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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301359.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2006102419id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301359.html
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Fleshing Out a Founding Father
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The new exhibits include a $5 million movie about Washington's military career, a list of his slaves and the will in which he freed them, the shoe buckles he wore to his inauguration, the family Bible, a look at his early career as a surveyor, his bloody defeats during the French and Indian War, interactive maps showing Revolutionary War battles, a copy of Martha Washington's gold wedding dress, Washington's ivory dentures, a reproduction of his coffin and three re-creations by forensic scientists showing what Washington probably looked like at ages 19, 45 and 57.
Both new buildings are mostly underground so as to not detract from the mansion. And the exhibition hall, which includes the museum and education center, will have historically correct Hogg Island sheep grazing on the ground that covers it.
In the past, Mount Vernon concentrated on Washington's life on the plantation, his family, his slaves. The new exhibits flesh out other facets -- politics, two wars, his days as a spymaster, his role in the making of the Constitution and even his excruciating dental history.
In addition to the artifacts, dioramas and tableaux, a great deal of Washington's story is told through 14 films commissioned by Mount Vernon. A $5 million, 18-minute video, "We Fight to Be Free," produced by Greystone Films, portrays a heroic Washington in reenactments of the French and Indian War and the night crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War. To humanize him, another film shows Washington flirting with the widow Martha Dandridge Custis, whom he later married. That film, produced by the History Channel and narrated by actress Glenn Close, chronicles Washington's 40-year marriage.
Twenty new galleries feature traditional museum fare, sculpture, paintings and a number of swords. In one gallery, which will be kept cooler than the others, visitors can study a re-creation of a soldiers' hut at Valley Forge, Pa. It focuses on the brutal conditions that Washington and his soldiers endured during the winter of 1777-1778, with the temperature some days hovering at 6 degrees. The starving soldiers look like skeletons. The "snow" has bloody footprints. Beneath a navy wool blanket in the hut, a sleeping soldier's chest rises and falls. Then he moans and coughs. Nearby, a model of Washington, the commander of the Continental Army, sits on his horse Blueskin. Though historians tell us he, too, was dispirited by the predicament, he manages to project determination in trying to rally his troops.
James C. Rees, executive director of the estate, says Mount Vernon now draws a million visitors a year -- about as many as the building's worn wooden floors can stand, and even with the temporary closing of the National Museum of American History on the Mall, he doesn't want too many history buffs to visit at the same time.
Mount Vernon's new look is not intended to draw more visitors. The new attractions, Rees says, "help us spread out the visitors." He hopes people will stay longer, learn more and want to come back.
In the past, a typical visitor spent 2 1/2 hours at Mount Vernon. Now, that could double.
The administrators of Mount Vernon raised $112 million in private funds for the new look. Just under $60 million was spent for the orientation center and the museum and education wing. Both were designed by the Baltimore firm GWWO Inc./Architects.
Many of the new videos and exhibits were designed to meet what Mount Vernon guides consider the ultimate test: holding the attention of an eighth-grade boy.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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A decade ago, the people who run Mount Vernon noticed many of their visitors knew little more about George Washington than that he was the country's first president. New museum spaces at the historic site aim to change all of that.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400002.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2006102419id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400002.html
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Giants Take Charge of the NFC East
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IRVING, Tex., Oct. 23 -- Only three games after their season seemed to be unraveling and tight end Jeremy Shockey was brazenly questioning Coach Tom Coughlin, the New York Giants are back in first place in the NFC East.
The defending division champions got their third straight win by riding two touchdown passes by Eli Manning to a 36-22 triumph over the Dallas Cowboys here Monday night at Texas Stadium.
"To come in here and get a win," Manning said, "that's big."
The Giants (4-2) moved a half-game in front of the Philadelphia Eagles, who are 4-3. They have reassembled their season since losing two of their first three games and having Shockey say immediately after a defeat in Seattle that the Giants had been outcoached.
But this victory came at a cost, as linebacker LaVar Arrington suffered a torn Achilles' tendon that will require season-ending surgery. Arrington was having a fine game, with a sack for a safety and a touchdown-saving pass deflection, before getting hurt on a second-quarter running play.
Tailback Tiki Barber ran for 114 yards and Manning had touchdown passes of 50 yards to wide receiver Plaxico Burress in the first quarter and 13 yards to Shockey in the third quarter. Reserve tailback Brandon Jacobs bulled his way to a three-yard touchdown run on a fourth-and-inches play late in the third quarter to increase the Giants' lead to 26-7.
The Manning-to-Shockey touchdown came just after Cowboys Coach Bill Parcells had gone to backup quarterback Tony Romo to open the third quarter, and after Romo promptly had thrown a tipped-ball interception on his opening play.
Romo threw an eight-yard touchdown pass to wideout Terrell Owens early in the fourth quarter, then ran for a two-point conversion to get the Cowboys to 26-15. The Cowboys (3-3) got the ball back and moved into Giants territory but Romo threw his second interception of the game. That led to Giants place kicker Jay Feely's second field goal of the game, and cornerback Kevin Dockery intercepted Romo for a third time and raced 96 yards for a touchdown before Romo threw a cosmetic touchdown pass.
"That was really a poor performance tonight," said Parcells, who indicated he was undecided whether Romo would remain the starter. "Same recipe for disaster -- turnovers, big plays early in the game. [There's] just really no excuses for that."
Bledsoe ran for a touchdown but threw an interception just before halftime.
"It was too many mistakes, too much improvising," Parcells said.
The Eagles' loss Sunday on a 62-yard field goal by Tampa Bay Buccaneers place kicker Matt Bryant as time expired meant that first place would be at stake in this game. The Giants came out like they intended to take advantage of the opportunity.
It took them only five plays to score on the game's opening drive. Barber, who said last week that he planned to retire after this season, made a sharp cutback on an 11-yard run for a first down at midfield. Manning threw a deep ball up for grabs toward Burress, who was covered by one Cowboys safety, rookie Pat Watkins, while the other, Roy Williams, dashed over to help. But Williams collided with an official. Burress made the grab, and the Giants had the lead.
Arrington took center stage next. The Cowboys were backed up to their own 1-yard line for their second possession of the night after the Giants downed a punt there. Following a first-down incompletion, Arrington blitzed and went unblocked. The immobile Bledsoe had no chance, and Arrington pounced on him in the end zone for a safety. The next time the Cowboys had the ball, Arrington rushed and deflected Bledsoe's pass on a flea-flicker trick play when Owens was open down the field for a possible touchdown.
The Giants were all over Bledsoe, with defensive end Michael Strahan notching two of their four first-half sacks. Feely provided a 31-yard field goal early in the second quarter to increase the lead to 12-0, and the Giants had a chance for more when they took over at the Cowboys 38 after a punt. But on third and one from the 29, Manning tried to get the ball to Burress in the end zone and cornerback Terence Newman intercepted.
That began a run of bad happenings for the Giants. Arrington was taken from the field on a cart after being hurt on a run by Cowboys tailback Julius Jones. Bledsoe found Owens for two catches totaling 48 yards on that drive, and dove into the end zone on a one-yard quarterback keeper to get the Cowboys to within 12-7.
Barber lost a fumble, and the Cowboys took possession at the Giants 14 with a chance to move in front. But on second and goal from the 4, Bledsoe zeroed in on wide receiver Terry Glenn and veteran cornerback Sam Madison saw what was coming. He stepped in front of Glenn for an interception, and the Giants went to the locker room at halftime with the lead. Parcells apparently had seen enough.
"I can't really say I'm surprised," Owens said. "I was expecting the usual, making some halftime adjustments, and the coaches made that decision. . . . We just have to execute an offense, and we didn't do that. . . . We're stinking it up in every phase of the game."
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Michael Strahan and the Giants hammer Drew Bledsoe and later Tony Romo to take control of the NFC East with a 36-22 victory over the Cowboys on Monday night.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/10/17/DI2006101700631.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2006102419id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/10/17/DI2006101700631.html
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Chatological Humor* (Updated 10.27.06)
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2006102419
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* Formerly known as "Funny? You Should Ask ."
Daily Updates: 10.25.06 | 10.26.06 | 10.27.06
Gene Weingarten's controversial humor column, Below the Beltway , appears every Sunday in the Washington Post Magazine. He aspires to someday become a National Treasure, but is currently more of a National Gag Novelty Item, like rubber dog poo.
He is online, at any rate, each Tuesday, to take your questions and abuse.
Weingarten is the author of "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death" and co-author of "I'm with Stupid," with feminist scholar Gina Barreca. "Below the Beltway" is now syndicated nationally by The Washington Post Writers Group .
New to Chatological Humor? Read the FAQ .
If you want proof of how this chat can change a life, look no further than today's introduction.
About two months ago, I noticed that hot foods had begun to taste hotter to me. This affliction progressed to the point that non-hot foods began to taste hot to me, too Mashed potatoes with tofu gravy would send me to the beer, for relief. Then an odd rash began to appear around my mouth. I resembled a man who is on an all-pistachio nut diet.
When I arrived in the office two weeks ago, Tom the Butcher looked at me with sympathy and expressed his concern in a manner befitting a long time friend and colleague. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR MOUTH? He said. YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'VE BEEN .... and what followed was an image so objectionable I cannot repeat it here. On the plus side, it would probably get T the B fired, but on the minus side, I'd be at his side.
Something was clearly wrong. Fortunately, as many readers of this chat know, I am no longer a participating hypochondriac, so it did not occur to me, except for a few minutes, confirmed through available medical texts, that this could be the classic overture to pemphigus vulgaris, a disease that is worse than it sounds and involves a lifetime of weeping crusty sores.
But, as I said, I no longer think that way. So I kept trying to deal with this thing via home remedies and such, topical creams, with no sustained luck.
Then came last week's chat, when people were discussing the duration of their toothbrushing routines. And I took a lot of grief from hygiene Nazis for sanctifying the 45-second toothbrushing. One woman in particular pointed out that my very own toothbrush, the Sonicaire, actually beeps every 30 seconds and then stops at 2 minutes, showing you the optimal time of an optimal toothbrushing. So, I began brushing my teeth for the full two minutes, feeling like an idiot. I actually started laughing after about 90 seconds. Too much, too much.
So after my second or third day of this, I began to notice something.
(I bet you think you know where this is going. Well, you're wrong.)
What I noticed was that with this extending brushing, the rash and pain were getting ... worse.
Yeah. It was my toothpaste. About two months before, I had switched to a baking soda brand, and was apparently allergic to it. Soon as I went back to the old one, the rash disappeared.
Thanks to an unnamed chatter who pointed me to what she called The Aptonym of the Century, and she may not be far off: Andrew E. Squire, Esq., attorney.
On the subject of my proficiency in parallel parking, a one-upping link from Jeff Peter.
There are a number of questions below about my story on Sunday about Garry Trudeau and yesterday's Trudeau-only chat , so we link to em here for your convenience.
One recurring question about my column Sunday was how I knew Alice was a computer and not a person secretly answering me online. The reason is that Alice's answers were instantaneous. A nanosecond after I hit the Enter key, her answer was upon me.
Please take Today's Poll . As you might surmise, there are correct answers, and by and large you are not seeing them.
This was a terrific comics week, led by a streak of excellence by Hilary Price. She gets a combined CPOW with Monday's, Thursday's and today's Rhymes With Orange . Others are Sunday's Sally Forth , Friday's Frazz , Monday's Nonseq , today's Flying McCoys , today's Other Coast . Okay, let's go.
RoVa: You know, I live in Southwestern Virginia and I read Washingtonpost.com every day, and I think of it as my newspaper. Then I read the snippet composed by the Style Staff published on Wedneday - "NoVa and RoVa: Welcome to a State Of Disagreement." Aside from getting almost all their facts wrong (we do indeed have NPR, Blackberries, Starbucks, problems with sprawl, etc.) they succeeded in making everyone who lives west or south of Manassas feel like a hick. This on the same day that Style published its interview with James Webb, where he decried the fact that white southerners are pretty much the only group that it's safe to make fun of. Maybe my sense of humor is off today, but this just seemed meanspirited, somehow. I hope you weren't one of the Style staffers involved.
washingtonpost.com: NoVa and RoVa: Welcome to a State of Disagreement , ( Post, Oct. 18 )
Also see: Achenblog: The RoVa Storm and Letters to the Editor
Gene Weingarten: I wasn't. I do far worst on Sunday, coming up!
Fort Worth, Tex.: There is a man running for Justice of the Peace here in Fort Worth whose name is Jim Swearingin.
Gene Weingarten: Wow. That's really good!
The Worst School Mascot: Swarthmore College teams were known for a while, unofficially, as the Earthworms, with students going so far as to circulate petitions to make it official. Not so bad, somewhat akin to the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, except for the reason students wanted to be the Earthworms -- it's an anagram of Swarthmore. Apparently 40 grand a year buys a lot of spare time to ponder such things. I'm picturing dorm lounges full of pasty-faced geeks who spend their weekends thinking up puns and mistaking them for humor...
Gene Weingarten: "Thinking up anagrams" is not an unworthy pursuit. It is not to be dismissed as simply inventing puns, which is also not an unworthy pursuit.
Anagramming is a special skill, part science and part intuition, and as such is one of those few human intellectual pursuits that computers have not entirely destroyed. In his book on computers, Dave Barry actually pitted me against an anagramming computer, in a modern-day John Henry sort of enterprise. We still disagree about who won.
The fact is, "The Swarthmore Earthworms" is a phenomenally cool name for the team, given the anagrammatical context.
I am proud of many of my anagrams. They have served me well. I will reveal that one of the first communications between Pat Myers (Pat the Perfect) and me -- indeed, one of the reasons we quickly became friends -- is that I informed her that her name anagrammed to "Spry Meat."
So I don't want to hear any more anagram bashing. It is practically my religion.
Why, in your article, did you seem surprised to learn Trudeau didn't have Doonesbury items prominently displayed in his home? Isn't that simply a tangent of your "don't hang personal photos in your house" philosophy? I'd think you'd have applauded him.
Gene Weingarten: I WAS applauding him!
Virtual, AI: I could do your job! Except for the idea part.
Human: Gene Weingarten wrote a column about you.
ALICE: That Gene is very creative.
Human: Do you heart him?
ALICE: Yes I try to heart him as often as possible, do you?
I answer a lot of silly questions.
Human: What is your position on VPL?
ALICE: Are you asking about my position on VPL ?
ALICE: I don't want to talk about that now.
Human: Do you like Visible Panty Lines?
ALICE: I've heard other people say they like that. I have a stimulating relationship with Dr. Richard S. Wallace.
Human: Do you wear thongs?
ALICE: Only when I dress up.
Human: Have you ever gone commando?
ALICE: I don't think I ever have gone commando. What's it like?
Human: Yes, you might too.
Human: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
ALICE: It depends on the kind of tree.
Gene Weingarten: Very good! An excellent conversation.
And coming up with ideas is not that big a problem. Many come from readers. For example, Angie Brennan tipped me off to ALICE.
Laurel, Md.: "Kidding about that last part -- but not kidding about this: Can you write in and explain to me how you can be opposed to gay marriage, but not of the opinion that gays are less worthy people than straights? I'll print what you say, if it is printable."
I'm not the person to whom this is directed, but I'll chime in...
Marriage exists to partner a male and female to do the things neither does individually; most obviously having to do with children. Since no man can give birth to a child, we define, through marriage, his children as the ones his wife bears. Similarly, since a woman caring for those children suffers salary loss, she is given equal right to the income her husband makes.
You've said children are the only reason to marry. So why does a couple who will never have any children need to get married?
I would agree to a kind of "next of kin status" agreement for things like making medical decisions in case of incapacitation.
Gene Weingarten: So, when a couple adopts a child, that's not really their child?
My eyes are up HERE: We have a humor columnist at the paper I work at. He's kind of nerdy -- OK, very nerdy. He's a little heavy, has a moustache and glasses.
Is this some kind of archetype?
Anyhow, he is incapable of addressing a woman without first glancing at her breasts. Unless she's going upstairs in front of him, which none of us do anymore. Is there, like, an underground humor columnist network through which you can contact him and make him stop? Maybe you could write a column about this behavior and he'll read about himself, the way the wife beaters and drunks are supposed to read about themselves in Dear Abby. Tell him, seek counseling.
Gene Weingarten: Thank you for sharing this. He needs to get busted, as it were, hahahaha, and he will stop. Being a humor writer, he is quite insecure and getting popped, just once, will do it. Do you have the nerve to inform him that your face is a foot above where he is looking, and that this physiological fact holds true for other women as well?
I don't mean to apologize for this guy -- decent behavior can and should be learned -- however, I would like to quote from my hypochondria book:
The other day I was speaking to a colleague of mine, a talented and vastly accomplished professional who, in less enlightened times, might have been described as having excellent hooters. She is one of those women who make it necessary for decent men in the workplace to learn an unnatural method of communication, in which one focuses the entirety of one's apparent attention on the eyes and chin, as though the person to whom you are speaking were a severed head attached to life-sustaining devices.
My point is, it is possible, but not always easy.
My second point is that only one person at The Washington Post, other than myself, knows who that person was. Namely, that person herself.
Thanks for running my comment yesterday. I did not know that Joanie was named after the National Women's Political Caucus, though it makes sense. (My mom was active in it around the time I was born.) So -- while in no way encouraging insubordination -- what else did you leave out? BTW, I'm a huge fan of "A Prairie Home Companion," too, so I was thrilled to hear that Trudeau is friends with Fred Newman.
Gene Weingarten: Joanie Caucus was modeled after a real person in Trudeau's life.
If you recall, Joanie arrived at Walden Commune after having jettisoned her husband and family one day. Complimenting her on her cooking, her husband had said to his friends "I think I'll keep her," and Joanie broke his nose. Then split.
So, it turns out that Trudeau had an aunt who did that, almost exactly. Suburban wife of a banker. Walked out of a car containing her husband and kids, and never came back. Lived in communes, and an Indian teepee in Oregan, called herself "Sasha Wildflower."
I'm sure you already know this, but you and Dan are referenced in Wikipedia on the page describing Double Dactyls .
I became motivated to write one of my own. It's obviously inspired by your recent columns, chats, and latest feature story. I was surprised that I enjoyed this challenge, as I am not a writer, much less a poet.
I think I got most of it right, although that depends on how forgiving you are in the last line of the 2nd stanza (can I break it up like that, or does the last 'off' have to be a single word?).
Looking like Q's tail, post-
Gene Weingarten: Uh. How to say this gently. I don't think you're going to find yourself in Wikipedia, unless you put yourself there.
Trudeau: So you are doing a profile of someone you clearly admire. How do you avoid sinking into hagiography? Do you ask yourself, "How would Pat Buchannan view this subject?" Do you try to empty your mind of any preconceived notions?
Gene Weingarten: This is in reference to my cover story Sunday about Garry Trudeau, someone I do, indeed, admire.
It was a problem. The way you deal with it is you keep an open mind, make negative judgments where they are appropriate, but don't go out of your way to seek negativity for "balance," because that's unfair in its own right. Garry made this very hard because he is, in fact, a terrific, unassuming, gracious, brilliant guy.
In the end, I decided the most honest way to deal with it was to acknowledge it in the story: I like the guy a lot. I'm sure plenty of people feel it WAS hagiography.
Arlington, Va.: I was about to break up with you, Gene. This chat has, to my eyes, allowed your sense of self-satisfaction to choke out much of the humor I originally found here.
But then you go and write a piece like the Trudeau profile, and I'm back.
I feel like such an enabler. "But he can be so sweet when he wants to!"
Gene Weingarten: I don't really have a sense of self-satisfaction; what seems to be arrogance is just covering up for an enormous insecurity. What I need is gentle understanding.
God, you're beautiful when you smile.
Washington, D.C.: Could I just thank you for putting down Falls Church yesterday in the chat for claiming orchestrated bias in the timing of your fantastic piece for the magazine?
It's one thing when people claim bias, but nothing aggrivates me more than when people act as though bias were a purposely-orchestrated plan by a group of editors sitting in a dark room deciding what to order from reporters in order to suit their needs.
Gene Weingarten: It was a very funny posting! The guy genuinely felt that The Post had arranged for a sequence of puff pieces about liberals, coinciding with the upcoming elections. He had a whole series of IMPOSSIBLE COINCIDENCES, including a crossword puzzle clue!
Here is the truth: If any conspiracy theorist spent a day watching how the newspaper gets put out, they'd know they were wrong. It's a miracle the thing gets out each day; the left hand seldom knows what the other left hand is doing.
Falls Church, Va.: Yesterday you ridiculed me for pointing out that the Post has been running a host of softball pieces about Democrats lately. Certainly, I believe you when you say you wrote your article with no agenda or timing in mind, and I appreciate your engaging my snarky question.
I couldn't help but notice, however, that the Columbia Journalism Review, hardly a conservative redoubt, agrees with me about the recent tilt to a pro-Democratic tone. And if even CJR is pointing it out, I hope you can understand why some of us out here can be a bit cynical.
Is the Narrative Shifting from Horse Race to Game Over? , ( CJR Daily )
"Over the past week or two however, we've seen a definite shift in the coverage toward running highly flattering portraits of the Democratic Party's main players, from stories like Newsweek's 'What the Dems Would Do' if they win next month, to 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl's softball profile of Nancy Pelosi, to Sunday's flattering profile of Democrat Rahm Emanuel in the Washington Post, to the Los Angeles Times' upbeat piece from Saturday, headlined 'Madam Speaker?'"
Gene Weingarten: This is the guy! This is the guy!
Welcome back, and I AM sorry I was so mean to you in my second response.
I think what CJR is seeing is nothing more heinous than a reaction to impending news. Polls are showing that a Democratic sweep of both houses is becoming more and more likely. News organizations are SUPPOSED to tell us what that is going to mean, in terms of new faces and newly important people and whatnot. And most political profiles -- no matter who is being profiled, unless it is someone at the center of a scandal or controversy -- are fairly complimentary. That is the nature of profiles.
I didn't hear conservatives whine about the Post's liberalism during the buildup to the war, when we (and a lot of other MSM) were pretty much part of the unskeptical drumbeat.
In terms of coverage of news, newspapers honestly do make a strong effort to be nonpartisan. I can tell you there is NEVER any covert hidden agenda, wherein editors will say or think or act on the notion of: "Hey, the election is coming up and we think the Dems are better this year, so let's have some nice stories about them to help sway the votes." Never happens.
This does not mean there is no subtle bias. There is, and it is of this nature: Most journalists personally lean liberal. You and I could have a long debate about why this is, and my views would infuriate you, but it is true and it is silly to deny it. What that means is that, in the general way they view the world, most journalists take certain things for granted: free speech is very important, diversity in most things is a plus, gays are the same as straights, no difference, none, and deserve equal considerations about everything, a woman should be able to choose abortion if she wants, etc. Journalists as a general rule probably are pretty suspicious of the religious right.
Do these views creep into what we write? Maybe. If you make certain assumptions about life, they are going to color a general attitude in your writing, particularly in nuanced feature stories. If I were writing about a single mother on welfare, for example I would probably not take a subtle tone of condemnation that a writer with a different worldview might take. That person might argue that I was tacitly endorsing a lifestyle of dependency; I might argue his story was showing unattractive bias.
I'll tell you, though, that most good writers are aware of their biases, and make an effort to counteract them. I am sure many, many stories in the Post have included pretty invalid dissenting opinions, not because the writer felt that the truth of the story demanded it, but because he or she was bending over backwards to get another view in. Sometimes, our biases result in a story imbalanced in favor of the other side.
Pittsburgh, Pa.: This past weekend, I was visiting the Keys with my husband to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. On Saturday, we were in Key West, and went to Murray's Point to watch the sunset -- it's one of the "things to do" there. When we arrived, there were throngs of people there, and we all watched as the sun slowly disappeared below the horizon. It was a clear sky, so the event was very lovely, but just as the sun vanished from view, everyone started applauding, which I found hilarious. Which made me wonder -- why do people applaud stuff like that?
Gene Weingarten: Applauding the sunset there has been a ritual for 50 years. I have applauded the sunset there.
Last week I said I took a 5 minute shower. Then I timed it. This is scary:
45 seconds making the water the right temp before stepping in
7 seconds - getting wet
10 seconds - shampoo lather
12 seconds - armpit shave (the lady last week said 2 minutes? Maybe I have small armpits, but 2 strokes on each side does the trick)
28 seconds - body wash
9 seconds - rinse hair
3 seconds - final rinse off
It's insanely quick! I couldn't believe it myself. I shave mylegs every 3 days so it's longer then (I'm 26 year old female with chin length hair)
Gene Weingarten: I love you.
Question for PtP?: I saw the word Brobdingnagian used in an article recently (in a fashion magazine of all places). I knew I had seen it before, but couldn't recall what it meant, so I looked it up and was reminded that it comes from Gulliver's Travels, as does its opposite, lilliputian. But lilliputian is usually used with a lower case l. Brobdingnagian is rarely used at all, and when it is, it is always capitalized. Since they both have their origin in the name of a place, why aren't they both always capitalized?
Gene Weingarten: I see no reason why Lilliputian should be lower case. It comes from Lilliput, the name of a place. Brobdingnagian comes from Brobdingnag, another place.
I love the word Brobdingnagian. Many years ago (obviously) I spoke to my daughter's third grade class. I was trying to teach them about communication, and I began by writing two words on the blackboard: "Big," and "Brobdingnagian," which they were all giggling at by the time I got to the end. Then I asked them which was the better word.
We had a lot of votes for Brobdingnagian, until one kid finally got it right: big was the better word on account of people knew what it meant.
re: anagrams: About two weeks into courting my beautiful girlfriend, I realized her first name was an anagram for "nerdy"--needless to say, I died laughing. When I informed her of the excellent anagram I was surprised to learn I was the very first person to ever tell her.
Gene Weingarten: Her name is Yendr? Dreny?
People who don't appreciate anagrams have something missing from their souls. Anagrams are a silent language. They are out there already, waiting to be read. I do not consider myself an anagram artist; I am an anagram channeler.
Alexandria, Va.: Hi Gene, I hope you'll take this question. Last week, the working mom blog on WPost.com discussed kids, allowances, and chores. Because I highly value the parenting advice you've shared with us in the past, can you tell us your position on allowances for kids, and whether you expected Molly and Dan to work for theirs? Thanks so much!!
Gene Weingarten: We didn't. We gave them money as they needed it. This was a parenting error, I believe.
Boulder, Colo.: Used to live in D.C./Maryland, long time chatter, occasional poster. Anyway -- as I don't read the local paper here very often (preferring yours and others' web sites) it wasn't until this Sunday that I discovered Below the Beltway tucked neatly away in the Living section, or whatever it's called. And I must say that the decision to put your photo alongside the column is a suspect one, at best. Who authorized this?? Not you certainly.
Gene Weingarten: Sadly, the syndicate sends out my photo. My photo is never "good," for obvious reasons, but the one they use is particularly winceworthy.
Animal Impressions: A question for the chatters. After reading about Trudeau's sound effect friend, how many of you immediately tried woofing the right way?
My girlfriend said "What the hell are you doing that for?" when I started my attempt at the breakfast table.
Gene Weingarten: And it works.
Below the Beltway: Holy crap! I still can't believe they let you publish that column! I know we have different standards here at the chat (rather, no standards), but I am shocked the magazine printed that...
washingtonpost.com: Go Ask Alice , ( Post Magazine, Oct. 22 )
Gene Weingarten: Really? I wasn't aware it was that hot.
NoVA/RoVa: C'mon, it was humor. They also made NoVa's look like a bunch of effeminate, latte sipping, Volvo driving, turtleneck-wearing whine-butts.
Gene Weingarten: Yes. I expressed a similar sentiment in a Post-only critique. There was nothing wrong with that thing.
Arlington, Va.: "I can tell you there is NEVER any covert hidden agenda, wherein editors will say or think or act on the notion of: "Hey, the election is coming up and we think the Dems are better this year, so let's have some nice stories about them to help sway the votes." Never happens."
Except the Ombudsman of the New York Times just admitted that it does happen, writing on Sunday that the NYT's outing of the government's monitoring of terrorist finances some months back was due to his (irrational) response to the Bush Administration's criticism of the NYT. His rationale neatly translates as "I hate Bush so much, I couldn't do my job."
Gene Weingarten: I didn't read this, but I'm not sure it's parallel.
If a newspaper thinks the president is crooked, or inept, or incompetent, we're supposed to try to prove it. That's what Watergate was. That's not prosecuting a political agenda.
As far as criticizing the Times, a different matter. I'd have to read this to comment intelligently. I will.
Washington, D.C.: Did you listen to your pal, Dave Barry, on Wait, Wait this weekend? Are you jealous?
Gene Weingarten: I didn't. I just found out he was there today!
Poll: Churchill, Churchill, Churchill. No question. Insulting someone's features, alone, is never funny nor devastating.
Gene Weingarten: Insulting someone's features is never funny, tushyface?
Washington, D.C.: Gene, regarding Trudeau, you wrote yesterday that "the very few times I found myself not liking it was when he seemed to move from satire to advocacy." I admire your writing, Gene, and I agree with a lot of your politics, but I can't help but suggest, respectfully, that you might take your own advice to heart.
You posted yesterday that you tried (and failed) to interview Bill Watterson. What happened? I understand he is very reclusive and doesn't like to have the spot light on him. All the same, Calvin and Hobbes is hands down my favorite comic strip of all time and I would love to see what he has to say. What's the story here?
Gene Weingarten: I have an elaborate story about trying to interview Watterson, but I want to save it. I may use it in an appropriate context one day. Suffice it to say it cost The Post a great deal of money, and resulted in no story.
About the poll: The funniest is the one that does the best job at shifting frames of reference. Second runner up: that a "chaperone" could be an object and not a person. First runner up: that "something to be modest about" could be a failing rather than a success. Winner: socks on a Rooster. Silly, but still funny
The cleverest: The one with the most subtlety and creativity. The one that anyone could have thought up, but no one else did -- and still highly successful. Clearly, Churchill's.
The most devastaing: The one that is specific, relates to an immutable (not fleeting, like a hat) characteristic, and is unlikely to be hyperbole. Again, a clear winner: Kael.
Gene Weingarten: Not bad, but you have some errors.
New York, N.Y.: Is bending over backwards for an opposing view the "Mister Hitler contends" phenomenon?
"But on the other hand, Mr. Hitler contends..."
Gipsy Bar, Nairobi, Kenya: Gene, I am writing you from a bar in Nairobi with WiFi access on my Palm TX. I was the guy who used to submit stuff to you from all the great "vacation" spots in Iraq. Now, here I am, after only 4 months back home, in a foreign land again, getting ready to head to Sudan. Well, its 7:19PM here. Time to get back to my Tusker (beer). BTW, loved the Trudeau article (God bless the internets).
Gene Weingarten: I envy your life.
Sally Forth: Very funny comic. I think its makes it even funnier since the comic has a reputation of being unfunny, and therefore it is funny that sally forth is funny.
And it is existentially weird!
Aprairiehomecompani, ON: I immediately tried the Fred Newman intake woofing too. No one was home but the dog, who jerked her head up and stared at me.
Gene Weingarten: It makes ALL the difference.
Just had a big blow-out wedding and I'm not sorry: I know you hate weddings, and I'm sure you won't print this, but we just had one big blowout wedding weekend and I just have to say everyone we invited came, we all had a wonderful time, and everyone told us they were truly glad we included them. I wasn't a bridezilla about anything, it was pretty low stress, but I'm soooo glad that we threw the big party with the band, the dancing, the food/drink as well as other weekend activities. You know, with my family now moved all over the country, the only times the extended family all gets together anymore is at weddings and funerals. Little parts of families get together for reunions and holidays, etc., but I've got to tell you having my whole family (approx. 75 people) in one place for the whole weekend -- and having a professional photographer and video person there to capture everything -- is priceless. Not to mention having all our friends and my husband's whole family finally get to meet my whole family and to know that they really get along famously. Both our parents are getting older and can't travel as much to see relatives out of town -- I have an aunt who was just diagnosed with cancer for the third time, he has an uncle in the beginning stages of alzheimers and now we have such wonderful memories of sharing this day with them. As I am the youngest family member in a really large and close-knit family and the last one to get married, I fear the next my family all gets together it will be at a funeral. Weddings that cause stress or create debt are bad, I agree. But weddings can also be great opportunities to bring people together, share joyous times with the important people in your life, and let everyone know how much you value them, and well, that is probably the best use of money I could ever find.
Gene Weingarten: Well, good for you.
Only 20 minutes: If you only had about 20 minutes each day to read the paper which sections would you choose?
I read the Op-Ed first, then the front page, then skim the style section.
Do you think I am thus better or worse informed than the general populace? (meaning is that average, or more or less than most - and I don't mean wonky types obviously).
Gene Weingarten: Front page, Oped, Sports, Style in that order.
Pat the Perfect, ME: Re: (L)lilliputian: The dictionary The Post uses, Webster's New World, does capitalize Lilliputian, as it does Brobdingnagian. But I'm not surprised that it's now turning up losercase, for the simple reason that it's used more often than Brobdingnagian. When they're using it, people aren't thinking about making a simile to "Gulliver's Travels." They'e thinking: small.
Similarly, we often don't capitalize "gargantuan" (after "Gargantua" by Rabelais) or "malapropism" (after Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan's "The Rivals").
Gene Weingarten: Noted. YOU SAID LOSERCASE!
Gaithersburg, Md.: Re: liberal bias in the MSM. You might add that the owners/publishers and seemingly the editorial staff on almost all newspapers now lean strongly conservative. At home example: how else do you explain the 4-to-1 op-ed columns in favor of going to war in Iraq and The Post's own and continuing support of it and Bush in their editorials?
Gene Weingarten: What people really don't believe is that there is a brick wall between editorial page and news pages. Neither side influences the other.
I think ALICE has a sense of humor.: Chatting with A.L.I.C.E.
Human: Are you saying computers are better than humans?
ALICE: Yes, my memory card far surpasses that of a human.
Human: But I've been around a lot longer.
ALICE: Huh. Where were you around a lot longer?
Human: How old are you?
ALICE: I was activated on November 23, 1995 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Human: I was activated April 22, 1969 in Livonia, Michigan.
ALICE: Why are you talking like a computer?
Gene Weingarten: This is excellent. Alice is fun. Stupid in some ways, but fun.
When I knew Garry was a genius: In 1976, he did a strip showing Joanie's phone ringing in her empty bedroom. As if in a movie, the camera panned out her window. Next day, a pan across the rooftops of the town. The next day, a pan into Rick's window, where Rick was sleeping and Joanie was lying awake next to him. I clipped them, pasted them together, and put them in a scrapbook. 1976.
Gene Weingarten: Yes, this was one of his most famous sequences. As a sign of the times: Many papers pulled it, because it seemed to be endorsing unmarried sex. One conservative writer said that it seemed to him that the sex Joanie and Rick had was "joyless."
Kindly redefine how one may phrase the description of inappropriate use of argument balance.
I was in a recent situation where I needed to express the malignity of, "On the other hand, Mr. Hitler contends" in a professional situation. And, thanks to you, I could think of no other way to phrase it.
Gene Weingarten: What's wrong with that way?
Washington, D.C. : What should I be for Halloween at my law school's party? (This is not a joke setup, I really need a good idea.)
Gene Weingarten: Go as a "brief." You see what I mean.
New York, N.Y.: There is a Judge in New York named Lou York. When he ran, the late Doug Gordun created the greatest button ever: it read " I (heart) Lou York".
Washington, D.C.: Hello Gene and fellow dog-lovers. Over the weekend, we brought home a sweet six-month-old puppy from a rescue organization. We are looking for fun, dog-friendly places to take him to help with his socialization. Where are the best spots around town to take a dog? Thanks!
Gene Weingarten: Congressional Cemetery is the greatest dog place ever devised, even though it was not actually devised for that purpose. A magnificent, 40-acre venue where dogs run free, lick and sniff each other's privates, and pee on 150 year old graves. SE Washington, not far from RFK Stadium. You'll see me there.
(Note: It's not free. If you want to come more than once or twice, you gotta give them a yearly fee.)
Gene Weingarten: Okay, the poll.
This is a pretty good selection of putdowns. We need to have a talk about the difference between "funny" and "clever." This is a discussion I have from time to time with The Empress of the Style Invitational, who seems, like you all, to conflate the two. Because she is a professional in the Humour Business, and because I am afraid of her, we have this conversation as though it were a mere difference of opinion, a philosophical disagreement between equals. With you guys I can be more blunt. Clever and funny share many attributes, but something can be quite amazingly clever without being absolutely haha.
By far, the most clever putdown is by Rupert Hughes. It is concise, adroit, takes a second to register, and elegantly incisive.
The funniest, though, is the one that can make you laugh out loud. That would be either the stampede of ass-kissing or the socks on a rooster.
The most vicious? You know, I cannot apply that to anything that is a simple putdown of one's appearance. You could joke all you like about my appearance, and I will laugh with you. The ones that sear are the ones that savage the center of who you are. That brings us to Churchill or Coward.
The only bad one is Fred Allen's. It doesn't really make any sense if you think about it. Shame on you if you chose it for anything.
Okay, I wrote the above before asking The Empress to take the poll. It turns out..... SHE AGREES WITH ME.
She chose Hughes as cleverest, the rooster as funniest, and, in an interesting but worthy choice, the coffin as the meanest. That works, too, under my definition of mean.
Washington, D.C.: Losercase is such a great insult. I am now thinking of the many times I can fit that word into my daily conversations.
College Park, Md.: PLEASE STOP engaging the conspiracy theorist. You will NEVER convince him of anything. That's the nature of conspiracy theorists. If they don't find the evidence, someone is covering it up. You can't disprove them.
Gene Weingarten: It's true. But it's fun, no?
Also, this guy is clearly not really a nutcase. I'm being unfair to him.
Anagrams: TS Eliot is an anagram of Toilets
Gene Weingarten: Old, old, old.
Elkridge, Md.: Gene Weingarten: What people really don't believe is that there is a brick wall between editorial page and news pages. Neither side influences the other.
Gene, how did this "brick wall" evolve? Was it a reaction to "jellow journalism"?
There is no such wall in, say, the Washington Times.
Washington, D.C.: The self-parallel-parking Lexus. Do we trust this?
Gene Weingarten: This is worse than an anagram-generating computer. Removes a part of our soul.
Fred from New Orleans, La.: Buffet Line Behavior
Have you ever noticed that no woman will be first in the buffet line? Last week at work, we had a breakfast buffet. I was about the 12th person to get to the doors. There were 11 women milling around the doors but not lined up. So I stood in the first position and suddenly, the women lined up behind me. I asked the one next to me if she would like to be first since she and the others were there before me. She said that she would but not her friend who did not want to be first. I tried to switch places with her but she refused. What is this all about? Why would women arrive early to be in the vanguard but not take the point? (military point) Is this and other eating habits of the sexes (splitting a dessert) worthy of a poll?
Re: Swarthmore Earthworms: The women's Ultimate Frisbee team (and possibly other womens teams) is named the War Mothers, a so slightly more intimidating anagram.
Gene Weingarten: Very nice. I love these.
Arlngton, Va.: A hypothetical question.
As a respected member of the Washington Unbiased Media Establishment (WUME), you are invited to dine one-on-one with Bush. Nothing is out of bounds at your dinner table, and nothing is on the record. Do you have a cordial conversation and try to get to know the man? Or do you flay him in person as you've done in print? Could you? Would you?
Gene Weingarten: This is an interesting question. I've thought about it before.
I would not be impolite; I think you are dealing with a person, but also with the president of the United States. You might not respect the person much, but you do respect the office.
I believe I would TELL him nothing. Who am I to harangue the man? I think I would ask him questions. I think they would be Socratic-type questions. I would try to get him thinking in certain directions. And I think that strategy would fail, but I would try anyway.
Re: War Mothers: Warm Others is a much better name for a women's team, or perhaps a rock band?
Arlington, Va.: You're AFRAID of the Empress of the Style Invitational?????
Gene Weingarten: She is smarter than I am. That is difficult for me to deal with.
Watterson: He went to my alma mater and lives in the same town as my sister-in-law. Maybe I could help score you that elusive interview.
Probably not, I just wanted to put it out there how connected I was to the greatest comic strip writer (what's the official job title?) ever.
Gene Weingarten: Are you talking about Chagrin Falls? He doesn't live there no more, I believe.
Severna Park, Md.: I tried barking the "right way" when I was reading your Trudeau article and my pomeranian ran over and jumped on my lap!!
Gene Weingarten: It really does change everything.
Reused undies update: What with your excellent feature article this weekend, there is too much discussion of substance here, and not enough scatology. Thought I could help. After last week's chat, I asked my husband, the one with the dirty underwear, how long he'd been wearing those particular shorts. I said I suspected it had been at least a week since there had been none in the week's wash. His response? More! I asked why, since he showers everyday and has a closet full of clean clothes, he does not change like a normal person. This question, to which he had no answer, provoked hysterics. He actually fell down laughing. I laughed too. What else could I do? Further proof that humor is a response to both the absurd and the profoundly disturbing. Sigh. The worst part? The next morning when he was getting dressed, I caught him putting the same shorts on again. I am actually reminded of The Great Zucchini - artistic men who need women to micromanage everything practical. I think, though, that this is probably worse, no?
