 1904, Dick Clark was still exclusively a radio talent.
Q. Wait a minute. You're telling me that these giant powerful computers that control our lives -- the computers that are SO PICKY about the information we give them; the computers that get into a big electronic snit if we get one digit wrong in the 27-digit account numbers they're always assigning us; the computers that refuse to put our telephone calls through if we're the teensiest bit inaccurate when we dial the number; the computers that would never, ever dream of giving us one extra dollar when we make a withdrawal from the automatic teller machine -- you're telling me that these computers don't know what CENTURY it is?
A. These are also the computers that designed the Hubble Space Telescope.
Q. What is the federal government doing about the Millennium Bug?
A. It has formed an Emergency Task Force, headed by Vice President Al Gore, which expects, within two years, to have a preliminary design for a logo.
The Scandal in 13 Acts
The saga of Handsome and Clutch
APRIL 5 WAS THE DAY LEWINSKY WAS TOLD TO LEAVE THE WHITE HOUSE.
By then, she had been there for nine months. Her mother was old friends with Walter Kaye; that was the connection that got Monica Lewinsky to the White House in July 1995. By mid-November she had made the jump from intern to paid staffer, and by the end of the year she had flirted with Clinton by showing him a bit of her underwear, and had brought him the infamous pizza, and had begun calling him "Handsome" rather than Mr. President, and had been tagged by co-workers with a couple of nicknames of her own.
"It's a slightly derisive term for somebody who, whenever he or she sees the president -- or any of the principals, let's put it that way, not even the president, any of the principals -- would want to be around, or would hover, or be close," is how Evelyn Lieberman, one of Clinton's deputy chiefs of staff, would explain the term to the grand jury.
J. Edgar Hoover did it his way
It began with a sound.
ON AUGUST 13, 1943, A LETTER FROM SAN JOSE ARRIVED IN WASHINGTON. The letter writer, whose identity remains a government secret, was worried about a sound that had come over the radio.
"The other day I turned on a Frank Sinatra program and I noted the shrill whistling sound, created supposedly by a bunch of girls cheering. Last night as I heard Lucky Strike produce more of this same hysteria I thought: how easy it would be for certain-minded manufacturers to create another Hitler here in America through the influence of mass-hysteria! I believe that those who are using this shrill whistling sound are aware that it is similar to that which produced Hitler. That they intend to get a Hitler in by first planting in the minds of the people that men like Frank Sinatra are O.K. therefore this future Hitler will be O.K."
On September 2, the letter writer received a reply:
"I have carefully noted the content of your letter and wish to thank you for volunteering your comments and observations in this regard."
It was signed, "Sincerely yours, John Edgar Hoover, Director."
The FBI director's response was not merely a polite bow to wartime hysteria. His bureau used the letter about a bunch of girls cheering to open file #62-83219 "for the purpose of filing miscellaneous information" on a subject the bureau would refer to over the next 40 years as "Francis Albert Sinatra, a k a Frank Sinatra."
What's the reward for standing by your man?
"I'M GOING TO DRIVE. THAT'S UNDERSTOOD," says a dashing Ingrid Bergman in an early scene of Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 spy thriller "Notorious," as she vamps an intelligence agent played by Cary Grant. Fascinated and repulsed by Bergman's sass, Grant gets in the car but then, in a bit of unmistakable symbolism, overpowers her and seizes the wheel. It's the beginning of a long and spirit-crushing journey: By movie's end, having endured emotional neglect at the hands of Grant and poisoning at the hands of the Nazi she was forced to marry, Bergman lies in bed, too weak to walk. Only then does Grant, seeing her helpless and suffering, realize he loves her.
As happy endings go, this one is pretty ambiguous. But hardly more ambiguous than the recent stream of tributes to Hillary Clinton appearing in venues from Vogue to Vanity Fair to Newsweek. Hardly more ambiguous, for that matter, than the nationally televised moment, late in the president's January State of the Union address, when Bill Clinton paused to "honor" the first lady, taking advantage of the resulting applause to mouth the words "I love you." Surely there is something wrong with this picture: Here is Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing the two entities responsible for her greatest public humiliations -- Congress, which rejected her health-care plan, and her husband, who had betrayed their marriage not once but serially -- and here they are, Bill Clinton and Congress, madly clapping.
They aren't the only ones. In the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the first lady's national poll ratings are higher than they've been at any time since the 1993 inauguration. She's now ranked as the woman Americans most admire. Her popularity has, in turn, started a frenzied political conversation in which she's being hyped as the runaway favorite in a New York Senate race, should she decide to run.
What has she done to bring about this national change of heart? Nothing, apparently, except stoically endure.
When the ax comes down
ALPHA HEARD BANGING AT THE GATES OF HIS FAMILY'S COMPOUND, then gunshots. He looked out a second-story window and saw the rebels. Some wore the combat camouflage of Sierra Leone's disintegrated army. Some wore black jeans, knit polo shirts, Tupac Shakur T-shirts. A few had wrapped their hair in handkerchiefs patterned with the American flag. All of them wore red bandannas around their foreheads. Adhesive strips patched their faces, as if they had been scratched by angry cats. The strips masked incisions where the rebels had ingested cocaine, amphetamines or other drugs that wired their heads for battle.
In eastern Freetown on Monday morning, January 18, 1999, a war that was at that moment the world's cruelest, as well as its most invisible, entered the parlor of the Jalloh family, where breakfast lay unfinished on a table in the center of the room. It was not easy to say why the rebels entered one house and not another, but a faint air of prosperity hung over this gated compound on Kissy Road.
Dalibeh Jalloh's nine children by two wives included the three sweet-faced sons now standing frightened by the window. The oldest was Alpha, 22, who traded gold-plated watches he bought in Guinea, had a girlfriend, danced in Freetown's nightclubs, and who now listened as the rebels crashed through the last door and climbed the stairs.
They demanded money, and Alpha's father handed over bundles. Gun barrels swung to the three brothers. A rebel commander ordered them outside. Their mother sat in a chair before the unfinished food and wept. Their father begged: "Please don't take them. They are my children. Don't take them."
Outside, the rebels forced them into line. They marched up a red clay road past small shacks and shops toward green, grassy hills.
"We are going back to the bush," a rebel taunted, "but we are leaving something with you."
The brothers began to cry. The line of youths swelled with other abductees as they walked. Some rebels told the boys their hands would be cut off and sent back to the democratically elected president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, as a symbol of the rebels' power. Others said the boys would be killed. The Jalloh brothers begged to be taken to the rain forest, where they could be indoctrinated as rebels and join the "revolution."
"No, we are sending you to Tejan Kabbah. We are not taking you to the jungle."
Two hundred yards up the slope, they reached a school driveway. Before a metal gate stood a tall, thin rebel wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt and a red bandanna. Drug strips covered his face. The others called him Tommy. He held an ax.
A neighbor the boys knew as Sheikou went first. As rebels trained assault rifles at his head, he stretched on his stomach on broken concrete before the school gate and extended his arm.
Tommy raised the ax high above his head and slammed it down. Once, twice, three times, four times. Sheikou's severed hand seemed to jump away from him.
The line shuffled forward. Alpha, weeping and shaking, watched his younger brother Amadu, 17, stretch out his right arm.
As Tommy raised his ax, Alpha closed his eyes.
Ratcheting up the peer pressure
MORNING BRINGS THE INVITATIONS. The casual ones. So routine are they that she hardly thinks about them, just waves them away like gnats. Today, for example, a boy came up to her in the hall and asked, "When are you going to let me hit that?" "That means, like, intercourse," the girl explains, with a sort of gum-popping matter-of-factness. She is 13.
She is an eighth-grader, fresh-faced, clear-eyed, with light brown hair and fluffy bangs and plucked eyebrows, her voice sweet and straightforward as, one morning in an unused classroom, she sits relating some of the other things guys say to her in the halls of her Montgomery County middle school, nestled in developed farmland in the central part of the county.
"They say, 'What's up with the dome?'" the girl continues, explaining that this is an invitation to perform oral sex, as is the more familiar: "When are you going to give me head?" She tells them never. She laughs. Whatever it takes to put them off. She has not done much more than kiss, though she and her female friends talk about sex a lot, especially oral sex. "They're like, 'It's not that bad once you do it.