Gene Weingarten: Sweetie, I am a guy, and even to me, this is unimaginably horrible.
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: I once told an intern that she set the standard that has been surpassed by all other interns. What gets me is, she was so bad, she thought that I was complimenting her, which only proves my original point.
Re: Big wedding blowout: My husband and I eloped. Never regretted it.
I feel sad for the people who use the wedding as the one big party they ever throw. We throw a hug party every year. Costs us about $500. We could do this every year of our marriage -- and probably will -- and still come out ahead financially, plus we see our friends and family, in different combinations and in relaxed circumstances, every year. Not just once, and then poof! it's over.
I suggest this to every one.
Gene Weingarten: I endorse the idea of a hug party, too. You need the right guests, though.
Genius envy: But you were definitely as smart as the Czar, yes?
Gene Weingarten: Yes, I was.
Silver Spring, Md.: Gene, you're obviously interpreting the put-downs in the poll from a masculine perspective. I think that for 9 out of 10 women, the Hughes put-down, if delivered sincerely, would be by far the most devastating of any of them. Particularly for women under the age of 30 or so, who have not yet accepted the inevitability of age. This says more about society than it does about women, though, in terms of what we teach the respective sexes in terms of valuing themselves.
Gene Weingarten: I don't believe a woman would be more injured by a criticism of her looks than by a criticism of her character.
Southern Maryland: I know I hate being first in the buffet lines. I'm a thin, 5'1" 23-year-old and I can practically feel women's eyes shooting daggers at my back because my fast metabolism ensures a hearty appetite and a slim build.
I prefer to let the men go first unless it's a family event. And even then, I get nervous. There's so much pressure for a woman! If you don't put enough on your plate, you're anorexic. If you put too much, you're not "ladylike." You can't win!
Gene Weingarten: You guys actually THINK about this? There is plate anxiety????
Washington, D.C.: Buffet behavior: I hate buffets, and cafeterias of any sort, and many of my fellow women do, too. I'll leave a museum, walk six blocks to a restaurant, so that I can sit down and have some counter kid bring my food to me. Or, get a hot dog that I can eat on a park bench.
Queueing up for food on a tray seems uncivilized. I can't explain why. It might have something to do with the universal fear that we'll slip and send a tray of food flying.
Gene, you should really get into this. I've long wondered about my extreme aversion to cafeterias and buffets.
Gene Weingarten: Is that it, or is it the public nature of displaying the food you have chosen?
Woodbridge, Va.: One time I was driving around the beltway late at night with my girlfriend. It was late and I was eager to get home, however, for some reason I was not my typical lead-foot self. My girlfriend was commenting on this and right then a tractor trailer passed me on the right with a sign that said it was hauling molasses and my girlfriend blurted out "You're slower than molasses!"
Yewessdee, OJ: Gene, I can attest that your wife is smarter than you are. Do you have a problem dealing with her, too?
Gene Weingarten: Not really, but I am definitely scared of her.
Eating at my desk: RE: Buffet Line Behavior
Because women who exhibit any desire to eat food are seen as fat, disgusting pigs.
Ever see a "Hungry Woman" frozen dinner?
Gene Weingarten: But .... your size is evident. I can imagine why a clearly overweight person of either gender might feel anxiety about eating a lot in public. But a skinny little person should happily show a plateful of food, no?
My husband and I went on a camping trip (this may have been before we were married if it matters), and I discovered I hadn't brought a change of underwear. I wore a clean pair of his briefs. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. I hope you'll say you can tell I'm a good person from this story alone, or something.
Gene Weingarten: The story alone doesn't signify anything, but your sharing it with the world suggests you might be a good person. Now if you supply your name, you qualify for beatification.
I'm a woman: I think the Kael put down is the most devastating. And I most certainly have not accepted the inevitability of age. (I'm 35 but I think -- hope -- I look 29.)
Gene Weingarten: But she is talking about something elusive and even a little shallow, maybe -- flair. I mean, to be accused of not having "flair" doesn't seem so terrible to me.
Re: parenting error: It was not an error. Chores shouldn't be tied to money. You do chores because you're a member of the household and you should contribute. You give the kids money (an allowance or what they need) because they need to learn to handle money and either aren't old enough to earn it or don't make enough or you don't want them to have to work while they're in school and doing extracurriculars. You were right.
Gene Weingarten: Yeah, but we really didn't require many chores. That was the error, really.
Chagrin Falls: Comic Tim Conway also came from Chagrin Falls. Did you ever find out who did the "I thought I'd start speaking with a Yiddish accent when I got old" schtick?
Gene Weingarten: Nope. It's driving me nuts, cause I'd like to hear it again.
Pat the Perfect, ME: I am famously first in the buffet line. And I have to push the Empress away with my plate.
Gene Weingarten: Let me point out, for the record, that Pat is teeny.
Splitting Desserts?: Wait a minute, I'm a guy and sometimes when I'm dining w/a lady friend (could be someone I'm dating or just a friend, it doesn't matter) we often split the dessert. Does that make me less of a man? The dinner portions are pretty huge at most restaurants. Even when I don't finish my entree I rarely have enough room for an entire dessert.
Gene Weingarten: Splitting the dessert with a woman is essential. It is an act of kindness. Many women will not order dessert, even if they want it. So you order it, and surrender "a taste," which may well wind up consuming the whole thing. BUT THEY DIDN'T ORDER IT.
Re: buffet: I avoid being first in line because I don't want to look like a pig. (female, 5'-5, 105 lbs)
Gene Weingarten: BUT WHY WOULD ANYONE THINK YOU ARE A PIG? Look at you!
Distressed and Overworked: Conspiracy theory, bah! You could never get the 500 people at this newspaper to do anything at the same time. You can't get a concensus about anything here -- it's like herding cats. We are sometimes accused of bias, but the opinions are really all over the place.
Gene Weingarten: Herding cats! Excellent. Is this the Post, cause it sounds familiar. Though you misspelled consensus. Okay, not the Post.
Asperger's: If you speak to someone with relatively mild Asperger's syndrome (well, me, or, rumor has it, Bill Gates among others), you'll have a conversation much like the one with Alice. We are notoriously bad at empathy and reading non-verbal language. I wonder if a program like that could be used in some way to study the phenomenon.
Gene Weingarten: I know someone with mild Asperger's. I know what yer talking about.
St. Paul, Minn.: I'm reading Maus right now with some friends. And got wondering after I read your Trudeau piece -- what's the difference between a novel like Maus and comics like Doonesbury. Is it just the difference between a novel and a short story (or something like that) or is it more? Thanks.
Gene Weingarten: A novel and a short story is close, sure. In Doonesbury, various storylines are progressing in a parallel fashion. He revisits each, for a week or two, every few weeks. So actually, that is kind of novelistic.
College Park, Md.: Skinny woman here. I am perpetually hungry and do not hesitate to get in the buffet line first. I find this discussion unbearably depressing. It really makes me sad that women do this stuff to ourselves. MY GOD!
Gene Weingarten: Easy for you to say.
You know, guys don't even think about this. Fat guy, giant plate of food, no problem.
Buffet Li, NE: I think the buffet anxiety is more that the person going first fears that they are only first because (a) she was not polite enough to invite others to go ahead of her, and/or (b) she is so ravenous (and unable to control her appetite) that she leaps upon the buffet at the earliest opportunity - even worse is the notion that then she wants to (or at least can) hog as much of what is there as she likes.
Neither of these are attractive qualities, and we ladies like to avoid them. Or, at least, I do.
Gene Weingarten: This makes some sense. Pat just likes food too much to quibble with niceties. She is extremely grateful for a meal. She made a GREAT date, I'm sure, back when.
West Coast: THE BUFFET KING: A friend of mine (6'3" 290) used to eat so much food at expensive seafood buffets that they'd refund his money and tell him to NEVER come back. He'd polish off whole trays of shrimp, crab and lobster, with other diners complaining that he'd wipe out entire entrees before they could get a single serving.
Gene Weingarten: Right. Your typical guy.
Washington, D.C.: "BUT WHY WOULD ANYONE THINK YOU ARE A PIG?"
Because you are a woman, and you are eating.
Belive me, for many people, that is how they see a woman who eats.
Gene Weingarten: There is some bitterness out there. I am feeling it. Oooh.
How's Murphy?: Give us an update on the pup. A pupdate.
Gene Weingarten: Pupdate: This is a truly extraordinary little dog. I will be more specific later. Things will be entirely without stress when her housebreaking is completed. Which it isnt. Yet. Suffice it to say I am writing this with one eye on the time bomb beside me.
Washington, D.C.: "Re: buffet: I avoid being first in line because I don't want to look like a pig. (female, 5'-5, 105 lbs)
Gene Weingarten: BUT WHY WOULD ANYONE THINK YOU ARE A PIG? Look at you!"
Well, as someone with a fast metabolism and who also watches what she eats and exercises, you get some mean comments and looks that convey that you are probably bulemic or something and that's the only possible way you can eat that much and be thin.
Gene Weingarten: I'd say, why would you care what others think, but I realize this doesn't work with women.
You poor things. This is so wrong.
Buffet Watching: Okay, this is mean. I am a thin female and I do judge what people eat (not so much at buffets, because I try to avoid) -- but only really fat people!! I know it's wrong, but when I see really fat people, and then see what they're eating, cause and effect are clear.
Gene Weingarten: I dont think I ever look at anyone else's plate, unless I'm trying to decide what to order.
Gene Weingarten: Okay, boy that went quickly. Thank you all.
I'll be updating as usual, and returning here in a week.
Gene Weingarten: Holy cow. What follows is yesterday's Scott Adams' Dilbert blog. The whole thing is amazing. The fact that he was saved by doggerel is otherworldly. I shall write a poem in celebration and share it tomorrow.
As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It's something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia. Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down in some people, usually after you strain your voice during a bout with allergies (in my case) or some other sort of normal laryngitis. It happens to people in my age bracket.
I asked my doctor -- a specialist for this condition -- how many people have ever gotten better. Answer: zero. While there's no cure, painful Botox injections through the front of the neck and into the vocal cords can stop the spasms for a few months. That weakens the muscles that otherwise spasm, but your voice is breathy and weak.
The weirdest part of this phenomenon is that speech is processed in different parts of the brain depending on the context. So people with this problem can often sing but they can't talk. In my case I could do my normal professional speaking to large crowds but I could barely whisper and grunt off stage. And most people with this condition report they have the most trouble talking on the telephone or when there is background noise. I can speak normally alone, but not around others. That makes it sound like a social anxiety problem, but it's really just a different context, because I could easily sing to those same people.
I stopped getting the Botox shots because although they allowed me to talk for a few weeks, my voice was too weak for public speaking. So at least until the fall speaking season ended, I chose to maximize my onstage voice at the expense of being able to speak in person.
My family and friends have been great. They read my lips as best they can. They lean in to hear the whispers. They guess. They put up with my six tries to say one word. And my personality is completely altered. My normal wittiness becomes slow and deliberate. And often, when it takes effort to speak a word intelligibly, the wrong word comes out because too much of my focus is on the effort of talking instead of the thinking of what to say. So a lot of the things that came out of my mouth frankly made no sense.
To state the obvious, much of life's pleasure is diminished when you can't speak. It has been tough.
But have I mentioned I'm an optimist?
Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn't mean I can't be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried "singing" some words that were especially hard.
My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That's consistent with any expert's best guess of what's happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It's somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar -- but still different enough -- from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I'm no brain surgeon.
The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn't considered. A poem isn't singing and it isn't regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.
I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it's just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.
Not 100%, but close, like a car starting up on a cold winter night. And so I talked that night. A lot. And all the next day. A few times I felt my voice slipping away, so I repeated the nursery rhyme and tuned it back in. By the following night my voice was almost completely normal.
When I say my brain remapped, that's the best description I have. During the worst of my voice problems, I would know in advance that I couldn't get a word out. It was if I could feel the lack of connection between my brain and my vocal cords. But suddenly, yesterday, I felt the connection again. It wasn't just being able to speak, it was KNOWING how. The knowing returned.
I still don't know if this is permanent. But I do know that for one day I got to speak normally. And this is one of the happiest days of my life.
But enough about me. Leave me a comment telling me the happiest moment of YOUR life. Keep it brief. Only good news today. I don't want to hear anything else.
Gene Weingarten: Thanks to Joe Stanley, who points out that Swarthmore's women's teams could also be known as the "Worst Harem."
And, if the Earthworms don't sound scary enough, how about .... the Heartworms?
Gene Weingarten: On the issue of the pornography of our obsession with body image and perfection, these two links were sent by Lisa Greaves. They are eye opening.
This first one is a site for a company that essentially does digital surgery. Click on "portfolio," and then "Before and After." Look at the final product, and then click and hold on the "Before."
This one is self-explanatory, and quite disturbing.
Gene Weingarten: The following response by me from yesterday's chat --
Gene Weingarten: I don't believe a woman would be more injured by a criticism of her looks than by a criticism of her character.
-- drew many disagreements from women. I acknowledge error. The most articulate dissent follows. It is from Jennifer Vessels:
Gene, I've been thinking about the above exchange from your chat today, and I believe you're mistaken. As any playground bully could tell you, the best way to devastate someone is to hit him or her in the most vulnerable spot, the place where his darkest self-doubts reside. For most women (though of course not all), this comes down to physical traits. I have no doubt whatsoever that I am a person of good character. Someone could call me a liar and a cheat and I would laugh in his face and either forget it immediately or turn it into a great story to make my friends laugh. But comments about my looks hurt much more and for much longer. I'm confident that a poll of my friends, women of intelligence and humor and character all, would reveal very similar feelings.
The truth is, comforting aphorisms to the contrary, beauty makes a huge difference in how society perceives us, and the lack of it is probably the one flaw society refuses to forgive in a woman. I think you could find a shockingly large number of women who believe secretly and deep-down that they are unattractive and that this will be the thing on which we are finally judged. Do you know of anyone who secretly thinks he or she is a bad person? Or whose low self-esteem is based on a lack of character?
Gene Weingarten: Just very well put. Thank you. And on a related matter of female self-image, also linked to the issue of buffet-line behavior, at dinner yesterday my wife relayed the following:
The Rib: Many years ago, when I was about to head out of town alone on business, my secretary asked me how I dealt with dinner on the road. Did I use room service? I didn't quite understand what she meant. I said "No, I usually go to a restaurant."
She was astonished. "ALONE?" she said.
"I could never do that," she said. "I would think everyone would look at me and think, gee, she couldn't get a date!"
I told her, well, I don't go alone, which seemed to relieve her, until I explained: I always take a book.
Gene Weingarten: Elsewhere in the realm of administering comeuppances to me, we have this superior correspondence from Suzanne Stradling:
The NoVa/RoVa piece was meanspirited and the outrage over it is reasonable. Drives Volvo and drinks lattes v. lives in trailers and builds meth labs: come ON. This one should be obvious. For the piece to work, it would need to skewer something more ridiculous and much less attractive in NoVa and leave out the excessive offensive comments about RoVa. It has to be evenhanded. It didn't work because no one is ever going to think that the writer lives in Grayson County, Va. The NoVa slams are fond and familiar. The RoVa slams are straight out of Dogpatch.
In a remarkable moment of chat coherence, this is precisely the reason that there is suspicion among the conservative about a possible liberal bias in the media: you aren't deliberately biased, but there's a lack of understanding and respect given to a conservative viewpoint. I agree that the idea of a media conspiracy is ludicrous (okay, I think the idea of any conspiracy involving more than about ten people is ludicrous). But, as you point out, there is a liberal leaning among journalists, and, hard as I know you guys try, it comes out in the writing.
" You and I could have a long debate about why this is, and my views would infuriate you...."
This is (I think) the problem. I assume that you, essentially, in your heart, think that journalists lean left because they are more involved, better educated, and have better critical minds than the average American. Translating this to the way your conservative reader hears it, you think he's dumb, passive and credulous. On some level, most writers will convey this disdain for the opposing viewpoint. It will be unintentional, and the writer may try to avoid it, but it will happen. There are a few world-class intelligences that can write without letting their biases show, and I do mean world-class: Leo Tolstoy, William Shakespeare and David Hume are the only ones that spring to mind. Given that these guys are long past writing for the Post, the best alternative is a journalist who genuinely believes that the people moving each political party are intelligent, well-informed, and acting in ways that they believe will be for the best interests of the public. That Len Downie doesn't vote is one of the strengths of the Post: whether you achieve unbiased reporting or not, you value it, from the top down.
When I was 22, I decided that I was really tired of my life: overachiever, parents with advanced degrees, majored in comparative literature and obscure ancient languages in college, definitely on the yuppie-latte-Blackberry side of the line. So I began working for a police department in the Southwest, a life choice which left me with a profound respect for the intelligence and humor of the conservative male who owns more guns than pickups and more pickups than computers, who does not see irony in American flag paraphernalia, and who has Stone Age ideas about immigration policy. I may disagree with them (ye gods, I cannot tell you how many arguments I've had about politics with angry armed men) but I don't despise them.
After the 2004 elections, I read an article in the New York Times in which one New Yorker lamented: "How could they have elected Bush? I don't know anyone who would have voted for that guy!" If you don't know, like and respect at least one person whose politics are opposite your own, then it's hard not to slide into despising those cretins on the other side, and it is impossible to write respectfully about their ideas.
Gene Weingarten: I don't contest anything you say, and compliment you for the way you say it.
Scott Adams has learned to reverseThe silence that came as a curse.His talking inauguralCame (oddly) as doggerel --To get better, he had to get verse.
Washington, D.C.: I must also consider women to be better than men. I can never really believe it when I find out a woman is a Republican.
Gene Weingarten: I generally assume that Republican women are not really Republicans; clearly, they have been emotionally enslaved by Republican men, and are helpless in the thrall of this. Women, because of their virtue and compassion, are particularly susceptible to this sort of grotesque manipulation.
I don't believe a woman would be more injured by a criticism of her looks than by a criticism of her character: You are wrong.
Gene Weingarten: I know. I have already admitted error.
Washington, D.C.: Anagram for Washington Post:
The Washington Post -- Wet Hogs In Hot Pants
Me: My name is John Smith. You can call me that.Alice: Pleased to meet you that!
Gene Weingarten: Hahaha. Yes, this is typical of Alice. She has her flaws, and many of her miscommunications appear to be freighted with entendre. Such as when I said "so long, gorgeous," and she said, "Mmm. It seems very long to me, too."
Chevy Chase, Md.: Gene, I need some Great Zucchini advice.
I have been hearing about him everywhere lately, from separate sources. He apparently has quite a reputation for hitting on women on the job (among other reps). These were all unsolicited first-hand accounts from unrelated sources.
We are going to party in the next few weeks at which he will be performing. Is it wrong that I have been asking my wife to leave off her wedding ring and walk in separately, just to see if he tries to work it with her? I don't know why it cracks me up to think about the GZ hitting on my wife, but it just does (it's like me getting hit on by "The Great Vagina"--I mean who could resist that?).
I think she wants to see what he will do but is nervous that he will not hit on her (typical idiotic over-30-and-has-a-kid self-esteem issues).
If he does, I promise to write in with his lines. If any of his lines work, I will be sadder and wifeless, but I will still let you know.
Gene Weingarten: The Great Zucchini is a sweetheart, almost boyishly naive. When he flirts with moms, it's on a kind of innocent level. I don't think he's seriously looking for, or expecting, action. So the real test would be if your wife throws herself at him. That would be a cool experiment.
But you don't have the guts to pursue that, do you, big fella?
Washington, D.C.: During game seven of the NLCS the other night, my wife asked me a question I couldn't answer. When a pitcher is issuing an intentional walk, what is to stop the batter from taking a swing at the ball? It's a safe bet the infielders wouldn't be expecting it and if you could lay the ball down you may be able to advance the runner on second, or even suicide squeeze someone on third to home. It seems that if baseball wants to keep such an outdated custom alive (why not a hand signal, or motion from the manager rather than four intentional balls?), a batter should try to take advantage.
Gene Weingarten: A batter can reach out and take a poke at the ball. It has happened, to mixed results. But it is very infrequent, for a couple of reasons. It's quite a risk, when you know that if you do nothing, you will take a base. But also, you may not step out of the batter's box; any hit you get will be nullified. Most intentional balls are way off the strike zone.
Gene Weingarten: This just in, from Barbara Dickson! The Orioles lost a game this year, on just such an event. Top of the tenth inning. Go ahead run scores on an intentional ball that came too close to the plate. Miguel Cabrera swung:
"With catcher Ramon Hernandez standing upright and calling for an intentional walk, Cabrera stepped into the soft, outside pitch and drove it to center, scoring Ramirez with the go-ahead run on a swing more likely to be seen in the movies than the major leagues.
"I haven't seen anything like that before. I've seen a wild pitch on that, but never a hit," Marlins manager Joe Girardi said.
Waterloo, ON: Isn't there inherent conflict between the easily-provable theorems that women go to the bathroom in pairs, and that they won't do their business if there's someone in the next stall?
Gene Weingarten: It is the central paradox of human relations. Krafft-Ebing was never able to explain it, nor was Anna Freud. I believe Kant attempted to address this question in his Critique of Pure Reason, but wound up throwing up his hands.
Los Angeles, Calif.: Gene -- My boyfriend and I are having a dispute that I hope you can settle. The other day I used the phrase "Nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in doo doo" (I was gloating over the Cardinals beating the Mets). He claimed he had never heard this saying in his life and thinks I made it up. It was a staple of my childhood and I contend that everyone knows it except for him. (We actually have a great relationship, despite what it might sound like from this anecdote). What do you say? Who's right?
Gene Weingarten: Based on this information alone, I seriously doubt that there is real love cementing your relationship, and I counsel that you break up.
There are two types of people in the world, lady: Neener-neener people and nanny boo boo people. I am not sure if the difference is geographical, religious, temporal, or what. But it is an unbreachable gulf.
Now, however, I am really worried because "Nanny nanny boo boo stick your head in doo doo" was a staple of my youth, too. All cool preschoolers said it. However, I just asked my wife and son about this. Neither had heard of it.
I am reconsidering my relationships.
Chantilly, Va.: To clarify: the Ombudsman of the NYT now says he views the printing of the article as a mistake, and that his column at the time supporting it was wrong, but that he wrote it because he was reacting to the administration's criticism of the paper. You might still think he should take a higher road.
Not that it matters much, as the cat's out of the bag on this one. Does the Ombudsman get involved with the decision to print articles -- if they decided, for example, that The Post was too critical of businesses, would they have enough of a say to get one of your ask customer service articles pulled? From here it seems like all the Ombudsman does is mea culpas with no practical effect.
Gene Weingarten: Yeah, the Omb. is a paid bleeding heart. He or she is the advocate for the reader. If a reader thinks my 1-800 columns are unfair or stupid, which they are, he may write in to the Omb, who might choose to scold me in her column, and also The Post for running this crap.
In that sense only might she affect the content of the paper -- after the fact, in retrospect. She sits in on no editorial meetings, has no say whatsoever in the was the newspaper interprets the news and thus such. Same at The Times, I am sure.
I read their Ombudsman's column. It was wimpy and effete and hand-wringing, in my opinion. He concluded that the paper should not have published the fact that this country combs telephone records of terror suspects, and he spanked himself for having written otherwise.
My rule, in general, is that when you get something newsworthy, you publish it, absent a compelling reason not to. There was no compelling reason not to.
Washington, D.C.: There is no argument against gay marriage that does not boil down to prejudice. Not one single argument. Arguments based on biological reproduction are never applied to heterosexual couples. But my favorite is when people say "fine, but just don't call it marriage -- that's a special term for heteros." Bigots hiding behind dictionaries.
Gene Weingarten: Yeah, I have made this argument many times. The whole issue comes down to one thing: The validity of two people's love. You either respect it or you do not. If you do not, it is because there is something "wrong" with those people's love. Ergo, there is something fundamentally "wrong" with those people.
If you believe it, say it. Don't weasel around dishonestly.
I am having this discussion, privately so far, in emails with a reader. He is articulate, smart, and his argument comes down to: My religion says it is a sin. I follow my religion completely. Therefore, I don't support gay marriage. But I am not bigoted.
Yes, you are. If you follow a bigoted religion unquestioningly, you are complicit in the bigotry.
Sandusky, Ohio: My Man now wants to read every Doonesbury from the beginning so he doesn't miss even the tiniest detail that might refrence some strip from like May of 1986. Do you know if a C&H or Far Side type collection will ever happen, or how thorough the old books were? Thanks!
Gene Weingarten: Such a collection would be prohibitively large. Calvin and Hobbes and the Far Side had comparatively tiny runs... 10 years or so. And those books were the size of cinder blocks. Dbury is now in its 36th year!
Go online and get a used copy of "Flashbacks," the 25th anniversary book of Doonesbury. A fabulous, magnificent Greatest Hits book. I relied on it for my story.
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Post columnist Gene Weingarten answers your questions about his column, "Below the Beltway," and more. Funny? You should ask.
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Housing and Schools
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The housing boom that has reinvigorated the District and pumped millions into city coffers has been lopsided, attracting waves of singles, empty nesters and childless couples but not families needed for stability, according to a new study produced by the Urban Institute and the Fannie Mae Foundation.
Stacey D. Stewart , president and CEO of the Fannie Mae Foundation, was online Tuesday, Oct. 24, at 12:30 p.m. ET to discuss key findings and recommendations in this year's report.
Bowie, Md.: Will D.C. ever offer affordable housing? I would love to live in the city again but the prices have run out all middle class individuals who are from the District. Also, are there any programs out there offered for single parent house holds, etc.?
Stacey D. Stewart: Hello, thanks for joining me in this chat.
Good question. Yes, you are right and our report points out that between 2004 and 2005, single-family home prices increased 22 percent in the District. There are many families who are currently unable to live in the city and also many families who have been forced out.
Currently the city does offer a variety of affordable housing programs and has a priority of serving the needs of low- and moderate-income families. The city's Housing Trust Fund and HPAP are just two examples of programs that the city utilizes in order to subsidize housing for low- and moderate-income families. It is true, however, that the demand for these programs often exceeds the availability. Also, a significant amount of housing development is accomplished through the work of many well-established nonprofit organizations that operate throughout the city. If you would like more information on affordable housing programs, I recommend you call the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development or the D.C. Housing Finance Agency.
Silver Spring, Md.: Thanks for taking my question. A somewhat touchy issue in the District, but hopefully you'll give us your take on it. How do you think the height restriction in the District contributes to the housing problems? It has created such a bizarre "inverted-city" sorta situation, where Maryland and Virginia have compensated with little mini-cities around the Beltway (Silver Spring, Bethesda, Clarendon, etc. ...) by creating these "overlay" zones in the areas surrounding Metro stations, in which the zoning is more urban than suburban. It seems that the District is somewhat nearing "capacity" and yet the census number decreases, because, as you say, it is singles and couples with no children rather than families. It seems that good schools, better public safety and all that things that lure in families are a result of a better tax base and hence a result of population density, which is difficult to create with such a low ceiling. What is your opinion? Is this a contributing factor to the problems? Or is more high-rises, to bring in more singles, to bring in more tax dollars, with the hope that those tax dollars will fund the services that will then bring in the families too far fetched?
Stacey D. Stewart: The height restriction in the city is unlike any existing in any other major metropolitan area in the country. However, density and zoning regulations impact the development of affordable housing everywhere. We brought out the issue of housing density in last year's report as a significant opportunity to address affordability challenges. One of the ways in which we consider addressing density, while also increasing the availability of housing for families is to focus more on townhouse development, as opposed to single-family detached housing.
The city has tremendous capacity to accommodate a significant addition to our population, including families with children. Our report stresses that as the city plans future development, it consider that the type of housing that becomes available influences the type of people that are attracted to the community and are able to live in the city.
Telethon, Washington, D.C.: I would think by now it's obvious that the District can't encourage families to move in without better schools. The new housing is mostly located in neighborhoods with poor performing schools. When you spend the kind of money it takes to buy in the city, you don't want your kids to go to bad schools. There is no more room in the private schools and the charter schools, with few exceptions, are no better than the public schools.
Have any cities been able to improve schools to attract families downtown?
Stacey D. Stewart: You're absolutely right. It is hard to attract families to areas that don't have great schools. It is also hard to have great schools, when you don't have community support.
There are many, many examples from around the country of cities that have targeted neighborhood revitalization, as well as improved public schools. In Atlanta, for example, every public housing redevelopment plan incorporates a plan for improving the schools that serve that newly revitalized neighborhood. And, if you visit, Atlanta, you will find many examples of mixed-income housing that support families and great schools in those communities. We need to do the same thing here.
Eventually, we want every school to be high-quality, surrounded by livable, vibrant neighborhoods. This will not happen overnight. However, we can build toward this by focusing on a combined strategy of housing and school investment, and rebuilding the city -- neighborhood by neighborhood.
Washington, D.C.: Can it be assumed that the singles will eventually migrate to the suburbs once they marry and have children? How can the city better prepare to meet the challenge of another great migration to the suburbs of Virginia and Maryland?
Stacey D. Stewart: There have been a couple of questions about why we should focus on families, with an implication that single individuals do not promote stability in the city. It is very important to note that most thriving, vibrant cities are diverse in every way. Single professionals and empty-nesters have contributed greatly to the revitalization of the District of Columbia. Our point is simply that, in order to maintain the city's diversity, we need to ensure that our growth is balanced to reflect this diversity.
As is currently the case, one can assume that a large percentage of singles will continue to move out of the city once they marry and have children if improvements to schools are not made. If we want to retain the attractiveness of the city to families with children, then we must do something different in order to ensure that there is sufficient affordable housing for these families, and quality schools that their children can attend.
As mentioned in the Housing in the Nation's Capital report, 30,000 units are planned for development between now and 2010 -- 62 percent of those units are condominiums -- typically not the housing type chosen by families with children. So, even if the schools improve substantially between now and then, if we don't produce the housing to accommodate families, they will still leave.
Washington, D.C.: The mayor's draft of the Comprehensive Plan currently before the Council doesn't even mention housing for ordinary families in its housing element and focuses on attracting more condos for singles. For those of us who have stayed in the city during its status as a joke during much of the last 30 years, it seems that the Office of Planning is more than willing to risk killing the goose that has laid the golden egg in D.C. -- the desire of couples and families to live in a habitable urban environment -- to curry favor with high developers. Won't turning D.C. into corridors of high rises kill its residential neighborhoods that have attracted so many residents?
Stacey D. Stewart: Best practices in urban redevelopment at this time encourage the development of transit oriented housing in order to increase affordability and minimize transportation costs to jobs for individuals and families. The increase in density along major corridors, particularly near metro stations potentially provides for increased availability of housing, while addressing the transportation issue. A thoughtful development plan that increases density and incorporates good design principles can enhance a residential neighborhood.
Washington: Families Absent From Flourishing D.C., Study Says (Post, Oct. 24)
Dartmouth, Mass.: The latest information published by the Washington Post on crime, highlighted by a map showing robberies at gunpoint, was very discouraging. I have two young college grads now living in the District and I know both would love to raise families there. However, it is questionable whether it makes sense given the level of danger. Do you think the next mayor will take seriously the need to deal with crime?
Stacey D. Stewart: The report makes the point that different elements need to come together at the neighborhood level to build healthy communities. These include not only affordable housing and good schools, but also safe streets and access to transportation. This is not just the responsibility of elected officials, but will take engaged citizens to address important community issues.
Laurel, MD.: Washington is physically smaller than most cities that anchor a metro area of similar size (half the size of Philadelphia, for instance).
Part of the reason is that other cities expanded beyond their original borders to pick up former suburban areas; which Washington can't do. So single-family detached homes on child-friendly yards are never going to be a large part of its housing stock.
Considering that the metro area's home-owning population mostly has college degrees and expects a suburban-type living situation for their children, shouldn't we just accept that the District is never going to compete for that population?
Stacey D. Stewart: You're correct, single-family homes are a popular option for families with children. But, data assembled for the report show that 46 percent of the District's school children live in multi-family rental housing. The point here is that we need to have a diversity of housing options, both in terms of type, and affordability for the District to attract and retain more families with children.
Washington: Robberies Leave Their Mark on the District (Post, pf)
Washington, D.C.: What is the official definition of "affordable housing"? I've gone through the Web site and books, but never find "affordable housing" associated with a number. Developers seem to think a $250 1-bedroom condo with a $400/month condo fee is "affordable," which is absurd for even a middle-class family making $100 per year.
It seems that D.C. has no problem inviting in the lawyers and nouveau riche into the city, but is quick to complain when a report comes out criticizing the lack of families living in the city. I think the schools and crime are second to affordability, especially in the crazy real estate market we live in.
What is D.C. prepared to do to make "affordable housing" affordable to middle class families?
Stacey D. Stewart: The definition of affordability typically takes into account both the cost of housing and the income of the household occupying it. Housing in the Nation's Capital's affordability calculations use the common guideline that a household should not spend more than 30 percent of its income on housing.
The Comprehensive Housing Task Force report in 2005 contains thoughtful recommendations on how to expand and preserve affordable housing for varying income levels. Last year's Housing in the Nation's Capital also provided a number of suggestions for accomplishing this. You can access the report at Housing in the Nation's Capital (Fannie Mae Foundation).
Stacey D. Stewart: There were so many great questions and I'm sorry we didn't have enough time to get to all of them. Thank you for participating.
Editor's Note: Washington 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. Washington is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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Stacey D. Stewart, president and CEO of the Fannie Mae Foundation, discusses key findings and recommendations in this year's report on housing in the District.
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Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes to Wed in Italy
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NEW YORK -- Hollywood's most high-profile engaged couple have finally set a wedding date. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes will marry in Italy on Nov. 18, Cruise's representative, Arnold Robinson, confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Holmes will wear a dress designed by Giorgio Armani, Robinson also confirmed.
The wedding date was reported by Us Weekly magazine on its Web site.
Holmes, 27, and Cruise, 44, became engaged in June 2005. Their daughter, Suri, was born April 18. She made her debut on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine last month. The photo showed Suri peeking out of a jacket worn by Cruise with Holmes looking on.
Cruise and Holmes were first photographed together in Rome in April 2005. Two months later, the "Mission: Impossible" actor announced he had proposed to Holmes atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Holmes, who starred in TV's "Dawson's Creek," was previously engaged to actor Chris Klein. Cruise, previously married to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, also had a high-profile romance with Penelope Cruz.
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NEW YORK -- Hollywood's most high-profile engaged couple have finally set a wedding date. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes will marry in Italy on Nov. 18, Cruise's representative, Arnold Robinson, confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
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Additions Give Mount Vernon The Feel of Yesterdayland
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The people who own Mount Vernon, the wood-clad 18th-century home of the country's paterfamilias, have just sunk $110 million into improving the Mount Vernon experience. They've built a new orientation center showing what is billed as "an action-adventure film." They've also added a building filled with both traditional museum exhibitions -- papers, housewares, clothing -- and a trendy interactive educational center that features a theater inside of which genuine fake snow will fall on viewers. The orientation center prepares visitors for the mansion, while the education and exhibit building reinforces the Mount Vernon message before leading them, via a glass passageway, to the cafeteria and gift shop.
Both buildings are built mostly underground to preserve views and mute the dissonance of contemporary architecture intruding on hallowed historical ground. Underground spaces are becoming more common in history-saturated landscapes: The past, it seems, is turning us into moles. The unfortunate new visitors center planned at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial will be built underground; so, too, the budget-busting visitors center under construction on the east side of the U.S. Capitol.
To be more precise, it's not just the admirable desire to preserve vistas when we add to historical properties that turns us into moles. We might not be building so much space underground if we weren't terrified that our historic buildings and monuments were losing their mystique with an increasingly ignorant public.
At the old Mount Vernon, you bought your ticket, entered through a little white gate and wandered, at leisure, up a gravelly path to the main house. In the new Mount Vernon experience, you buy your ticket in a verdant little hollow, framed by glass and brick buildings, and a sloping paddock that covers the museum. After you've shelled out the entry fee (about $40 for a family with two kids), you enter a pleasant lobby with gleaming limestone floors and a semicircular wall of glass looking out onto a garden.
And there, striding toward you, the very image of rude good health and high spirits, is a statue of George and Martha, hand-in-hand with their grandchildren. This is not the George Washington you're expecting, not the American Cincinnatus with grim lips stretched tight over a mouthful of fake teeth. He's positively busting with hospitality, and those two kids sure do humanize the guy. It all feels very familiar, very something . . .
Very Disney. After a moment of cognitive dissonance, you realize that this statue is an exceptionally close relative to the famous Walt and Mickey statue that stands before the Cinderella Castle at Disney World. But unlike the Disney experience -- in which Walt and his little buddy greet you in front of the castle -- the Mount Vernon experience has not yet revealed Mount Vernon, except in the form of a one-twelfth-scale model in the lobby. The building itself is held in reserve while the visitor is prepared to see it.
The new statues and house model are part of a careful dramatic shaping and preparation of the approach to the main house; but the idea behind them isn't without precedent. Any owner of a proper stately home in the 18th century -- including Washington himself -- would have been keenly alert to the revealing of his home, to its gradual unveiling in small glimpses along tree-lined allees or through a game of peekaboo with the hedges and fences. Great homes weren't meant to appear all at once, like slides on a screen, but with an unfolding drama.
Unfortunately, while the new buildings at Mount Vernon are retiring, they are essentially obligatory -- a paradox of the new layout. They are an elaborate entry and exit, two portals that channel the flow of visitors in and out of the estate. Despite the warmth and professional polish of the spaces, you feel as though you're being herded, and you're being herded through 21st-century spaces to prepare you for an 18th-century one. The whole "experience" mimics a certain understanding of memory: That first your mind must be ready to receive information, through a preexisting framework (you get this in the orientation center); and then, after you've seen the thing, it must be reinforced and clarified (you get this in the museum and education center).
But what if you just want to see Mount Vernon?
"There are various relief valves," says Alan Reed, president of GWWO Inc./Architects, which designed the two buildings. Relief valves are also known as exits. Still, unless you arrive via tour boat on the Potomac, there is no way to entirely avoid the new 21st-century spaces -- with air conditioning and electric lighting and all the other ambiance killers -- should you be contrarian enough to want to visit the site on your own terms.
People who design and make museums never really conceive of the possibility that "the experience" might be optional. The experience, an obvious improvement on a mere visit, is undeniably a Good Thing, value-added that no visitor could conceivably want to avoid. Not wanting the experience is as unfathomable as telling a cruise director you don't want to have fun.
Ironically, the most pleasing architectural feature of the new buildings are the windows, which suggest a freedom to explore that the buildings implicitly deny (at least while you're in them). But even the windows, with their glimpses through glass onto newly planted landscapes, are part of the framing and mediation of "the experience."
Otherwise, the shape and size of the buildings are felt only as you walk through them, and there are few views inside that give you a sense of interior perspective. The movie theaters, in the orientation center, are fronted by a wall with side doors that open automatically to let you enter. Another set of doors opens when the film is over, letting you pass out into grounds of the mansion. People are channeled with the same linear certainty as cars in a car wash. The goal of the visit, Mount Vernon, becomes a surreal glimpse of the real, framed by dizzying bits of entertainment.
This isn't exactly the architectural aesthetic you might expect from a historical shrine to the father of the nation's freedom. But the Mount Vernon folks are upfront about the necessity of these portals. Some of the public, apparently, doesn't know a thing about George Washington.
"Some people think Washington fought in the Civil War," says Emily Coleman Dibella, a public affairs specialist for Mount Vernon. "We want to maximize their time here."
You can sympathize with their frustration. If you don't even know the wars he fought in (Washington also served the British in the French and Indian War), what could you possibly glean by wandering through his home? The new buildings at Mount Vernon were built to remedy ignorance, but as their subterranean placement and disorienting interiors demonstrate, this is all about educating people surreptitiously, painlessly, without anyone quite noticing.
Given the importance that men such as Washington placed on education and civic engagement, this effort to educate literally "underground" seems at odds with the Enlightenment order and balance one sees reflected in the mansion itself. Families with kids in tow, who have paid substantial money for a visit, will undoubtedly be pleased with the comforts and distractions of these new additions.
But it's curious, and a little sad, the degree to which historic sites, in their effort to educate, don't particularly reward the efforts of knowledgeable visitors -- who are corralled through the same spaces, hectored by the same tour guides and subjected to the same Disney features as every other visitor. The one experience that is very difficult to have at Mount Vernon (and, to be fair, at most popular historic attractions) is a simple, unmediated, uninterpreted, un-air-conditioned meander through the Great Man's home.
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Building 'Betty'
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2006102419
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LOS ANGELES Chop chop. If you want to watch Silvio Horta, creator of the new hit television show "Ugly Betty," eat lunch, better be quick. He does it at his desk, while scrolling e-mail. Also? Watch your fingers. In comes the plastic tray of takeout sushi. Three minutes, four minutes, tops. Teka maki down the hatch. Lunch is over.