But it's scary the first time.' I guess they're nervous that they won't do it right. They said they didn't have any pleasure in it. They did it to make the boys happy, I guess."
She thinks that someday she will do it.
She thinks that it will be gross.
WHEN I FIRST ASKED TOM DELAY ABOUT HIS RIFT WITH THE DELAY FAMILY, he simply shook his head and pursed his lips, suggesting no words would be forthcoming. Then, he said: "It's never pleasant. You would like to have a family. But my family is Dani and Christine, and that is enough for me."
. . . After my first visit to Sugar Land, DeLay and his staff knew I'd been unsuccessful in trying to interview his brothers. When I located his sister, Tena DeLay Neislar, a registered nurse in Michigan now married with three children, she had never given an interview about her brother. Now she spoke extensively about her love and sadness for him.
She dates the unraveling of her family to the 1988 death of Charlie DeLay, who was killed when a hillside tram that he designed and built himself at his south Texas ranch lost its brakes and plunged off the track.
After his death, "I expected Tommy to be the backbone of the family, and he wasn't," says Neislar, whose first husband was then dying of cancer.
Neislar says she still does not understand why Tom broke off contact. "I can't touch him. I can't get to him. The family has tried," she says. "It's a shame. We miss him. We miss the family we had before. We try to respect his decision. We don't know what else to do."
A week later, Randy DeLay contacted me, saying he had prayed on the subject and decided he wanted to talk about his brother in the hope it could end the split.
"All of us love Tommy tremendously, and we don't want to create more trouble for him. He has enough," Randy says when we meet in Washington . . . He believes his brother's fiery aggressive side is driven largely by unresolved anger. "Tom's compulsive behavior, it's a way of life," he says . . .
Randy says it's sad that his brother doesn't really know his nieces and nephews, but he is particularly saddened about his mother, who is 77 . . . Randy says his mother describes her shunning from her granddaughter's wedding as "like a dagger in my heart. It was like I never existed."
. . . My last conversation is with Maxine DeLay, Tom's mother. She is home alone and has to stop for a minute to take her lunch off the stove before talking . . .
As for the family's long rift with Tom, she has often shared her pain and regret with her other children. But she always tries hard not to dwell on it. She says she is not entirely cut off from her celebrated son. "I get to see him. I see him on TV, and it helps," she says. "I keep all the tapes."
The Rev breaks bread with the Crew
THE CHURCH LADIES COOKED UP A PARTICULARLY FINE SATURDAY SUPPER for the drug dealers. The Rev. Anthony Motley had told them he wanted things fixed up especially nice , so they put out clean white tablecloths, and now the ladies were parading from the kitchen with paper plates piled high with barbecued chicken wings, macaroni and tuna, green beans, salad, sweet iced tea and cakes.
Four young gang members, part of the South Capitol Street Crew, took seats along with five church men at the large rectangular table. They sat silent, expressionless; cornrowed hair, a shaved head, baggy pants, a gold chain here, a gold watch there, black T-shirts with the arms cut off. Terry, Anthony, Terronce and Snoop. Ages 23 to 27. The South Cap Crew looked like many other young men in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast Washington, except they were the ones responsible for much of its persistent traffic in marijuana, PCP, crack cocaine and, occasionally, heroin.
After a prayer, Motley stood and opened his Bible, choosing an obscure Old Testament passage from the Book of Nahum: "Ah, city of bloodshed, all full of lies and booty -- no end to the plunder!" Motley interrupted himself. "When he says 'booty,' he doesn't mean 'booty' like you do," he said, with a mischievous smile, " 'Booty' meant jewels and money back then. Y'all know I had to break that down for you." The crew members snickered.
MY LITTLE PUDDLE JUMPER BEGINS ITS DESCENT INTO ELKO, a charmless city of 20,000 in the northern Nevada desert. Eighteen seats, all filled. This is not because Elko is a hot tourist attraction; it is because almost everyone else onboard belongs to a mariachi band. These guys have identical shiny blue suits and shiny blue shirts and shiny blue ties and shiny blue-black hair, like Rex Morgan in the comics, and they seem embarrassed to have accepted a gig in a place as tacky as Elko.
Compared with my final destination, Elko is Florence during the Italian Renaissance.
When I tell the Elko rental car agent where I am headed, she laughs. Elkonians, who proudly sponsor a yearly civic event called the "Man-Mule Race," consider their neighbor 70 miles west to be an absolute clodhoppy riot.
"Don't sneeze," snorts the rental car woman, "or you'll miss it."
Yeah, I know. I went to Battle Mountain five weeks before, to see if it was dreadful enough to be anointed, officially, "The Armpit of America." I was exorbitantly convinced.
That first visit was in late August. This second one is in early October. In the interim, Everything Changed. With the nation united in mourning and at war, with the Stars and Stripes aflutter in places large and small, slick and hicky, the idea of poking fun at any one part of us became a great deal less funny. The zeitgeist had shifted. Snide was out.
I had to go back, to rethink things.
The road to Battle Mountain is flatter than any cliche -- even pancakes have a certain doughy topology. On this route, there is nothing. No curves. No trees. It is desert, but it is lacking any desert-type beauty. No cacti. No tumble-weeds. None of those spooky cow skulls. The only flora consists of nondescript scrub that resembles acre upon acre of toilet brushes buried to the hilt.
You know you have arrived at Battle Mountain because the town has marked its identity on a nearby hill in enormous letters fashioned from whitewashed rock.
I have returned to this place to find in it not America's armpit, but America's heart. I am here to mine the good in it, to tell the world that Battle Mountain doesn't stink. That is my new challenge.
I hang a right off the highway at the base of the hill, which proudly proclaims, in giant letters:
Man. This is not going to be easy.
KWAME BROWN KNOWS MORE THAN HE SHOULD ABOUT SOME THINGS, such as certain aspects of human nature, and less than he should about others, such as nutrition, how to treat a good suit and when to throw the lob pass. What Brown knows and what he doesn't is a consequence of his age, newly 20, and where he's from, the saw grass lowlands of Georgia, where crook-armed silhouettes of shrimp boats move against the horizon and misshapen oaks draped with gothic-gray moss line the melting tar streets, so sticky-hot that the children, Brown until recently one of them, hitch up their pants and hop from patch of grass to patch of grass.
Brown's route to the National Basketball Association has been a similarly awkward hop, from an overcrowded home with a sagging porch in Brunswick, Ga., to the $11.9 million patch of grass offered him by the Washington Wizards last June, when Michael Jordan made him the NBA's No. 1 draft pick and gave him a three-year contract. The presumption behind this investment is that Brown will become another Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett, the next great young thing. The truth is that, in practice, the hop is too big: Turning a teenager from a sleepy shrimp port, not long out of puberty, into a multimillionaire NBA professional is a traumatic process. And not just for Brown, either. For the adults, too.
Brown has been lectured and scolded and instructed, advised. And, perhaps, warped. The voices have overwhelmed him. They run together, all of them telling him what is best for him. "Most people," he says, "are wrong." He is still young enough to have a faintly wounded set to his jaw, and a reflexive honesty as he considers a rookie season that, until the very end, was a public humiliation. "There's a part of me that questions, when your confidence drops like mine did, are you a good ballplayer, and do you deserve to be here, or what?" he says. "You're just scared. Scared to do anything."
Brown is sitting in Clyde's restaurant in Chevy Chase, regarding with suspicion a chicken sandwich, which has been served to him on unfamiliar bread. Among the many revelations of his profoundly dislocating and confusing rookie season with the Wizards are the things that some people will eat.
On a road trip to Boston, the Wizards took him to an elegant French restaurant. Brown was not just shocked, but outraged, to discover that the restaurant did not serve French dressing. "Can you believe that?" he says. "No French dressing. In a French restaurant."
Then there was the matter of the salad itself. "It was tree roots," he says disgustedly. "Leaves. And branches."
For weeks afterward, Brown took a bottle of store-bought French dressing with him whenever he went out to dinner.