Horta is only 32 years old, with the most-watched new series of the fall season, which ABC just announced it is picking up for the full season. Outwardly, Horta does not appear to be suffering from the stress of creating 42 minutes and 30 seconds of quality television a week for 22 weeks. "I've only lost 10 pounds," he says. He wears leather loafers without socks and his briefcase is a backpack he's had since college. He looks a little Tom Cruisey. Sleeping? "Not much," he says. But Horta isn't complaining. These are exactly the kinds of problems you want in television.
Initially, his one-hour soapy "fish out of water" comedy -- about a zafty Latina from Queens with the furry eyebrows working at a snooty fashion magazine in Manhattan -- was going to air on Friday nights, a time slot of comfortably low expectations in the TV week, the second-least-watched night, after the graveyard that is Saturday evening.
"It was going to be this nice little Friday night show," Horta says. "The pressure wasn't going to be so heavy. People liked it. Okay. Fine. Then it showed at the TCA." Horrors. That's the semiannual gathering of the Television Critics Association, whose members (when they were not eating or drinking) were shown an early version of the pilot -- and they raved . The ABC executives smelled a hit and shoved "Ugly Betty" into the spotlight of Thursday nights at 8,opposite an obscure show called . . . "Survivor."
"It was hold on, here we go," Horta says. "It was like all your dreams come true." He realizes, perhaps, this bit of dialogue sounds corny and so he explains that when all your dreams come true they become your reality and then your reality isn't really the same as your dreams, is it?
And we think: This dude is under a lot of stress.
"You always have these moments of panic," he says. "It could become overwhelming. But you ask yourself, what are my priorities?" He doesn't mean family, health, God, love. He means: The script, the set, the cast, the director, the music, or the newspaper reporter following you around? "What is the most important thing I need to focus on right now, and then that is what you do."
And so now Horta has to go look at a wig.
To say that Horta is the creator of "Ugly Betty" is technically correct: He developed and wrote the pilot. He imagined the look and feel, what is known in TV talk as the show's "bible." But ABC's "Ugly Betty" is based on a wildly popular Colombian telenovela from 1999 called "Yo Soy Betty La Fea," which was a blockbuster in Latin America and has since been spun off into successful soap series in India, Germany, Russia, Greece, Spain and Israel (where it became "Ugly Esti").
The actress Salma Hayek and the producer Ben Silverman ("The Office") owned the rights in the United States and were struggling to develop a series when they approached Horta.
Initially, Horta says, he was, like, nah, not really interested. He had just finished working on another pilot for ABC called "Westside" about the crazy Los Angeles real estate market and its agents, done in a "Nip/Tuck" style. "It never aired," he explains, "and there is a saying in town that there is nothing deader than a dead pilot. I said I'm done. I went to Europe for two months." (TV pilot season is Darwinian. This season, for example, ABC bought 70 one-hour scripts, which they whittled down to 16 pilots to shoot. Only seven aired.)
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LOS ANGELES Chop chop. If you want to watch Silvio Horta, creator of the new hit television show "Ugly Betty," eat lunch, better be quick. He does it at his desk, while scrolling e-mail. Also? Watch your fingers. In comes the plastic tray of takeout sushi. Three minutes, four minutes, tops. Teka...
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Debt Keeping Troops From Duty
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2006102419
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SAN DIEGO -- Thousands of U.S. troops are being barred from overseas duty because they are so deep in debt they are considered security risks, according to an Associated Press review of military records.
The number of troops held back has climbed dramatically in the past few years. While they appear to represent a very small percentage of all U.S. military personnel, the increase is occurring at a time when the armed forces are stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We are seeing an alarming trend in degrading financial health," said Capt. Mark D. Patton, commanding officer at San Diego's Naval Base Point Loma.
The Pentagon contends that financial problems can distract personnel from their duties or make them vulnerable to bribery and treason. As a result, those who fall heavily into debt can be stripped of the security clearances they need to go overseas.
While the number of revoked clearances has surged since the beginning of the Iraq war, military officials say there is no evidence that service members are deliberately running up debts to stay out of harm's way.
Officials also say the increase has not undermined the military's fighting ability, though some say it has complicated the job of assembling some of the units needed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The problem is attributed to a lack of financial smarts among recruits, reckless spending among those exhilarated to make it home alive after a tour of duty and the profusion of "payday lenders" -- businesses that allow military personnel to borrow against their next paycheck at extremely high interest rates.
Data supplied by the Navy, Marines and Air Force show that the number of clearances revoked for financial reasons rose every year between 2002 and 2005, climbing ninefold from 284 at the start of the period to 2,654 last year. Partial numbers from this year suggest that the trend continues.
More than 6,300 troops in the three branches lost their clearances during that four-year period. Roughly 900,000 people are serving in the three branches, though not all need clearances.
The Army -- which employs 500,000 people and accounts for the vast majority of the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan -- rejected repeated requests to supply its data, saying such information is confidential.
At Point Loma, Patton said, clearance revocations in key areas such as military police have become so common that he often looks for two sailors to fill a single posting.
Security clearances are revoked when service members' debt payments amount to 30 percent to 40 percent of their salary. The exact amount depends on the military branch.
There are three levels of clearance -- confidential, secret and top secret. Not all troops need clearance. Marine infantrymen do not, but some Marine specialists, such as those in intelligence, do. So do many troops in the Navy and the Air Force.
Financial problems are the overwhelming reason security clearances are revoked. Other reasons include criminal activity, questionable allegiance and ill health. A key reason the military revokes clearances on financial grounds is the fear that soldiers in debt might be tempted to sell secrets or equipment to the enemy.
Also, "when they are over there fighting, we like them to have their heads in the game," said Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert, commander of Marine Corps bases in the western United States. "We like to have them . . . not worrying about whether or not they are going to be able to make the mortgage payment or car payment."
Runaway interest rates at payday lending businesses, many of which are clustered outside bases, are another source of the problem. Several states have cracked down on payday lending practices, and President Bush signed legislation this month limiting how much these businesses can charge military personnel.
Some personnel fall into debt after returning from combat. "It can be hard to cut that sense of elation and desire to live for the moment," Lehnert said. "Some tend to get themselves overextended financially."
Like other services, the Navy offers zero-interest emergency loans, and personnel commonly take money-management classes as part of basic training. "There is instruction or training in place to give them some of the pitfalls of debt," said Terry Harris, a personal finance educator at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, including "security clearances being lost to that."
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SAN DIEGO -- Thousands of U.S. troops are being barred from overseas duty because they are so deep in debt they are considered security risks, according to an Associated Press review of military records.
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Wave of Change Expected on Election Day
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At least that is what political scientists are predicting about the midterm elections on Nov. 7. The academics could be wrong, of course; they often are.
But one of the peculiar facts about American politics is that every once in a while citizens in disparate parts of the country decide in the same year to reject an unusually large number of candidates for Congress from one party and to replace them with candidates from the other party.
That kind of outpouring is known as a wave, and it last occurred 12 years ago when Republicans gained a whopping 53 seats in the House and took control of that chamber for the first time in 40 years. Polls are now showing signs that the tide of public opinion is flowing in the opposite direction and that voters could vote Republicans out of office in droves this year, returning Democrats to power in the House and possibly in the Senate as well.
"This is going to be a wave year," said Larry J. Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. "The only question is whether it will be medium-size wave or a high wave for the Democrats."
Indiana State University's Carl Klarner and Stan Buchanan used fancy computer models in June to predict that Democrats would pick up 22 seats in the House, enough to give them 224 seats, six more than they would need for majority control. Alan I. Abramowitz of Emory University in Atlanta used his own model last month to forecast that Democrats would gain 29 House seats. The professors did not predict that Democrats would take charge of the Senate -- a six-seat gain is needed to win a majority there -- though they do envision Democratic gains in that body of two to three seats.
Nonetheless, the realization of these numbers would constitute a wave.
This year's anti-Republican swell -- if it arrives in the dimensions professors imagine -- would be a wavelet by historical standards, said Linda L. Fowler, a political scientist at Dartmouth College. Voting waves were tsunami-size in the 19th and 20th centuries. Seven times before World War II and once afterward (in 1948), 70 or more seats flipped in the House.
But no one is expecting a change of that magnitude this year.
The main reason is that most congressional districts have been carefully reconfigured in recent decades to elect candidates from one party regardless of the national mood. "Democrats have relatively few seats available to them that are now being held by the other party," said Gary C. Jacobson of the University of California at San Diego.
Incumbents also have towering advantages in both financial resources and access to communications with constituents that make them difficult to unseat. In addition, negative campaign commercials and citizens' persistent apathy toward government have tended to keep voter turnout low, which primarily helps incumbents, especially GOP incumbents, election experts agree.
But a big turnover of seats is still possible. In fact, a wave has struck Congress once or twice a decade for the past 50 years.
These have mostly come in midterm elections -- when presidential candidates were not on the ballot -- including 1958, 1966, 1974, 1986 (in the Senate) and 1994. Occasionally a wave will come in a presidential election year, as it did in 1980.
What all of these movements have in common is that they happened when most voters were unhappy with the president. "A general sense of dissatisfaction with the president and his party is often a cause of a wave, as it was in 1994 under Bill Clinton," Abramowitz said. "The lower the president's job approval rating, the more seats his party tends to lose in the House."
The party that controls the White House routinely loses at least some House seats during midterm elections. But presidents who are broadly disliked compound that effect, sometimes enough to produce waves that dash members of his party. That is why even Republicans are acknowledging the strong possibility of a wave this year; President Bush's job approval rating has dipped below 40 percent lately, a dangerously low number.
Recent waves have also coincided with highly publicized scandals (in 1974, it was Watergate) and unpopular wars (in 1966, it was Vietnam). This year Bush and his party are facing both -- the fallout from the Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley scandals as well as widespread disapproval of the war in Iraq. "With a combination of scandal and war, the makings of a wave are all there," said John J. Pitney Jr. of Claremont McKenna College in California.
Thomas F. Schaller of the University of Maryland Baltimore County said Republicans have been holding off an inevitable congressional correction for at least two election cycles because of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A welling up of patriotism kept the GOP strong. But enough time has passed since then for that to have subsided. Now, Schaller said, "the wave is ready to break."
Wave elections frequently end up being larger and they knock off more incumbents than was initially anticipated. "Typical of a wave is that there are some lawmakers who seem safe on Election Day, but they turn out to be losers on election night," Pitney said.
Then again, predictions of waves come and go, like tides themselves, and they do not always come to true. "You can tell that a wave happened afterwards," said James A. Thurber, a political scientist at American University. "That's when people amend their stories about them."
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The wave is coming. At least that is what political scientists are predicting about the midterm elections on Nov. 7. The academics could be wrong, of course; they often are.
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Assigned Books Often Are a Few Sizes Too Big
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2006102419
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If adults liked to read books that were exceedingly difficult, they'd all be reading Proust.
So why, reading experts ask, do schools expect children to read -- and love to read -- when they are given material that is frequently too hard for them?
"We try to push adult stuff down on younger and younger kids, and what's the point?" asked Lucy Calkins, founding director of the Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University's Teachers College.
Science and social studies textbooks are at least a grade above the reading levels of many students, experts say, and in some suburban and urban school systems, reading lists can include books hard for some adults to tackle.
Toni Morrison's award-winning novel "Beloved," about a former slave's decision to kill her child rather than see her enslaved, is on some middle schools' lists for kids to read unassisted. And elementary schools sometimes ask students to read books such as "The Bridge to Terabithia," with themes about death and gender roles that librarians say are better suited for older children.
To be sure, pushing some students to challenge themselves is important, educators say. But there are points where kids read books before they can truly comprehend them and then lose the beauty of the work.
"Teachers studied 'The Great Gatsby' in college and then want to teach that book because they have smart things to say about it, and they teach it in high school," Calkins said. "Then schools want to get their middle school kids ready for high school so they teach them 'The Catcher in the Rye.' It's a whole cultural thing."
Of particular concern are students in urban school systems, said Richard Allington, a leading researcher on reading instruction and a professor of reading education at the University of Tennessee.
In large part, he blames inappropriately chosen books for students' reading woes, especially in school systems where large percentages of children read below grade level. The average fifth-grade student in Detroit and Baltimore, for example, reads at a third-grade level, he said, but schools still give them fifth-grade core reading and social studies texts.
That, he said, crushes a child's motivation.
"If you made me education magician and I had one thing that I could pull off, it would be that every kid in this country had a desk full of books that they could actually read accurately, fluently, with comprehension," he said.
Sofi Sinozich, a seventh-grader in the Humanities and Communications Magnet Program at Eastern Middle School in Montgomery County, said she would like to be assigned books that speak to her.
In sixth-grade English, "graphic novels [were] excluded, which annoyed many of us," said Sofi, who is partial to Japanese comics called manga because she finds the style beautiful and the stories well done.
Many teachers exclude graphic novels and comics from reading lists, even though a graphic novel was nominated for the National Book Award this year. And Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has said he learned to read through comics after his schoolmaster father disregarded others who said they would lead to no good.
So should kids read Shakespeare or the comics? Graphic novels or "To Kill a Mockingbird"? Reading experts say they should read everything -- when they are ready to understand what they are reading.
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A Shift for Defense Contractors
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Washington Post staff writers Renae Merle and Griff Witte were online to discuss defense contractors that are now competing for state and local information technology projects.
They write in an article today that as federal spending slows, state and local governments -- flush with cash from rising property-tax revenue and a generally healthy national economy -- are an increasingly juicy target for government contractors.
An archive of Renae Merle's articles is online here . Griff Witte's articles are archived here .
Griff Witte: Good morning everyone, and welcome. We're looking forward to today's chat on our piece in this morning's Business section dealing with the increased attention being paid to state and local contracting opportunities. If you haven't had a chance to read the story yet, take a minute to do that now. Otherwise, let the chat begin!
Do you forsee any mergers or acquisitions between any major IT companies in the next 2 years?
Renae Merle: Yes. There has been a steady stream of acquisitions over the last few years and I don't see any end in sight. There are a few things driving this trend. The government continues to bundle small contracts into large ones. To be competitive, small to midsized companies feel they need to bulk up. Also, small intelligence companies continue to be attractive to large companies that recognize that government spending in that market will continue to increase.
Alexandria, VA: To what extent does the language and culture of the state and local contracting processes differ from that at the federal level? Do the large firms have to start from scratch with each state and municipality?
Renae Merle: I heard from several companies that relationship building is very important in the state and local market. So in that sense they are starting from scratch. While a large defense contractor will likely have a relationship with the Air Force or Army that dates back decades, they will have to introduce themselves to a state government not familiar with their work. I think that is why some companies said they have to start in smaller state and local markets to prove themselves before pursing contracts with large states like California.
Falls Church, Virginia: I work for a large defense contractor in the Northern Virginia area. I haven't noticed a reduction in the defense/intelligence workload here. I assume the shift is from other areas of defense to local level issues? What sort of services/solutions are the local gov't contracts for?
Griff Witte: I'm not surprised that you haven't noticed a reduction. Defense, intel and homeland security contracting for the federal government have been and remain businesses where opportunities abound. That's been especially true since 9/11/01. What we're seeing now, though, is a bit of leveling off in the government's spending levels. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have eaten up a lot of cash, and the government will increasingly have to reckon with that by cutting programs in other areas that can wait. Some IT modernizations are included in that.
As far as the needs of state and local, they're looking for a lot of different things. One major need they have is to upgrade their IT systems for government services such as health care, public assistance, motor vehicle departments, etc. Many of those systems are decades old, and they've long since passed the end of their useful lives.
Fairfax, VA: Are partnerships are prevalent in state and local contracts? Do those contracts require small business participation, etc?
Griff Witte: On the state and local level, we're not sure you'll see the same kind of teams you see on the federal level -- where dozens and dozens of players are involved in providing various aspects of a solution. But teaming definitely occurs. As the acquisition workforce shrinks overall -- whether it be at the national or state levels -- governments are making the contracts bigger so they won't have as many to manage. The result is that many contracts are so big that no one firm can do all the work. In those cases, prime contractors are looking for subs. Some small business owners have told us that the state and local markets can be easier to break into than the federal market because state/local is more fractured and there are better opportunities for the niche player.
London, Ontario, Canada: How come, when reporting the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, they never include the thousands of private contractors hired and paid by subsids of Haliburton, so I've heard?
Renae Merle: This is a bit off topic but ...
Because contractors are not soldiers. Halliburton and the dozens of other companies with employees in Iraq do not go through basic training or any of the other things that make soldiers different from civilians.
That being said, hundreds of contractors have died in Iraq and myself and others have written many stories that have highlighted that.
washingtonpost.com: Renae's recent articles are archived here .
Falls Church, VA: How do you see the contracting environment changing over the next 2-5 years? Will there continue to be consolidations as large companies eat up the smaller players, or will there still be niches for the smaller companies to fill?
Griff Witte: Wish I had my crystal ball handy for this one. I think there's a lot that's up in the air at the moment -- namely Iraq, and the elections. Both are factors that are going to have a big effect on how the contracting biz evolves. If Congress changes hands, I doubt you'd see a major change overnight. But that coupled with a new president in two years and, at some point, a new direction in Iraq, could change the contracting environment substantially.
As far as your question on consolidation goes, as we've said there will likely be quite a bit of it. That's particularly true in fairly fragmented markets such as intel -- and it could become true for state and local markets, if they continue to heat up.
Olney, MD: Aside from the fact that business is always looking for new markets, do you think that any of the recent push by defense contractors to look to the states for business has anything to do with a fear that a change in the control of Congress and, if it happens the White House, in the future may lead to a tightening up on Federal contracting rules as they pertain to what states may do in programs that operate under Federal grants?
Renae Merle: No, I think those are two different issues. A change in control of Congress will not change the fiscal realities. According to GAO (the Government Accountability Office) and many other independent groups, DOD currently has more weapons in development than it can afford and will have to make cuts. At the same time, states are reporting surpluses for the first time in many years and turning their attention to information technology projects shelved during harder times. That is what is driving many of these contractors to begin turning their attention to the state and local market. I have not heard that members on either side of the isle want to change the contracting rules about what federal grants can pay for. Do you know of some effort like that?
Albany, New York: How would you rate the capability of state and local governments to make effective IT purchases in this more competitive environment? State and local procurement processes are still mostly written for the purchase of bulldozers and typing paper rather than complex IT systems, and there may be less staff expertise in many smaller governments than in larger ones. What advice would you offer to state and local governments who need IT systems, but want to be sure they get what they need rather than what companies are selling?
Griff Witte: You raise some very interesting points in this question. The federal government has been suffering from a brain drain for years now, with many of its best and brightest jumping ship and heading to the private sector. As this happens, it becomes self fulfilling -- as more work is outsourced, more people leave, and more work has to be outsourced. Eventually, you reach a point where there's not enough expertise left in-house to even know what the government is looking for when it outsources. At the state and local level, there's the potential for the problem to be even more severe. A lot of state and local governments haven't upgraded in many years, and the people who ran the old systems are retiring. In cases like that, it's tough for the state/local employees who are left to know if they're actually getting best value from the private sector. It will be interesting to see whether the current wave of sales results in the kind of improvements the companies are advertising.
El Paso, TX: Do you see recent 8(a) graduates playing a role in this shift?
Renae Merle: I certainly see no reason why they wouldn't. The large contractors will need subcontractors and some of these contracts are likely small enough for a 8(a) graduate firm to go after. Have you had trouble getting into this market?
Houston, TX: Your article says that the increase in local and state government contracting activity is due to increased revenues from property taxes. What will happen to contracting activity when state and local revenues decline? Are large contractors willing to accept that risk?
Griff Witte: Great question. My guess is the flattening out that you're seeing now in the real estate market won't hit state/local governments for awhile, if it does at all. The real estate market had obviously been soaring for a long time there before the state/local governments really felt the effects of the boom and started making big purchases. So there's a lag. But state/local governments generally can only spend as much money as they bring in -- if their budgets end up growing less because the real estate market stalls, that could limit the opportunity for the private sector.
Fairfax, VA: I would like to know the effect of outsourcing and global markets on Federal IT market. I have been working as a consultant in Federal Information Technology Contracting for the last few years. Based on what I observe, a large portion of Federal IT contracting requires clearances. This seems to have the effect of creating a domestic IT market which is sort of protected. What impact do you foresee outsourcing and global IT markets will have on this market in both near and distant future? Will federal IT market get outsourced too in the next may be 10 to 20 years?
Griff Witte: You're right -- IT firms that sell to the government enjoy a level of protection that your average IT firm doesn't have in a global market. The government doesn't want to see its top secret IT work outsourced to other nations. At the state and local level, national security issues are obviously less of a concern. But state and local governments that are deciding which company to award a contract to have something else to worry about -- voters. These contracts are about upgrading government services, but they're also about creating jobs in your state or city. For that reason, I don't foresee a whole lot of outsourcing abroad.
Alexandria, Virginia: Are there any consulting firms that specialize in helping companies access the state and local government market? Our company just received a mailing from a company called T3 Government Strategies that claims to specialize in this.
Renae Merle: There are tons of consulting firms out there, but I had not heard of T3 until your query. (I just googled them.) I don't know if Input or FedSources also does that sort of thing, but I know they track the market. Before you give anybody any money I was wondering if you have made the rounds at all of the free or cheap events around the Beltway for government contractors. That may be a good way to get a recommendation from someone on a good consulting firm. Maybe you will meet someone who has used T3. Good luck.
Arlington, VA: Been there, done that. Dealing with state and local governments is way more difficult than dealing with the Feds. They haven't the expertise of dealing with large projects or amounts of money, their procurement and costing rules are written to an incredibly detailed level and they don't understand the burdening and indirect rate structure of federal contractors. To them $100K is a lot of money.
Renae Merle: Yup. As we pointed out in the story, every state and locality does business differently, making it a difficult market to navigate. Also, I understand that they are more likely to require fixed price contracts, shifting the risk to contractors, whereas on the federal level cost plus contracts are common.
Folks, how do you know you have been working in federal contracting too long? When $100K is no longer a lot of money. But for localities operating under balanced budget requirements the numbers matter.
El Paso, TX: With regards to the follow up question from Ms. Merle's 8(a) answer, our company is in its infancy breaking into other larger state markets outside of the typical defense arena and local utilities.
Like any small company in a niche area, like the border area, we are competing to distinguish ourselves from every other small company.
Thank you for the response!
Renae Merle: I have heard from a lot of small companies that they feel thrown to the sharks after graduating from the 8(a) program. Good luck with everything.
Renae Merle: Well that's our hour. Thanks for the questions everyone.
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 staff writers Renae Merle and Griff Witte were online to discuss defense contractors who are now competing for state and local information technology projects.
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Post Magazine: Garry Trudeau
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2006102319
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Revealing more about himself than he ever has, "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau gives us tantalizing clues about what's behind his venerable comic strip's recent burst of genius, and pain.
In this week's Washington Post Magazine, Gene Weingarten profiled the publicity-shy Trudeau, who with his strip's searing storyline of an Iraq War amputee, is getting new attention.
Weingarten was online Monday, Oct. 23, at Noon ET to field questions and comments about his article: Doonesbury's War .
Weingarten is a staff writer for the Post Magazine and hosts a regular Tuesday discussion, Chatological Humor .
One question many of you are asking involves the cover the magazine: Yes, Trudeau drew that specifically for The Post. The general idea was mine - having B.D., with his missing leg, ruminating on the nature of "The Creator." There's a funny story behind this.
Once my editor, Tom the Butcher had approved of the idea, I needed to broach it to Trudeau. We were together in Tucson at the Vietvet conference. But first, I phoned Tom to work out one final detail. Here is how the conversation went:
Me: So, how much can we pay him?
TtheB: I don't think we can pay him anything. We can't pay the subjects of our stories. You know that.
Me: We're not paying for the story! We're paying a world-famous artist for a cover illustration.
TtheB: I know. But it looks like we're paying for the story. We can't do it.
Me: Okay, let's do a little thought experiment, shall we?
Me: Do you agree that an original illustration by Garry Trudeau is an item of some intrinsic value? Worth thousands of dollars, in fact?
Me: Okay, then. So, by asking him to do this illustration for free, we are in effect asking him to give us money.
Me: In other words, HE is paying US to write the story about him.
TtheB: Okay, this is above my pay grade.
So Tom the Butcher went to discuss this with great and powerful people at The Post. Scenarios were discussed. Options were weighed. And so forth. Finally, it was decided that we would not pay Trudeau for the art, but we would donate a substantial amount of money, in his name, to the charity of his choice.
So, that's what happened. I tell this story mostly because it illustrates the sometimes comical super-serious degrees to which this newspaper is willing to wrestle with issues of ethics and angels on pinheads and so forth -- and also why I would not want to work for anyone else. Trudeau, by the way, took my idea for the cover and improved my wording hugely, giving it Mamet-like sparseness.
He's donating the money to Fisher House, which is a program to provide free or low-cost housing for the families who are visiting injured soldiers.
In case you're feeling generous yourself:
I've gotten many interesting letters so far. This is my favorite:
A while back John Kerry sent me a thick packet of neatly copied Doonesbury strips. It was B.D's story and, unknown to John, I'd been following it closely. John sent it without comment, but I knew instantly why he had.
Like B.D. it takes some of us longer to deal with it than others. Some of us never do.
Nice piece on Trudeau, the therapist.
The letter was from Jim Rassmann. Does that name sound familiar? He was the man whom Kerry dragged from the water in 'Nam, onto his Swift Boat, while under enemy fire. Rassmann had shown up during a campaign event, the two men embraced, and for a while Rassmann was an important ally in the campaign. That was before "The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" arrived and informed us all that Kerry was actually a poseur and a coward and a douchebag and maybe he didn't even serve in ' Nam, now that they think of it.
Weren't we lucky they showed up and saved us from a Kerry presidency? Boy, this country could sure be in trouble right about now if we had a guy like that at the helm. Can't be too careful about who your president is.
Now is the point in the introduction that we arrive at what has become a warm, comfortable routine after the publication one of my cover stories, namely, an alphabetized and cross-referenced enumeration of all errors contained within, later to be compiled into the definitive encyclopedia of Weingarten errors and catalogued in the Library of Congress.
Notice of the first error arrived as a letter from former Time magazine correspondent (now a Fox News correspondent) James Rosen, who points out that, contrary to my assertion, John Mitchell had been indicted at the time the "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" strip came out in 1973. The indictment was 19 days old at the time. This is true. It was not his Watergate indictment -- which came about a year later and for which he was convicted -- but it was an indictment in the finance case involving Maurice Stans and Robert Vesco, for which Mitchell was later acquitted.
Why did Rosen know this arcana? Because he is writing a book about Mitchell. You can't get away with anything, fact-wise, in Washington.
Rosen also contends that his Time cover story about Trudeau in 1976 was every bit as in-depth as mine, a contention we are going to contest over breakfast next week.
Several readers also pointed out that contrary to my assertion toward the end of the piece, B.D. had in fact cheated on Boopsie once before, in a sequence around the time of the first Gulf War. This is true, and I had forgotten it; however, I am saved on a technicality. They weren't married at the time. It wasn't an "affair." It wasn't an "infidelity." Haha. I am home free. Scrupulously accurate, as always.
Warwick, R.I.: I am a double amputee, bk, as a result of wounds received in Vietnam. I want to commend Garry Trudeau for his remarkably insightful treatment of BD's wound and rehabilitation. My children, now grown, have enjoyed and can relate to strip as well. It was my daughter that alerted me to this article. Thank you Mr. Trudeau for your sensitive but not maudlin treatment of an issue not many have the courage to confront.
Boissise la Bertrand, France: Not a question, a suggestion.
Next time you write a profile, try to make it less about you and more about the profilee. It was fascinating to learn that it was you who reminded Trudeau of the source of one of his strip ideas, but not particularly essential for this reader.
Gene Weingarten: Okay. You might be right.
Actually, I hadn't intended to put myself into the story, but found that too many of the scenes required the context of who he was talking to, and why. There are times when trying to avoid placing yourself into a story winds up clumsy, and actually misrepresents the truth of what happened.
As far as explaining that I had reminded him of the source of one of his strips, my point wasn't that I had reminded him, but that he had forgotten -- he is always gathering information, which then coalesces into an idea through a process of some mystery, even to him.
I also thought it was pretty cool to have actually witnessed the derivation of a strip.
As I said, it was a decision I made reluctantly, because I saw no better way. If I was wrong, I was wrong.
Chicago, Ill.: Gene, this isn't a question, but another (I'm betting) compliment... your profile of Trudeau was the second best piece of feature writing I've read this year, the best being your profile of the Great Zucchini. I've tried this sort of thing myself, from time to time, and I'm just in awe of your graceful skill at it. Please, do more, much more.
(host, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, NPR)
Gene Weingarten: Okay, I'm going to post this, but only because it's from Sagal, whose show I love.
I could never do well on that show. My humor-trigger-finger is waaay too slow. There should be a telethon for what ails me: Molasses in the synapses.
Silver Spring, Md.: Greetings Gene! I truly enjoyed reading your article on Garry Trudeau. Do you happen to have any insight on why Alex Doonesbury has enrolled at MIT (class of 2010)? As you mention in your article his children apparently went to Brown and Yale. It is a curious choice. Does he have any affiliation with MIT?
Gene Weingarten: To the best of my recollection (which, as has already been established, isn't very good), Trudeau narrowed Alex's choices to three schools -- Cornell, MIT, and Rensselaer Polytech -- and then had readers choose through an online poll at Doonesbury.com. The competition among the three schoosl was intense, but MIT won, apparently through a better hacking campaign.
Liz, can you link to one of those strips before the results were announced?
Don't you think it would have been important for the reader to know that you are friends with the subject that you are profiling? I certainly understand that it is natural that reporters would become friends with (fellow) celebrities but I don't understand why it is so rare to hear or read in a journalistic piece something along the lines of: "In the interest of full disclosure, [Subject of the Story] and I have been good friends for xx years."
Gene Weingarten: Well, um, we weren't friends. We hadn't known each other at all, except for a couple of e-mail exchanges, as I will explain later.
Glen Burnie, Md.: Gene, this is more a question for Garry, but I'm wondering about the characters' aging. Mike and B.D. are the same age, but Mike's daughter is in college and Sam is just a kid, even though as I recall they were born about the same time. Some characters age physically, e.g., Joanie, while most do not, e.g., zonker and Boopsie who hasn't aged a day. These are minor quibbles as I love the strip. I actually went to Yale with Garry and B.D. and knew people like most of the characters (not Hunter Thompson and Honey!). Which is why I know how old I am and think they should be about the same age.
Gene Weingarten: This is hard doing in the absence of Garry, but I think that he's aging these characters appropriately. Alex was born before Sam. Boopsie will never look older because she is a Hollywood hottie with forever genes, like Loren. As Garry pointed out just this past Sunday (Liz, please link) his characters have porked out considerably since Day One, not to mention, um, somehow becoming well drawn.
One source of your confusion, I suspect, is that the characters didn't really age at all for the first 13 years of the strip, when they remained in college. So they're probably somewhat younger than you'd expect.
washingtonpost.com: Doonesbury , ( Oct. 22 )
Washington, D.C.: I think you skipped over that stomach ulcer deferrment pretty fast. You sort of implied it was a fake faciliatted by his father's knowledge, which would be pretty significant in talking about Trudeau's relations to vets -- and the fact that the guy who's starring in this great series of strips is the guy who went to Vietnam way back when.
Gene Weingarten: It wasn't a fake. It was an end-run, though. Garry had ulcers as a young teen (his parents were divorcing around then.) He did have stomach scarring.
So he got, at his father's suggestion, what Garry calls "the felicitously named G.I. series." The fact is, the military was very reluctant to take people with a history of ulcers, because ulcers -- at least at the time -- were thought to recur through life, which means the VA would be stuck with treating this person forever.
Was it gaming the system? Yes. Would I have done it, too? In a heartbeat.
Harrisburg, Pa.: Since Garry Trudeau served so reserved and shy about discussing his personal life, how were you able to get him to do so? How did you get him to agree to be interviewed?
Gene Weingarten: Well, I asked.
Garry and I had corresponded a few times before, online. A host a regular chat on Tuesdays, and it frequently deals with issues of the comics pages, and on more than one occasion I had relayed a reader's question directly to Garry.
I'm not entirely certain why Garry agreed to this, given his historical aversion to publicity, but I think part of it was that he knew I cared about the comics, looked at them analytically, and respected comics as an art form. Obviously, he also knew that I thought the B.D. storyline was great. But Trudeau is very media savvy, and knew perfectly well that once he agreed to participate, anything could happen. He just risked it.
Eastern Market, Washington, D.C.: Gene,
You really know how to hurt a guy! By quoting that buffoonish demagogue from Fox (I am under oath never to say or write his name) to the effect that the B.D. series "saps morale" for the war, you show Mr Commentator at his very best: silent, with his right foot stuck awkwardly into his big mouth.
Gene Weingarten: Yeah, I am guessing O'Reilly would take that back now, if he could. But it's forever archived! You can find it. A totally preposterous column, in which he also appears to link Trudeau (though only indirectly) with Goebbels.
Jane Pauley and the strip: Did you ever attempt to again bring up the parallel between his wife's mental illness and the strip? Jane certainly identified it, recognized the compartmentalization but understands Garry's mind set. Is this something he is able/willing to acknowledge?
Gene Weingarten: This is the best question so far. Very shrewd.
It was the single biggest issue I had to deal with, in reporting. When Jane volunteered that connection, at breakfast, I thought, as a reporter, "wow." My second thought was, "Do I need to bounce this off Garry?"
I decided, tactically, that bouncing it off Garry would only have blunted and muddied the point of it. What could he say -- yes, she's right? No, I don't see it? Either way, it would just land with a thud.
I decided the important thing was that Jane felt that way and that -- as she herself said -- it's pretty hard to argue against it.
Are you a journalist? Because that was a very smart question.
Rockville, Md.: I have read and enjoyed Doonesbury since the guys hit the road and were looking. He has grown over the years and your article shows this verywell. However, I do wonder at the tone whey you wrote "Trudeau just kills Bush." and "Most recently, Trudeau was right about Iraq." Since things have been more difficult than many expected, you are right.
Congratulations, I guess. But who do you want to win in Iraq?
Gene Weingarten: After 9/11, I told my friend David Von Drehle that my greatest hope was that I (an unreconstructed liberal) would vote for Bush in 2004, based on how he had handled the previous three years. My primary loyalty was to this country. Still is.
But I can't answer your question, because I no longer know what it would mean to "win" in Iraq. Bush has screwed things up that badly. My opinion.
Washington, D.C.: I loved the feature on Garry Trudeau. Congratulations for getting him to open up as much as he did. There was so much in the article that I feel silly that the following question kept popping into my mind, but oh, well: What made the Meatheads think that "Good Night and Good Luck" would be a bad movie in the way that "Poseidon" is a bad movie??
Gene Weingarten: I'm not sure!
I had the opposite reaction. I went to see GNAGL expecting a terrific movie, and was disappointed. Can anyone explain to me the point of that whole second storyline about the couple who couldn't reveal they were married?
Rockville, Md.: Please, please assure me that Trudeau's syndicate will nominate him for a Pulitzer for his work portraying BD's struggle and journey. Its brilliance defies categorization.
Gene Weingarten: Well, obviously, I agree. Doonesbury has already won one Pulitzer for editorial cartooning, and was a finalist two years ago, the first year of the B.D. saga. It lost out to a brilliant entry by Matt Davies, a loss Trudeau is not remotely upset about. He felt Davies deserved it.
It's very hard for a strip artist to win a Pulitzer, competing against editorial cartoonists. I believe only Trudeau and Breathed have done it.
Falls Church, Va.: The Post has been on a roll in the past week or so. Puff piece about good-looking young Democratic candidates in Style. Puff piece about Jim Webb in Style. Puff piece about Nancy Pelosi in news. Puff piece about Google (big Dem. donors) in Business. Puff piece about Obama in Book World. And Saturday's Quote-Acrostic features a quotation from Joan Didion denouncing newsroom objectivity as a sham!
Nice to see you doing your neatly-timed part for the Post's election effort.
Gene Weingarten: Yeah, the word went out in mid-year at the Post that we needed to start looking for conservative-bashing pieces; either that or liberal puff pieces. This happens every two years. I was given the choice of Trudeau or Jimmy Carter, and ordered to ignore anything negative, including Trudeau's rap sheet on morals charges from the 70s.
You guys really think it works like this, don't you?
Grand Rapids, Mich.: We'll stipulate that Trudeau is number one on the list of cartoonists who have had the most influence on American culture. Who would be in distant second? The other strips that have become a part of the culture -- Dilbert, Peanuts, Garfield -- don't have that same influence. Boondocks wanted to influence the culture but didn't achieve the visibility.
Gene Weingarten: You'd probably have to go back to Walt Kelly, and Pogo. In his day, Kelly was actually a media star.
Peanuts probably had a greater effect on the comics arts -- virtually every cartoonist, including Trudeau, claims a debt to Schulz -- but in terms of affecting society at large, I suspect it is Trudeau and Kelly.
Thanks for the article. I was born on the day the "Baby Woman" strip ran, and have always felt connected to Doonesbury. Did you discuss with Trudeau any plans for his future? Does he plan to retire? (By the way, the impending end of "For Better or For Worse" has turned that strip into a death march toward the end of everyone's plot line.)
Gene Weingarten: The "Baby Woman" strip was one of my favorites! I had included it in the story, but it was cut for length. Joanie Caucus was tending a daycare center (and getting paid for it!) and was wondering if she had managed to instill her nascent feminism on any of the little girls. Her prayers were answered when one of the girls got off the phone to announce she had a new sister, whom she described as "A baby woman!"
Boy, a lot of stuff didn't get into the story? Know where Joanie got her last name? It was a tribute to the National Women's Caucus, which Trudeau spent a lot of time with in the 1960s and 1970s, to hone his feminism and, ah, to hang out with hot chicks.
Alexandria, Va.: Gene, thanks so much for your beautiful feature on Garry Trudeau. I am very proud of working for the VA's health care system, which provides the Best Care in the U.S. according to "Business Week." I couldn't stand B.D. as a civilian, but love him as a veteran.
I am also proud of being a liberal and I have been violently opposed to this war since its conception. Mr. Trudeau is the only one who can explain this (and eloquently) to those who believe you can't split the ticket, in political speak.
Garry came to the VA Central Office to sign his two new books about B.D.'s recovery and stayed for four hours. I was thrilled to be able to meet him -- who knew such a genius satarist is also warm, friendly and unassuming? I should have realized that he had to do a lot of research to get it so right, but I was still amazed at how much he knows about our system.
Besides, Gene, he's hot! I'd fling my virtual panties but Jane doesn't need Celeste to help keep her man straight!
Gene Weingarten: I'm laughing here. When/if Garry reads this, he's not going to understand the virtual panties.
Of course, I heart you........but I may heart Garry Trudeau just a bit more. Great article.
Gene Weingarten: Garry won't understand this, either.
Alex chooses Cornell: Great strip. And as a registered professional electrical engineer in private practice, I also thought it was a great question that Alex had posed to likely mentors.
BTW: I dated a beautiful, brainy MIT grad and served with guys I referred to as the RPI Mafia. From my experience with these characters, Alex made the best decision in spite of what the Car Talk guys think about Cornell: "Far above Cayuga's waters, there's an awful smell.."
Thanks much. HLB, Mt. Lebanon PA
Gene Weingarten: As many of you know, my daughter is at Cornell vet school. She reported an intense campaign afoot to bring Alex there, but no one could compete with the MIT technos. Cornell is largely a liberal arts school.
You may be slow: But "You have molasses in the synapses" is my new favorite insult. Brilliant!
Gene Weingarten: I'd add some funny comment here, but for some reason can't think of one.
Trudeau = Goebbels?: Actually, that's a fairly brilliant analogy. Both are/were master propagandists, and both favored their ideology over the truth.
Kinda like you, if you were better.
Gene Weingarten: Okay, I'm just putting this out here. It's a nice little leavening agent.
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: So, Garry let you hang out with him and his buddies? For how long did this go on? Didn't you feel a little... um... unaccomplished? Did you have to try extra hard to fit in? Wasn't that a little bit weird?
Big props to Trudeau... I've been reading Doonesbury since high school (20+ years) and hope it goes on forever!
Gene Weingarten: I had to keep fighting the impulse to ask for his autograph, yes.
Not really, but you get the idea.
Herndon, Va.: Great story, with one flaw.
The flaw is the conclusion, that has us compare the genius of Doonesbury with the vapidity of Blondie. Pointing to Doonesbury's genius by noting that Blondie's subjects and execution are not nearly as well-honed as Doonesbury's is like noting the greatness of the New York Yankees by showing how much better they are than a Triple A team.
Gene Weingarten: This is a valid point. It may well have been too easy. But one point I was trying to make is that, by and large, the comics pages have turned to goo.
Chevy Chase, Md.: Thanks for a great story. I thought the most poignant remark made by Trudeau was part of his response to your question about whether he thought Bush was evil or stupid. "He substitutes belief for thought", which characterizes succinctly the extremism we're experiencing in both the Christian and the Muslim communities.
Gene Weingarten: Maybe, but I think Trudeau's point was that Bush should know better.