Dan Snyder can't stand to lose
THE HARD RUBBER BALL SMACKS OFF THE FRONT WALL, and, just as it hits the polished wood floor, Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, is all over it. He smashes it hard and low into the right corner, so I have no chance. Now it's Snyder's serve: He wins the first point, then the second. I haven't played racquetball in years; Snyder plays, quite competitively, at least three times a week. Very quickly, Dan Snyder is getting bored.
"I'll spot you 11 and we play to 15," he says.
"I'm spotting you 11. You got 11, I got 2; 11 to 2, and I'll still beat you."
We'd been talking about playing racquetball since I'd first met him six weeks earlier in his office at Redskins Park to propose writing an article about him. He'd had decidedly mixed feelings. "You're gonna trash me. The media always trashes me," he'd said, eyeing me skeptically over the rims of his eyeglasses as he sat, swigging a bottle of water, his shiny black shoes propped on his large, handsome rosewood desk. He seemed convinced this story would be like others that he said have portrayed him as brash, arrogant, aggressive, greedy, meddlesome. I assured him that trashing him was not my intent.
"You smoke cigars?" he said, abruptly veering the conversation.
"Uh, once in a while."
"No, not really . . ."
"Good, I can beat you," he said, smiling. "We'll play for money."
'I Don't Think They Deserved It'
Let the bodies hit the floor
NOTHING HAD BEEN GOING WELL FOR JOSHUA COOKE FOR A LONG TIME. Failure after failure. School. Jobs. Girls. Never been on a date. No close friends. Nothing was right. His mind, he would later say, was a blur. His head was full of thoughts, yet somehow empty. Josh stuffed his portable CD player in his pocket and clamped on the earphones, choosing a song called "Bodies" by a favorite heavy-metal group, Drowning Pool. He cranked up the volume to the max. The sounds pounding in his ears were relentless drumbeats, a blaring bass crescendo and a series of anguished, screamed lyrics:
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Josh took the loaded shotgun out of his closet and stuffed extra shells into his pockets. He headed out into the hallway, down the stairs to the family room, holding the
48-inch Remington 870 Express Super Magnum in front of his chest. It all reminded him of "The Matrix."
One -- Something's got to give
Two -- Something's got to give
Three -- Something's got to give
He descended the stairs toward the basement, and his mother stood up and turned toward him. He pointed the seven-pound shotgun at her, squeezed the trigger and blasted her in the chest. She staggered but didn't fall. Josh turned to see his father, who was 6-foot-3 and nearly 250 pounds, dive under his computer table.
Josh walked toward his father's computer table and stuck the gun barrel under it, firing several more blasts. Then he walked back upstairs to reload.
Being the most average you can be
TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD STEPHEN KALDENBACH, whose IQ scores would rate him as mildly mentally retarded, has worked for Lowe's since early November. When he got the job, he celebrated by leaping around in the company parking lot. His tasks at Lowe's are basic. He retrieves shopping carts and helps customers load their vehicles. Depending on the week, Stephen's performance has been judged from satisfactory to very good, earning him a modest raise to $9.32 an hour.
He is ambitious, animated, scattered, emotionally scarred and adventurous. His childhood and early adult years could scarcely have been more tumultuous, leaving him happy that he has been living with roommates in a Melwood residential home these last four years. Domestic turmoil, he indicates, was the constant of that period. His parents split, and he has a sister in jail, he says. "I just want to be here," he says, meaning Melwood, "and getting my chance." The chance, he says, is "to have peace and to have things. I want to be able to do a lot and have a lot, be successful. Yes, I do."
His speech is thick, with a touch of an impediment. It brings emphasis and urgency to almost everything Stephen says. He speaks regularly of his wants, a preamble to his personal declaration of independence. He aspires to be a department manager at Lowe's, directly responsible for helping customers with their needs and making sales. It is an "average dream in this country," says Stephen, who wants to be regarded as an "average good employee" -- "average" being Stephen's summit, the K2 of things.
Why not? "I'm high-functional," he says, a term Stephen has heard around job sites over the years. He likes it, views it as a way of dispelling doubts. "I'm very high-functional. The people in my house are high-functional. So I can do things."
He wants to parlay salary increases and a growing respect into what, he imagines, most high-functional, average people possess: a chance to mingle socially on a regular basis with people his own age, to date, someday marry, own a house and car, have children, take a yearly family vacation, be happy and "feel good about myself and my life because everybody should, right?"
In pursuit of these wants, he sometimes has made mistakes. But by all accounts, his last two years have been free of serious difficulties. "I'm trying to do everything right," he says. "I want to prove myself . . . show I can be a great loader, a great average employee, and then do something really big. Like Delivery. If you're in Delivery, it's $10 an hour, I heard. My paycheck would be fat. But I got to do my job good, I gotta be the best average loader I can be."
The Origin of the Species
The law of the political jungle
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, there was a political party that believed in a strong central government, high taxes and bold public works projects. This party was popular on the college campuses of New England and was the overwhelming choice of African American voters.
It was the Republican Party.
The Republicans got started as a counterweight to the other party: the party of low taxes and limited government, the party suspicious of Eastern elites, the party that thought Washington should butt out of the affairs of private property owners.
The fact that our two parties have swapped platforms, rhetoric and core ideals so completely might be spun, by some people, as a shortcoming. Some people might paint the stark soullessness of our parties -- which appear happy to argue the opposite tomorrow of what they argued yesterday, as somehow a bad thing. After all, party-bashing is a surefire crowd pleaser.
In good times and bad, through crisis and calm, Americans have hated the parties. These days, Americans hate the parties because they are too polarized. We also hate them because they are not polarized enough.
But let's not go overboard. True, our feuding parties may be to blame for the gridlock, ill will, finger-pointing and score-settling that besmirches our current civic life. Also for the failure to project a clear foreign policy, the inability to control spending and the frittering away of precious years as the ticking time bomb of health-care and retirement costs threatens the prosperity of future generations.
Also for the heedless destruction of reputations, the facile reduction of genuine crises to mere debating points, the equally facile inflation of mere debating points into alleged crises and the subversion of national priorities to base factionalism and personal greed.
Who among us is without a flaw or two?
This week, America will watch -- sort of -- as the Democrats gather in Boston to cheer themselves and their presidential candidate. The delegates will approve a platform that no one reads and gab in the aisles as various elected officials give speeches that no one listens to. Later this summer, Republicans will stage a similar event in New York. The vital question, here on the eve of the conventions, is how these parties -- these unprincipled, opportunistic, haphazard and inconsistent contraptions we've lived with so grouchily for so long -- have managed to produce such a surplus of freedom, prosperity and happiness compared with so little (in the grim balance of human depravity) murder, tyranny and corruption. Hard as it is to imagine, they must be doing something right.
Jessica Cutler gets trapped in her own web
THE INSTANT MESSAGE BLINKED ON THE COMPUTER AT JESSICA CUTLER'S DESK in the Russell Senate Office Building. "Oh, my God, you're famous."
Before she could form the thought -- "famous, cool" -- or puzzle how she, a lowly mail clerk, had escaped obscurity, a second instant message popped up on her screen. Startled, Jessica recalls, she began to curse.
"Your blog is on Wonkette," the message said.
Jessica's blog was the online diary she had been posting anonymously to amuse herself and her closest girlfriends. In it, she detailed the peccadilloes of the men she said were her six current sexual partners, including a married Bush administration official who met her in hotel rooms and gave her envelopes of cash; a senator's staff member who helped hire her, then later bedded her; and another man who liked to spank and be spanked.
Too jittery to work, Jessica dumped her stack of unopened mail on the two new interns in her office. She figured they'd still be filled with youthful enthusiasm for serving their government, seeing as how it was only their second day on the job.
Just then, Jessica says, the office door swung open. Framed in the doorway was the man she'd chronicled on the blog as her latest and favorite paramour -- a serious committee staffer more likely to be featured in some wonk newsletter than an online sex diary. He didn't look happy.
He asked her to step into the hallway, Jessica says. He was clutching a printout of her blog. "I have nothing to say to you about this," Jessica recalls him saying before he walked away.
"Okay, bye," Jessica said. She slunk back to her desk thinking, "Boy, am I getting off easy."
A few minutes later, she noticed one of the senator's senior aides standing a few feet away, glaring. This was the woman Jessica says set her up on her first date with the committee staffer. In her blog, Jessica breezily referred to her as a pimp. Now, the senior aide Jessica had called a pimp looked as if she wanted to rip Jessica's head off.