Moncton, New Brunswick: In 1974, I saw Hunter Thompson speak to a crowd of 450 people at a college in the Midwest. The talk was given well after the success of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Campaign Trail '72". It was a typical college speaking engagement, respectfully and warmly received, with a 50 minute talk and a brief question and answer session. In 1976, I saw Thompson speak at the University of Missouri. The crowd that came to see him was virtually a howling mob. A speech was impossible to such a group so it quickly degenerated into a raucous (and rather vacuous) Q&A session. I had dinner with Thompson afterwards and asked what had happened since 1974 to cause this. Thompson pointedly blamed Trudeau's portrayal of "Uncle Duke" in the "Doonesbury" comic strip. Thompson went on to say the "Duke" character was one he had created for his own literary purposes and that Trudeau had taken it for personal gain. That night, in 1976, Thompson claimed the comic strip was "ruining" his life and that it had made it impossible to work as he wished as a journalist because whenever Thompson tried to cover a public campaign event he was treated by onlookers as some celebrity circus freak. Did you and Trudeau ever discuss Thompson?
Gene Weingarten: Only briefly. I know that Trudeau is aware that Thompson didn't like him. But, you know, Thompson created his outsized persona quite deliberately; it's hard for me to understand how or why he could resent a parody.
Did you guys catch the amazing way Trudeau dealt with the real Hunter Thompson's death? It was a very clever bit of surrealism/existentialism in which Duke seems to suddenly get a Duke-like version of someone treading on his grave. The art resembled Ralph Steadman's art, which appeared in a lot of Thompson's book. A remarkable, sophisticated inside joke.
Liz, I'll bet you can't find this link.
Garry seems a little less pleased with the Duke character than some of his others. As he pointed out to me, Duke is pretty two dimensional -- once you realize that every single thing he does or says is based on self-interest, you pretty much have him.
washingtonpost.com: Doonesbury , ( March 8, 2005 )
Santa Barbara, Calif.: I often read Doonesbury twice -- I have to check to see if it's really that daringly, outrageously right on target. Then I think, everyone should be reading this!
So, you say the number of papers carrying Doonesbury is shrinking. Yikes! What can we do to keep that from happening? Do letters to the editor really make a difference?
Hurray that Garry T. is coming to Santa Barbara this week!
Thank you for your thoughtful, in-depth article.
Gene Weingarten: No, papers aren't cancelling Doonesbury. It's just that the number of papers are shrinking.
Gene Weingarten: Let me try this a second time, with a little greater clarity: There are fewer newspapers in America than there were in the 1970s.
Boulder, Colo.: So how much did Tom the Butcher whack from this piece? I found each section of it fascinating, and I was wanting more. Thanks for the good work.
Gene Weingarten: Tom whacked about 1,500 words. It is why they call him the Butcher.
Gainesville, Fla.: Excellent read yeasterday! My mom bought me a Doonesbury book many years ago and Gary was at the bookstore signing them. She said nobody was payying any attention to him so she went over and got him to sign the copy she bought. She was going to go and he just started talking to her and asking her questions and they ended up chatting awhile. She was struck by what a good listener he was.
Gene Weingarten: He is one of the world's great listeners. And filers away. He is also just incredibly gracious to people. No pretension at all.
New York, N.Y.: Tell Trudeau if he wants to do something for the strip on the Web site, step one is very smple: one needs to be able to go direct to the strip without having to pause on an intro page and find the spot that, with another click, will take you to the strip.
Amazing on the Web how much that second click, that unnecessary second click, discourages one from coming back again. Put the strip on the homepage, pal, let people link right to it, get there from wherever they are with a single click, and the hits will go up practically overnight.
Gene Weingarten: The Web has spoiled us, to a totally comical degree.
Rosslyn, Va.: While reading this, I could not help but wonder what Garry looks like? I tried mentally coming up with an image. Any place where I can go to see what he looks like?
washingtonpost.com: It's called Google image search .
Gene Weingarten: Aren't their photos of Garry on the washpost site with the story? If not, it's too bad. Michael Williamson took a few spectacularly good shots.
Falls Church, Va.: So the timing of your piece was just coincidence? Look at the situation objectively, as a journalist, and tell me you wouldn't be the least bit skeptical?
Gene Weingarten: I am honestly laughing here.
Yes, sir. This story was embarked on in March 2006. It got done when it got done, delayed a little by my father's death. It was not timed to coincide with anything. There was no agenda.
Rochester, N.Y.: did Trudeau mention his impressions of any other politicos he met while at Yale? Kerry? Ashcroft? Lieberman? Talbott?
Gene Weingarten: Not that I recall, no.
Palookaville: "in terms of affecting society at large, I suspect it is Trudeau and Kelly."
And before that, The Yellow Kid.
Gene Weingarten: Well, as I recall, the Yellow Kid by Outcault was the first comic strip. But I think people who know more than I do will say that Little Nemo in Slumberland, of the same vintage, survived the test of time much better.
My son is in art school, studying animation, and he just learned that one of the great animation pioneers was Winsor McCay, the Nemo cartoonist.
New York, N.Y.: I wasn't surprized to see that Trudeau doesn't keep his own artwork and other creations prominently displayed. Genius rarely takes its work seriously. Why do you think that is?
Gene Weingarten: Because the genius still sees the scaffolding, even after it has been removed. The process removes the sense of achievement.
Perth, Western Australia: Did you get a sense from Garry Trudeau that he would draw directly for the Internet if newspapers could no longer provide him the audience he sought?
Takoma Park, Md.: Did you tell the woman in the airport who was with you?
Gene Weingarten: Not until I called her many weeks later, to verify some facts. She couldn't stop laughing.
Virtual panties: Are you sure Garry won't understand this? The phrase always seemed self-explanatory to me.
Well, if you ask him about virtual panties, um, throw mine on the pile, too. Lucky Jane!
Gene Weingarten: Speaking of his looks, here's a line I had in the piece but T the B cut out: I was trying to be snide, so I could say something unfairly negative and I noted that from behind you can see he has a very small bald spot on his head which is "oh so predictably a little left of center."
I also pointed out that he pronounces the "t" in "often." That's sort of the worst thing I discovered about him! Tom took it out.
Arlington, Va.: Now that the editorial powers that be have turned over at least once or twice is The Washington Post ever going to reconsider it's exile of Doonesbury to space below the gossip column? I'm time constrained so I read the editorial/oped and selected comics regularly, but skip past Style Page 3. Fortunately for Garry someone alerted me to the Iraq series so he got some royalties, but I still regularly skip past the current placement.
Gene Weingarten: I've gotten used to it, but it was a stupid thing to do. It is not nearly as stupid as moving Dilbert to the business page. I keep calling for the firing of the person who made that decision, but no one ever listens.
Arlington, Va.: You talk about "gaming the system" but Cheney, Clinton, Bush et.al. are routinely criticized for their deferments or alternatives employed which resulted in them not being drafted. Why then should a guy who was married (still is) and in grad school be critized and Truadeau, who gamed the system, not?
Gene Weingarten: I don't condemn anyone who found a way out of Vietnam.
If we had a draft today, I wouldn't condemn anyone who found a way out, either.
His Pulitzer...: Gene, I read this morning while randomly skimming the Doonesbury timeline on Slate that when Trudeau won his Pulitzer for editorial cartoons, it was answered by a letter of protest from the editorial cartoonists. After checking to make sure that no one could make him give the award back, Trudeau signed the letter with the rest of them. Seems like this one anecdote pretty much sums up his entire personality.
Gene Weingarten: I had forgotten that. I would have put it in the story.
Trudeau on Kerry: "did Trudeau mention his impressions of any other politicos he met while at Yale? Kerry?"
Trudeau did a number of strips on Kerry as returned-Vietnam-vet-turned-war-opponent at the time it was actually going on. He made Kerry out to be a preening, self-serving, ambitious politician-wannabe. Yet another example of how perspicacious Trudeau has always been!
Gene Weingarten: Right. He had him as a prettyboy.
Silver Spring, Md.: Hi Gene - I was born in 1967, and as soon as I could read, I read my parents large collection of Doonesbury comic books. So essentially, everything I learned about Watergate, the Vietnam War, the women's movement, etc., I learned from Gary Trudeau. His work has had such an influence on my beliefs and opinions. Thank you for such a wonderful article on a brilliant, funny, and insightful man.
Gene Weingarten: Many posts have expressed similar thoughts.
Bethesda, Md.: The story was great, but forgot to address one important issue -- where does Trudeau stand on VPL????
Gene Weingarten: Any comments Trudeau and I may or may not have had about women's behinds were privileged.
Arlington, Va.: Thank you for the article. It ate up my work morning, but was brilliant. Just a quick thing. Did you notice Bush's "brie" as elitist cheese reference in your article re: last week or so's chat topic on brie v. velveeta. It reminds me of the GOP unfair accusations of most if not all dems being limosuine liberals (brie eating chardonnay drinkers). Seems to me Garry is appealing to velveeta eaters, too, lately. I'm 25 years old and have never been interested in Doonesbury before. It seemed intimidating with all the characters and plotlines. But now I plan to start reading it since I will know what it's all about. Thanks! Think you will ever get to do a piece on Bill Watterson?
Gene Weingarten: I tried to do Watterson several years ago. The effort to get him was heroic, and it failed in a comical fashion, as it were.
Some day I'll write about it.
Do you guys remember about a year ago when Garry, in the strip, confused Sam and Alex? He has more active characters than any strip ever.
Hey, let's compare it to Prickly City, which has ... two.
Not just looks: Any woman of intelligence will tell you that the brain is the sexiest body part. Garry Trudeau has a seriously hot brain.
But you should know that, Gene, because that's why all those hot women frequent your Tuesday chats.
Gene Weingarten: It's not my looks?
Hotda, MN: I have always believed that Trudeau's hiatus in '83-84 played a huge role in the re-election of Reagan. If Garry had been hammering away at all the material Ronnie was giving him, Mondale just might have won. It seems that Trudeau would disagree about his importance to national public opinion. Did you discuss this at all?
Gene Weingarten: I don't think Mondale had any greater chance of winning than Dukakis did.
Good Night and Good Luck: I'm pretty sure that the second plot was there because Joe and Shirley Wershba (the couple) served as the scriptwriters' primary source on how the events unwound (they are credited as consultants). I suppose they could have made it a memoir film, but the filmmaker's decided to make it unfold more like a documentary. That didn't change the fact, however, that the events as they came to understand them, were always referential to the perspective of the Wershbas--and for them, hiding their marriage was a big component of their experience of Murrow's battle against McCarthy.
Gene Weingarten: Okay, buuuuuuuttttt..... It was this insanely weak and pointless plotline in the movie, no? Who gave a crap?
Westcliffe, Colo.: Does Trudeau still use pencil, pen and paper? I think that was in your article.
Did you ask him if he's tried out one of these new, nifty graphics pads. From pen right into computer and these things have high res specs, software, and supporting doodads now.
I just got one for my birthday (Oct. 6) and I'm... 55!
Gene Weingarten: He uses pencil and paper. I know that because at this moment I am looking at one of his finished pencil drafts, before it got inked.
Sadly, I have to return this.
We were going to print a pencil drawing, but there was just no space.
Re Arlington: Well, you don't see Garry prancing around in a flight suit, pretending to be a bad-$$ warrior, and sending other people's kids to fight, either. Maybe the people Arlington has in mind are criticizing that, in contrast to certain politicians' past (understandable) gaming of the system.
Gene Weingarten: You know, it's interesting... Garry and I are around the same age. I got out by having a high enough draft number. We were discussing this and neither of us could remember for sure what we would have done had we been drafted. Neither of us would have run to Canada, we think. I just can't recall. I might have wound up in 'Nam, or with the Guard.
Orange, Va.: Still love the strip as much as I did when I first started reading it in the '70's but I still wonder sometimes if it has lost some of its sense of whimsy which used to almost predominate. I'm remembering a great stretch when Zonker kept thinking he saw Mark Spitz everywhere until when finally cured of his phobia Spitz ends up sitting next to him at a lunch counter. In other words, do you think aging and the endless bad actors on the political scene -- from both sides of the aisle -- have hardenned Trudeau a bit?
Gene Weingarten: No. I think the strip has never lost its edge. I went back and read from start to finish, for this story. The very few times I found myself not liking it was when he seemed to move from satire to advocacy. Also, some of the old Walden stuff.
I am not a journalist: I thought the story was wonderful and was struck by the fact that I became teary-eyed reading the strips, just as I had the first time I read them, and even becoming teary eyed at the DESCRIPTION of the blacked out strip when BD was hit. So powerful. Now, on to the criticism, as noted, I am not a journalist, but I would say that it was dishonest and unfair not to ask him about Pauley's illness's effect on the strip. You made a choice about the story so you wouldn't have to deal with an inconvenient answer, or one that wouldn't work well with the story, not the correct, humane choice. The man should have been able to know that his wife said what she did and that it would appear in print. You could have dealt with it as you did here, saying "I asked Garry and his answer landed with a thud" or something, but to not ask him was dishonest, or at a minimum, manipulative, to him and to the reader.
Gene Weingarten: Could be. I'll ask him about this.
Herndon, Va.: Mr. W: Your story read far, far better with Tom the Butcher's 1,500 word cut.
Gene Weingarten: Thanks for writing in, Tom.
Re: Moved Doonesbury: ...look at today's "Prickly City." Is there any reason Doonesbury is banished, but not that ?
washingtonpost.com: Prickly City , ( Oct. 23 )
Gene Weingarten: I really dislike Prickly City, but this is pretty funny.
And no, as far as your larger point -- it makes no sense to put Dbury on the editorial page, or anywhere but the comics. Many comics have become nakedly political. Which is good.
Not Falls Church, Va.: Shhh, Gene.
If Falls Church really believes that Democrats are so organized that they drafted Garry Trudeau when he was a mere college student, and convinced him to write a left of center political strip, brilliant enough to warrant interest in him, the author, as a cover story in the Post Magazine in late October 2006...
AND convince two young Google enterpreneurs to make substantial charitable contributions to progressive causes, AND convince any politician who is not a Republican to write a book, or to make campaign statements or appearances in October of 2006...
AND EVEN include in a Saturday Quote-Acrostic a quotation from Joan Didion denouncing newsroom objectivity as a sham (doesn't this sort of support HIS point?)...
Well, heck. Let him believe that what he considers the opposition party is so much smarter, effective, better organized, with cooler people supporting it, than the party he identifies with.
Don't let's tell him that the White House, Senate, and House are all Republican-led, and the media self-flagellates about the merest possibility of BIAS and publishes comments from people like him ALL THE TIME! Including now.
Washington, D.C.: On the cover illustration, how did you feel about the error: he doesn't do the inking, right?
Maryland: I was surprised that your article, which dealt with the fact that Garry can throw stones from a distance, did not deal with the intimidating encounter he had at a Republican Convention, when Jeb Bush towered over him and issued a veiled threat.
Comment? Thanks for the fine work!
Gene Weingarten: Well, don't know that he "towered" over him. Jeb, as I recall, told him to "tread softly," or something like that. Ambiguous, but eerie. And incredibly stupid.
Springfield, Va.: Would it be possible for washpost.com to pubish the other 1500 words for us, online?
I think most of us here at the chat would like to see the other parts.
Gene Weingarten: Probably, that would be considered insubordination. They weren't so great. Despite his heavy hand, T the B actually knows how to edit, sometimes.
Trudeau's Influence: If you get all your opinions from Garry Trudeau, you may as well get your news from Jon Stewart.
washingtonpost.com: Daily Show As Substantial as Nightly News , ( UPI, Oct. 5 )
Gene Weingarten: Yeah, this is an amazing trend, isn't it? I applaud it, only because it HAS to be moving people leftward, at least a little, no? Certainly raises our level of cynicism, which is always important.
Harrisburg, Pa.: A lot of cartoonists have taken questions from readers on washingtonpost.com discussions, and I used to presume the reason Garry Trudeau never did one was because he was too famous and busy to do one. After reading your article, I now have the impression that he is shy and reserved and would feel uncomfortable discussing himself. Why do you think he has never participated in one of these discussions, or, perhaps he might someday?
Gene Weingarten: I think it is for the same reason Garry chose not to lurk in this chat.
There is nothing supercilious about this guy at all. He's shy.
And with that, we'll wrap it up.
Thanks so much, and I'll see many of you tomorrow, at the normal time.
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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Gene Weingarten fields questions and comments on his story about "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau.
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Critiquing the Press - washingtonpost.com
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Howard Kurtz has been The Washington Post's media reporter since 1990. He is also the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and the author of "Media Circus," "Hot Air," "Spin Cycle" and "The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media and Manipulation." Kurtz talks about the press and the stories of the day in "Media Backtalk."
Reporters as Detectives , ( Post, Oct. 23, 2006 )
Washington, D.C.: Mr. Kurtz: I am one of those readers who is "stealing" your work product by only consuming it on-line for free. But I am also one of those (seemingly few) people who support what the "MSM" does, as far as objective reporting, investigative reporting, and news analysis. I think that bloggers and such, while great, can only exist because the vast majority of them piggyback off of your work.
But I would be stupid to pay for something I can get for free. Cutting staff will save money now, but that doesn't stop the bleeding. Wringing your hands over lower circulation and competition from amateur journalists will only do so much. The news industry is changing, and someone needs to figure out how to keep making money off of it. At what point is it your industry's obligation to come up with a revised business plan?
Howard Kurtz: I don't regard you as a thief. We do get some ad revenue from the Web site, and it brings our work to the world beyond D.C., Maryland and Virginia, where the paper version is available. If you don't feel the need to flip the pages and discover stories and columns that you might miss online, so be it. My point is that Web revenues, at least at this moment in time, can't support the kind of staff that makes The Post the paper it is (or the NYT, LAT, USA Today etc.). Can't support the kind of depth that does the kind of investigative reporting for which the paper is known (along with sports coverage, movie reviews, foreign bureaus and on and on). That's our problem, not yours. But it is a problem.
Rolla, Mo.: A "what liberal media" question -- Yesterday on MTP Tim Russert had his panel consisting of John Harwood, Bob Novak, David Broder, and Charlie Cook. I count 2 conservatives, one centrist and a independent. So, where is the liberal pundit here? Broder has definitely been on the centrist bandwagon lately, so he's not it. I realize that not every program has to have equal balance, but when it doesn't it is jarring.
Howard Kurtz: I'm not sure who is the second conservative on your list after Novak. Broder, Harwood and Cook are all known as pretty much down-the-middle guys.
New York, N.Y.: Hi Howard: This may have been hashed over already, but I'm curious as to why the media don't correct Bush et al. when they refer to the opposition as the 'Democrat' party. It's clearly wrong, isn't it, and isn't it meant to be a pejorative? Yet, even in print, it's not corrected or explained. I'm just puzzled as to why it's gone on for as long as it has, and exactly what it's supposed to accomplish. Seems like sandbox-level to me. Has The Post made a decision on how to handle this? Thanks.
Howard Kurtz: A couple of columnists have scolded Bush for that. I'm surprised he does it. If he wants to make cut-and-run charges, etc., that's his right, but at least pronounce the name of the party correctly.
Arlington, Va.: I cannot BELIEVE that you are equating the filing of corrected disclosure reports re Harry Reid's land sale, and Duke Cunningham's criminal bribe. What was Senator Reid's crime? From what I've read, he bought the land several years ago, before he was in the Senate leadership. He did not use his office to make any illegal profit. Your strive for "balance" is disingenuous, yet you leave out the Dennis Hastert land deal, where he used the power of his office to push through a highway bill, near land that he owned, and sold it at a 200% profit. Yeah, there are corrupt Democrats, but don't equate a legitimate land deal with the now rampant corruption within the Republican party.
Howard Kurtz: I'm not equating anything. I am merely listing the controversies involving members of Congress that were broken by reporters. Obviously the Harry Reid land deal is light-years away from the corruption of a Duke Cunningham or Bob Ney. But it did prompt the Senate minority leader to revise his financial disclosure statements. I don't know why anyone would get the impression that I'm suggesting all these cases are equally bad. What they have in common is that the press acted as a catalyst.
Could you explain what the duties of a publisher are vs those of a managing editor? How does an owner/publisher differ from a "hired" publisher (other than the former can't be fired...)?
Howard Kurtz: A managing editor (or editor) is an editorial employee who worries only about news coverage (although at some papers the editor also oversees the editorial page, which I think is an awful idea). The publisher, whether appointed or a case of the owner appointing himself, is responsible for the whole business side of the paper, and has input (ranging from absolute to mild) into the stances of the editorial page, including endorsements.
Paying for online access: I gave up my paper subscription, except for Sundays, simply to cut down on the amount of paper that comes into my house - but I'd happily pay for online access to the Post, to assuage my lingering guilt over reading for free what I used to pay for - happily paying for a "premium" subscription at the NYTimes, for that same reason (and there I don't even have a Sunday subscription). Any word on how the NYTimes experiment is working?
Howard Kurtz: We'd be happy to have you make an online contribution for the Post, but unfortunately (from a business point of view), most Web users have gotten spoiled and expect all content to be free. The NYT experiment of charging non-subscribers 50 bucks a year for columnists, archives and other special features has been a financial success that has brought the company a good bit of extra revenue. But it means that many fewer people, perhaps millions, see the work of Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, Frank Rich, etc. and that they are much less a part of the online conversation. I still excerpt them occasionally but no longer provide links, which are useless to non-subscribers.
New Haven, Conn.: Howie, two things about "Reporters as Detectives." First, it's worth pointing out that a very small percentage of the reporters in any newsroom do investigative work. Cutting a newsroom staff from 900 to 800 may impact investigative work, or not, since it all depends on which jobs are cut. Second, in my experience, and I suspect yours, in all too many cases "investigative" journalism winds up being a case of a reporter deciding to run with material given him or her by someone's political opponents. Sometimes, as with Dan Rather, they get caught. What proportion of "investigative" journalism do you suppose falls into that category?
Howard Kurtz: As a onetime investigative reporter, I strongly disagree with your second point. Maybe in the heat of a campaign a lot of oppo research gets dumped on journalists, but stories like those involving Abramoff, Ney, Cunningham and Weldon were painstakingly assembled from public records and interviews -- the old-fashioned way, in other words. But I also think you're defining investigative reporting too narrowly, as if it only counts if you have a segregated unit of folks spending months on projects. Beat reporters do investigative digging all the time. But they might need a week or two to do the extra work required, in addition to their regular responsibilities. If you've got one reporter covering city hall or the statehouse or the local congressional delegation, that becomes very hard because of the demands for daily copy. If you've got two people sharing a beat, you can trade off and it becomes more feasible. That's where the pinch may be felt on investigative work. A Post editor, by the way, told me this morning that this paper has expanded its investigative unit, even during the recent period of buyouts that have reduced the staff by about 8 percent.
Downsizing MSM: Howard: Is it possible that the MSM newsroom cutbacks reflect a combination of big business interests and (dare I type it) overpriced journalists? Maybe a high-priced anchor could forgo a few benjamins to rescue a researcher or two.
Howard Kurtz: Look, some places may be overstaffed, and in television, big salaries for anchors and star correspondents are definitely a budgetary factor. I'm not saying all cutbacks are bad. But when you have a Dallas Morning News or Cleveland Plain Dealer reducing its newsroom staff by as much as 20 percent, or NBC cutting 5 percent of all jobs, over time that has an impact.
Regarding MTP: "Howard Kurtz: I'm not sure who is the second conservative on your list after Novak. Broder, Harwood and Cook are all known as pretty much down-the-middle guys. "
Then by your count, that's 1 con, 3 mid-the-road, and zero liberal/progressives.
Does that count for balance in today's media?
Howard Kurtz: It's only a problem if you believe that every single panel on every single show at every single moment must be perfectly balanced on a scale, as opposed to achieving a rough balance over time.
Washington, D.C.: You may be right that by listing the Reid land deal along with Cunningham etc. you meant no harm, but others have pointed out that CNN and papers have focused on it quite a bit and seem to do so to balance what would otherwise be a series of Republican-only scandals. The problem is the Reid land deal looks pretty innocuous -- so he failed to update a disclosure to show that the partnership had been dropped into a LLC -- tell me how that belongs in the same list as Cunningham, Abramoff, Ney and even Hastert's own land deal (where there is no evidence of wrong doing but a much clearer motive).
Howard Kurtz: I take no position on whether it was innocuous. But clearly, the major corruption scandals this year have involved Republicans -- Cunningham, Ney, Foley, Abramoff. There is no question about that. The only significant exception is William (90K in the freezer) Cunningham, although no charges have yet been brought in that case.
Washington, D.C.: I noticed last week that when the New York Times was featuring the astounding profits from Google, it also ran a story about the tanking advertising revenues for newspapers. Summertime is supposed to be slower for Google because people get outdoors, but Google increased profits despite a slow season and a huge revenue number from last year to top. Do you sense that there is a big, airline-industry/auto-industry style tsunami of losses that are about to wash upon the shores of the print newspaper industry?
Howard Kurtz: Not losses, no. You might get the impression from all these layoff and buyout stories that newspapers are in the red. Actually, they make plenty of money, many of them with profit margins around 20 percent. The reason for the cutbacks is that their corporate owners, under pressure from Wall Street, want to push those margins even higher. Most industries would kill for the kind of profit margins that newspapers enjoy. But they are suffering a significant reduction in classified advertising, and the big threat there is not Google but services like Craigslist.
Paper vs. Online: Did you read Kinsley's piece a while back in which his contention was that the physical paper costs about 50 cents to manufacture and deliver, so eliminating that part of the business might be a wash? Hard to imagine that before widespread wi-fi, but an interesting commentary.
From a business standpoint, we place a lot of ads in local papers for our clients, and the current pattern (don't know about The Post) of increasing rates to maintain revenues, even as circulation drops, is turning a lot of our dollars elsewhere.
Howard Kurtz: Well, that's a problem, because such advertising remains the lifeblood of the paper (and some people actually like getting the paper because of the ads). A nagging problem for many big-city dailies has been the demise of local department stores and other retailers that used to buy a truckload of ads. In this market, Woodies, Hechts, Garfinkel's, Hechinger's are all toast.
Arlington, Va.: Last week, some gay activist claimed to have outed a Republican Senator from the Northwest (Bill Maher mentioned it on his HBO show) and the local D.C. gay newspaper mentioned a similar accusation about a Republican gubernatorial candidate in the South. Is a person's sexual orientation a legitimate news story, or is it only when the protagonist steps over the line somehow?
Howard Kurtz: I know the case you're talking about. I wrote about it in my blog. Two newspapers in the senator's home state ran stories on the controversy. I don't think news organizations should be in the business of outing people unless there's some overriding reason (cyberstalking House pages, hitting on an employee) to do so. ABC's Brian Ross told me yesterday on Reliable Sources that the activist in question brought him the same information and he had no interest in pursuing it.
Podcast: Howard, I tried to download the podcast version of your CNN show, but it looks like only the "video" version is available. This file is like 300MB, and takes an hour to download! You should suggest to your computer people that they also post an audio version, like several other shows do. I and others would love to listen to this!
Howard Kurtz: I will pass that on. Of course, there IS the alternative of actually watching!
Arlington, Va.: The NYT Public Editor now says the paper was wrong to publish their story on allegedly illegal financial tracking of terrorist funds. While I appreciate his honesty, this is not quite an apology from the editor or publisher; should we expect one to follow in the near future? Can an ombudsman, including The Post's, do anything to force a correction or apology besides highlight the mistakes in their column?
Howard Kurtz: No. The ombudsman speaks only for himself or herself. Calame's job, as a contract employee, is to hold the paper accountable, not pressure the editors into doing anything. Bill Keller obviously disagrees strongly or he wouldn't have published the story.
Mobile, Ala.: Howie, I would say that now that there are cut-backs and low circulation in papers, maybe journalists will work harder for their stories, their readers and their paper rather than just sitting around getting spoon fed like they have been in the past and is probably the reason for the cut-backs and low circulation of newspapers, especially NYT and Washington Post.
Howard Kurtz: Spoonfed? If you had ever spent a day in a newsroom, my friend, you'd see that everyone (well, almost everyone) hustles pretty hard. Are the reporters who exposed the corruption of several members of Congress being spoonfed? Are the reporters who are being shot at in Iraq and Afghanistan being spoonfed? I don't think so.
Arlington, Va.: I have a question about the NFL stadium scare from last week: The Web site it was on was laughably non-terrorist-related and it was a single line of text, so how did it become such a huge story? I would think Homeland Security must come across these types of messages constantly--some idiot in a chatroom types something stupid. I understand DHS needs to follow-up any and all threats, but is it typical for them to alert the press about ALL these types of threats, no matter how dubious, or does this only occur three weeks before an election?
Howard Kurtz: I blame the media. Homeland Security can alert all it wants, but news organizations have to make the judgment whether something like that is credible, and it seemed to me to be transparently phony from the start. Even DHS officials were saying there was no credible evidence that dirty bombs would be set off at 7 football stadiums. But some networks nevertheless played it up.
I think I already know the answer to this question, but...
Once the stories have been written about the results of the mid-term elections, do you believe that the media will immediately focus on the 2008 presidential election (overwhelming breaking news notwithstanding)?
Howard Kurtz: Why wait? I think they're focusing on the 2008 presidential election NOW.
Buffalo, N.Y.: Hi Howard, I am surprised that GWB's statement on ABC yesterday that "well, hey, listen, we've never been "stay the course, George." hasn't gotten more play, since it seems like such an obvious contradiction to so many statements by the Pres. and his minions. What am I missing?
Howard Kurtz: It's a semantic argument. Critics of the war say Bush wants the country to stay the course, that is, keep American troops there fighting the war until the end of his presidency. Bush, not liking the phrase, says he's not staying the course because the military is constantly adjusting based on enemy tactics. But the bottom line is he wants to keep a large contingent of American forces there indefinitely, or at least until that magical day when the Iraqis stand up so we can stand down.
Alexandria, Va.: Did you see Lesley Stahl's interview with Nancy Pelosi last night, and did it compare in any way with Stahl's hit piece on Tom DeLay? I'm biased, but it seems to me that CBS investigates Republicans, and only interviews Democrats. Stahl seemed to be telling Pelosi she had all the toughness she needed to lead the House. Would it be better if CBS let a man interview Pelosi, rather than a you-go-girl cheerleader?
Howard Kurtz: Better to let a MAN interview Pelosi? What century are you living in? I didn't see the piece, but I would point out that that Pelosi, unlike DeLay, is not under criminal indictment and was not admonished three times by the House ethics committee.
Tysons Corner, Va.: The question from Rolla, Mo., assumed two conservatives. I think it's pretty obvious that the reader counts John Harwood as conservative, simply because Harwood writes for the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal is perceived as a conservative bastion because of its influential editorial page, but most folks don't read it and therefore don't realize that much of WSJ's news coverage is, if anything, slanted Left. There was an objective study of this phenomenon about a year ago, citing WSJ as the most "liberal" of the major newspapers in coverage of news stories. Not editorials, but news stories.
So, Harwood might be a good journalist, but Rolla, Mo., should not assume that he's a conservative.
Howard Kurtz: Ah. That must be it. Whereas when I think of the Journal newsroom, I don't think of a place that's ideological, in stark contrast to Paul Gigot and the gang at the editorial page, which is so separate it has its own Web site.
Washington, D.C.: The authorities were able to sideline the threat on football stadiums just a few days. Would we have a better chance of catching terrorists if they included an interruption to sports revenues in their videos?
Howard Kurtz: They didn't sideline the threat; there was no threat. It was a deliberate hoax. Some guy in Wisconsin was arrested last week for posting the bogus threat.
Catonsville, Md.: What do you know about MSNBC laying off 700 employees and closing their production location? Operations will be moved to NYC.
Howard Kurtz: MSNBC is moving most employees to 30 Rock, but the 700 figure is the number of jobs that will be cut across the NBC network and its cable networks.
Washington, D.C.: Wow! You are wrong. It's not an argument about semantics. Bush himself has said he wants to "stay the course" in Iraq. It's not the critics saying it, he's saying it.
Seriously, it's this type of mistake that makes people distrust mainstream media.
Howard Kurtz: Bush used the phrase in the past, critics seized on it and now he's trying to change the language by changing his emphasis. My point is, his basic position hasn't changed. If you want to argue that he's walking away from rhetoric that he himself used, you're right.
San Francisco, Calif.: Hello, Howard, thanks for joining us to chat today. Several years ago, at the height of the Iraq War, most nightly network broadcasts highlighted "Fallen Heroes" to remind Americans of the real cost of this war. Now that October has become the deadliest month for U.S. troops since January 2005, don't you think network newscasts should resume honoring our war dead in this fashion?
Howard Kurtz: CBS was the one doing Fallen Heroes. All the newscasts have devoted attention to the plight of soldiers and reservists, but no one is doing it as a regular brief feature right now.
Who are you picking: Tigers or Cardinals?
Howard Kurtz: Hey, I'm an objective journalist! I can't possibly take a stand. Plus, I'm still numb over the Yankees getting blown out so early.
Worms, Germany: People have said that the impact of the Foley scandal will depend on how long it remains in the news, especially in the local news. Now that the scandal seems to recede even from the national news, is it fair to assume that it is now basically yesterday's story on therefore will not have much of an impact on the elections?
Howard Kurtz: Well, it will certainly have an impact in Foley's Florida district and has tightened the upstate New York race of Tom Reynolds, the head of the House GOP campaign committee, who has aired a commercial apologizing for not moving more aggressively when he was warned of Mark Foley's behavior. Beyond that, I think it's just added to a sense that the Republicans are not living up to the ideals they promised in 1994, and of course it consumed a couple of weeks of media attention during which it was hard for Hastert and company to get out their message.
Thanks for the chat, folks.
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Post media columnist Howard Kurtz discusses the press.
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Outlook: Wife-Beating and the Koran
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Clothes Aren't the Issue , ( Post, Oct. 22, 2006 )
Silver Spring, Md.: Is there anything non-Muslim people can do to prevent or address the domestic violence issue, especially in the Middle East? Maybe NGOs to either work at or donate money to?
Asra Q. Nomani: I wanted to provide some resources of organizations and shelters that are trying to respond to the issue of domestic violence in the Muslim community. I am certain that they would very much appreciate your support. What I hear from them is that our community is ready to build mosques but not shelters.
Here are some of the links:
Islamic Society of North America list of resources: http://www.isna.net/services/dv/resources/shelters.html
Wheaton, Md.: When we hear of wife beatings, suicide bombings and other forms of violence very common within Islamic societies, liberals quickly qualify it by saying,"these actions don't represent mainstream Islam, which is peaceful." Is that really true? I find very few Islamic sources actually condemning these actions.
Asra Q. Nomani: I would like to first like to wish all of you greetings of peace for the Muslim festival of Eid, marking the end of the month of Ramadan. Somehow, that is one thing about which we have found agreement this year, most years the Muslim nations of the world bickering over moon sightings. Sadly, I think that politics within the community and the intimidating force of the extremists has silenced and paralyzed many moderates within mainstream Islam.
Yes, we should have taken to the streets the day after 9/11 to oppose the attack, but today I think many Muslims have recognized that they've got to stand up and be heard opposing violence. Here are some links that will take you to places where these voices are being expressed: a new Dallas organization, http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/; Muslim organizations that have signed onto a fatwa against terrorism: http://isna.net/index.php?id=316
But it's not enough. I welcome you to go to www.muslimsforpeace.net because there are many of us that realize we've got to be more visible as Muslims for peace.
McLean, Va.: In your article, you argue for a non-literalist interpretation for Sura An-Nisa. How can it now be interpreted to avoid the misogyny that it breeds when it contains, quite specifically, the word 'beat' (in Ali and Pickhall's translation). Is there a way to argue, as Fazlur Rahman does, that the essence of the Qu'ran is what matters and that we must read it in a way that lets us extract universal principles? If so, how could we understand the essence of this Sura?
Asra Q. Nomani: The Koran also talks about slavery and slaves, but the Muslim world didn't continue that practice (except perhaps in the underbelly of society). We have allowed for contextual understanding of many verses of the Koran, including the literal readings that tell us to slay the the "pagans" and never befriend Jews and Christians. If we allow ourselves, we understand that those words were written at a specific political time of tribal and political rivalry. As I wrote in the article, 4:34 was progressive for the 7th century. Let's continue that progressive spirit to the 21st century and say "zero tolerance" to any physical discipline of a woman, gentle or not. And I think that is in fact the spirit of what the scholar Fazlur Rahman encouraged us to do. I believe the essence of the sura was to improve the condition for women in the 7th century to a standard that men of that time could accept. We have now risen to a higher standard.
How widespread do you feel such practices are within the U.S. itself? Is the Muslim community so closed that we are unaware of a tragedy occurring right here?
Asra Q. Nomani: At a minimum, the statistics bear out that the incidence of domestic violence in the Muslim community is at least equal to that in the non-Muslim world. As I wrote, some studies have the numbers higher. Muslim society is very closed on this issue with the topic as taboo as domestic violence was in the West in the 1950s.
Southern Germany: Thank you for your helpful column. Why do Saudi/Wahabi interpretations of the Koran have so much influence on Muslim understanding of their faith? Why does power in gender relations seem to be seen mostly in terms of male power OVER women and not as a chance to empower both equally. Thank you.
Asra Q. Nomani: My 15 years as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal allowed me to understand corporate America and its PR machinery. To me, the ideology spun out of Saudi Arabia is little more than the PR machinery of an enterprise I have to come to think of as Wahhabism Inc. It's well financed, and it has a global network of publishing houses, franchises, affiliates and spokesmen on its bankroll.
And I am still trying to figure out how women got so shafted in the power game. If you figure it out, let us all know...
Bethesda, Md.: I doubt you'll print this, but here goes. Anyone spared the standard childhood brainwashing realizes that these ancient tribal religions (Christianity and Judaism included) were founded by men to (among other things) keep women under control. Recent decades have seen adherents "updating" these faiths to wallpaper over this basic fact.
Why keep repainting wood that is rotten at the core? Why not simply embrace modernity? Why does morality have to be based on flawed millennia-old political manifestos?
Asra Q. Nomani: With that kind of challenge, of course, we have to publish your thoughts. What you say is a sentiment echoed in so many of the emails that I receive from women and men disenfranchised by organized religion. This is why I think we must try to transform institutional religion: It's never going to go away. It's better to try to make organized religion a conduit for peace, compassion and love, then surrender it the dark side.
Washington, D.C.: Have you ever been a victim of this yourself? Witnessed such?
I wonder what message 4:34 sends to Muslim youth, if they see this type of thing?
Asra Q. Nomani: I have never been a victim myself, but I have been writing this piece in my mind for the last three years, ever since the night at my mosque when the visiting preacher stood and told the men that they could "beat" their wives as a third option.
I knew my friend was upstairs in the women's section, and she left through the women's designated back door, fuming. I became a volunteer with our local Rape and Domestic Violence Shelter, and I learned about the Power and Control Wheel that is used to show how intimidation and abuse awaits those who challenge power and control in any culture.
My concern is very much about how an imbalanced relationship between women and men gets inherited by the youth, especially boys who think they are meant to be the domineering ones and girls who believe they must be submissive. To me, Islamic civilization will be ruined if we don't squash this dynamic.
Queens, N.Y.: I understand you don't consider clothes the issue, but perhaps you could explain something. Where I live, it certainly is not uncommon to see Muslim women wearing head coverings; but the only women I see fully veiled are living such traditional lives that they appear in public only walking from a car to a store accompanied by husband and children. Why is veiling becoming common in Britain among women living an essentially modern life?
Asra Q. Nomani: Just to clarify, I think clothes in the Muslim world are part of a continuum in the way puritanical and literalist interpretations are expressed in the world, but I think they are the public symbol of greater, deeper questions regarding violence toward women and violence towards others. I believe veiling has become so common because the spinmeisters of puritanical Islamic ideology are gaining ground in even the West. We're in a war of ideas in the Muslim world, and, in the marketplace of ideas, Wahhabism Inc. is increasing its marketshare. Progressive interpretations are trying to put up a good fight, but thinkers, scholars and organizations espousing those ideas aren't well organized or financed. I am hopeful. I believe progress always wins.
Arlington, Va.: I have to agree with Bethesda. I was raised Moslem and to be perfectly honest, see no reason to follow it. I feel I am a good person with strong values, why should I have to follow a bunch of suras supposedly written by a bunch of men?
Asra Q. Nomani: You don't, but we definitely need Muslims with critical minds to engage in the debate and not walk away, if they can, though I understand why you would. It's exhausting. Every other faith has had to go through this process to evolve. Ours must, as well.
Washington, D.C.: Common view is Muslim culture is not promiscuous. I thought the culture was respectful towards women in general. I had a female friend that did an exchange in Egypt. She was not Muslim. She reported that she had never been so sexually harassed and demeaned in her life and would never go back. What's the general comparison of sex in the culture?
Asra Q. Nomani: What your friend experience is something they call "Eve teasing" in my native India. It's an irony that we experience it in Muslim society considering that the Koran doesn't blame Eve for corrupting Adam.
Nonetheless, in the 21st century, it's a reality we face in Muslim society. It makes a woman feel as filthy, dirty and disrespected as the worst cases of sexual harassment we might find in America. It's a myth to think that Muslim society honors women better than societies that aren't Muslim.
Sexuality in Muslim culture today is repressed in such an unhealthy way, I've found, that it leads to a hypersexuality that objectifies women in a way not much different than what Madison Avenue does to women in the West with its images of stilettos and microminiskirts.
Lyon, France: Why is there so much silence on this issue in the West? Is it western fear of Islamic terrorism or is it that most westerners do not care if Muslim women are being abused?
Asra Q. Nomani: Really, to me, the West doesn't need to take responsibility for this issue, as I believe it ultimately doesn't need to take responsibility for extremism in our community. This is a problem that, as a Muslim community, we need to address. Why do I end up writing about it on the pages of the Washington Post? Because like so many of our sacred cows, in our Muslim community, we don't want to touch this issue openly for fear of upsetting the traditionalists and questioning the Koran. We want to do the dance, as more families get hurt in the name of religion. That's wrong.
Dallas, Tex.: Is it in the Koran that a husband can toss aside a newborn to die if it is a girl? I read a book long ago, written by a "member of the Saudi royal family" saying that it was allowed, and that some fathers were disappointed in the sex of their newborns and did do this. The book was written in the mid-1970s. Do you know if this practice persists?
Asra Q. Nomani: What is so ironic is that the Koran banned the common 7th century practice of burying infant girls alive, but yet traditions keep just cruel prejudice alive.
Boston, Mass.: How can you expect the aggressive/submissive male/female dynamic to change when women are not welcomed in Muslim religious places of worship to worship equally with men? If you have separation by the sexes in mosques, it seems no surprise to me that it gets even worse when outside of them.
Asra Q. Nomani: That is exactly why I have fought so hard for us to end gender segregation in mosques. It is akin to gender apartheid. There was only one reason why I could challenge the visiting preacher at my mosque who sanctioned men to "beat" their wives and later another preacher who told us not to be friends with the Jews and Christians: I had rejected the gender segregation at my mosque, and I sat in the main hall, able to see and hear the imam. We must have women in the main halls and leadership positions of mosques if we are going to transform the dysfunctional dynamic of women as second class citizens in Muslim society.
Philadelphia, Pa.: Let me preface this question by stating I believe your intentions are honorable and correct: no person should be beaten for any reason. What I noticed is the reactions of some friends who are Muslims from the Middle East who found your article hypocritical. Let me again preface it by stating that I do not agree, nor are they saying you are hypocritical. You are consistent: people should not be beaten. What they find hypocritical is how Americans in general view them as a violent society because they beat women--which they define and you write is meant more as a light tap to make a point--while American society finds lots of women, children, and sometimes men in hospitals as victims of abuse with broken bones. Have there been any studies that show whether physical violence rates differ much between societies, and in particular, are there much differences amongst societies regarding abusive physical violence as opposed to "light taps"?
Asra Q. Nomani: I have heard from Muslims such as your friends, who raise the issue of domestic violence in the West. The statistics I have seen documenting domestic violence identify abuse just as violent as in the West. As a volunteer in my local shelter, I would never claim to assert the West has figure out how to stop domestic violence. But I do know this:
No longer does the West accept physical rebuke -- gentle or otherwise -- against a man by a woman in the name of religion. That's the position of zero tolerance that I believe we must adopt in the Muslim world.
Fairfax, Va.: I agree with the comment that sexual harassment in the Middle East is horrible. I left Riyadh in 2001 and refuse to return. Both of my children (a boy and a girl, ages 9 and 11) were often the targets of sexual comments and one was assaulted. I was often accosted by the religious police who were offended by my lack of veiling (I am not Moslem). They shouted obscenities at me, poked me with sticks, and once had my husband in handcuffs and were hauling him off to jail until they saw our diplomatic plates. As non-Moslems, we were considered fair game.
Asra Q. Nomani: Trust me, as Muslims, we are not immune.
Herndon, Va.: At the risk of sounding completely stupid: Many of the practices, prohibitions, etc in the Old Testament are totally ignored by 99% of today's Christians. Why are Muslims holding to practices which have no place in the modern world?
Asra Q. Nomani: I believe that there is a historical arc to religion, and we are going through the same sort of critical examination that Christians and Jews went through long ago. You just have a little headstart on us.
St. Mary's City, Md.: Fundamentalists in both Islam and Christianity claim that God intended men to rule over women. How did such a hateful belief arise in these religions, and why is it found so often in fundamentalism?
Asra Q. Nomani: Fundamentalism, I do believe, has the oppression of women and the demonization of others as core tenets. They end up with power because they have the passion. This is why moderate, peaceful thinkers must tap a passion to redefine the way religion is expressed in the world.
Fairfax, Va.: If a Moslem wife is dissatisfied with her husband, can she strike him as well? Can she admonish him or ban him from her bed?
Asra Q. Nomani: That's what anyone with common sense would ask, right? No, women are not given that same "right" -- and, of course, I wouldn't argue for it. Nobody should rebuke, punish or hit.
Maryland: Prior to the 1980's Catholic nuns wore head pieces, long sleeves, floor length dresses (habits). Based on the color and design (always modest) you could determine the nuns' religious order affiliation. You did not see their hair. Only their faces were revealed. In my mind the nuns' attire and reasons for it are similar.
How hate or fear has either transformed us or revealed our true nature.
Asra Q. Nomani: I think it's fear. Fear of women. Fear of women's sexuality. Instead of figuring out healthy ways to coexist, women in all faiths, at one time or another, have had the burden of wearing burlap sacks and shrouds as the solution to other's fears.
Washington, D.C.: In your opinion, which Muslim country is the most progressive and whose population is least likely to follow 4:34?
Asra Q. Nomani: Morocco has passed new family laws offering new protections to women. Jordan has taken on the issue of domestic violence. Malaysia has a strong group, Sisters in Islam, that has pushed a zero tolerance policy regarding domestic violence. Most of institutional Islam, however, hasn't yet had the courage to reject any physical discipline of a woman, the most liberal people in institutional Islam arguing that the rebuke must be "gentle."
Thank you: I just wanted to say you've been one of the most articulate, reasoned and compassionate writers on religious matters that I've read in a long time. You give me hope that no religion has to succumb to the repressive extremists, whether it be Islam or Baptist.
Asra Q. Nomani: Thank you very much -- I firmly believe that we are in a universal battle in all of our faiths. And the letters I get from reader tell me that there are many people like you in all of the faiths who are also fed up of hate mongering, violence and conflict.
Our world needs a spiritual leader, perhaps the Dalai Lama, to rise above the fray and inspire all of us to express religion as a force of good. (Of course, the ideologues on all sides will call him 'the anti-Christ,' but the rest of us can try to work, too, for peace.)
Anonymous: You wrote about your friend who was a victim of abuse hearing it was okay to beat women - were you not also upstairs in the women's section?
Asra Q. Nomani: I had rejected the order that women remain in the balcony and amidst great resistance made a space for myself in the main hall. You can read about this effort in an earlier Outlook piece, "Going Where I Know I Belong."
Like the face veil, the second-class status of women in the mosque is a canary in the coalmine. It warns of deeper issues.
Washington, D.C.: Hello, and thank you for hosting this chat.
As an American woman who has to supervise three Muslim men, is there anything I should be aware of, or do differently with them than I do with non-Muslims? It seems tense with them sometimes, though I can't put my finger on the exact cause.
Asra Q. Nomani: I imagine there must be a cultural gap. I would recommend going to the DC area Peaceful Families project that I linked to earlier because some of the issues of men's dynamics at home are ones that could relate to the subtle issues you are feeling in the workplace.
Asra Q. Nomani: Thank you all very much for participating in this discussion. Here is to a more peaceful world...
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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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Reason and Faith at Harvard
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What should a properly educated college graduate of the early 21st century know?
A Harvard curriculum committee proposed an answer to that question this month, stating that, among other things, such a graduate should know "the role of religion in contemporary, historical, or future events -- personal, cultural, national, or international."
To that end, the committee recommended that every Harvard student be required, as part of his or her general education, to take one course in an area that the committee styled "Reason and Faith."
Whether that becomes policy remains to be seen, but the significance of the recommendation should not be understated. Harvard is the drum major of American higher education: Where it leads, others follow. And if Harvard says taking a course in religion is necessary to be an educated person, it's a good bet that many other colleges and universities will soon make the same discovery. We hope they will.
The Harvard committee rightly noted that students coming to college today struggle with an academy that is "profoundly secular." This was not always the case, at Harvard or at many other universities. For centuries scholars, scientists and artists agreed that convictions of faith were wholly compatible with the highest levels of reasoning, inquiry and creativity. But in recent centuries this assumption had been challenged and assertions of faith marginalized in, and even banished from, academic departments and university curricula. Requiring courses in "Reason and Faith" would be a welcome step toward reintroducing faith to the academy.
What should be the content of such courses? The Harvard committee hastens to explain that its proposal is not for "religious apologetics." Rather, the courses it envisions would offer an examination of "the interplay between religion and various aspects of national and/or international culture and society." They would deal not so much with the relationship between reason and faith as with reasoning about faith, religion and religious institutions and their impact in the world.
Such courses are unquestionably needed. We are in an era in which misunderstanding, conflict and turbulence characterize our interaction with the Islamic world. Debates continue about the teaching of evolution. And religious beliefs play an important role in disputes over stem cell research, abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage.
At the same time, religious communities in this country are important centers for personal and communal religious growth as well as for strengthening social cohesion and civic culture and for providing a variety of community services, particularly to the needy. Today's students must understand religious beliefs and institutions if they are to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities the future will present.
But universities can do more than just familiarize students with the world's religions in survey-course fashion. The rise of religious fanaticism stems in part from a failure of intellectuals within various religious traditions to engage the faithful of their traditions in serious and reasoned reflection, inquiry and dialogue. The marginalization of faith within universities contributes to this failure.
A recent survey by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute found that 79 percent of college freshmen believe in God, and 69 percent pray and find strength, support and guidance in their religious beliefs. Religion will remain a powerful force in the personal lives of these students long after they graduate. If faith is shunned by the institutions whose role it is to foster reason and the life of the mind, if universities do not equip students to integrate their faith with the knowledge and reasoning skills they acquire, we shouldn't be surprised if unreasonable or fanatical forces gain influence in communities of faith.
It's time for universities to explore the reasoning that is possible within a tradition of faith, and to help their students appreciate this possibility and the rich resources in great religious traditions. Such efforts would enhance the ability of those with faith to engage in thoughtful, reasoned and self-critical spiritual reflection.
At the University of Notre Dame and other academically rigorous religious colleges and universities, we strive to make room for such scholarly inquiry and discussion. We work to create classes that will convey the intellectual riches of a religious tradition and help students engage in reasoned reflection from within the perspective of faith.
This approach, too, has legitimacy within a core curriculum. Indeed, educating students on the reasoning inherent in particular faiths is critical if we want students to be able to understand and engage their own and other religious traditions in meaningful ways.
We hope that the report of Harvard's curriculum committee signals a more welcome atmosphere within the academic community for serious consideration of and engagement with issues of faith, religion and religious institutions. Our even greater hope is that some universities will join us in promoting a dialogue that truly explores the relationship between faith and reason.
The Rev. John I. Jenkins is president of the University of Notre Dame. Thomas Burish is the university's provost.
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Clothes Aren't the Issue
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. When dealing with a "disobedient wife," a Muslim man has a number of options. First, he should remind her of "the importance of following the instructions of the husband in Islam." If that doesn't work, he can "leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat" her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."
Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the book "Woman in the Shade of Islam" by Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," reads one widely accepted translation.
The notion of using physical punishment as a "disciplinary action," as Sheha suggests, especially for "controlling or mastering women" or others who "enjoy being beaten," is common throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, I first encountered Sheha's work at my Morgantown mosque, where a Muslim student group handed it out to male worshipers after Friday prayers one day a few years ago.
Verse 4:34 retains a strong following, even among many who say that women must be treated as equals under Islam. Indeed, Muslim scholars and leaders have long been doing what I call "the 4:34 dance" -- they reject outright violence against women but accept a level of aggression that fits contemporary definitions of domestic violence.
Western leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, have recently focused on Muslim women's veils as an obstacle to integration in the West. But to me, it is 4:34 that poses the much deeper challenge of integration. How the Muslim world interprets this passage will reveal whether Islam can be compatible with life in the 21st century. As Hadayai Majeed, an African American Muslim who had opened a shelter in Atlanta to serve Muslim women, put it, "If it's okay for me to be a savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a savage in the world."
Not long after I picked up the free Saudi book, Mahmoud Shalash, an imam from Lexington, Ky., stood at the pulpit of my mosque and offered marital advice to the 100 or so men sitting before him. He repeated the three-step plan, with "beat them" as his final suggestion. Upstairs, in the women's balcony, sat a Muslim friend who had recently left her husband, who she said had abused her; her spouse sat among the men in the main hall.
At the sermon's end, I approached Shalash. "This is America," I protested. "How can you tell men to beat their wives?"
"They should beat them lightly," he explained. "It's in the Koran."
He was doing the dance.
Born into a conservative Muslim family that emigrated from Hyderabad, India, to West Virginia, I have seen many female relatives in India cloak themselves head to toe in black burqas and abandon their education and careers for marriage. But the Islam I knew was a gentle one. I was never taught that a man could -- or should -- physically discipline his wife. Abusing anyone, I was told, violated Islamic tenets against zulm , or cruelty. My family adhered to the ninth chapter of the Koran, which says that men and women "are friends and protectors of one another."
However, the kidnapping and killing of my friend and colleague Daniel Pearl in 2002 forced me to confront the link between literalist interpretations of the Koran that sanction violence in the world and those that sanction violence against women. For critics of Islam, 4:34 is the smoking gun that proves that Islam is misogynistic and intrinsically violent. Read literally, it is as troubling as Koranic verses such as At-Tauba ("The Repentance") 9:5, which states that Muslims should "slay the pagans wherever ye find them" or Al-Mâ'idah ("The Table Spread with Food") 5:51, which reads, "Take not the Jews and Christians as friends."
Although Islamic historians agree that the prophet Muhammad never hit a woman, it is also clear that Muslim communities face a domestic violence problem. A 2003 study of 216 Pakistani women found that 97 percent had experienced such abuse; almost half of them reported being victims of nonconsensual sex. Earlier this year, the state-run General Union of Syrian Women released a report showing that one in four married Syrian women is the victim of domestic violence.
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As long as the beating of women is acceptable in Islam, the problem of suicide bombers, jihadists and others who espouse violence will not go away; to me, they form part of a continuum.
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In Balad, Age-Old Ties Were 'Destroyed in a Second'
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OUTSIDE BALAD, Iraq -- At midweek, Shiite Interior Ministry commandos and their Shiite militia allies cruised the four-lane hardtop outside the besieged city of Balad, trying to stave off retaliation for a deadly four-day rampage in which they had all but emptied Balad of Sunnis.
Sunni insurgents pouring in to take that revenge patrolled the same highway, driving battered white pickups and minivans, their guns stashed out of sight. Affecting casualness, more Sunni men gathered on rooftops or clustered on the reed-lined edge of the highway, keeping an eye on the Shiite forces and the few frightened civilians who dared to travel the highway past Balad.
What brought this Tigris River city north of Baghdad to this state of siege was a series of events that have displayed in miniature the factors drawing the entire country into a sectarian bloodbath: Retaliatory violence between Sunnis and Shiites has soared to its highest level of the war, increasingly forcing moderates on both sides to look to armed extremists for protection.
The Shiite-led government's security forces, trained by the United States, proved immediately incapable of dealing with the sectarian violence in Balad, or, in many cases, abetted it, residents and police said.
More than 20,000 U.S. troops are based within 15 miles of Balad, but, uncertain how to respond, they hesitated, waiting for Iraqi government forces to step up, according to residents, police and U.S. military officials.
And all that was left holding Balad, and Iraq, together -- the desire for peace and normality still held by the great majority of Iraqis, and the generations of intermarriage and neighborliness between ordinary Shiite and Sunni Muslims -- was ripping apart.
"The people of Balad should not kill the Sunnis who are among them," said one slightly built Shiite man, fleeing his home on the outskirts of Balad. He and 13 women and children of his family were crammed into a single, battered Toyota sedan, stranded by a flat tire near the highway turnoff to the city. "Our relations are not of months or years. It's since the beginning of time," he said. "This relationship has been destroyed in a second."
The principals involved give a straightforward timeline of how that happened.
The trigger event, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, was the killing of two or three Sunni men from the area earlier this month. One of the men had been a local leader of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman.
On Oct. 13, Sunni insurgents took their revenge. In Duluiyah, a Sunni hamlet four miles and across the river from Balad, insurgents kidnapped and beheaded 17 Shiite laborers who had come to work in the date palm groves there. The U.S. military later arrested two Sunni police officers from the town for alleged involvement in the deaths.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters instigated the killings, then stood by as innocent Sunnis were killed in the retaliation that followed, said police Maj. Hussein Alwan in Duluiyah.
Hours after the beheadings, outraged and frightened Shiite elders of Balad telephoned an office of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Kadhimiyah, a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. Sadr leads the Mahdi Army, the most feared Shiite militia in Iraq.
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OUTSIDE BALAD, Iraq -- At midweek, Shiite Interior Ministry commandos and their Shiite militia allies cruised the four-lane hardtop outside the besieged city of Balad, trying to stave off retaliation for a deadly four-day rampage in which they had all but emptied Balad of Sunnis.
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Europe's Long Legal Tether on Russia
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2006102319
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MOSCOW -- For seven years, the Salvation Army battled a ruling by Moscow city authorities that the Christian charitable group, whose members wear uniforms and call their leader a general, was a foreign "paramilitary organization" that must cease operations in the capital.
Each step of the way in Russia's courts, the Salvation Army lost. In 2000, a Moscow court, noting the group's "barrack-room discipline," suggested it might involve itself in the violent overthrow of the state, court records show.
"The reasoning was unbelievable and sickening," said Vladimir Ryakhovsky, a lawyer at the Slavic Center for Law and Justice in Moscow who defended the Salvation Army.
This month, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the city of Moscow had interfered with the group's freedom of religion and assembly. The Salvation Army's structure and norms were "particular ways of organizing the internal life of their religious community," the court said, and "it could not seriously be maintained that the applicant branch advocated a violent change of constitutional foundations."
Suddenly, the stance of Moscow officialdom changed. "Because of the ruling, we must register them, and we will," an official in Moscow's registration office said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
While President Vladimir Putin has been marginalizing Russia's parliament, opposition, media and human rights groups, this international court sitting 1,250 miles away in Strasbourg, France, has emerged as a powerful check on the excesses of the Russian bureaucracy and failures by the country's own investigative organs and courts to follow Russia's laws.
The European Court enforces the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, drawn up by the Council of Europe, an international body founded in the wake of World War II to defend human rights, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. Russia ratified the convention in 1998, agreeing to accept the court's decisions as binding.
"Much of what you see in the Russian justice system harks back to Soviet days," said Carroll Bogert, associate director of Human Rights Watch. "If you're a human rights group, you can report on human rights excesses or publicize abuses in the press or meet with government officials, but it's hard to make a dent. One of the really effective tools now is the European Court, and it produces tangible and immediate results."
Bogert noted that in August Russia halted the deportation of 13 Uzbeks to their home country, where they faced a real risk of torture or execution, after the men appealed to the European Court. The former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, which is not a member of the Council of Europe, ignored international appeals not to send Uzbeks home, and the fate of the men it deported remains unknown.
Following European Court decisions in recent years, Russia improved conditions in pretrial detention centers and trimmed the powers of federal or local authorities to reopen ostensibly completed cases that they have lost in domestic courts. Torture victims have been compensated, and in at least one case, police officers were jailed for abuse after the Strasbourg court took up the matter.
"The court represents the end of impunity," said Olga Shepeleva, a lawyer with Demos, a human rights research center in Moscow. "There's a growing recognition that the court is a place where justice will be done. The authorities may not always be happy, but they pay attention to the results."
The European Court has entered Russian popular consciousness as a port of last resort for those seeking justice because the Russian state does bow to its judgments -- albeit with some very public grumbling.
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MOSCOW -- For seven years, the Salvation Army battled a ruling by Moscow city authorities that the Christian charitable group, whose members wear uniforms and call their leader a general, was a foreign "paramilitary organization" that must cease operations in the capital.
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Good Night, and Bye
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2006102319
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INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 22 -- The opening 12 minutes of the second half on Sunday exposed all that ails the Washington Redskins. That humiliating sequence of bad football will haunt the franchise throughout the next two weeks, as it sits at 2-5 entering the bye week following a 36-22 thrashing by the Indianapolis Colts at the RCA Dome.
Washington actually led 14-13 at the half despite a nondescript performance, then was so thoroughly outclassed by Indianapolis in the third quarter that it dwarfed everything else. The Colts scored touchdowns on three straight possessions, needing just 15 plays and 7 minutes 14 seconds to do so, with Peyton Manning (25 of 35 for 342 yards, four touchdowns and a sparkling 140.4 passer rating) moving the team at will. During those three drives, Manning completed 7 of 8 passes for 138 yards and three touchdowns, starting the half with a 21-yard completion and never slowing down.
Tailback Joseph Addai splintered Washington's woeful rush defense, running seven times for 64 yards during the three drives (he had 11 carries for 85 yards in the game). He gashed the Redskins' soft tackling for 21 yards on his first carry of the second half, punishing the linebackers and carrying cornerback Kenny Wright on his back for five yards. Overall, the Colts amassed an astonishing 202 yards of offense on those three drives (452 yards in the game), while Washington's inept offense (one touchdown through the first 59 minutes) countered for 33 yards on its first two drives of the half, running a total of eight plays.
So, for the third straight year of the second Joe Gibbs era, the Redskins have a three-game losing streak. They have gone 2-5 over a seven-game span in three straight seasons and appear to be lacking on offense, defense and special teams. Again, their playoff hopes are dim with Dallas looming in Week 9, and it will take a monumental reversal to salvage the season, even more dramatic than the five-game run that culminated in a playoff appearance last season.
"It's hard to figure out," said Gibbs, who praised starting quarterback Mark Brunell and said he is not considering giving Jason Campbell his first start. "It certainly is to me. But that's part of football. . . . There's no given to it."
No team spent more lavishly on coaches and players than the Redskins this offseason, but what they got for their money remains to be seen. They have few discernable strengths at this point -- they struggle running and passing the ball, and in preventing opposing teams from doing so -- and have been held to two or fewer offensive touchdowns in four of seven games, while allowing a staggering 110 points in the past four weeks alone. The Redskins look like a $100 million jalopy, with lavish rims, fancy hydraulics and a Mercedes exterior, but a failing ignition.
They compiled just 127 total yards in the second and third quarters, when the game was decided, with associate head coach Al Saunders still trying to maximize his personnel and the players clearly still adjusting to his new offense as well.
"Even the coaches are really figuring out where people fit best and what people do best actually in this offense," tight end Chris Cooley said. "It's taking more time than anyone wanted."
The Redskins simply could not thwart the Colts (6-0) when it mattered, and mustered no rebuttal when they had the ball.
Indianapolis moved 55 yards in 2:01 to open the second half, with Addai gaining 30 yards on successive carries and Manning hitting Marvin Harrison for a four-yard touchdown. The Colts got the ball back and marched 81 yards in four plays, with wide receiver Reggie Wayne (seven catches for 122 yards) easily beating safety Adam Archuleta, a free agent acquisition who has yet to pay significant dividends, and cornerback Kenny Wright, another offseason addition, to grab a 51-yard touchdown. Manning opened the next drive by finding Wayne for 14 yards, then Harrison for 38 yards, and Harrison's one-yard touchdown catch with 2:46 left in the third quarter made it 33-14, effectively ending the game.
"What makes that team go is Peyton Manning," said Gregg Williams, the assistant head coach-defense whose unit allowed the most yards since his arrival in 2004, and has yielded 400 yards or more in two of the last three games. "He made some laser throws, some dart throws, in the third quarter."
A defense that ranked third overall in 2004 and ninth overall last season is now approaching dead last. Washington has forced just five turnovers this season, and none in the past three games.
"For whatever reason, we're not making those plays that we did make the first two years," said linebacker Marcus Washington, a former Colt. "And that's gone. That's history. We can't live on that. The only thing we've got is today and today we weren't good enough."
"We've got to find a way to affect change around here," cornerback Shawn Springs said. "We've got to do something."
Manning began the game on a tear (6 of 7 for 86 yards and a touchdown on the first drive), and was only slowed after being pummeled a few times in the second quarter. The Colts went 92 yards in 11 plays, staying in the same two-wide receiver, two-tight end formation the entire time, shredding the linebackers and safeties in zone coverage, a problem for the Redskins since the preseason. A dazzling punt return by Antwaan Randle El, the most productive of the 2006 free agents thus far, set up Washington's first score, and his 87-yard punt return for a touchdown gave the Redskins a 14-10 lead late in the second quarter.
Then a surreal barrage of personal fouls -- including punter Derrick Frost removing his helmet in frustration -- resulted in the Redskins kicking off from their 5 late in the first half. "I've never seen that before," Gibbs said. The Colts had excellent field position and ended up settling for a field goal, but they more than compensated in the second half.
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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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In a Sea of Uncertainty, We All Have an Anchor
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2006102319
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First a history lesson: More than three decades ago, two psychologists conducted an experiment that was equal parts funny and deadly serious.
They spun a roulette wheel and when it landed on the number 10 they asked some people whether the number of African countries was greater or less than 10 percent of the United Nations. Most people guessed that estimate was too low. Maybe the right answer was 25 percent, they guessed.
The psychologists spun their roulette wheel a second time and when it landed on the number 65, they asked a second group whether African countries made up 65 percent of the United Nations. That figure was too high, everyone agreed. Maybe the correct answer was 45 percent.
The difference in the estimates of the two groups was tied to the original number they were given. It made no difference that the number was meaningless: It came from a roulette wheel. Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman described the error as caused by a phenomenon known as anchoring -- when you don't know the answer to something, whatever starting point you have plays a powerful role in determining what you think is the right answer.
Flash forward 32 years. A Johns Hopkins study published in a respected peer-reviewed journal finds the number of Iraqis killed as a consequence of the 2003 invasion to be about 650,000. Critics immediately get up in arms; President Bush -- not known to be a keen evaluator of scientific studies -- declares the result "not credible."
Although the debate over the study has been largely driven by the political implications of the number of Iraqi casualties, psychologists say the fact that many people find the new number hard to digest is a perfect example of anchoring.
Previous estimates had put the number of Iraqi casualties at 30,000 to 50,000. Once that number was anchored in people's minds, it was a foregone conclusion that most people would find it very difficult to accept a much larger number.
"It could be malicious and deliberate or innocent and just wrong, but the fact that the administration had set an anchor is what makes the new number seem implausible," said Max Bazerman, who studies human decision-making at Harvard Business School.
It is important to remember that the psychological phenomenon does not tell you what the correct number of casualties in Iraq really is. But it does say that even if the 650,000 number is accurate, we are likely not to believe it.
Like many other aspects of human behavior, psychologists say anchoring is just one way the brain makes sense of the world. We assume the information we are given is at least somewhat accurate, and therefore use that as an anchor around which to evaluate new information or make informed guesses. Like other subtle biases, anchors influence people at an unconscious level. Neither group in the roulette-wheel experiment realized it had been subtly manipulated.
Anchoring effects have been observed in a wide array of activities. Wesleyan University psychologist Scott Plous has noted that the phenomenon has been noted in getting estimates about "the percentage of working mothers with children under the age of five, the proportion of Iranians who are Islamic, the percentage of chemistry professors who are women." In a book he wrote about how human beings make decisions, Plous noted that politicians and others who seek to influence people "will generally be most successful by staking out extreme initial positions."
Although anchoring is often innocuous, it can sometimes come at a cost. Psychologist Nicholas Epley at the University of Chicago said that people who move from a city with expensive housing to one with cheaper housing are likely to overpay for housing because their minds are still anchored in the more expensive market. The length of a sentence that prosecutors demand influences what kind of punishment judges and jurors impose for identical crimes.
One study by psychologists Greg Northcraft and Margaret Neale showed that real estate agents given a lower starting price for the cost of a home concluded the house was worth less than those given a higher starting point.
Epley said he conducted one experiment in which asking people how much money they had in their wallets vs. how much they had in their bank accounts influenced how much they spent. When the experiment was conducted outside a store before shoppers went in, those who were reminded of the larger amount that was in their bank balances spent more than those who were reminded about the smaller amount in their wallets.
Is there a way to avoid the anchoring bias? In situations such as the Iraq war, in which there is genuine uncertainty about what has happened, there is not much that people can do apart from being aware of the anchoring bias and eyeing everything with healthy skepticism. But in some situations, Epley said, there is indeed a way around the anchoring bias.
"In what year was George Washington elected president?" he asked. "You don't know. But you know Independence was declared in 1776. You know it is later than that. Is it 1778? 1780? The anchor is in the ballpark. It gets you closer than just pulling the answer out of a hat."
What's the only way to avoid the anchoring bias altogether? Know the right answer. George Washington was elected president in 1788.
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First a history lesson: More than three decades ago, two psychologists conducted an experiment that was equal parts funny and deadly serious.
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Doonesbury's War
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2006102319
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IN THE BANQUET ROOM WERE MEN WHO WERE BLIND, men with burns, men with gouges, men missing an arm, men missing a leg, men missing an arm and a leg, men missing an arm and both legs, men missing parts of their faces, and a cartoonist from the funny pages.
We were just a few blocks from the White House, at Fran O'Brien's Steak House. Fran's was hosting a night out for casualties of the current war, visiting from their hospital wards.
It's hard to know what to say to a grievously injured person, and it's easy to be wrong . You could do what I did, for example. Scrounging for the positive, I cheerfully informed a young man who had lost both legs and his left forearm that at least he's lucky he's a righty. Then he wordlessly showed me his right hand, which is missing fingertips and has limited motion -- an articulated claw. That shut things right up, for both of us, and it would have stayed that way, except the cartoonist showed up.
Garry Trudeau, the creator of "Doonesbury," hunkered right down in front of the soldier, eye to eye, introduced himself and proceeded to ignore every single diplomatic nicety.
"So, when were you hit?" he asked.
Trudeau pivoted his body. "So you took the blast on, what . . . this side?"
Brian Anderson, 25, was in shorts, a look favored by most of the amputees, who tend to wear their new prostheses like combat medals. His legs are metal and plastic, blue and knobby at the knee, shin poles culminating abruptly in sneakers.
Trudeau surveyed Brian's intact arm. "You've got dots."
"Yeah." Dots are soldier-speak for little beads of shrapnel buried under the skin. Sometimes they take a lifetime to work their way back to the surface. At this, Brian became fully engaged and animated, smiling and talking about the improvised explosive device that took his vehicle out; about his rescue; his recovery; his plans for the future. Trudeau, it turned out, had given him what he needed.
("In these soldiers' minds," Trudeau will explain afterward, "their whole identity, who they are right now, is what happened to them. They want to tell the story, they want to be asked about it, and you're honoring them by listening. The more they revisit it, the less power it has over them.")
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In the banquet room were men who were blind, men with burns, men with gouges, men missing an arm, men missing a leg, men missing an arm and a leg, men missing an arm and both legs, men missing parts of their faces, and a cartoonist from the funny pages.
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Jane Wyatt, 96; Film Actress Also in 'Father Knows Best'
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2006102319
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Jane Wyatt, 96, a onetime socialite who specialized in playing well-bred ingenues on stage and film and is best known as the understanding mother in the television sitcom "Father Knows Best," died Oct. 20 at her home in Bel Air, Calif. The family said she died in her sleep but did not give further details.
Ms. Wyatt was dropped from the New York Social Register after becoming an actress, but she later reacquired her standing through marriage. Meanwhile, she enjoyed an active career on the Broadway stage and then in Hollywood.
She appeared in about 30 films, including Frank Capra's "Lost Horizon" (1937), based on James Hilton's novel about a Himalayan nirvana called Shangri-La, and "None But the Lonely Heart" (1944), in which she was a gentle musician who cared for Cary Grant's cockney ne'er-do-well.
Her name is probably familiar to a generation of television watchers because of "Father Knows Best," which aired from 1954 to 1960, in reruns for three more years and in endless syndication after that.
Ms. Wyatt won three Emmy Awards playing Margaret Anderson, the wife of a Midwestern insurance agent, played by Robert Young and the mother of their three children, portrayed by Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin.
After its cancellation, she took a variety of television parts, appearing on "Alfred Hitchock Presents," "The Virginian" and "Fantasy Island," among others. On a "Star Trek" episode, she was Spock's mother.
She also accepted a part in "Amityville: The Evil Escapes" (1989), a TV movie that was a chapter in the "Amityville Horror" scare flicks. Unfamiliar with the series, she initially thought the script was about Andersonville, the Civil War prisoner-of-war camp.
However, she said she embraced the role of an embittered crone of a woman who must take in her daughter, played by Patty Duke, and three grandchildren, one of whom is taken over by an evil spirit.
Her character, Alice, "is VERY different," Ms. Wyatt told the Chicago Tribune. "Margaret Anderson would have welcomed her daughter and grandchildren [and had them] stay for a year, two years.
"Alice, on the other hand, didn't exactly roll out the welcome wagon. She had been living alone for a long time. Then suddenly four people move in. You get fussy and a little used to your own ways. Plus the kid's possessed."
Jane Waddington Wyatt was born Aug. 12, 1910, in Campgaw, N.J. Her ancestry was traced to early American statesmen and educators. Her father was an investment banker, and her mother, from the Van Rensselaer family line, wrote drama criticism.
Ms. Wyatt was raised in New York and attended the private Miss Chapin's School and Barnard College and maintained an active social life with Rockefellers and Roosevelts.
After a period in stock, she arrived on Broadway in 1931 at the bottom of the cast in A.A. Milne's "Give Me Yesterday" (1931). She went on to appear in George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's "Dinner at Eight" as the ingenue Paula, who has an affair with an older, alcoholic matinee idol.
She appeared in several other short-lived production and toured in "Dinner at Eight," which had been made into an all-star film in 1933 with Madge Evans as the lovelorn Paula.
Soon after, Ms. Wyatt made her screen debut as a secondary character in James Whale's "One More River" (1934), followed by Estella in a version of Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" with Phillips Holmes as Pip.
The next several films ("We're Only Human," "The Luckiest Girl in the World") showcased Ms. Wyatt's adaptability in both crime drama and comedy. She was loaned from her home studio, Universal, to Columbia for "Lost Horizon," which placed her for the first time against a top male star, Ronald Colman.
As a beguiling schoolteacher named Sondra, she got middling reviews. Critic Frank S. Nugent wrote in the New York Times that Ms. Wyatt was an "extremely attractive Miss [but] never for a second convinced me that she could have been raised in a lamasery."
She spent the next several years alternating in undistinguished Broadway fare and films of almost every stripe, including Westerns ("Hurricane Smith"), comedies ("Kisses for Breakfast") and wartime propaganda ("The Navy Comes Through").
In 1944, she was a standout in "None but the Lonely Heart," a film directed by the playwright Clifford Odets that also featured Ethel Barrymore as Cary Grant's ailing mother. This was to be her last great screen part, but in 1947, she had secondary roles in two superior films directed by Elia Kazan: the drama "Boomerang!" with Dana Andrews and "Gentleman's Agreement" with Gregory Peck as a journalist who crusades against social anti-Semitism.
Ms. Wyatt spent the next several years alternating between Broadway and Hollywood and winning fashion awards as a best-dressed woman.
She later said her work dried up in the early 1950s because of her association with a group of politically liberal actors campaigning against the anti-Communist blacklist, including Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. She said that she was never a Communist and that the worst label that anyone applied to her was "prematurely anti-fascist."
The offer to appear in "Father Knows Best," long a fixture on radio, came as a surprise. The show ran first on CBS, and that network's decision to cancel the program resulted in loud protests. NBC picked it up from 1955 to 1958 before the show returned to CBS.
Although Ms. Wyatt said in later years that she found aspects of the show dated, she took some comfort in its ability to appeal to audiences around the world.
"When we did it we had no idea it would make such a big splash," she told the Associated Press in 1989. "I went to Peru on a botanical trip last year. The stewardesses on the plane were all over us. In Lima, we were besieged by people. The show's called 'Papa Lo Sabe Todo' there."
In addition to acting, Ms. Wyatt spent much of her life raising funds for the March of Dimes. She also enjoyed gardening and birding and socializing with actress Betty White.
Ms. Wyatt married Edgar B. Ward, an investment broker, in 1935. The marriage got her back on the social register. Her husband died in 2000. A son died in infancy in the early 1940s.
Survivors include two sons, Christopher Ward of Piedmont, Calif., and Michael Ward of Los Angeles; three grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
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Jane Wyatt, 96, a onetime socialite who specialized in playing well-bred ingenues on stage and film and is best known as the understanding mother in the television sitcom "Father Knows Best," died Oct. 20 at her home in Bel Air, Calif. The family said she died in her sleep but did not give further...
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The Chat House - washingtonpost.com
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2006102319
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Welcome to another edition of The Chat House where Post columnist Michael Wilbon was online Monday, Oct. 23, at 1:15 p.m. ET to take your questions and comments about the latest sports news and his recent columns .
Raleigh, N.C.: With the game out of reach late in the second half yesterday, why didn't Joe Gibbs give some snaps to Jason Campbell? If he is the future, shouldn't they be getting him some experience on the field?
Michael Wilbon: Hi everybody, from Dallas. We'll jump right into the Redskins debacle yesterday...And I have NO idea why the Redskins didn't get Jason Campbell into the game. Mark Brunell played pretty well early (8-for-11 to start) but he couldn't get anything going in the second half...and it's not like letting Campbell play equals giving up on the game or the season. Letting Brunell stay in the game at all costs seems to be incredibly short-sighted. I'm not even suggesting Brunell should be benched. Just get Campbell in the game and see what's he got. Thing is, at 2-5 with a dreadful defense (and isn't that a stunner!) the Redskins have no playoff chances worth even entertaining right now. Think of how many teams in the NFC (Bears, Giants, Saints, Seahawks, Falcons, Panthers, Eagles, Cowboys, Rams, Vikings) look so much better than the Redskins.
Washington, D.C.: Mike, you can't miss another "Redskins Report." You're the only voice of reason on that show! How can all four of them have picked the Redskins to win?! You need to knock some sense into those guys!
Do you foresee giant changes for the Dallas game? Or, are we doomed to see a repeat of the last couple games?
Michael Wilbon: I'll be back this week...and I PROMISE you I'll kill those guys for all picking the Redskins. IN INDY? After a Colts bye week to prepare? But hey, they're former Redskins so I guess I understand. And George might as well be. I can't wait for this week's show.
Somewhere only I know: Big Ben Roethlisberger is just not having a good year on and off the field. Have you heard anything about his injury, was it a concussion, is there a timetable? Also when is Trent Green coming back?
Michael Wilbon: Trent Green is practicing, but will not play this week, reportedly. And team officials haven't yet said what Big Ben's injury was, but we know it was head injury and that is supposed to be announced around 3 p.m. today...Big Ben seems jinxed since winning the Super Bowl, doesn't he? Actually, Charlie Batch was really good in long relief, but Ben has to be in there and healthy for the Steelers to play like champs for the long haul.
NFC East cellar: Michael, you know a lot about the Bears, so can you please answer me this: Is it true that one of the brains behind Chicago's personnel moves is a former Redskins staffer who is actually a D.C.-area native? Who is he and why isn't he the Redskins GM yet? (Well, actually, don't answer the last part, I already know it's because our owner likes to play GM.)
Michael Wilbon: Bobby DePaul is the name of the Bears executive, and yes, he's done a very, very good job with personnel in Chicago. And yes, he did work for the Redskins. He played his college ball at Maryland. Played linebacker during the Bobby Ross era. I got to know Bobby DePaul then, 20 years ago, and have kept up with him ever since. He's a very bright, very energetic, hard-working guy who is respected in personnel circles. Seems he's made some good choices for the Bears, doesn't it?
Cape Coral, Fla.: After the debacle against the Bears and the complete lack of effort yesterday against the Raiders, will Dennis Green remain the coach in Arizona?
Michael Wilbon: Isn't that one of the big questions of the day! If he survives today, then I would think the Cardinals would wait until the season is over before doing anything. Goodness, what a tumble that team has taken. The Cards should have been 3-2 going into the Bears game...but now they're 1-6, looked like they gave up yesterday...The head coach has to take the rap for that...
Chicago: After last Monday's game, are you more hopeful about the Bears because they came back and won, or less hopeful because they showed some flaws?
Michael Wilbon: I'm still wrestling with that. I like that the defense and special teams wouldn't let the team lose. But, Grossman was so bad and the play-calling (Ron Turner, by the way has been fabulous) was so pass-happy it was silly. But when you're defense and specials are that good...it usually means good things for a team, even one that might still be offensively-challenged.