"You are the sorriest excuse for a human being," Jessica remembers the woman shouting. "You are worthless."
Picking up the pieces in Baghdad
I CAN'T GET THE BOMBINGS OUT OF MY HEAD. Not just one, but the aftermath of them all. The metallic smell of blood. The stains on the roads. As if each victim was blown up individually, from the inside out, or maybe dropped from the sky. Razor wire collects flesh like torn pieces of clothing . . . I saw one police officer go mad in Baghdad recently, obsessively picking up stray pieces. I thought, maybe for burial -- but it seemed more drastic, more urgent. U.S. Army and other Iraqi police tried to stop him with force. But he yelled back, shrugging their hands off his shoulder, never losing sight of the ground, the razor wire, the pieces, quickly filling his plastic bag -- until the bag was full and he had to pile the pieces into his hands, gloved in plastic, intestines hanging through his fingers.
People always want me to take pictures of every last piece. Like proof. I have to do it -- we won't use the photos -- but it makes them feel better. An eyeball. Teeth. A finger swept into a corner. Piles of bloody shoes. Brains. Other things that I don't recognize but I know by the smell. Pieces stick to the bottom of my shoes.
No one cries at these scenes. We all -- Iraqis, U.S. soldiers, journalists, family members -- walk from the bombing to the hospitals to the morgue. We are all sleepwalking. Numb. A nightmare. It happens almost every day.
A sperm donation pays unexpected dividends
HIS NAME IS MIKE RUBINO, but until recently none of the women who bought his sperm to get pregnant had ever seen him or known him as anything other than Donor 929. Now he is standing inside the Los Angeles International Airport, staring at an arrivals gate, awaiting the appearance of two children he has fathered but never met, along with their single mother, a Massachusetts psychotherapist named Raechel McGhee.
At that moment, 44-year-old McGhee and her children are descending toward him in blackness and rain. "It is kind of unbelievable that this is about to happen, but I'm relaxed," Rubino says, not looking so relaxed, fidgeting with his brown hair, anxiously surveying an airport monitor until he's found a status report on the McGhees' flight. "On approach," he reads, craning his head toward the arrivals door. "I think their mother said she'd have the kids in slickers," he says, "and she said that she would be in a raspberry slicker." He falls silent. "Maybe this is going to take awhile," he says, but then he glimpses a sliver of a raspberry-colored garment moving amid a horde of travelers, spotting a tall woman. He mutters, "There she is -- there they are."
He hurries forward, calling out to the woman, "Hi, hi."
The woman changes direction, veering toward him, smiling. McGhee looks Rubino up and down as he gets close, hugging him casually. She turns to her kids, gesturing at Rubino, and says, "Look who's here."
The children -- a brown-haired boy one month shy of 7 named Aaron, and a 3 1/2 -year-old blond girl named Leah -- stare up at him, mouths agape. Rubino turns to the boy, crouches, and hugs him gently. The boy's arms hang stiffly at his side. He tentatively wraps a thin arm around this man's neck, glancing up at his mother for some sign of approval. But she hasn't noticed his glance, open-mouthed herself, drinking in the 45-year-old Rubino, this slender, fair-skinned artist in jeans and a gray T-shirt.
"What do you say to this guy?" McGhee asks her daughter. "Who is this man?"
A mystery behind the magic
IT'S NOW JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT. We'd arrived at 7, and Eric shows no sign of tiring. He's lost some money at blackjack but is making it back on a craps table, again. Beside him is a sweet, funny, attractive woman named Mollie, in a low-cut black blouse and white pants with a big belt. Mollie's maybe 30, a businesswoman from Texas. She'd arrived with friends whom she seems to have jettisoned.
"You want to see a five?" He teases the table, which has bet heavily on five. "Is five what you want, a five?" He rolls a five. The table erupts in cheers.
"I'm a magician," he says to Mollie. "I don't know if you knew that."
"It's showing," she says. She is leaning against the table, hipshot, dangling a sandal, watching his every move.