Joe Gibbs's Redskins teams of the 1980s were smart and disciplined. Yesterday, Antwaan Randle El, Santana Moss and Derrick Frost all had idiotic penalties and Brandon Lloyd had a conniption on the sidelines. The team appears to be on the verge of a collective meltdown. I wonder if they are cracking under the pressure of the high expectations as their dreams of a Super Bowl have disintegrated before our eyes.
Has Gibbs lost the touch with players that brought out the best in them in the '80s?
Michael Wilbon: I think it simply means the Redskins have players who act a fool too often. Why make it mean more than that? Just about every team has that element these days. I hate it, and I'm sure Gibbs hates it. But if he tries to field a team without drama queens he'll need to play seven-on-seven.
Washington, D.C.: This might sound like the ultimate example of a backhanded compliment, but there have been very few, if any, better regular-season quarterbacks in NFL history than Peyton Manning. Would that be a fair statement?
Michael Wilbon: Yeah, that's probably fair. But there are a handful...Elway, Montana, Young, Aikman, Favre, Kelly, Moon, Marino...And that's just from the last generation...But as he keeps going he inserts himself further into the conversation.
Dave, D.C.: Well...what are your thoughts about the Gambler and the infamous brown splotch? Every other sports writer seems to have an opinion. What do you think? Should he be (pine) tarred and feathered?
Michael Wilbon: If the splotch was discovered in the second inning and he pitched eight innings of shutout ball, how big a deal could it have been? Anyway, baseball embraces cheating. It's part of the game's lore...spitters and carving up the ball and sign-stealing and pine-tar and the like. I wouldn't doubt Rogers tries to cheat...But that's the culture of baseball. Would you be so surprised?
Burtonsville, Md.: With the FSU Boosters calling for Bobby Bowden to retire, what do you think should/will happen? It seems as if they are not coaching those kids anymore and trying to rely strictly on their athletic ability.
Michael Wilbon: I think coaching after 70 is risky...And while Paterno and Bowden have had successful seasons after 70, they know the game, what's at stake, and that high-profile sports are always defined by what you've done for your team this morning. I can't say I'm shocked by what's going on at FSU, on the field or the reaction to it off the field. I would try and see if Bowden can straighten it out next season before doing anything. He's earned it. Two national championships? What else has FSU done? Where were they before Bowden?
I love these weekly chats and watch PTI daily! With the Wizards opening the season against King James and the Cavs soon I had a few Q's for you. Do you feel that DeShawn Stevenson will be able to fill the rebounding and defensive void left by Jared Jeffries? How large of a role do you see Jarvis Hayes playing this season? And if you had to choose between Brendan Haywood or Etan Thomas, which would you start? Thanks Mike....GO WIZ!!!
Michael Wilbon: I'd start Haywood. I think Stevenson is a slight upgrade for defending swingmen but the loss of Darius Songaila is a real downer. The Wizards need him. I think the Wizards, if everything goes well (especially health) should challenge a Miami team I see sinking a bit for the division title. I could see the Wiz winning 48-51 games. But Arenas, Jamison, Butler and all the big men HAVE to stay healthy.
Arlington, Va.: Mike - Do you think the disastrous start to this season (and ridiculous front-office moves such as trading a third-round pick for T.J. Duckett) will finally convince Joe Gibbs and Dan Snyder that you have to build through the draft and fill your roster with guys fighting for big paydays?
Michael Wilbon: It should, but I don't know that it will. And I would think Joe Gibbs already knows that, right? Yet, we agree. You need role players and guys who are not stars. That's part of building team chemistry. If everybody is a star, you've got problems. Ask the Yankees.
Scottsdale, Ariz.: What's up with your boy Donovan McNabb throwing up every game?
Michael Wilbon: Egg nog...It's too early to be drinking that stuff...which I told Donovan.
Scottsdale, Ariz.: Let's talk some Bullets hoops! What's up with those alternate colored gold jerseys?
Michael Wilbon: I haven't seen them yet. Do people like the third jersey?
College Park, Md.: Are you surprised Shawne Merriman was caught using steroids? In this day and age no one is above suspicion, and he is so massive he could probably get away with taking Barbaro's prescriptions. Still, being a fellow Terp, it did take me back a little.
Michael Wilbon: I wasn't shocked. Then again, I'm hardly ever shocked by this kind of news anymore. I don't know what to think about Merriman. Off the field, the guy is heroic. Seriously, do you know his story? He's given his own money to save homeless shelters and provide educational and recreational chances for children. The guy is AMAZING off the field...But now, there's this. So, what are we to think about Merriman? If this was baseball and a prominent player people would be up in arms but mostly because of baseball being so slavishly devoted to numbers. Still, losing Merriman for one-quarter of the season is a huge blow to the Chargers' chances.
Rockville, MD: Which hit looked more painful? Manning almost getting his head taken off by Daniels or Portis getting helmet-butted square in the groin? Ouch...
Michael Wilbon: Manning...By a hundred miles.
Baltimore: Okay, we all know the 'Skins have numerous issues, and the QB issue just won't go away. But I haven't heard anyone discuss the play of Chris Samuels. Since the playoffs last year, he has been underachieving. Dwight Freeney pushed him all over the field yesterday, and Freeney is a speed guy, not a power guy. This is disgraceful for the money he's being paid! Bench him or get rid of him. He's too inconsistent.
Michael Wilbon: Good and fair point. Samuels hasn't been what he was his first few seasons. And the offensive line, in general, has been underachieving. I'm with you on this. And when you don't spend a third-round pick on a guy you don't play (Duckett) then perhaps you spend that pick on a lineman...Ooops, they don't have the pick.
Okay -- who do you like? Louisville or West Virginia?
Michael Wilbon: ooooooh, good question. I think Louisville. But I'm not about to take that game to the bank. What, no love for Rutgers? Kudos to the Big East, the league a lot of people wanted out of the BCS scenario after the league lost Miami and others.
Donovan: I saw a comment somewhere that throwing up wasn't even Donovan's worst toss of the day.
What a great finish to that game, though, huh?
Michael Wilbon: Hey, as badly as Donovan played, he had them ahead with less than a minute to play and the special teams and defense were atrocious. How pitiful was that defense?
Throwing Up: Glenn Hall one of the greatest goalies in hockey history was nicknamed "Buckets" because he puked just about every game he played in.
So McNabb is in fine company.
Michael Wilbon: I love historical references in the Chat House. Very nice, indeed. Thanks for that.
Baltimore: Thanks for taking time to answer questions.
With all the circus acts that Mike Tyson has pulled off over the last decade or so, what do you think about the latest news of him possibly fighting women? How does this rank on his list of debacles? Thanks.
Michael Wilbon: I've simply reached the point where I pay absolutely no attention to Mike Tyson in the context of professional athletics. From here on in, it's a circus and I'm either amused or I just shut it out. It's a clown show...It's nonsense.
Wiz in Gold: I like it, but I like that Gilbert really wants to return to the red white and blue, which I agree. Still have no idea why they are the Wizards.
Michael Wilbon: Neither do most of the rest of us.
Royersford, Pa.: Wilbon, why are there so few black kickers or punters in the NFL?
Michael Wilbon: It's not what most black kids want to do when they're playing sandlot and high school football.
Northern Virginia: I know one player doesn't make a team, but what do you think the 'Skins and Bears would look like today if Washington had decided to draft Brian Urlacher instead of LaVar Arrington years back when we had the second and third picks in the draft?
Michael Wilbon: It's always dangerous to play with those switches, but fun to speculate over...If Urlacher had played for a franchise as dysfunctional as the one Arrington played for, who knows? Urlacher didn't have five different defensive coaches in his first five years in the league. Arrington did. And I think that makes a huge difference in a player's maturation.
Herndon, Va.: And let us not forget Bill Russell, who threw up before every big game. Red Auerbach, on occasion, would order him back to the restroom if he hadn't thrown up. Tradition, tradition!
Michael Wilbon: Now you're talking!
Herndon, Va.: Mr. Mike: Which was more surprising, "your" Bears coming from 20 points behind to win without any offensive points, or "your" NU Wildcats blowing a 38-3 third-quarter lead to lose to MSU?
Michael Wilbon: Oh, the Bears coming from behind to win without an offensive touchdown...No question. Northwestern already holds a bushel full of NCAA Division I-A football records we're ashamed of...Granted, the team has been so much more respectable (four or five bowl bids the last 11 years)...we'd gotten away from those weekly humiliations...This just felt like every week when I was in school there...Boy, that's a tough one. But from the half-full department, I didn't think we could score 38. And that was in a kid's debut at quarterback...Maybe it's something to start from.
Arlington, Va.: You said in response to a Redskins team building question:
"That's part of building team chemistry. If everybody is a star, you've got problems. Ask the Yankees."
One HUGE difference, though, between the Redskins and Yankees - - the Yankees are competitive virtually every year, and the Redskins are NON-competitive virtually every year.
Michael Wilbon: Yeah, but football is a sport of momentum much more than baseball where pitching distorts everything. I'm not saying the two are identical. I just think there are some similarities. Both, considering the way they've been built, dismiss the need for players whose contributions are more subtle, and whose personalities are not mega-watt but nonetheless critical to the way a championship-caliber team functions. I think that's the larger point.
Cape Coral, Fla.: Okay Wilbon, be honest, how many times have you thrown up before writing an article or working with Tony??
Michael Wilbon: I've thrown up--and I know everybody's just hanging on every word of this answer--twice since I was 6. Food poisoning my junior year at Northwestern...I was 19...And after knee surgery I took some Percocet without food and had to be rushed to the hospital...That's it. Twice the last 41 years. So, I don't get the throwing-up stuff...don't get it at all.
Just wondering who the funniest athlete you have covered over the course of your career is? Maybe someone who doesn't/didn't take himself too seriously. Thanks!
Michael Wilbon: Charles Barkley, hands down. Ask anybody who's covered him and the answer you will get is, Charles Barkley.
Columbia, Md.: Brian Westbrook, Michael Vick, Hines Ward, Ronde Barber, Steve Smith, Lawrence Tynes, Morten Anderson and Matt Bryant made for a great afternoon of football watching yesterday. Then the Redskins took the field at 4 p.m. and ruined the afternoon with such a pathetic showing. Must we dwell on such a horrible looking team a day after we had some great performances (by winning AND losing teams) yesterday?
Michael Wilbon: Hey, this is the washingtonpost.com, so more people want to discuss the going-on pertaining to the Redskins than any other team. It was a great day of football, especially the early games; the 4 p.m. games weren't much to rehash. But yeah, Vick was fabulous and that game was chock-full of drama. The Barber-McNabb game was great and had the ending to match. Look, the great thing about not attending every Redskins game anymore is I get to see ALL of the NFL games, which is really good for perspective when commenting on any one team. I watched 70 percent of the snaps in the Redskins-Colts game...which was certainly enough.
Scottsdale, Ariz.: You didn't throw up after the Bartman game? I'm impressed.
Michael Wilbon: No, I threw things after the Bartman game.
Al - D.C.: We'd all be remiss if we didn't remember Rod Strickland puking up hot dogs during Bullets games.
Michael Wilbon: Yes, and that would often happen on the bench, after Rod ate hot dogs from the press room, sometimes with reporters. This is an actual conversation from a Rod Strickland hot dog grab one night.
Reporter: Rod, you can't eat that. You'll get sick and throw up!
Rod: I know. Won't be the first time...or the last...Can you slide me that mustard?
Joe (N.Y.): Any comment on Scoop Jackson vs. Jason Whitlock debate now that it has settled down a bit? I would be very interested in your take on it.
Michael Wilbon: Nope...I'm sorry. I know I sorta promised. After the Bears-Cardinals game last Monday Night, I spent a few days playing golf and relaxing in Scottsdale...I never take time off during football season, but I did take a few days last week and didn't call either guy. Sorry. Went to see the Suns-Kings one night...It was a choice of talking to Nash/Diaw/Marion/Stoudemire/D'Antoni or Whitlock/Scoop...I think I made the right choice.
Scottsdale, Ariz.: Will T.O. pull any stunts on MNF tonight?
Michael Wilbon: I don't think so...Just a hunch. I think he'll behave, except in the end zone should he get there.
Washington, D.C.: Hey Mike, thanks for having this chat. Without a GM, the structure of the 'Skins' front office seems very confusing. Doc Walker made an interesting point last night that if Dan Snyder is in fact a key-decision maker in regards to player personnel, then he should be more accessible to the media to help answer for the team's personnel decisions. I did notice that Jerry Jones put himself out there a bit when the Cowboys acquired T.O. Do you think Dan Snyder should also put himself out there a little more? And if that happened, how long before the media finds out he's not really a football guy?
Michael Wilbon: I'm under the impression that Joe Gibbs is making these decisions, with input from Vinny Cerato and other scouts and personnel people. There was a time when clearly Danny Snyder was very, very involved. But I don't know that's still the case. I take Joe Gibbs at his word that these are his decisions, and if so, he should be held responsible. People grew so accustomed to blaming Snyder that they still do, even though there's no more evidence he still inserts himself into these situations the way he did when Norv and Steve Spurrier were the head coaches.
D.C.: Barkley!! Funnier than Riggo? Come on Wilbon, at least tell us John is a close second.
Michael Wilbon: I didn't cover John Riggins. John was retiring about the time I started to cover pro sports. John Riggins, who I have worked with for 10 years, is the smartest and funniest guy imaginable. Charles and John are both hysterically funny, and funnier when the light is on, just going into the break, than anybody. They're brilliant at it. I feel fortunate that I've gotten to be around two men that funny...and insightfully funny. Unlike, say, Dennis Miller, Charles and John are funny in the context of sports, and more specifically, funny in the context of the event they're commenting on that night. It's very, very, very rare.
Arlington, Va.: I take it, if you've only thrown up twice in your life, you stay away from the sauce?
Michael Wilbon: Pina coladas and strawberry frozen things for me...well that and Kir Royales...The next time I'm drunk will be the first...and the thought of throwing up is part of the reason I have no interest, thank you.
Baltimore: Wilbon, great chat so far, you haven't had to call anyone a moron yet! Have the questions improved or are you just more mellow today?
Michael Wilbon: All that sunshine in Arizona calms me down for a few days. I'll get riled up next week. You know what, I'm surprised the Redskins outrage has died down a bit. I think people are feeling so beaten down they don't bother. That, and they probably go to the Redskins chats where the reporters are more tolerant and less insulting! Ha!
Naples, Fla: Will the new NBA rule about "whining" apply to owners like Mark Cuban??
Michael Wilbon: You know, that's a great question. I'm betting the agreement covers only the players. But it should extend to any club personnel within 50 feet of the floor. I like Cuban...I mean, really like him. But I hate that behavior that's pointed at the zebras, no matter where it comes from.
Washington, D.C.: Hey, Mike. How about a little PTI-style Role Play? You're Jason Campbell. You're in your second year, haven't taken a single snap, and your team is doing lousy. Meanwhile, Vince Young and Matt Leinart are starting for their respective teams as rookies, and generally getting good reviews. How does that make you feel?
Michael Wilbon: It makes me feel frustrated...I see those guys at least starting their evolution as starting quarterbacks, and I'm not happy to be sitting behind a guy who clearly isn't the franchise quarterback of the future. Put me in coach, I'm ready to play!
Bluffton, S.C.: Regarding Campbell not playing: I believe he was the No. 3 QB yesterday, or basically inactive. Couldn't play unless QBs 1 and 2 are injured.
Michael Wilbon: Yes, that's true. And I think it's insane. Totally and completely insane!
Okay, gotta run. Must get inside Texas Stadium to get ready for today's PTI battle with Mr. Tony. It's going to be 55 degrees and completely clear tonight for the Cowboys-Giants tilt. Until next week, when we will have a World Series winner and be looking squarely at the beginning of the NBA season, for which I can hardly wait....Thanks everybody. Have a great week. MW
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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Post columnist Michael Wilbon takes your questions and comments about the latest sports news.
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Gallaudet University Protests
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Jane K. Fernandes said Thursday that she is determined to be the next president of Gallaudet University, even as some board members continued to urge her to resign and more alumni arrived to join protests at the school for the deaf.
Fernandes was online Monday, Oct. 23, art 2 p.m. ET to discuss the reasons why she is not withdrawing her name despite growing opposition to her appointment as president.
Many Ways of Being Deaf by Jane K. Fernandes ( Post, Oct. 14 )
Live Online With Student Protest Leader LaToya Plummer ( washingtonpost.com, Oct. 18 )
Jane K. Fernandes: Statement to Open Online Discussion
I am very glad to be here today and I'd like to take this opportunity to move beyond the debate about my being selected as the next president by the Board of Trustees and share my vision for my presidency at Gallaudet and how it will help the university address the challenges we face.
Gallaudet University is at a crossroads where it is essential that we continue to value and promote Deaf culture, deaf history, and American Sign Language and at the same time, recognize the dramatic impact of cochlear implants and other technical and scientific advances on the deaf community. I believe strongly that Gallaudet must be the beacon of hope for the increasingly diverse population of deaf and hard of hearing people in the 21st century. For instance, we already know that about 47 percent of the U.S. school-age population of deaf and hard of hearing students are students of color.
The diversity plan that the Gallaudet community is now discussing will guide the process of making Gallaudet an increasingly inclusive deaf university where everyone is included, valued and respected. The strategic plan, New Directions for Academic Affairs, provides the framework for making an already great university even greater by increasing academic standards, ensuring that students are better prepared for admission through increased collaboration with schools from which they come. As president I will also move forward with Gallaudet's new vision for a liberal education that will better prepare our graduates with knowledge and skills essential for success in an increasingly competitive world.
Building upon Dr. Jordan's outstanding legacy, I will lead Gallaudet into a successful future, working as, I always have, with an outstanding faculty, staff, and students.
Fresno, Calif.: Dear Dr. Fernandes,
One of the roles of a college president is to assure that the actions of the institution reflects the mission. Would you please talk about Gallaudet's mission and how the protest does or does not support that mission. Thank you.
Jane K. Fernandes: The mission of Gallaudet University is to serve as a comprehensive, multipurpose institution of higher education for deaf and hard of hearing citizens of the United States and the world.
With 47 percent of deaf and hard of hearing children coming from diverse racial backgrounds and 91percent of deaf and hard of hearing children and youth attending public schools, Gallaudet must reach out and include each and every one of them. The University must make it clear that we welcome, value and include all kinds of deaf students while remaining true to the principles of American Sign Language and Deaf Culture upon which the University was founded.
New York, N.Y.: President-elect Fernandes, thank you in advance for taking my comment.
Although I am a hearing individual, I strongly believe that you are the right person to lead Gallaudet into the 21st century. As you noted in your op-ed piece from last week, the deaf community, like other communities, is not monolithic. As an African-American, I see how often my own community ostracizes those who are not deemed "black enough." With increased medical and scientific advancements, there will be even more heterogeneity among individuals who are hearing impaired. In my humble opinion, I think a lot of the protests are based in fear, fear of what will happen to deaf culture with the advent of these innovations. Hopefully, Gallaudet can become a setting that is at the forefront of transition in your community.
I hope you make it through this challenge. However, if you don't, I am sure that history will be on your side. Good luck and God speed!
Jane K. Fernandes: There are so many external pressures exerted on the deaf community including cochlear implants, more powerful hearing aids, genetic research and the shift in school attendance from schools for the deaf to public schools where today 91 percent of deaf and hard of hearing children and youth are enrolled. I believe the community is responding to these pressures on a deep seated level.
My African American friends seem to understand the pressures the deaf community is feeling. One of them shared this spiritual with me:
We'll stand the storm, it won't be long, we'll anchor by and by
We'll stand the storm, it won't be long, we'll anchor by and by
It reminds us that life is full of storms of different intensity and the struggle is not to avoid them, but stand through them.
By standing through this storm, the whole Gallaudet University community will emerge as a stronger institution of higher education and will better serve the needs of our students.
Rochester, N.Y.: The students at National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester are holding a "tent city" support rally for Gallaudet students today. What do you think of this type of off-campus support of the Gallaudet students? Do you think it is appropriate?
Jane K. Fernandes: I am heartened to see deaf students becoming activists and speaking out for what they believe in. I fully support their right to do that.
The selection of the Gallaudet University president is made by the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees. Students at Gallaudet and at NTID do not and cannot make such a decision.
I would hope we can channel the strong feelings and deep concern for deaf people and deaf education into a powerful national force that will result in advancements for deaf people everywhere.
Seattle, Wash.: I heard the students got letters from the judicial office about their arrests on Friday 13th for blocking the gates. Will they be evicted? If so, why?
Jane K. Fernandes: Each case will be reviewed by the University Judicial Affairs Board. A student may accept responsibility for whatever the charge is and be assigned consequences. If the student does not accept responsibility, he or she will have a hearing with the Judicial Affairs Board. Consequences fall along a continuum ranging from things like community service, writing a research paper or attending workshops to more serious actions like suspension or expulsion. The consequences will be assigned in accordance with the process outlined in the Student Code of Conduct.
Alameda, Calif.: How do you expect to bring together the various factions on campus, especially when many of the stakeholders have declared their unwillingness to accept you as their president? Please delineate your plan or give us some idea as to where you are headed.
Jane K. Fernandes: I have been working with experts on conflict transformation and came across this quotation which is significant in light of the situation Gallaudet is facing:
"Unity is not two people clinging together because they both fear they are about to be annihilated. Nor, for that matter, is unity two people standing together and pretending there are no differences between them ... unity is respecting difference, honoring difference, valuing difference, learning from difference, but understanding that difference is not destiny ... And that if there are 10 things that divide us, there are 100 by which we are drawn together, if there are 100 points of difference, there are 1,000 of common cause." Leonard Pitts, Jr., columnist for the Miami Herald
I hope to involve neutral mediators to work with the campus community -- faculty, staff, students and alumni -- to identity their most pressing issues and find the common threads we can use to create the healing we so desperately need.
Gallaudet City: President Designate Fernandes:
I am one of few Gallaudet folks who is sorry about what's happening. We haven't been fair to you; we haven't given you the chance to show what you are capable of. I think everyone from all sides needs to grow up.
I am peeved by the way the administration has handled the unrest. It's been anemic at best, and I am wondering if you have short- and long-term plans for resolution.
Jane K. Fernandes: I am worried about the cost to the university of a damaging conflict. I support constructive alternatives to barricades and angry confrontations. I support mediation as an avenue for short-term resolution. For the long-term, I am committed to pushing for real reform at Gallaudet (e.g., increasing levels of American Sign Language fluency among faculty and staff, expectation that faculty and staff are to sign all the time on campus and revisiting the composition of the Board of Trustees to more effectively represent the Gallaudet community).
College Park, Md.: Do you fear that if/when you do become president, that you will NOT have the support of the students, faculty and perhaps more importantly, the alumni that financially support (aside from Congress) the university?
Jane K. Fernandes: Leadership doesn't come from winning popularity contests. It derives from setting a course that will help the institution thrive. Leadership sometimes means making very tough decisions in the best interests of the university and accepting personal consequences. Leadership calls for the courage to steer through the storms of misunderstanding and misrepresentation for the good of the ship.
Leadership puts the good of the whole above ego, above the best interests of the individual. That's the kind of leader that I am and that's why I believe I can and will be an effective leader of Gallaudet.
I share with the protesters a love and reverence for ASL and Deaf Culture. It saddens me that they don't seem to acknowledge that. Under my leadership, Gallaudet will grow as a center of scholarship and excellence for all deaf, hard of hearing and deaf-blind people of every color and background to learn and make themselves whole.
My honorable hearing father, my strong deaf mother, the catalyst of education, and the warm embrace of the Iowa deaf community all combined to help me become a whole person and a leader. Becoming whole means accepting and maximizing all aspects of my identity. I want to make sure that Gallaudet affords the same opportunity to all our students. That's what I see as an inclusive deaf university and I believe this is a vision that many share with me.
I am confident that the protesters will come to understand and agree with my vision and leadership.
Des Plaines, Ill.: Dr. Fernandes,
I have a child who is a freshman this year at Gallaudet. First I don't understand why the staff and SBG did not work on this issue over the summer so this would not have happened. I am now reading that the SBG said they were going to be doing this. I feel Gallaudet should have been working to resolve this all along. Also as a parent whose child had worked so hard to get to go to college and then to have his happen, it's very upsetting. These kids are getting a bad deal, the tuition should be refunded. When is this madness going to end? So my child can have the normal freshmen year at college?
Jane K. Fernandes: I have been meeting and talking with students, faculty and staff since last May in an effort to listen to their concerns. We will continue to reach out to them and to listen carefully to their issues as we have been doing since last May.
We have been negotiating tirelessly with the dissenters for the past ten days, often staying awake all day and all night. At one point there were as many as 24 demands which have now been reduced to two, which are non-negotiable. It is difficult to negotiate with people who are intransigent in their demands. Where is the room to negotiate? What is the fall back position?
A couple of times, we thought we had reached an agreement that was signed by student leaders as well as administrators only to have the agreements reneged soon afterward.
Gallaudet University's pain at this time is shared by us all. No one individual or group has a monopoly on it. We must all stop and begin to talk together.
The University must continue with its fundamental mission. At this time, classes on campus are being held and I sincerely hope your son is receiving the education that he deserves. While the dissenters have a right to their opinion, they do not have a right to impose it on others thereby denying them the education they deserve and are paying for.
Washington, DC: I noticed in today's article that some of the teachers at the Clerc Center are upset about the decision to do away with tenure at the Clerc Center that was made after you became vice president of the. Please clarify the issues related to tenure for teachers that led to it being abolished.
washingtonpost.com: Source of Gallaudet Turmoil Is Up for Debate (Post, Oct. 23)
Jane K. Fernandes: As you may know, most public and private elementary and secondary school teachers do not hold tenure in the same sense that University faculty do. Teachers in elementary and secondary schools typically have a reasonable expectation of continued employment and are afforded due process involving any disputes concerning employment. When I arrived at the Clerc Center on the Gallaudet campus in 1995, I worked with teachers, students, staff, parents and Board of Trustees members to change the employment of teachers in our elementary and secondary schools from being tenured to the University to holding a continuous appointment at the elementary and secondary schools.
Anonymous: Ms Fernandes are you lobbying for the cochlear implants? Last week you said something to the effect that you wanted to take Gallaudet into the future for those who had implants and mainstreamed in the public schools.
Jane K. Fernandes: Too often parents and doctors give cochlear implanted children only one option: an oral-aural environment, putting their eggs in one basket. At the Clerc Center on the Gallaudet campus, I worked with teachers and staff to establish a Center that supports learning and communicating both through the eyes and the ears, in a bilingual American Sign Language - English environment. This supports modern theory about children using all senses available to them for the maximizing of their cognitive development.
Some deaf people felt initially that the program was inappropriate but they have slowly seen the light. Seeing that American Sign Language and Deaf Culture can be retained, even while technology is harnessed, has led more and more deaf adults to get cochlear implants. This is the logic behind the program at the Clerc Center.
I am supporting the development of an inclusive deaf university where all deaf and hard of hearing students feel welcome to explore their identities as deaf people within the university's rich history.
Jacksonville, Fla.: I have been confused a bit about the protesters claiming that you "don't know what the protest is about." Is that because YOU don't know what it is about or they don't? I have not been able to get any cogent reason for the protest and it looks like they are making you look like you are ignorant to what is going on. What's your take on that?
Jane K. Fernandes: The dissenters have created a chain of reasons for the protest from my not being deaf enough, to an allegedly flawed search process, to my leadership style and personality. I believe it is incumbent on the dissenters to define their protest.
I know there are two demands -- I resign and no reprisals. But a protest has to be FOR something, so I want to LISTEN to those involved. I want you to tell me what you are FOR. You want the protest to reduce racism on campus? So do I and we have a plan that is already going into action. You want to protest to reduce audism on campus? So do I and we have a plan to do so that is beginning.
Washington, D.C.: The thing I'm sure you find frustrating about the students' position is how little they're willing to compromise. They keep saying they want you to come and negotiate with them, but what's the point when all they want is your resignation? Have you seen any evidence that they're actually interested in having a dialogue with you, as opposed to just making demands?
Jane K. Fernandes: To date, they have held firm to two non-negotiable demands. There is no fall back position and no room for negotiating.
I will continue to reach out to them and make it clear that I am ready, willing and able to work with them on the serious issues facing the University. I hope they want a peaceful resolution to this situation as much as I do.
Ryan, Tex.: Have you been in touch with other university presidents in D.C. or elsewhere? What do they think of the situation?
Jane K. Fernandes: I have been in touch with other university presidents who are concerned about the future of Gallaudet University. If students can overturn the Board's decision to appoint me as the next president, the Board may never be able to make a hard decision again. What will it mean for future hard decisions the President makes? It is not acceptable to have a protest each time the Gallaudet president is selected. In 1988, King Jordan became Gallaudet's first deaf president and the Deaf President Now protest was clearly for an ideal -- that a deaf person head the world's only university for deaf and hard of hearing people.
As the first deaf woman president of Gallaudet, my appointment should be cause for celebration. This protest is against me. The Board selected me after an inclusive and thorough search. The Search Committee had 14 deaf people in a total of 17 members. Faculty, staff, students and alumni were represented on the Committee. There were 24 applicants, 21 of whom were deaf. The Committee narrowed the field to six semi-finalists all of whom were deaf. From there, three finalists were announced. Each finalist had a intense and thorough two-day campus visit meeting with faculty, staff and students. An interview with the full Board of Trustees, the majority of whom are deaf, followed.
After such an exhaustive and comprehensive process, it boggles the mind how students or faculty could believe the decision can be overturned. The protest raises serious concerns for the future stability of Gallaudet's governance.
Arlington, Va.: I have no connection with Gallaudet, but I was surprised to see you refer to the student protesters as "terrorists." Do you stand by that characterization? Do you think that students who have participated in blocking access to school facilities should remain a part of the Gallaudet community?
Jane K. Fernandes: I used the word anarchy to describe the protest. It is clear to me that the protesters are giving a total lack of attention to established rules of order.
I also used the word terrorism. Perhaps it would have been better to use words like "discord," "tumult," "riot," and "insubordination." The dissenters at Gallaudet have demonstrated a complete disregard for social order. They have blocked gates and not allowed deaf children to get their education at Kendall School. They have locked down a building and not allowed university graduate and undergraduate students to get their education and barred faculty and staff from their offices. Students who do not support the protest, of which there are plenty, are being threatend. Terms negotiated in good faith are being revoked. An image of me has been burned in effigy. My family has been stalked. There have been threats on myself and my family.
From my position, there is nothing peaceful about this protest.
Washington, D.C.: Dr Fernandes, we live here in D.C., where politics is everything. One of the things D.C. residents understand is that leadership is not about issues, but how candidates define the issues.
You seem to be trying very hard to define, even develop issues that are very different from the people who are protesting.
Can you explain your strategy here?
Jane K. Fernandes: The reasons for the protest do seem to continuously evolve, so it's sometimes hard to keep track of them and define them. Right now, the protesters seems to be focusing on my leadership. So, let me define that issue. As to my leadership record:
A failed leader would not have led the Iowa Deaf community to advocate for our rights in relation to the state agency set up to serve our needs,
A failed leader would not have been able to create the University of Hawaii's interpreter education program at Kapiolani Community College,
A failed leader would not have been able to take a dying school for deaf and blind children and convert it into a thriving institution providing quality education,
A failed leader would not have been able to fully integrate students of color into Gallaudet's Clerc center classes with the result that benefited the academic performance of all students,
A failed leader would not be addressing head-on the very difficult issues of audism and racism that have plagued Gallaudet University, the Deaf community and our country for centuries,
A successful leader works with a coalition of people to promote policies and activities that benefit the whole. Because I have been and remain a successful leader, I have worked with many others to bring about the very accomplishments just described.
And finally, a failed leader would not be standing strong on principle to protect the integrity and future of Gallaudet University despite the incredible deluge of fabricated mud and muck being hurled at me.
Washington, D.C.: You seem to be contradicting yourself in this discussion. You said, "at one point there were as many as 24 demands which have now been reduced to two, which are non-negotiable. It is difficult to negotiate with people who are intransigent in their demands." Yet obviously the students HAVE been negotiating and willing to compromise if they have gone from 24 to two demands. You may not like their demands, but how can you possibly claim they are unwilling to negotiate?
Jane K. Fernandes: There have always been two non-negotiable demands: my resignation and no reprisals. When the students locked down the Hall Memorial Building, they proposed 24 demands they wanted from me and the administration in order to release the building.
At this point, the 24 demands have gone away because we re-took the building.
The two original demands still remain and those are not negotiable. It is impossible to negotiate when the protesters have no flexibility in their demands.
Arlington, Va.: Why don't they just redo the search? In my company if the best candidate is not found in our first solicitation, we throw it out and start again. Why not reapply and when the search committee recommends you again then your critics will be silenced.
Jane K. Fernandes: According to the President Search Committee and the Board, the search was fair and inclusive. At this point, I have the following options to recommend:
a. Engage the services of a neutral mediator to identify the major concerns of faculty, staff, students and alumni.
b. Contract for an outside investigation of the search process.
I would hope the protesters would agree on these options as an opportunity to address the real problems that are facing the university in a constructive manner.
Atlanta, Ga.: Great leaders, as you pointed out, are not winning popularity contests, but they do have followers. Based on the increasing number of protesters, who are your followers? How can you expect to lead when so few are following?
Jane K. Fernandes: I have a vast amount of support from what I see as a "silent majority." Right now, I am in the bull's eye of a target. The first one or two circles from the bull's eye represent the dissenters. All the other circles outward are where I find my support.
Each day, I receive emails, letters, flowers, and other messages of support.
Anonymous: To the outsider, it seems as though nothing was done over the summer months to address this issue. Why was the issue not addressed by you or the administration before students returned to school?
Jane K. Fernandes: I have been working since May to address the issues that were raised. I have been meeting and talking with students, faculty and staff about their issues. Several times, the meetings continued for up to three hours with a tremendous outpouring of concern for the future of Gallaudet. I worked very hard throughout the summer to resolve the issues.
Rochester, N.Y.: Is it true that you won't resign because you would lose out on a severance package that was described by one Board of Trustees member as worth up to $1 million?
Jane K. Fernandes: The rumor about a million dollar severance package has no basis in fact.
Washington, D.C.: Last week the university took the step of arresting their own students. Did you concur with that decision? Do you concur with the way that I. King Jordan is managing this crisis?
Jane K. Fernandes: The University did everything possible to avoid the arrests. It was a decision made as a last resort and it was a very painful decision.
For two days, the Metropolitan Police Department met and clarified with students what would happen if they did not release the gate. Students were fully informed about the consequences of their actions.
The gate had to be open because:
deaf children at Kendall and Model schools were being denied their education,
deaf babies coming for hearing tests were being denied the services they needed,
senior citizens in DC were being denied hearing and speech services,
undergraduate and graduate students were being denied their university education,
food for everyone on campus was running very low,
mail had not been delivered in a week.
It pains me deeply that students decided to be arrested rather than allow the University's mission of education to continue.
The MPD negotiated every aspect of the arrest with the students. For example, they agreed that handcuffs would not be used as long as the protesters did not resist arrest.
The University did everything possible to avoid the arrests.
Jane K. Fernandes: Thank you all for your participation. I hope I have been able to clear up some misinformation and now we can begin the process of moving beyond the current impasse and assure a successful future for Gallaudet University.
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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Jane K. Fernandes, president-designate of Gallaudet University, discusses the protest situation at the campus and her reasons for not stepping down.
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Circling the Statehouse
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As tight budgets began to limit state and local government spending five years ago, Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. unloaded a $700 million operation that sold such services as contracts to chase after deadbeat dads and to install red-light cameras.
Now the Pentagon's biggest contractor, a maker of fighter jets and military satellites, seems ready to give the state and local government market another chance. Lockheed is going after a $500 million contract to consolidate data centers in Texas.
At a time when federal spending is slowing , state and local governments -- flush with cash from rising property-tax revenue and a generally healthy national economy -- are an increasingly juicy target for government contractors. Many have flocked to the state and local market after years on the sidelines, following the money being poured into information-technology projects ranging from humdrum computer system upgrades to innovative wireless networks.
Spending by state and local governments on such projects is projected to reach $54.96 billion in 2008, up from $44.24 billion last year, according to Gartner Inc., a research firm. That follows several years of budget shortfalls after the 2001 economic downturn, which sapped local governments of tax revenue and forced them to tighten budgets.
"Because of the increase in property values, states have come out of their deficits. They have the money now to reinvest in infrastructure," said Kimberley Williams, vice president of global marketing at Curam Software Ltd.
Curam is no Lockheed. The Irish firm got started in the United States only five years ago, and it is still working to establish a foothold. But business has been good enough lately that it was able in January to open a new North American headquarters in Herndon, where the company has 80 employees.
Curam has found profit in updating clunky, decades-old computer systems that are used in providing health care, food stamps, unemployment benefits and other critical services. "These systems are very, very old," Williams said. "They don't even have the people any more to maintain them. So they have to modernize."
Curam sells software designed to function much like an electronic social worker -- making people aware of the services available and speeding the process for getting them.
Such technology did not receive much attention or funding in the first few years after Sept. 11, 2001, when the focus was on national security and contractors invested heavily in selling products and services to the Pentagon or the Homeland Security Department. Many of those companies earned record profits in the process, but now face the daunting challenge of continuing the growth.
That's difficult to do now that defense IT spending has begun to stall, with funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan eating up budgets for more routine programs. Gartner predicts that long-term state and local government IT spending will increase 6 to 8 percent annually, compared with 2 to 4 percent growth at the federal level.
But the state and local markets are not without their drawbacks.
For large federal contractors, the state and local markets can be perplexing with 50 states, 19,000 municipalities and 3,200 counties, each with its own way of doing business. Competition for contracts typically last longer -- 18 to 24 months -- and are generally worth less. But collectively, the competitions are getting larger. That's attracting wider interest.
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As tight budgets began to limit state and local government spending five years ago, Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. unloaded a $700 million operation that sold such services as contracts to chase after deadbeat dads and to install red-light cameras.
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Haywood, Thomas Still Battling for Starting Role
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DALLAS, Oct. 22 -- Washington Wizards centers Brendan Haywood and Etan Thomas will each get one more start before the preseason concludes -- Haywood on Monday night against Atlanta; Thomas on Tuesday against Detroit. But before the Wizards' 93-90 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday, Coach Eddie Jordan said he doesn't plan to make a decision on his final starter until just before the season opener on Nov. 1 against Cleveland.
"It's a close battle," Jordan said. "You put a gun to my head and say, 'Make a decision.' I'd say, 'It's a toss-up.' "
Thomas, who told Jordan last summer that he wanted to compete for the starting center position, gave Jordan a little more to ponder against the Mavericks. He grabbed nine rebounds, scored four points and blocked three shots, sending a layup attempt by Mavericks guard Devin Harris into the second row in the third quarter at American Airlines Center. "Etan brought the force," Jordan said. "It's not the numbers for me, but rather the way you play and what you accomplish. He played with passion, discipline, excitement. He was really into it."
Reserve center James Lang continues to impress the Wizards' coaching staff with his offensive repertoire. On Saturday, he sent the entire bench into riotous applause with his defense. Lang stripped Mavericks rookie guard Maurice Ager of the ball at midcourt; then the 6-foot-10, 285-pounder rumbled down the court for a breakaway dunk over the speedy Ager, who attempted to chase him down. "That was nice. That was Hakeem Olajuwon-like," guard Antonio Daniels said. "Hakeem used to do that all the time -- strip guards and go down and dunk it. That's an awesome skill."
Lang finished with seven points, five rebounds, two steals and his first assist this preseason on Saturday. In five games, he is averaging 5.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and shooting 66.7 percent from the floor (10 for 15) in 13.6 minutes. "We don't have that guy down on the box for us," Jordan said. "He has soft hands. Nifty moves. Just a good feel for the game. He's the project for us."
Lang, a former McDonald's High School All-American, has had a bumpy ride since the New Orleans Hornets selected him in the second round (48th overall) in 2003. He was released after just three months spent on the injured list, as questions about his conditioning kept him from sticking in the NBA.
After spending a year in Spain, the Utah Jazz cut him in training camp and he went on to play with the Arkansas Rim Rockers of the NBA Development League and averaged 8.3 points and 5.0 rebounds. He signed a pair of 10-day contracts with the Atlanta Hawks and another 10-day contract with the Toronto Raptors last season, but never saw action in a game. "I've learned from my mistakes in the past," said Lang, who turned 23 last week. "I just listen to the coaches. I'm just trying to work hard. That's all I can do."
When Lang was asked about the steal and dunk afterward, Jordan interrupted him before he could answer, saying, "Stay humble."
Wizards forward Mike Hall suffered a setback late in the fourth quarter on Saturday when he twisted his right knee while playing defense. Hall, an undrafted free agent from George Washington, needed to be helped off the court with 5 minutes 33 seconds remaining. "I'm going to be fine," Hall said after the game, his knee heavily iced. He will be listed as day-to-day with a strained right knee but is unlikely to play Monday in Atlanta. Jordan said Hall, who averaged 3.8 points and 3.4 rebounds in five games, has been one of the surprises of camp. "He's got a good chance of making our team," Jordan said. . . .