By 1:30 a.m., he's up more than $600, and still rolling strong. "I'm going to call it a night," Mollie says. She shakes Eric's hand and leaves for her room, his business card in her pocket. Then she comes back, looks at the table and Eric. She thought she might have forgotten something, but she guessed not. She leaves again, for good.
A few minutes later he finally craps out.
I tell him: "You could have hooked up with Mollie."
"What? No way," he says.
"Eric, at one point there, she was giving you a back rub."
He smiles sheepishly, goes back to the table.
I went to bed. I found Eric again at 7 a.m. at another casino. He hadn't slept. He was up $1,100 but wasn't ready to leave.
The next three hours were ugly. The craps tables had cooled off ("The felt was too old, the table was hard"), and he had a couple of bad outings with steely-eyed dealers at the blackjack tables. ("Those women were cruel.") Eric finally quit at 10:30 a.m. His all-nighter had left him with a profit of $200, roughly his fee for 20 minutes of children's party entertainment. He wasn't disappointed. Life is a crapshoot, after all.
On the ride home, there was one image I could not get out of my head.
The Great Zucchini's tattered loose-leaf appointment book is filled with the names and dates of his scheduled parties, months and months into the future. He keeps no backup -- no other notes, nothing on a computer disk, nothing anywhere. If he were to lose that book, he'd have no idea where he was supposed to be, or when. For months of weekends, preschool children would be waiting expectantly in homes across greater Washington, and the Great Zucchini would simply never show.
Eric understands the importance of that book. Without it, the Great Zucchini would cease to exist, and all that would be left would be Eric Knaus. And so he carries it with him everywhere. He won't leave it in a car, in case the car is stolen. When he goes out of his house, if he absolutely must leave the book behind, he hides it in a special place no burglar would think to look.
The sight that I could not get out of my head was the Great Zucchini hunched over the craps table, lost in that flagrant illusion, flinging dice with his right hand, his left hand pressing that book hard to his chest, white knuckled, like a man holding on for dear life.
Can little Andre be saved?
THE MEN IN LITTLE ANDRE'S LIFE:
We call his father big Andre. He's short and compact. Once he hit Fashun, and little Andre, 4 years old at the time, rolled toward him like a bowling ball. A boy will try to save his momma. Big Andre left.
His uncle Juan -- my sister Geraldine's son -- is in and out of jail. Around my friends, especially my white friends, Juan likes to mention having read The Autobiography of Malcolm X -- "while I was away." He makes it sound like he was away on vacation, in Rio; he really means the Orient Correctional Institute, not far from Columbus.
Harry, my brother, is a ne'er-do-well, a one-time resident of Los Angeles's Skid Row, off and on heroin for two decades now. He is mostly estranged from his own children, but he loves little Andre in bunches. Last year he gave Andre a $50 bill. Andre looked at it quizzically, and simply handed the thing to a nearby adult.
Harry is the second of my mother and father's five children. First Diane, then Harry, then Geraldine, then me and Wonda.
In the summer of 2002 Geraldine, 49 years old, died: It was an overdose. They found her body in a drug house.
Two years earlier, I had stopped responding to Harry's pleas for money; he said he needed it to get "straight" before the heroin killed him. I'd send the money, but he never got straight. And then I stopped.
At Geraldine's funeral, Andre sat on Fashun's lap, staring at his lifeless aunt. He sat so very quietly, the rambunctious little boy refusing to rocket up and out of him. I watched him, and worried.
After the services, family members gathered on my father Jack's porch. I was out of sight, but within earshot, when Sonny, Geraldine's ex-husband, came looking for me.
"Harry, where's Wil?" Sonny asked.
Beer in hand, tan suit falling from his wispy body, Harry took a gulp of beer: "I ain't got no brother," he said.
Andre was nearby. Heads swiveled.
Sometime later, Harry was on the phone from California, regaling me with the story of his having given Andre a $50 bill. "I love that little dude. He cracks me up," Harry said.
Love love love everywhere. So much love it hurts.
Tom Shroder, editor of the Magazine, will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at noon.
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After more than 1,000 issues, our writers are still making the people, trends and institutions of our time come vividly alive. Here, a smattering of highlights from two decades of Sundays, a time capsule, and a reminder of just how long -- and short -- 20 years really is.
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