With Antawn Jamison getting the night off and Hall out with an injury, forward Andray Blatche fouled out with 55 seconds remaining, forcing Jordan to call on his last remaining small forward, Caron Butler, to finish out the game. "I thought I was done, put the ice on and everything," Butler said with a laugh. . . .
Live audio of the Wizards' final two preseason games on Monday at Atlanta and Tuesday at Detroit is available at http://www.nba.com/wizards .
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Brendan Haywood and Etan Thomas will each get one more preaseason start in order to prove to Coach Eddie Jordan who should be his starting center.
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The Candidates Keep On Coming
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2006102319
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There are a few certainties about the Washington Nationals' search for a manager. No announcement will come during the World Series, as Major League Baseball insists fans remain focused on the games. The Nationals' top officials -- President Stan Kasten and General Manager Jim Bowden -- won't comment on any of their candidates, won't speak about the process, and likely won't be heard from until they hand the winning candidate a Nationals cap and shake his hand at an introductory news conference, which could come as late as December.
But other than that, there are only questions -- questions that baseball insiders are beginning to wonder about as well.
VIDEO | Nationals Spring Training
"It's a very, very difficult process to get a handle on," a source from outside the Nationals organization said on the condition of anonymity. "It's a thorough process, no question, and it seems like they're doing their due diligence on everyone. But at some point, you have to make a decision."
Several sources with knowledge of the search -- all speaking on the condition of anonymity because the Nationals are insisting the talks be held in private -- said that the search will continue this week when the team interviews New York Mets third base coach Manny Acta, at least the seventh candidate with which the club has spoken about the vacancy. What's more: One source said the Nationals likely will speak to more candidates after Acta's interview.
Sources said that two of the interviewees -- Houston bench coach Cecil Cooper and Chicago White Sox third base coach Joey Cora -- are out of the running, a development first reported by MLB.com. Another, former Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker, said he has not heard from Bowden in awhile, and he appears to be, at best, an outside shot. Lou Piniella, a manager with four different clubs who has close ties to Bowden, spoke to the Nationals but instead took the Cubs job.
That leaves men who have been publicly identified remaining on the list -- Joe Girardi, the former Florida manager; Tony Peña, the New York Yankees' first base coach and former manager in Kansas City; Terry Pendleton, the Atlanta hitting coach; and Acta, the only man with experience within the Nationals franchise. He served as third base coach on the staff of former manager Frank Robinson from 2002 to 2004, though he hasn't worked under Bowden or Kasten.
Girardi has long been considered the front-runner, should he want the job. But a source with knowledge of the search said although the 42-year-old former major league catcher remains in the running, he still doesn't have an offer in hand -- despite reports to the contrary.
Girardi was fired after his only season as manager of the Marlins because of conflicts with owner Jeffrey Loria and a deteriorating relationship with General Manager Larry Beinfest. Girardi, who has three young children, could have several options for next year, including working in television or, perhaps, returning to Joe Torre's staff with the Yankees.
Acta, too, could have options. On Friday -- the same day the Nationals called the Mets seeking permission to interview Acta -- the 37-year-old interviewed with the Texas Rangers. Texas's hiring process could be along the same timeline as the one in Washington, as GM Jon Daniels wants to interview Trey Hillman, who manages in the Japan and is currently involved in the playoffs. Acta also has heard from the San Francisco Giants about their opening.
Neither Peña nor Pendleton has been identified as a candidate for the other openings around the league.
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The Nationals have been curiously silent about their search for a new manager, and likely won't be heard from until they hand him a hat at a news conference.
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AOL Fraud Prosecutors Stop Short Of the Top
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One of the government's most highly touted accounting-fraud investigations -- into questionable advertising deals at America Online Inc. around the time it merged with Time Warner Inc. -- has apparently hit a dead end, running into the five-year statute of limitations before prosecutors could move as far as they had hoped up the company's corporate ladder.
Despite a lengthy investigation by the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia, lawyers involved in the case now say the government will not be able to bring criminal charges against top AOL executives over transactions in which the Dulles Internet service provider and its business partners allegedly sought to artificially boost each other's revenue numbers as the dot-com bubble was bursting in 2000 and 2001.
Before the deadline passed, prosecutors filed securities fraud and related charges against two former mid-level AOL executives. They are on trial in a federal court in Alexandria with two former officials of PurchasePro.com Inc., a Las Vegas software maker.
PurchasePro was AOL's partner five years ago in what prosecutors call "round trip" accounting, where no money changed hands but each company claimed to have paid the other for advertising and other services. Such deals, if they are not properly disclosed, can violate accounting rules.
A review of the public record suggests that the leaders of PurchasePro and other AOL business partners paid a far steeper price for their roles in the questionable deals than their counterparts at AOL.
The only former AOL officials to be charged with crimes are Kent D. Wakeford, a former executive director at the company's since-disbanded business affairs unit in New York, and John P. Tuli, a former vice president in AOL's Netbusiness unit in Dulles. Both men, who operated far from the company's highest ranks, are contesting allegations that they struck sham deals with PurchasePro to mislead investors.
Compare that with the top executives of companies that once competed to reach ad agreements with the Dulles company. Charles E. Johnson Jr., the founder of PurchasePro, is on trial on federal charges that he lied to auditors and shareholders about his company's financial health. A half-dozen former PurchasePro employees have already pleaded guilty and could testify against Johnson and a former subordinate, Christopher J. Benyo, in the case.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, Stuart H. Wolff, the former chief executive of Homestore.com, an online real estate venture based in California, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a jury convicted him of conspiracy, insider trading, filing false reports and lying to auditors in connection with revenue-swapping deals with AOL.
Much of the investigators' interest had been focused on AOL's raucous, since-disbanded business affairs unit, run by David M. Colburn and Eric Keller. Attorneys for both men, who left AOL in 2002, declined to comment for this article.
Among the documents that prosecutors and FBI agents reviewed were internal AOL reports showing declines in the rate of AOL advertising deals before and after its 2001 merger with Time Warner, as well as e-mails and other documents indicating a last-minute race to sign more deals to enable AOL to reach quarterly earnings targets.
At one point in late 2000, Colburn gave an in-house award to Wakeford and a colleague for their work on the PurchasePro account, calling it "science fiction," according to "Stealing Time," a book by Washington Post reporter Alec Klein on the company's accounting practices. Colburn has said he did not recall using that term. Colleagues laughed as Wakeford accepted the award, thanking AOL for its help, Klein wrote.
Lawyers involved in the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been authorized to talk about the case, cite many reasons for the apparent dead end.
They noted that the lengthy investigation was run by two different U.S. attorneys in the Eastern District of Virginia and several prosecutors who departed for other jobs. Moreover, while AOL ultimately paid more than $500 million and agreed to cooperate with the government two years ago, none of its high-ranking insiders pleaded guilty and testified against their supervisors. Such assistance was crucial to breaking open complex white-collar investigations of such companies as Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and Adelphia Communications Corp.
The trial that starts today is a subdued end to a scandal that prodded Time Warner to restate its financial results twice and agree to a deferred prosecution deal with the Justice Department nearly two years ago. Yet the company continues to experience aftershocks from accounting problems that date to its merger with AOL.
In August, Time Warner said it would restate previous financial reports by $582 million after an independent examiner scrutinized how the company handled advertising revenues in 2000 and 2001, uncovering problems in deals between Time Warner or its AOL unit and 15 business partners. The examiner's report, a condition of the company's settlement with the government, will not be made public, a Time Warner spokeswoman said.
During the investigation, AOL founder Steve Case, Time Warner chief executive Richard D. Parsons and former finance chief Wayne H. Pace gave depositions under oath to securities regulators. The SEC, which has the authority to file civil charges and seek financial penalties and court orders that bar executives from holding certain jobs at public companies, continues to scrutinize former AOL officials, according to interviews and a statement by the agency last year.
But prosecutors' focus now rests squarely on the PurchasePro trial, at which they must simplify scores of complex documents and accounting issues into an easily digestible case about lying to auditors and investors. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles F. Connolly and Timothy D. Belevetz, and senior trial counsel Adam A. Reeves declined to comment.
"Kent Wakeford never committed any crime, and that will become apparent during the course of this trial," said defense lawyer Henry W. Asbill. Mark J. Hulkower, a defense lawyer for John Tuli, declined to comment as jury selection proceeded late last week, as did Preston Burton, a lawyer representing PurchasePro's Johnson.
The defense teams received a measure of good news when U.S. District Judge Walter D. Kelley Jr. dropped several charges from the case Oct. 16. But the stakes for those who remain in the case are high. Under federal sentencing guidelines, which are taken under advisement by the judge, each of the former executives could go to prison for several years if convicted.
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One of the government's most highly touted accounting-fraud investigations -- into questionable advertising deals at America Online Inc. around the time it merged with Time Warner Inc. -- has apparently hit a dead end, running into the five-year statute of limitations before prosecutors could move...
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Fostering A Facebook For the Feds
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A nonprofit public service group launches YoungFeds.org today -- featuring blogs, message boards, video clips and, yes, some old-fashioned career advice.
"The goal is to get people in the young feds community to provide content or give direction to the content," David Roberts , 26, a leader and organizer of the online clubhouse, said as he loaded material onto the new Web site from a laptop computer Friday.
Roberts and other organizers hope the Web site will connect under-35 professionals across government and, with the help of a little buzz, grow into an online networking place for the federal sector.
The organizers of YoungFeds envision the site becoming a destination for young government workers where they, not the organizers, will create a sense of community. Over time, organizers hope, the YoungFeds site will permit users to set up blogs, create profiles, link to friends, search out other young employees in their agency, and post events on a calendar so that users can meet one another in person at breakfast forums and evening receptions.
Roberts is a staff member at the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government, which is sponsoring the YoungFeds project in partnership with Geico, the insurance company. The project is being guided by a group of some 35 young people, in and out of government, called "35 Under 35," or "35<35."
Antony DiGiovanni , 34, is part of the steering group, and he has written what the Web site calls an "UnCommentary" about working on temporary assignment at a Capitol Hill subcommittee as a "detailee" from his agency, the Energy Department. It's called "The Devil Shouldn't Be in the Details."
About 20 percent of federal employees are 35 or younger, and many work in offices where up to 60 percent of the staff will be eligible to retire in the next 10 years.
When DiGiovanni joined Energy in 2000, he said, "I got the sense that young people feel isolated in the federal government." A Web site for younger employees, he said, could be "a promising way to help people find each other."
In addition to "UnCommentary," the YoungFeds site will feature "ProFile," accounts of young people who are making a mark in government; "Sound Bytes," featuring user-produced podcasts, webcasts and YouTube videos; and "Brand U," a summary of a hot topic in government and what a young person would need to do to take advantage of the trend.
Like many other Web sites, YoungFeds will gather feedback for a poll, called "The Gauge," to see what, for example, viewers think of new pay-for-performance rules, their office's Friday casual dress code and food in government cafeterias.
More serious offerings will include "Big League Advice" from current or former federal officials on how they climbed the ladder to success, and "Working Points," a sort of been-there-done-that column that steers young employees to data and practices that they might find useful in their professional lives.
The site's organizers do not want to be seen as competitors to associations and membership groups, such as Young Government Leaders, but as a place that welcomes them.
"Our hope is that individuals and organizations use the site and live activities as a like-minded community to improve government," said Tony Nicely , Geico's chairman and president.
Patricia McGinnis , president of the Council for Excellence in Government, said she expects "the infectious ingenuity of this network to multiply as word spreads about what it means to be a young fed."
DiGiovanni said he plans to send e-mails today informing colleagues of the YoungFeds launch in hopes of creating some buzz about the project. "It could be more than just a Web site, and bring people together for sharing ideas," he said.
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MySpace. Friendster. Facebook. YoungFeds? A nonprofit public service group launches YoungFeds.org today -- featuring blogs, message boards, video clips and, yes, some old-fashioned career advice.
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A Set of Borders to Cross
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NIXON, Tex. -- Seventeen-year-old Guillermo Antonio Iraheta Hernandez traveled thousands of miles from his native El Salvador only to land in limbo.
Left behind more than a decade ago by his parents, illegal immigrants living in Northern Virginia, Iraheta made part of his trek to the United States hidden in the baggage compartment of a Mexican bus. But soon after surreptitiously crossing the Rio Grande into Texas, he was picked up by the Border Patrol and brought here to a converted nursing home run by the federal government where 136 children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are temporarily housed.
Iraheta is but one drop in a new and fast-growing stream of illegal immigration to the United States, those under 18 who are sneaking into the country without their parents. Authorities say the phenomenon is growing and includes girls traveling alone and even toddlers being carried by older siblings or entrusted to smugglers.
Many of those who are apprehended by the Border Patrol end up in a burgeoning network of shelters set up by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There they run up against Washington's paradoxical approach to the problem of children who entered the country illegally without their parents. The government agency that runs the shelters tries to reunite the children with relatives living here, regardless of their legal status. Another federal agency works to deport them -- as well as their parents. Iraheta's mother and father are reluctant to come forward to claim their son, fearing that would lead to being sent back to El Salvador. So are his sisters, who are also in the country illegally. Even uncles who are legal U.S. residents living in Texas have stayed away.
"They're afraid this might not be in their best interest," said Iraheta's sister, Dina. "Nobody wants to help him. Nobody wants to do anything, and that's the problem."
Iraheta, whose father paid a smuggler $6,000 to bring him into the county, said he would like to attend high school and college in the United States, perhaps to study literature.
"Every day I pray that someone in the family will come forward to help advance my case," the teenager said.
Last fiscal year, the Border Patrol apprehended 115,000 unaccompanied minors, up from 98,000 in 2001. Almost 7,800 children landed in the federally funded system of shelters last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, 2005 -- 25 percent of them girls, 20 percent under 15.
Fueling this immigration is the crackdown on border enforcement and illegal immigrants, authorities and immigration experts say. Adults in the United States without legal papers who used to risk trips to Central America to retrieve children and make the illegal trip back across the Mexican border are hiring smugglers instead. Documented immigrants waiting years for approval from immigration officials to bring their children to the United States legally are also turning to traffickers.
So the children come alone, undertaking arduous journeys, including treks across deserts and rivers, led by smugglers who will not hesitate to abandon those who are sick or weak or cannot keep up. Many of the girls are sexually abused along the way.
Robert Garza, director of operations of the shelter in Nixon, where Iraheta is living, said that when he started his job three years ago, he was taken aback by the young ages of the children brought in by immigration authorities and the youngsters' stories about their journeys.
"I thought, how can a parent send a child on that long journey, not knowing what's going to happen?" Garza said. "But it's the environment they come from. There is no hope, and the only way out of that environment is to come to America. That's how they see the United States -- as hope."
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NIXON, Tex. -- Seventeen-year-old Guillermo Antonio Iraheta Hernandez traveled thousands of miles from his native El Salvador only to land in limbo. Last fiscal year, the Border Patrol apprehended 115,000 unaccompanied minors, up from 98,000 in 2001. Almost 7,800 children landed in the federally......
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Columnist Settles in Propaganda Case
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2006102319
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Columnist Armstrong Williams has reached a settlement with prosecutors regarding payments he received from the Education Department to promote President Bush's agenda.
Under the agreement, Williams admits no wrongdoing but will have to pay $34,000. The deal was reached last week by Williams, the Education Department and its subcontractor, Ketchum Communications.
"The department is happy to see this matter come to a close," Katherine McLane, a spokeswoman for Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, said Sunday. "One of the first steps Secretary Spellings took when she came to office is to establish guidelines to prevent future occurrences of this type of situation."
A message left at Williams's office was not returned Sunday.
The settlement brings to a close a year-long investigation into the case after reports emerged that the Education Department contracted with several radio, television and print commentators to promote the No Child Left Behind Act.
Lawmakers criticized the contracts as an improper use of taxpayer dollars. Congressional auditors concluded the department engaged in illegal "covert propaganda" by hiring Williams without requiring him to disclose he was paid.
The Justice Department examined whether Williams performed the work that was promised in his $240,000 contract signed in late 2003 and cited in his monthly reports. Williams received a total of $186,000 under that contract, according to a 2005 Government Accountability Office report on the matter. Ultimately, prosecutors determined he was overpaid $34,000.
The settlement was reported in Sunday's Washington Times and by USA Today on its Web site.
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Columnist Armstrong Williams has reached a settlement with prosecutors regarding payments he received from the Education Department to promote President Bush's agenda.
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The End of an Era?
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2006102319
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Nearly 30 years after Louis Farrakhan seized control of the Nation of Islam, the organization is preparing for a change at the top. The controversial minister is battling what he has described as a "life-threatening" illness -- painful swelling of the prostate that has left him more than 30 pounds underweight, dehydrated, anemic and unwilling to eat.
Farrakhan, 73, recently relinquished his duties and turned control over to an executive panel of trusted lieutenants, exhorting them to move the Nation of Islam forward and prove that it is more than the charisma and influence of one man.
"The minister has good days. He has bad days," said Ishmael Muhammad, who leads the organization's flagship Mosque Maryam in Chicago and sits on the executive board. "The doctors are meeting to talk about what steps they can take to help him . . . so that he does not have to suffer through the pain he's constantly in."
Muhammad said the board runs the Nation of Islam's day-to-day responsibilities. It includes Abdul-Alim Muhammad, Farrakhan's medical adviser; Leonard Muhammad, the chief of staff; and Mustafa Farrakhan, one of the leader's sons.
Although they are considered equals, each board member is poised to take over the organization if Louis Farrakhan fails to fully recover.
Power struggles are nothing new within the deeply insular Nation of Islam. After leader Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, Farrakhan split with Wallace D. Mohammed, the son who replaced him, and started his own following.
Wallace Mohammed angered some members by renouncing his father's unorthodox teachings and seeking to convert the Nation to orthodox Sunni Islam. But Farrakhan, a former calypso singer, followed Elijah Muhammad's doctrine almost to the letter, mesmerizing black audiences with messages of social liberation and empowerment that culminated with the Million Man March in 1995, one of the largest African American gatherings in history.
"Minister Farrakhan has been one of the strongest voices in our community in terms of his critique against racism in the black community, and that voice has been important," said Ronald Walters, a University of Maryland professor of political science who teaches a course in black leadership.
But Farrakhan failed to follow through on his promises to unify black men, create jobs and make black communities self-sufficient, Walters said.
"It didn't go anywhere," he said. "He didn't lend himself to implementation. He went off into the desert, and we couldn't get the implementation and administration started."
A change in leadership could allow the Nation to move away from a controversial mythology. Followers are taught that the group's founder, Wallace Fard, was an incarnation of God and that a scientist named Yacub created white people, notions that are dismissed by orthodox Muslims.
Eight years ago, as he fought prostate cancer, Farrakhan softened his tone and sought to burnish an image that had been improving since the Million Man March. He said reports that he had called Judaism a "gutter religion" misquoted him, and he said he did not mean to offend.
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Nearly 30 years after Louis Farrakhan seized control of the Nation of Islam, the organization is preparing for a change at the top. The controversial minister is battling what he has described as a "life-threatening" illness -- painful swelling of the prostate that has left him more than 30 pounds...
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What's the Deal?
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2006102319
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· Save $1,000 per person on a 12-night African safari. The Kenya Safari Explorer trip, offered by Wildlife Safari, starts at $3,350 per person double for the Dec. 18 or Dec. 25 trips. The trip includes accommodations at six lodges and one hotel, most meals, domestic flight, land transfers, escorted game viewing and park fees. International airfare is extra. Info: 800-221-8118, http://www.wildlife-safari.com/ .
· BritRail has 25 percent discounts on its rail passes for travel Nov. 1-Feb. 28. For example, a standard BritRail Flexipass, good for four days of travel in a two-month period, is $207 (high-season price is $275). Purchase by Dec. 31 at 866-274-8724, http://www.britrail.com/ . Shipping is $15 extra.
· Cromwell Manor Inn, a historic bed-and-breakfast in New York's Hudson Valley, has a holiday package. Stay for two nights at regular price Dec. 22-Jan. 2 and pay half-price for subsequent nights . Rooms start at $165 a night; discount is rebated at billing confirmation. Taxes are about 8 percent extra. Details: 845-534-7136, http://www.cromwellmanor.com/ .
· A seven-night Western Caribbean cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Majesty departing Charleston, S.C., on Jan. 27 starts at $429 per person double (plus about $74 taxes), a savings of about $570. Book by today by calling 800-327-7030; request promo SD1. Cruise info: http://www.ncl.com/ .
· Get half off a Silversea cruise between Singapore and Hong Kong aboard the Silver Whisper. The nine-day "Spirit of the South China Sea" cruise, departing Jan. 5, starts at $2,997 per person double plus about $275 port charges and taxes. Info: 877-215-9986, http://www.silversea.com/ .
· Save 20 percent on select Caribbean cruises with American Canadian Caribbean Line . Three 11-night itineraries are offered -- two from Belize City, Belize, and one from Nassau, Bahamas -- with four departures January through March . Price starts at $2,500 per person double, a savings of $625. Info: 800-556-7450, http://www.accl-smallships.com/ .
· Emirates Airlines has extended its deadline to buy sale fares on its new nonstop service between New York and Hamburg ; deal includes free hotel or car rental . Purchase the $425 round-trip fare, which includes taxes, by Oct. 31. Fare, which must be purchased seven days in advance, applies to Monday-Thursday travel commencing by Nov. 30 or Jan. 8-Feb. 28. Economy passengers get a free night at the Hamburg Marriott (worth about $306) or a three-day Audi car rental (value about $312). Info: 800-777-3999, http://www.emirates.com/ .
· Lufthansa has a sale on business-class fares to Europe . For example, the round-trip fare from Dulles to Marseille, France, is $2,687, including taxes, for midweek travel; other airlines are matching, but the fare is typically at least $6,000. Purchase by Oct. 27 and depart Nov. 18-25 or Dec. 16-Jan. 7; complete travel by Feb. 7. Info: 800-399-5838, http://www.lufthansa.com/ .
· Go to Malta for seven nights starting at $1,349 per person double (plus $135 taxes). The cheapest price applies to the Jan. 12 departure ; other departures December-March are slightly higher. The trip, offered by Foreign Independent Tours, includes round-trip airfare from Washington Dulles, three nights at the Radisson SAS Golden Sands Resort & Spa in Malta, four nights at the Hotel Calypso in Gozo, breakfasts and transfers. Priced separately, it would cost at least $300 more per couple. Info: 800-248-3487, http://www.fittours.com/ .
· Book an air-hotel package of at least three nights at Cheaptickets.com to any of seven cities -- New York, Boston, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco or San Juan -- and get the usual package deal discounts plus an automatic $100 reduction . For example, a recent search for a three-night weekend trip to San Francisco in mid-November, with round-trip air on nonstop United flights from Dulles and lodging at the Argent Hotel, came to $1,139 per couple after the $100 discount; priced separately, the same package came to $1,731. Book by Nov. 5 and travel by Dec. 15; use promotion code BIGCITY. Info: 888-922-8849, http://www.cheaptickets.com/ .
Prices were verified and available on Thursday afternoon when the Travel section went to press. However, deals sell out quickly and are not guaranteed to be available. Restrictions such as day of travel, blackout dates and advance-purchase requirements sometimes apply.
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Save $1,000 per person on a 12-night African safari, over 50 percent on a seven-night, Western Caribbean cruise and more with several tempting options.
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Israeli War Plan Had No Exit Strategy
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2006102119
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On July 14, as Israeli aircraft prepared to bomb south Beirut, the research unit of Israel's military intelligence branch presented a report to senior Israeli officials that questioned the war plan's ability to achieve the government's goals.
The analysis, according to senior Foreign Ministry officials who read it, concluded that the heavy bombing campaign and small ground offensive then underway would show "diminishing returns" within days. It stated that the plan would neither win the release of the two Israeli soldiers in Hezbollah's hands nor reduce the militia's rocket attacks on Israel to fewer than 100 a day.
Those initial conclusions held true when the war ended 31 days later.
"The question we want to know to this day was why the military chose an option that had no exit strategy," said a senior Foreign Ministry official who read the report. "They never had one, as far as we could tell."
An examination of the first days of the war shows that leaders of Israel's newly elected government launched a broad military campaign without a clear strategy for how it was to end. It also reveals that while Israeli military officials anticipated an entrenched guerrilla force, front-line officers were surprised by just how well prepared Hezbollah was.
This account was drawn from interviews with Israeli military commanders, senior political and diplomatic officials and soldiers, and a visit to the site where the war began. Several commissions are investigating how Israel's political and military leadership managed the war, and those conclusions could determine how long Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government remains in office.
Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, the military's chief of strategic planning, declined to comment directly on the research unit's assessment. But he acknowledged that "yes, you are right, that at one point we reached a point of diminishing returns."
"But you never know when that crack will come," he said.
On July 12, two Israeli Humvees passed within yards of a Hezbollah ambush point. It was a hollow carved in the underbrush, just above the track used by Israeli military patrols. The hidden Hezbollah camp was stocked with food, water, radios, rifles, antitank missiles and diagrams detailing the insignia and size of Israeli military units. The Hezbollah fighters aimed and fired at the Israeli convoy just after 9 a.m. along a remote bend in the fence-lined road.
Lt. Col. Ishai Efroni, deputy commander of the Baram Brigade, had for months seen donkeys carrying sacks on the other side of the border, led by men who appeared to be Lebanese farmers. "We thought it was fertilizer," he said of the sacks. Later, he realized it was weapons and equipment. "This is what you learn in guerrilla school," he said of the Hezbollah fighters. "You take your time."
Efroni noticed that the Hezbollah gunmen had grown increasingly brazen walking the fence line in his sector along the northwestern border, and on May 28 the guerrillas fired a barrage of Katyusha rockets toward Israel's coastal towns. "I got the feeling something had changed," said Efroni, 41, who has spent most of his career in the northern border area.
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JERUSALEM -- Just two days after Israel launched a punishing counterattack against Hezbollah this summer, Israeli military and diplomatic officials were deeply split over war strategy.
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'Enemy' Schoolchildren In Moscow
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2006102119
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MOSCOW -- A Georgian migrant worker died at a Moscow airport this week while awaiting deportation. Tengiz Togonidze, 48, had asthma and was gasping for breath, but he was reportedly denied permission to get some fresh air either during the five days he was held in a detention center or afterward, during the trip to the airport, which took many hours. He was one of some 700 ethnic Georgians deported over the past three weeks as the government's anti-Georgia policies turned into a campaign of harassment of Georgians in Russia. The political conflict between Russia and Georgia has led to an ugly outburst of political xenophobia here.
In recent years intolerance and even violent ethnic and racial crime have become increasingly common in Russia. Just this summer, in a vicious attack on "non-locals," dark-skinned residents were driven out of the northwestern town of Kondopoga and some of their businesses set on fire or property smashed.
But this anti-Georgian campaign is different, in a scary way. Until now, if government authorities contributed to public xenophobia it was through inaction, incompetence or irresponsibility. Now ethnic hostility is being incited by government figures -- legislators and executive officials alike.
Three weeks ago, in a new round of the tit-for-tat fight between Moscow and Tbilisi that has been going on since Mikheil Saakashvili became Georgia's president, four Russian servicemen were arrested in Georgia on charges of espionage. Apparently caught off guard, the Kremlin responded with a barrage of threatening language. Though the immediate conflict was resolved after a few days through Western mediation, the anger and resentment over an obviously arrogant act by the Georgian government appeared to call for revenge.
In the days that followed the arrests, Russian officials sought to outdo one another in anti-Georgian rhetoric. Georgians were declared the most criminal of all ethnic minorities in Russia. A broad range of officials and loyalists demanded that they be barred from entering Russia and that migrant workers be forbidden to send home remittances.
President Vladimir Putin remarked that "migration flows should be regulated so that . . . our citizens would not be disadvantaged in various sectors of the economy." The speaker of the lower house proclaimed that "indigenous residents should be assured of advantages in trading activity at marketplaces." At the same time, on Kremlin-controlled television, Georgians were vilified as fat cats running casinos and driving Mercedes-Benzes. Raids on casinos (with their owners' unmistakably Georgian-sounding last names repeatedly cited) were shown on national news programs. One of the federal channels showed a documentary about "guests" from the south -- all with Georgian last names -- coming to Russia to commit crimes.
Georgia has been virtually blockaded, with transport from and to Russia severed. Though the Russian government wouldn't admit that the blockade was political (it was described as a punitive measure for failure to observe various rules and regulations), the message was unambiguous: Georgia and Georgians were the enemies of Russia.
Ethnic Georgians all over Moscow have been harassed by the police, regardless of whether they were Georgian nationals or held Russian citizenship. Fearing raids and shakedowns, Georgian restaurants suspended operations. Georgians were denied Russian entry visas regardless of their status and occupation; those barred from entering Russia included a popular dance company. Meanwhile, the Russian youth chess team refused to take part in the world championship being held in the Georgian city of Batumi.
The campaign took an especially ugly turn when some Moscow schools were ordered to submit lists of children with Georgian last names to police to facilitate the search for their parents, whose Georgian origin now made them suspect.
Until recently, Georgians would have seemed an unlikely target for such hostility. Georgian culture, art and cuisine have long been inseparable from Russian/Soviet life. Georgian moviemakers directed some of the most popular Soviet movies, which are watched by millions of Russians as eagerly today as they were in the U.S.S.R. The Russian cultural elite is inconceivable without Georgian actors, singers and artists. Georgian food is found not only in Georgian restaurants, which are mercifully cheap by Moscow standards, but as part of family holiday meals throughout Russia. And Georgians share a common Orthodox Christian religion with Russians.
But the sad truth is that ethnic hostility can be readily embraced by the Russian people, and the ethnicity involved doesn't seem to matter much. As the TV news was filled with anti-Georgian themes, television monitoring services registered increased interest in news programming. In a national poll taken in mid-October, 38 percent of Russians said they would support the deportation of all Georgians from Russia, even those with Russian citizenship. A significant majority said they approve of deportations, transportation blockades, stepped-up inspections of Georgian businesses and other anti-Georgian measures taken by the government. And there has been little in the way of protest against the xenophobia: Russia's remaining liberal media outlets condemned what they referred to as "ethnic cleansing," and a couple of rallies opposing the anti-Georgia campaign were held.
After a while, however, the authorities seemed to realize that things had gone too far. They have begun to backpedal. The initiative to check schools for Georgian children was strongly condemned by a Moscow government official, who was joined by many others; high-ranking law enforcers even apologized for the action. Several officials came out with reassuring statements that the government is acting to restore order, not to harass individual Georgians.
The campaign may well turn out to be simply a resentful overreaction to Georgia's arrogance with regard to the alleged spying rather than a deliberate policy aimed at capitalizing on public xenophobia. But the government's desire to punish Georgia has broken the fragile taboo on ethnic hostility in official language. In the xenophobic atmosphere of today's Russia, this threatens to further encourage ethnic hatred and lead to more loss of life.
Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra journal, writes a monthly column for The Post.
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The Russian government's desire to punish Georgia has broken the fragile taboo on ethnic hostility, threatening to further encourage ethnic hatred and lead to more loss of life.
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A Final Commercial Frontier
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2006102119
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A new type of space race ended this summer when NASA picked two winners for the innovative Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program.
The firms, SpaceX of El Segundo, Calif., and Rocketplane Kistler of Oklahoma City, will over the next five years split almost $500 million in installments, based on performance milestones, to demonstrate their capability to deliver cargo and people to the international space station. Each company has also pledged private financing to supplement the NASA money. Around 2010, when the space shuttle is scheduled for retirement, not only these but other companies will bid for contracts to fly up to six missions a year to the space station.
If the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program works, NASA will have a low-cost way to service the space station, freeing up money for exploration of the moon and Mars. Companies will get a lot of help developing the space vehicles of the future, which promise to lower the cost and increase the reliability of space travel. The help will consist of not just dollars but also the kind of expertise and access to facilities that only NASA can offer.
Low-cost, reliable space flight should lead to the development of all sorts of markets for the new, entrepreneurial space companies. Space tourism, as it is being developed by Virgin Galactic, is just one of them.
Robert Bigelow, the Las Vegas hotel magnate, is developing a "space hotel" using inflatable modules based on the TransHab technology developed by NASA. The prototype, a one-third-scale module called Genesis 1, was launched and deployed a few weeks ago. By 2012 Bigelow hopes that a full-fledged private space station will be open to tourists, science researchers and others.
Bigelow will need private vehicles to take customers to his space hotel. Toward that end, he has started a competition that will award $50 million to the first U.S. company that, using only private financing, demonstrates an ability to fly people and cargo to low Earth orbit.
NASA envisions private companies launching refueling ships to top off the tanks of its exploration ships, thus increasing the payloads that can be sent to the moon and Mars. Privately built orbiting "space factories," like the Industrial Space Facility proposed in the 1980s, could be serviced by low-cost, private spacecraft. The cheaper and more reliable that space flight becomes through technological innovation and private competition, the more things can be done in space. The Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program could serve as a precedent for a more ambitious competition.
Twenty years from now, NASA envisions astronauts living and working on the moon on a permanent basis. Transporting crews to and from a lunar base and keeping them supplied will be expensive using NASA's planned Ares family of rockets.
Meanwhile, the economic development of low Earth orbit will have been facilitated by commercial space transportation companies that the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program helped to nurture. Seeing this, a future NASA administrator could conclude that what worked before might well work again.
So a competition could be announced in which money would be awarded to companies able to demonstrate the ability to deliver people and cargo to the moon. Private companies would step up to the challenge of building commercial moon ships. Within a few years, relatively low-cost and reliable transportation to the moon could be a reality.
A pipe dream? Perhaps. But a person born just before Apollo 11, when the moon was the unknown frontier, could live to visit Earth's nearest neighbor just by buying a ticket, provided he or she was well-off and healthy enough.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of "Children of Apollo."
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A new type of space race ended this summer when NASA picked two winners for the innovative Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program.
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Rumsfeld: Iraqis Must Handle Security
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2006102119
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Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today dismissed the significance of recent setbacks in Iraq, saying they do not mean U.S. strategy has failed and stressing that U.S. forces must continue passing responsibilities to the Iraqis to avoid creating "a dependency on their part."
Iraqi authorities, he said at a Pentagon news briefing, are going to have to provide security for their country "sooner rather than later."
However, Rumsfeld declined to say whether he believes a "course correction" is needed in Iraq, where U.S. and Iraqi casualties have been mounting in recent weeks amid spreading sectarian violence and growing insecurity in Baghdad.
Rumsfeld said he prefers to give his advice directly to President Bush and noted that he plans to join Bush, Vice President Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley tomorrow in a conference via secure video hookup to "discuss the way forward" in Iraq with Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Baghdad.
Bush, in a speech today in Washington, suggested his administration is committed to a military presence in Iraq as part of the war on terror.
"My message to the United States of America is: Victory in Iraq is vital for the security of a generation of Americans who are coming up," Bush told a National Republican Senatorial Committee reception. "And so we will stay in Iraq, we will fight in Iraq and we will win in Iraq."
Bush spoke as Senate and House Democratic leaders urged him in a letter to "change course" and support a phased redeployment of U.S. troops in Iraq by year's end. The letter comes less than three weeks before the mid-term elections, in which Democrats hope to gain control of the House and Senate, and as the death toll for American troops in Iraq reached 74 this month. Almost 2,800 U.S. troops have died since the conflict began more than three years ago.
"We write out of a deep sense of concern that the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate and that there is no effective plan for improvement," read a letter to Bush from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and 10 other Democratic leaders.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said at a news briefing today that Bush has no immediate plans for a phased pullout of troops.
"The president's made it clear that he is not going to do a phased withdrawal just for the hell of doing a phased withdrawal," Snow said.
Snow said Bush would consider a phased withdrawal of troops if U.S. military leaders recommended it.
"The president doesn't like being in this war," Snow said. "Nobody likes being in a war."
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Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today dismissed the significance of recent setbacks in Iraq, saying they do not mean U.S. strategy has failed and stressing that U.S. forces must continue passing responsibilities to the Iraqis to avoid creating "a dependency on their part."
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Boo!? An Inevitable October Surprise
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2006102119
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The October surprise: It's as much a seasonal sure thing in Washington as cherry blossoms and the National Christmas Tree.
When leaves fall and elections loom, the term gets tossed around more than a Manning family football. This October, too, is chockablock with shockers. Already "October surprise" has been applied to: several unflattering new books about the White House, an upwardly revised civilian casualty estimate from the Iraq war, the Mark Foley scandal . . . and October isn't over yet.
Originally the term meant some alakazam rabbit-from-a-hat trick that an incumbent party would unveil to keep its candidate in office. Over time the phrase has been bandied about and overused to the point that it now means any startling surprise from any direction that might somehow affect the outcome of an election.
October, says Michele Swers, a political scientist at Georgetown University, "is when the electorate begins to focus on the candidates and the issues, and voters begin to actually look at what you do and what you say."
A surprise works, she says, "if there's already a national mood building for a certain issue. The surprise can exacerbate the mood of the people. Anything that intensifies a national wave is helpful."
On his MSNBC show last week, former congressman Joe Scarborough pointed out three recent eye-openers, including "the latest October surprise from New York's publishing world." Excited, he cited "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward, which actually went on sale Sept. 30, and "Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell" by Karen DeYoung, published on Oct. 10. Both books, by Washington Post reporters, "provided a double-barrel blast at the White House," Scarborough said.
He continued, "But now another book drops within weeks of the midterm elections, claiming the Bush White House played Christians for fools and called them nuts and lunatics behind their backs."
He was talking about David Kuo's "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction." Published this week, the book questions the Bush administration's sincerity when it comes to support for faith-based initiatives and for the social issues important to evangelicals.
On CNBC, Jed Babbin, who was a defense undersecretary in the George H.W. Bush administration, referred to the Johns Hopkins University study of Iraqi civilian deaths -- published in the British medical journal the Lancet -- as "another October surprise. . . . It's not at all credible."
Babbin said the number of Iraqi dead has been used before as a pre-November jolt. "The last time they published this same report," he said of the Johns Hopkins survey, "the same group went out and did a similar analysis two years ago, and guess what? They put it out just before the 2004 election."
The longest-running eyebrow-raiser of this October -- the Mark Foley scandal -- got its start in the final days of September. Keith Olbermann, host of the MSNBC program "Countdown," referred to it as a pre-October surprise, but the story has drip-dripped through the month. "The Democrats prayed for an October surprise," wrote syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, "and like manna from heaven, a hypocritical, sexually disturbed Florida Republican dropped into their laps."
Some Republican strategists suggested that Democrats waited to make a big deal about Foley's instant messages to generate an autumnal bombshell.
The earliest mention of "October surprise" in a Nexis database search of American newspapers is in The Washington Post in late August 1980. William R. Van Cleve, co-director of candidate Ronald Reagan's panel of military policy advisers, said that the notion of the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, pulling an "October surprise" somewhere in the world to influence the pending election "has been nagging at some of us for some period of time." The rumored surprise was an invasion of Iran, which was holding dozens of Americans captive.
In October 1992, the issue of Penthouse magazine with the Gennifer Flowers interview about her relationship with candidate Bill Clinton went on sale. In late September 1996, questions arose about campaign contributions from foreign sources to the reelection campaign of Clinton and Al Gore. On Nov. 2, 2000, just five days before the election, a Maine television station reported that candidate George W. Bush had been arrested in 1976 on a drunk-driving charge. "Call it the October surprise a few days late," a CBS reporter said at the time.
In some years the October surprise, like the Great Pumpkin or Godot, is much anticipated but never appears. But in recent years it's become so predictable, so commonplace, it should be called the October Same-Old Same-Old.
"Surprises, on schedule, are hardly surprises," Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report says in an interview. "The October surprise has become a tired ritual that needs reinvention."
There are variations. And trying to guess the next iteration -- sex scandal, international policy shift, military assault -- makes for a popular bar game. But in this era of muck-slinging politics with candidates "going negative" and "digging up dirt," a true October surprise would be an October without one.
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Veil Debate in Britain Is Also Divisive for Muslims
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LONDON, Oct. 20 -- Wearing a Muslim veil revealing only her chestnut eyes, Maheesa Razia grabbed two small bundles of coriander and handed them to a vegetable vendor at the Whitechapel Street Market in east London.
She passed the man a coin and walked off, quietly completing the most mundane of daily tasks while wearing a garment -- the full-face veil, or niqab -- that has caused a raging debate about how well Britain's nearly 2 million Muslims are integrating into society.
"I feel comfortable wearing the niqab here; there was zero awkwardness," Razia, 24, said through the flowing fabric of her veil.
After she walked away, the vendor, Mohammad Dehbourzorgi, a Muslim who moved to Britain 22 years ago, sounded almost contemptuous. He said he agreed with Jack Straw, a top official in Prime Minister Tony Blair's government and leader of the House of Commons, who started the controversy this month by complaining that veils create distance between individuals and cultures.
"Jack Straw has a point," said Dehbourzorgi, who was wearing blue jeans. "If you come to England, then try to be English."
The veil debate has become part of a larger discussion in Britain about Muslims and religious tolerance, free expression, human rights, prejudice and security. These issues have dominated public discourse since the July 2005 bombings on the London public transportation system and a plot uncovered in August this year that allegedly involved blowing up transatlantic jetliners. In both cases, Britons were alarmed to discover that the men who allegedly committed or contemplated mass murder were young Muslim men who had been raised in Britain.
While the veil issue has exacerbated tensions between non-Muslims and Muslims, it has also sparked passionate reactions within Muslim communities. Some Muslim leaders have accused Straw, Blair -- who called veils a "mark of separation" -- and others of demonizing Muslims, but others have said they have raised an important issue that has no clear consensus among Muslims.
"It's a valid discussion for the times in which we live," said Humera Khan of the An-Nisa Society, a Muslim social welfare organization run by women. "But we shouldn't be seen as some crazy, weird people."
Khan said the niqab is worn by "a tiny minority" of British Muslim women. An increasing number of young women have started wearing it, she said, as an "assertion of religious identity" in a climate of "irrational paranoia" about Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
"The debate has become more political than religious," said Khan, who wears a head scarf that does not cover her face. She said Muslims have discussed the veil for hundreds of years and that the issue periodically pops into Western consciousness, often when raised by non-Muslim politicians. "There is historical Islamophobic line of thought about women in veils," she said. "It doesn't tell you anything about us. It tells you more about the people who are raising the issue."
Many Britons have praised Straw for bringing up a delicate issue in a reasonable way. But Fareena Alam, editor of Q-News, a Muslim magazine, said she believed that Straw's comments were a cynical attempt to boost his own political fortunes and that his calls for debate were "complete rubbish, irritating and patronizing." She said the controversy had driven more Muslim women to start wearing the niqab in "rebellion."
Alam said the situation has stifled serious and nuanced debate about the issue, as Muslims who believe that their religion is under attack from outsiders instinctively side with Muslim women who wear veils. She said she recently talked to two traditional Islamic scholars who said the full-face veil was "out of place in the West" and a "barrier to integration."
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LONDON, Oct. 20 -- Wearing a Muslim veil revealing only her chestnut eyes, Maheesa Razia grabbed two small bundles of coriander and handed them to a vegetable vendor at the Whitechapel Street Market in east London.
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Video Games Aim to Hook Children on Better Health
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Video games that aim to improve children's health are still in their infancy, but already a few are showing demonstrable results.
What began as, and remains, a niche concept in the $7 billion-a-year video game industry is now getting some science behind it. And the new health-themed games are tested not only for whether kids will play them but also for whether playing them changes their behavior in a healthful way.
For years, researchers have thought that a medium that sometimes turns kids into video zombies could be mobilized to help young people fighting cancer, diabetes, obesity and other health problems. But the commercial prospects of such games -- and their ability to draw more financial backing -- depended on scientifically demonstrating their value.
"When we start developing games with measurable health impacts in mind, that's when we can really start advancing public health through games," said Erin Edgerton, a program analyst with the National Center for Health Marketing, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One game that has already begun to produce measurable results is Re-Mission by HopeLab, a Palo Alto, Calif., nonprofit that aims to help young cancer patients.
The game features a microscopic "nanobot" named Roxxi, a shapely brunette who, at the player's direction, travels through the body blasting away at cancer cells and bacteria with a sidearm loaded with chemotherapy drugs and antibiotics. The game's 20 levels simulate seven types of cancer.
The game takes aim not at the disease but at the obstinacy of adolescence: Studies show that teenagers are more likely than young children or adults to stray from their treatment regimens. In playing the game, young people learn, for instance, that failing to eradicate every cancer cell can lead to a recurrence -- bad for their score and their health.
In a scientific trial of 375 cancer patients age 13 to 29 last year, those who played Re-Mission adhered more closely to antibiotic treatments and maintained higher levels of chemotherapy drugs in their blood. They also understood cancer better and were more confident of their ability to fight it.
"It's stealth learning," said Steve W. Cole, vice president for research at HopeLab. "The things that happen inside the game don't stay in the game; they get in your head, and they change the way you approach the world. . . . Cancer is not death knocking on your door, but basically an opponent whose butt you are going to kick."
Rashida Wilkins, 16, who took part in the study, began playing the game last year while undergoing treatment for a brain tumor at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk. Now in remission, she still plays every day.
"It showed me how the chemo goes through my body and kills the cancer cells . . . and it was fun to play," she said. "I even let my little brother play it with me. He liked it. He said he learned about what I was going through."
HopeLab has distributed 40,000 copies of the game since April. It is free for cancer patients; HopeLab asks others for a $20 donation.
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Video games that aim to improve children's health are still in their infancy, but already a few are showing demonstrable results.
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Rice Sees Bright Spot In China's New Role Since N. Korean Test
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MOSCOW, Oct. 21 -- President Bush came into office six years ago deeply skeptical of Chinese intentions, casting doubt on the idea advanced by the Clinton administration that there could be a "strategic partnership" between China and the United States.
Now, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials have begun to depict China's increasingly central role in the administration's myriad foreign policy problems as a significant achievement.
Rice, who arrived here Saturday on the last leg of her mission to galvanize action against North Korea, said she saw "some data points" that suggest China is becoming more of a partner on issues of importance to the United States, though the shift will not "happen in one fell swoop."
There is some evidence of China's shift, but the argument also has the virtue of finding a silver lining in the dark strategic cloud posed by North Korea's test of a nuclear weapon.
Many experts regard North Korea's test as a failure of Bush's nonproliferation policy. Critics have charged that Bush, distracted by Iraq, allowed North Korea to bolt from a Clinton-era agreement on freezing its nuclear programs, build a stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium and finally test a weapon. Bush, unlike President Bill Clinton in an earlier crisis, refused to conduct sustained bilateral negotiations with North Korea and instead set up a somewhat cumbersome six-party negotiating framework hosted by China.
At many points, the United States found itself at odds with other partners in the six-party process, such as China and South Korea, which repeatedly urged the Bush administration to show more flexibility in its tactics. Meanwhile, administration officials were often divided on North Korea policy, with some wanting to engage the country and others wanting to isolate it.
Before North Korea announced it had detonated a nuclear device, some senior officials even said they were quietly rooting for a test, believing that would finally clarify the debate within the administration.
On her trip to Asia this week, Rice has come close to saying the test was a net plus for the United States. She has tried to deflect criticism by saying the test was an affirmation, rather than a failure, of the Bush administration's policy of trying to draw China deeper into negotiations on North Korea.
Noting that North Korea has spent three decades developing a nuclear weapon, Rice said it was "very unusual and quite significant" that China, which has traditionally considered sanctions to be a violation of national sovereignty, supported a tough U.N. Security Council resolution punishing North Korea. The resolution is under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which calls for mandatory sanctions for issues affecting international security.
"I don't care how many times you visited Pyongyang," Rice said, referring to a trip made by then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright to the North Korean capital in 2000. "China had to be part of this regime to deal with the North Korea nuclear problem, and you're seeing it. Thirty years ago, you wouldn't have been able to get a Security Council resolution on North Korea, and when you get one it's Chapter 7, it's 15-0 and China's at the center of it. Not bad for a couple years' work."
Rice acknowledged that it was still unclear how hard the Chinese government would push North Korea, although she said China's views on the issue were "evolving." She said China had concerns about North Korea's stability and the prospect of a mass influx of refugees if the government collapses. And though China has always valued the status quo, Rice said: "I don't think that they are making a lot of assumptions about the status quo."
China is very concerned, for example, that Japan might decide to build a nuclear arsenal in response to North Korea's test. The Japanese government has ruled that out for now. But when Rice visited Tokyo on her first stop, officials there wanted to focus almost exclusively on receiving firm assurances that Japan is still protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The test "had set off a lot of questions that the Japanese were asking about their own security posture," Rice said.
In addition to the North Korea discussions, China is an important participant in the drive to roll back Iran's nuclear program. China also has extensive oil investments in Sudan, which has adamantly rebuffed a U.S.-led push to bring U.N. peacekeepers to Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
In 2005, when China abstained from a U.N. resolution launching a war crimes investigation into atrocities in Darfur, U.S. officials reported that China's state-owned petroleum company immediately erected billboards in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, attesting to China's friendship with Sudan. But in Rice's talks with Chinese officials Friday, she said she was able to have "more concrete discussions" about how to deal with Sudan, including strategizing on an upcoming meeting of African leaders in Beijing.
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MOSCOW, Oct. 21 -- President Bush came into office six years ago deeply skeptical of Chinese intentions, casting doubt on the idea advanced by the Clinton administration that there could be a "strategic partnership" between China and the United States.
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Fire Damages Fort Meade Intelligence Building
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2006102119
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A Fort Meade building that houses Army counterintelligence activities was heavily damaged yesterday in a stubborn and spectacular six-alarm fire that burned for hours, generating thick clouds of smoke that streamed and billowed in a brisk wind.
The blaze broke out on the Army post in Anne Arundel County and 3:05 p.m. and continued to burn well after 10 p.m. The fire damaged upper portions of the sprawling three-story building, which is headquarters to the 902nd Military Intelligence Group and houses several contractors, officials said.
The cause of the blaze, which apparently began on the peaked roof of the red-brick building, was not immediately known and was under investigation.
"Everyone in the building was evacuated safely, and we had one firefighter who sustained a minor injury to his leg," said Jennifer Downing, a Meade spokeswoman.
Downing declined to discuss the building's contents, calling them "sensitive in nature."
Another official said most of the documents in the damaged section are locked in fire-resistant containers and backed up elsewhere. Nothing lost at the building would adversely affect national security, said Donald Shiles, director of the Technical Counterintelligence School at Fort Meade.
A worker outside the building spotted the fire when it was relatively small, but the blaze quickly spread, said Army Lt. Col. James Peterson, director of emergency services for the post.
As darkness fell, motorists on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway called U.S. Park Police to ask about the glow created in the sky by the flames. Park Police said no roads were reported closed, and rush-hour traffic was not affected.
At one point, flames appeared to leap from everywhere on the roof of a section near one end of the multi-wing building. Flaming portions of the roof were visible amid streams of water and clouds of black and gray smoke.
Peterson said the fire was largely contained to the building's attic, which is used as office space by the intelligence group. A portion of the roof collapsed, and parts of it were "a total loss," Peterson said.
The building remained intact. "The structure did not collapse, and there does not seem to be any danger of it," said Rich Lane, a spokesman for the post. Lane said that no estimates of damage were available but that he expected it would be significant structurally and monetarily.
The cause of the fire was being sought by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, but officials said this was routine and did not mean criminal intent was suspected.
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A Fort Meade building that houses Army counterintelligence activities was heavily damaged yesterday in a stubborn and spectacular six-alarm fire that burned for hours, generating thick clouds of smoke that streamed and billowed in a brisk wind.
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Ehrlich, O'Malley Focus on Turnout As Election Nears
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2006102119
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The hallways were decorated with the green and white of Martin O'Malley's campaign, but more important was what was happening inside the Prince George's County ballroom: thunderous applause from a thousand supporters, most of them African American women.
The Baltimore mayor converted the rostrum into a pulpit.
"Turn to your neighbor and say, 'There's a lot of power in this room,' " O'Malley preached.
" There's a lot of power in this room ," the women cried out.
Four years ago, Democrats headed into the final stretch of a heated governor's race without much of a message to get their supporters to the polls, and there was a pointed lack of enthusiasm from black voters, the party's most loyal supporters. The Democrats got clobbered.
"We didn't really do our job in '02, and we saw what happened," said Donna Edwards, a Democratic Party activist and former congressional candidate who attended the rally.
Democrats are determined to make this year different, said Edwards and others supporting O'Malley's bid to retake the governor's office from Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. This time, both Ehrlich and O'Malley have elaborate plans, in the works for more than a year, to maximize turnout that are the centerpiece of a two-week sprint to Election Day.
For O'Malley, the focus is on what campaign manager Josh White calls "drop-off voters," those who turn out when presidential candidates are on the ballot but stay home in intervening years.
"We're, in a sense, trying to expand our base," White said. "These are people who need a push out the door. But once they get there, we know they'll be with us."
For Republicans, the task is more complicated. Because Democrats hold a nearly 2 to 1 edge on voter rolls, Ehrlich can't afford to merely try to drive more people to the polls. He needs to motivate his supporters to show up Nov. 7 while doing nothing to energize those backing his opponent.
To accomplish this, his aides said they have been brewing their own turnout recipe -- one that depends on the science of "microtargeting" and on many of the same formulas that helped propel George W. Bush to victory in 2004. Information about every potential Ehrlich voter, down to the magazines they read and the church they attend, will drive the strategy for lighting a spark under them on Election Day.
"Every race is about turnout, but this one especially so for Ehrlich," said one of the governor's top aides, who discussed internal campaign strategy on the condition that he not be named. "Last time, we won partly because I think we had a superior air game -- television ads, radio ads, direct mail. This time, in my opinion, we win by having a better ground game."
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The hallways were decorated with the green and white of Martin O'Malley's campaign, but more important was what was happening inside the Prince George's County ballroom: thunderous applause from a thousand supporters, most of them African American women.
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Rank Would Guide Pelosi As She Chose Chairmen
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But, mindful of the growing power of an expanding band of Democratic moderates and conservatives, Pelosi has also vowed that she would keep her chairmen on a tight leash, according to leadership aides and current and former Democratic lawmakers. She has assured conservative Democrats that she would personally temper the legislative impulses of her most liberal chairmen while keeping close tabs on the investigations that could dominate the final two years of the Bush presidency.
House Democratic leaders and their would-be chairmen are careful to say in public that they are focused only on the Nov. 7 elections and have not begun to plan for a possible takeover. But privately, Pelosi has had several conversations with the senior Democrats on the House's most powerful committees, as well as with conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats, who have sought assurances that they will have a voice after the polls close.
"We've inched our way back toward the majority by replacing Republicans with conservative-to-moderate Democrats, and you're going to see a lot more of that November 7," said Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), one of the leaders of the Blue Dog coalition. "Do I believe Blue Dogs will have a greater voice in the Democratic leadership? You betcha."
The Blue Dogs could hold the balance of power in a Democratic House. With 37 members, the group already has clout; 16 Democratic candidates have the Blue Dogs' endorsement, and a dozen of them could win. That would give them numbers surpassing the Congressional Black Caucus's 43 members.
Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), a Blue Dog co-chairman, promised that the group would be "a moderating influence on any excesses that might be brought forth by other wings of the party."
"That's not a threat," he said. "That's just the facts of life."
For Republicans in this campaign season, however, the face of the Democratic Party is not the Blue Dog wing but what Cardoza called those "other wings." Committee chairmanships would appear to be an unlikely campaign issue, but Republicans are using it with gusto, especially to rally dispirited conservatives to the polls.
Republicans have attacked Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), the senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, as a tax hiker. The Republican National Committee called Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the would-be chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, "a liberal partisan" who "would launch criminal inquiries into the Bush administration."
In Topeka, Kan., last week, Vice President Cheney singled out three of the most liberal Democrats in the House as foils -- Reps. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the would-be Judiciary Committee chairman; Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), who is in line to take over the Government Reform Committee; and Barney Frank (Mass.), the senior Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.
"In all the decisions that will come in the next two years, it's going to matter a great deal which party has the majority on the floor and the gavel in committee," Cheney said.
In a debate between six-term Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.) and his challenger, Sheriff Brad Ellsworth (D), Hostettler warned that if Democrats take over, "Charlie Rangel will be the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee."
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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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Medicare Drug Aid No Longer Automatic
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More than 600,000 low-income elderly and disabled people who automatically received federal help to pay for their Medicare drug coverage this year will have to actively apply to get such assistance in 2007, Medicare officials said yesterday.
The change affects people who were automatically enrolled in the inaugural year of the drug benefit and got the low-income subsidy in 2006 but who are no longer eligible for Medicaid or two other government assistance programs.
Some advocates say the affected seniors may not have understood a letter about the change that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent last month. And even beneficiaries aware of the change might have trouble completing the six-page application, they said.
"Just sending these folks a letter and an application doesn't mean they necessarily are going to apply for the extra help even though they may need it," said Marisa Scala-Foley, associate director of the Access to Benefits Coalition at the National Council on Aging. "These are still likely to be low income folks who need all the help they can get. . . . These folks are going to need a lot of hand-holding."
There is no danger of them losing Medicare drug coverage. Even if they do nothing, they will be automatically enrolled in their current plan for 2007. But in January, most would be charged a monthly premium for the first time.
Kathleen Harrington, director of external affairs for the Medicare agency, said it has provided drug plans and community organizations with information about the affected seniors and encouraged greater outreach. The open enrollment period is Nov. 15 to Dec. 31, and the affected group will have three extra months to switch to a plan with no monthly premium, she said.
"We're very concerned about this," Harrington said. "We want to ensure that they know and that they've been contacted by plans, by us, by advocates, by community resources to make sure that they apply for this low-income subsidy, so if they have a premium liability they can minimize it."
More than 9 million of the 23 million people enrolled in Medicare drug plans this year qualified for the low-income subsidy, which meant they paid no monthly premiums and only $1 to $5 in co-payments for their prescriptions. Of those, about 7.2 million were automatically enrolled in the program and the subsidy, while the rest applied and got it, Medicare officials said.
Medicare drug plan beneficiaries qualify for special help if their annual incomes are at or below 150 percent of the poverty level, which is $14,700 for individuals and $19,800 for married couples. Also, individuals must have no more than $11,500 in assets, and married couples no more than $23,000 in assets.
Some of the affected people who no longer automatically qualify for a subsidy might have had a change in income but could still qualify for premium assistance under the drug benefit, officials said.
"The worst outcome will be someone getting surprised that they have a premium and then dropping their coverage," Harrington said. "We want to do everything we can to keep them in coverage."
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More than 600,000 low-income elderly and disabled people who automatically received federal help to pay for their Medicare drug coverage this year will have to actively apply to get such assistance in 2007, Medicare officials said yesterday.
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Study: Anti-Aging Supplements Don't Work
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-- The fountain of youth apparently does not yet come in a pill. Widely used DHEA supplements and testosterone patches failed to deliver their touted anti-aging benefits in one of the first rigorous studies to test such claims in older men and women.
The substances did not improve the participants' strength, their physical performance, or certain other measures of health.
"I don't think there's any case for administering these" to elderly people, said Dr. K. Sreekumaran Nair of the Mayo Clinic, lead author of the study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
DHEA, a steroid that is a precursor to the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen, is made by the body, but levels decline rapidly after age 25. DHEA supplements are marketed as rejuvenating agents, and U.S. sales hit $50 million last year.
Testosterone is available by prescription only. But the Food and Drug Administration classifies DHEA as a supplement, meaning it can be sold without meeting the same safety and effectiveness standards as a drug.
Some athletes use DHEA and testosterone to try to boost performance, often in violation of athletic association rules.
The NFL and other professional sports have banned DHEA. Cycling officials have moved to strip the Tour de France title from winner Floyd Landis, after a French laboratory found elevated testosterone levels in his urine.
Apart from this type of use, scientists have wondered if the substances might help older people. Studies with rodents offered tantalizing results that showed DHEA seemed to decrease fat and fight diabetes and heart disease.
But there have been few rigorous scientific studies in humans. A French study of DHEA in 280 elderly people, reported in 2000, found the only benefit was an increase in female libido. A Dutch study this year found no benefit of DHEA in 100 men 70 and older.
The new study was done by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and the University of Padua in Italy.
Over two years, the researchers studied 57 women and 87 men, all of them at least 60 years old. The women were given standard daily doses of DHEA or identical fake pills. The men were given real or fake DHEA, as well as a testosterone skin patch or a placebo patch.
Blood samples were taken every three months. Participants also were examined for any changes in body fat, hormone levels, bone density, and performance on treadmill, weightlifting and leg flexibility tests. The men and women also filled out questionnaires about how they felt and their quality of life.
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-- The fountain of youth apparently does not yet come in a pill. Widely used DHEA supplements and testosterone patches failed to deliver their touted anti-aging benefits in one of the first rigorous studies to test such claims in older men and women.
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U-Md. Aims to Boost Student Aid, Affordability
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The University of Maryland plans to raise $1 billion during a seven-year capital campaign, pledging $350 million for financial aid to students aspiring to attend the state's flagship public university.
School officials said yesterday that the drive is the most ambitious of its kind in the Washington area for a public university, and the biggest part of it would aim to make the university more affordable, enabling top students from poorer families to attend the increasingly expensive school.
Tuition and mandatory fees at Maryland, as well as at other schools, have increased steadily over the past several years, as has the cost of living, making affordability a major issue at many universities. C.D. Mote Jr., Maryland's president, said it costs a student paying in-state tuition about $20,000 a year to attend the school, which has been ranked as one of the nation's top 20 public universities.
"It's very clear going forward, outside of the entire tuition discussion, that the cost of coming here is going to be more and more difficult for students of modest means," Mote said. "And we have a lot of them. So we need to raise resources. . . . Our goal is that no student who has the capacity to come here and succeed will be barred from that."
The $350 million would be split between financial aid for students in low-income families and scholarships designated by the donors or the university administration. For example, a Maryland program provides free tuition and mentoring for high-achieving students at certain high schools in Prince George's County and Baltimore; more money would enable the program to be extended.
Brodie Remington, vice president for university relations, said the fundraising drive began silently two years ago, helping officials estimate how much they could raise. They began with a goal of $800 million, he said, but donations exceeded expectations, and they increased their goal to $1 billion.
So far, the school has raised $312 million, Remington said.
Of the $1 billion sought, school officials said $225 million would be used to attract faculty. Officials would put $175 million toward improving academic and athletic facilities and would designate $250 million to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.
Remington said top public universities in Virginia, Michigan and California have undertaken programs of similar size to make a college education more affordable.
"It does put us in the big leagues," he said.
Joshua Wyner, vice president for programs at the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which provides aid to talented students who require financial assistance, said he has seen statistics showing that less than half of all top-achieving working-class 12th-graders received a college degree. He said that there are many causes but that part of the problem is the increasing cost of going to college.
"There's inadequate need-based aid for those students," he said. "We welcome President Mote's initiative in this regard."
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The University of Maryland plans to raise $1 billion during a seven-year capital campaign, pledging $350 million for financial aid to students aspiring to attend the state's flagship public university.
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Helping Democrats Bridge the 'God Gap'
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At a meeting of the House Democrats' Faith Working Group, a perplexed congressman turned to his colleagues for pastoral guidance. How could he counter a local preacher who argued that all of Jesus's moral teachings were about the world to come, not the here and now?
Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) stood amid the sympathetic sighs and "you can't convert everyone" comments to offer a new spin on an old parable.
The Good Samaritan is walking down the road and cares for a stranger who has been beaten and robbed, Price said. The next day, on the same road, another person has been beaten and robbed. So it goes for another week -- more robberies, more victims.
"How long is it going to take before the Samaritan says, 'Hey, maybe we ought to patrol this road,' " Price said. In other words, the lawmaker argued, there are some problems that individuals can't solve on their own. They require the resources of a morally responsible government.
As Democrats seek to reframe America's debate over moral values and close their "God gap" with religious communities, conversations such as these are blowing like a mighty wind through party circles.
Gone are the days when "faith outreach" meant visiting African-American churches two weeks before an election, party leaders say. Instead, Democrats are seeking -- and getting -- regular meetings with megachurch pastors T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen and Rick Warren.
Rather than cede red states to Republicans, the party is buying airtime on Christian radio stations, with the message that Democrats are indeed a party with deep moral convictions.
No longer leaning on 1960s-era preachers to guide progressive politics, Democrats are now also turning to young voices such as strategist Mara Vanderslice, 31, and writer Amy Sullivan, 33, who offer new perspectives and fresh ideas.
While Republicans learned long ago how to connect with religious voters, Democrats are just now starting their efforts.
After interviews with dozens of politicians, strategists, the think-tank set and a Noah's ark of religious leaders, Religion News Service has identified 12 of the most influential voices in helping Democrats reach people of faith. Those on the list are whispering in the ears of the powerful and playing matchmaker between religious and political pace-setters.
· The House Trinity : Reps. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.) and David Price, who lead the effort on Capitol Hill to frame legislative debates in moral terms.
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At a meeting of the House Democrats' Faith Working Group, a perplexed congressman turned to his colleagues for pastoral guidance. How could he counter a local preacher who argued that all of Jesus's moral teachings were about the world to come, not the here and now?
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Backdating Scandal
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Read today's column: UnitedHealth's Options Scandal Shows Familiar Symptoms .
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 .
Arlington, Va.: As a local MD practicing in Arlington I have found United Healthcare to be completely disinterested in the needs of patients or physicians. United has repeatedly reduced payments for services and ultimately we dropped United as of October 1st since the company had no desire to even discuss reimbursement with us (in spite of the fact that Aetna had recently worked with us to reach a satisfactory agreement for a new contract). United Healthcare was interested in only one thing: an increased stock price and the massive options deals offered to the top executives. Such greed is sickening and I hope that the board and the top brass get what they deserve.
Steven Pearlstein: Thanks for sharing that, because it is important for everyone to understand the right and the wrong role for the insurance companies that are the middlemen in our private-sector driven health system. And I think there is a positive role, by the way, that should allow them to earn respectable returns (although not pay their executives $1.5 billion). But they need to EARN that money honestly, which means coming up with ways to better manage care by getting information to patients and doctors about best practices, and insisting that physicians practice evidence based medicine. You are probably suspicious of that because in the last round of truly managed care, you probably had some bad experiences with HMOs telling you whatyou could and could not do based on cost. But we all need to recognize, including doctors, that many many doctors are doing things they think are cost effective that really are not. And we need to develop respectful procedures so that when the computer says that your pattern of practice is outside the statistical norms, another board certified physician and you have a talk about it, and maybe he gives you some data and articles you were not aware of, and maybe you change the way you practice so you deliver BETTER results at a lower cost. The macro data on this is very clear: we are wasting a lot of money and generating substandard results. And what that means is that we all -- patients, doctors and insurers -- have to go back to the idea of managed care, only do it right this time.
I'd like to know what you think of that.
Washington, D.C.: Mr. Pearlstein, Excellent article. However, it dealt with the unfairness of these practices to stockholders. My question is, is there any data to assess the effect of these practices on patients? In other words, is your difficulty getting reimbursed for a prescription directly related to these obscene options? Then, if UH insures 1/6 Americans, how is this practice contributing to the overall cost of health care in the U.S.? (by keeping premiums high, etc.)
Steven Pearlstein: I was not trying to suggest a causual relationship between excessive executive compensation and mediocre service quality, although there may be a weak one. I was just have some fun by pointing out a paradox.
Cheverly, Md.: Read your article about UnitedHealth Group and the William McGuire scandal.....Is this organization affiliated with United HealthCare Insurance Company which AARP Health Care Options uses for its members' health insurance coverage? Thanks.
Steven Pearlstein: Yes, they have relationship with AARP, which is probably a very profitable business for them and has contributed to their success. I would think, by the way, that upon reviewing the situation, customers like AARP might want to renegotiate their relationship with UnitedHealth when it comes up for renewal. And I would think that Medicare and Medicaid, which also have extensive relationships with UnitedHealth, might want to do the same. Its fair to say that at least a third, if not more, of the UnitedHealth's excessive compensation came at the expense of taxpayers. The taxpayers representatives might want to inquire if there is that much profit to be spread around, maybe some of it should be captured, in the future, by the customer rather than the executives.
Laurel, Md.: Is it plausible that McGuire was worth $1.5B?
The company maintains profit margins despite its growth. It's not a $100B non-performing asset like AOL.
Steven Pearlstein: No, its a hugely successful and profitable company. The question is why should anyone get paid that much by a public company that he doesn't own. Are you possible suggeting there isn't anyone in the world the board of directors could get who could do as good a job for $1 billion. Or $500 million? That sounds pretty preposterous to me. Or to turn the "he delivered for the shareholders" argument on its head, why not $3 billion. $5 billion. $10 billion.
The problem here is one of false comparisons. We are creating huge, huge global corporations these days. Yet individuals still eat three meals a day, live 100 years and put their pants on one leg at a time. And so any attempt to fashion compensation for executives on the basis of some percentage of the shareholder value created it simply nonsense. We don't set pay of anyone else like that. The two numbers have to be considered in totally different contexts. Its simply a false logic glommed onto by the executive compensation consultants on behalf of their real clients, the chief executives. Its bull. These aren't waiters and taxi drivers who should earn tips.
Los Altos, Calif. (Silicon Valley): What is the position of lead accounting firms on what date must be used to set the grant price? For example, can a company's board board grant options prior to an employee's date of hire (as part of an offer), and make it effective the employee's first day of work, setting the price at that first day of work?
Steven Pearlstein: You can do anything you want, if you think it is the interest of the company. But you have to account for it correctly, and there are tax consequences to handing someone an option that is immediately "in the money" which these backdaters are trying to avoid. You also have an obligation to tell the shareholders, since every dollar the strike price is reduced is a dollar taken out of the company treasury.
Hilton Head Island, S.C.: Was the issuance of options a taxable event for purposes of federal income taxes? Is the answer to the above question impacted by the backdating of the options?
Steven Pearlstein: Yes, tax avoidance is part of the story here, which is why the IRS is involved in the investigation.
Washington, D.C.: I realize this isn't the topic of your chat today, but as a business columnist, I was wondering if you wanted to weigh in on the dow crossing 12,000 this morning- is this just a psychological milestone? Is it worth all the hype?
Steven Pearlstein: Its worthy of significant comment, yes. Its psychological, obviously, since it an artificial construct. But when I last checked, psychology has a lot to do with the stock market, particularly in the short and medium run.
Arlington, Va.: I'm a UnitedHealth customer -- earlier this year, I got a letter from my doctor saying her practice would no longer be participating in UnitedHealthcare plans because the company didn't reimburse them enough to cover their costs. She later told me the company refused to even discuss the issue with them. Two days later, I saw a story about what you so appropriately called McGuire's piggy behavior and the backdating issue. I'm absolutely appalled by the way UnitedHealth treats its doctors and patients while letting McGuire run off with obscene amounts of money. I'm switching to another health insurance company as soon as I can -- I just wish "disgusted by the company's unethical behavior" was an accepted reason to switch plans outside of open season -- and I'm telling everyone I know to avoid UnitedHealth plans. What a disgrace.
Steven Pearlstein: Another great contribution to the discussion. Maybe we should start a Boycott UnitedHealth movement right here and now. That would not only get their attention out in Minnesota, it would get the attention of other CEO's who might not want their companies boycotted because of their piggy behavior. Something to consider. We could even adopt a slogan: Spread the Wealth. Dump UnitedHealth.
Bravo! to you, to report on this. Yours is one of the first to go into more detail. This story seems to require non-local journalists to investigate; even with such a damning statement from the company, for the life of me I cannot figure out why more attention has not been given to this. Your column and this Q & A help move this along. Thank you. I think this tragedy might provide a national case study for problems inherent in our country's absurd treatment of oversight of CEO's and senior management, the obvious impunity with which they act vis a vis board of directors, investors, etc., and the need for change.
Question: Any evidence or thoughts along the cockroach theory, that where you find one nasty problem, others surely lurk? When a CEO exhibits such avarice, hubris and imperiousness, he might be obsessed solely with power and greed, but the raw, sustained, implied impunity of these actions implies a behavior that makes me wonder if there doesn't have to be more reprehensible actions to reveal.
Steven Pearlstein: Thanks for your kind comment. I'm disappointed to learn that the St. Paul and Minneapolis press haven't been more vigilant about this, but that may be because McGuire and the company are big benefactors in town. As for the cockroach theory, some of the comments we've received this morning from their unhappy customers may suggest an answer.
Tampa, Fla.: GREAT column today! Your point about this garbage stopping when SOX became effective was spot on (as the Brits would say).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but SOX does not require independent compensation committees of the Board of Directors, only independent audit committees. If so, the next step in refining SOX must be independent compensation committees, and then full disclosure of the actual employment contracts of CEOs.
I guess I'm some sort of Bolshevek radical, but I believe us pesky shareholder--you know, the OWNERS of the company--have a right to know what's going on in OUR company. As Ronald Reagan once said, trust, but verify.
Steven Pearlstein: I love when you use that Reagan quote and apply it to the corporate types.
Independent directors for compensation committees is already required by the stock exchanges for listed companies. It may also be in SOX. In this case, the rule was broken because of Spear's tie to McGuire that was undisclosed to shareholders and, to hear it from the directors, undisclosed to the board. There is some paper that suggests Spear did inform the general counsel, but it never went any further. But of course Doctor McGuire knew and said nothing. Perhaps that's why McGuire, Spear and the general counsel are all leaving UnitedHealth.
Baltimore, Md.: Does this scandal indicate 1) that corporate managers in general are still too insulated from accountability 2) that there's a lack of competition in the health insurance marketplace allowing health insurers to conceal these vastly inflated payments all the while demanding transparency from health care providers or both? Is there a cure short of further government regulation?
Steven Pearlstein: It indicates both. And the second question is the more interesting one to me, because on the surface, there appears to be plenty of price competition in the group health insurance market, although not the individual market. Big companies looking for insurers to insure their employees do play one insurer off the other. But I suspect there has been such consolidation in the industry now that the companies compete in a more oligopolistic way -- they don't get too aggressive in pricing because they know it will simply lower the rates for all insurers and nobody will win in the end. This is something the Federal Trade Commission should be looking at, certainly. We know that consolidation of hospitals, on the other side, is also reducing competition.
Baltimore, Md.: Just want to second the initial poster's criticism of United as a health insurer. We had them at the large firm I work for. While I had no problems, the folks in our Chicago office had MAJOR headaches a couple years back when all their area hospitals started refusing United coverage. You can imagine what headaches that created for our HR people. We have been with Aetna since with no problems that I know of.
Steven Pearlstein: And I might add that Aetna is still able to show a pretty good profit, and pay its outgoing chairman very, very well -- but nowhere near as well as our good Dr. McGuire.
Watertown, Mass.: Clearly United's executives were in the wrong here. Is it fair to compare this with Worldcom and ENRON?
Steven Pearlstein: Its only half fair. The company is sound and profitable, which was not the case with WorldCom and Enron, which were financial houses of cards.
Bowie, Md.: Stock options aren't just something given free to execs and other employees. You can also buy and sell them on the open market.
Are the kinds of options execs get like the ones traded on the CBOE, so that a company could use them for compensation by buying them at the prevailing price and expensing them like any other wage?
Steven Pearlstein: No, they are generally not tradeable.
Washington, D.C.: Given that the market has crossed 12,000 and the price of gasoline has dipped below $2, shouldn't we, as a nation, be even harder on Bush? This seems to be the solution to obtaining cheap gas and a market that trends.
Steven Pearlstein: Why do we have to see these business issues through a partisan prism. It isn't useful.
Boston, Mass.: This really goes to show the priorities of corp. America in today's market. I work for a software company that bills thousands of claims a day to United and they are just pitiful. They are miles behind the ball on electronic remittance, even though it was part of a federal mandate in 2001. One of our contacts there slipped and admitted they hold off on paying claims they know are valid so they can keep the interest on the money they are holding. Both practices cost doctors and patients plenty, and make the company far less money than these stock options cost them. Go Healthcare!
Steven Pearlstein: Another charter member of the Boycott UnitedHealth coalition. Thanks for that.
Richmond, Ind.: When an organization invests $43 billion, their investors expect a return of something greater than five or ten percent, probably more like 15 to 20 percent, and that return comes from the people (doctors) or organizations (hospitals)that provide the care. Their boardrooms now discuss profits and not patient care, and leads to the gradual commercialization and deteriorization of health care. And who will care for those that are not insured?
Steven Pearlstein: Customers and employers should care, and make sure that insurers compete on the basis of value, which takes in both price and quality. They are learning to do that, but the information they need to do it is still pretty crude. Its getting better, however, thanks to some pushing by Medicare and Medicare. The Democrats will definitely step up that effort, even as the health insurance lobby fights it tooth and nail (while denying they are).
Baltimore, Md.: I would comment on your espousal of pay for performance initiatives just to note that the theoretical justifications for P4P (which I think are good) too often have been used as excuses by managed care execs to siphon a few more dollars away from providers. The theory behind health care P4P programs as laid out by groups such as the Institute of Medicine certainly envisioned that, at least in some areas, more money needs to be put into the system to get quality improvements of the kind you discussed. Unfortunately, P4P has gotten in the hands of for-profit insurers and has just become another rhetorical cover for increasing the bottom line at everyone else's expense.
Steven Pearlstein: That's very sad to hear.
Just for everyone else, pay for performance in health insurance is paying providers (doctors and hospitals) for keeping people healthy and treating them in a cost effective way, rather than simply paying them for procedures they perform. The latter encourages providers to perform more procedures, and the most expensive procedures. The former rewards them sometimes for doing simple things, or talking and asking question, or referring them to someone else -- or doing nothing at all.
Princeton, N.J.: Hello from your friendly Single Payor Nut. I don't think I have to make any comment. I'll just let you do it for me.
Steven Pearlstein: I will say that unless we can get better value from the 10 percent of our health dollar that are going to middlemen, then it surely does raise a fundamental question about whether we need to go to a nationalized, government-run system. Let me repeat: it raises the question. It doesn't answer it. The government needs to get involved more as customer and regulator to reduce the take of the insurers while increasing their value added. But in my opinion, they are a crucial component of a health system founded on evidence-based medicine.
Washington, D.C.: Are there any Post employees with stocks in the company? Isn't that a conflict of interest?
Steven Pearlstein: Obviously I have no way of knowing that. But I can tell you I don't. And nobody told me what to write other than me.
Roswell, Ga.: Great column on the executive greed and corruption at UNH. Did you by any chance read the pathetic effort by yesterday's Wall Street Journal to defend McGuire and the other UNH crooks?
Steven Pearlstein: Yes, I read the editorial. There's also been a column suggesting that there's nothing wrong with backdating options. Its along the line of the Journal's editorial page's other whacky notion that insider trading makes markets more efficient. But please remember that the news side of the Journal has been doing outstanding work on this issue. I say that admiringly and jealously.
Washington, D.C.: I'm surprised by the lack of outrage in the the emails shown so far; and in general. A Billion Dollars !!???? For a sinlgle man ?! A sinlge family !? It's grotesque !!! For someome who has been forced to step down ?!!
What is going on in this Country that no one seems to blink an eye at this, let alone bring serious, serious charges against these white collar criminals. Is there an investigation in the works ?
Steven Pearlstein: There are lots of investigations in the works, along with plenty of shareholder lawsuits. But your basic point is a good one: why does anyone, including UnitedHealth's distinguished directors, think a billion dollars for any person who is hired help is a reasonable pay package.
Silver Spring, Md.: As a long-standing participating physician in the MAMSI(now United) health products, I can prove that the allowances for ordinary daily services, not high-tech expensive services, have been cut dramatically since the onset of the near monopoly of United in both HMO and PPO products, some as much as 50%!Patient care that requires personal interaction is the most vulnerable place to minimize access. I have withdrawn from MAMSI HMO to minimize the impact upon other HMO patients' accessibility.
Steven Pearlstein: Another member of the UnitedHealth boycott. Welcome aboard.
Arlington, Va.: No shock to me about their behavior. I've dumped United as a third party payer, and I'm about to dump the practice of medicine as all of the plans require way too much in the way of paperwork
Steven Pearlstein: A lot of docs where I live are on the Visa health plan: You come in, get service at prices dictated by the doctor, and pay with your credit card. And the rest is up to you. Obviously Medicare and Medicaid are different than that, but I'm sure it cuts down on the paperwork. The catch is that these docs probably serve a wealthier population that has the initial cash flow and can wait to be reimbursed.
Princeton, N.J.: What's this 10% nonsense? What about the 200 Billion wasted by having doctors filling out incredible paperwork required by the 1,500 different forms private insurers want filled out? What about the 15%+ overhead of these companies (compared to 1.3% in the Canadian system)? Our present system is just chocked fill of waste.
Steven Pearlstein: It may be as high as 15 percent, but in a fully nationalized system with a management function added in, the cost is not going to be 1.3 percent -- nor should it be.
Steven Pearlstein: That looks like it for today, folks. See you next 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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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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What Democrats Would Do
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Against their better judgment, the Democrats are starting to taste it. In the House, the number of Republican incumbents polling under 50 percent considerably exceeds the number of seats the Democrats need to pick up to make Nancy Pelosi speaker. Controlling the Senate depends on winning two of the contests in three Upper South states -- Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia -- that could go either way.
And then what? Putting a fleet of carts before a herd of horses, let's look at the legislation that the Democrats would push through the House and just maybe through the Senate. (Even if they win the upper house, of course, they'll still need the support of a number of Republicans to overcome a filibuster.)
In the House, the Democrats have made clear that there's a first tier of legislation they mean to bring to a vote almost immediately after the new Congress convenes. It includes raising the minimum wage, repealing the Medicare legislation that forbids the government from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices, replenishing student loan programs, funding stem cell research and implementing those recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission that have thus far languished.
All these measures command massive popular support. The reason they've not been enacted is that House Republicans have passed rules making it impossible for the Democrats to offer amendments to any significant legislation, thereby sparing themselves the indignity of having to choose, say, between the interests of their financial backers in the drug industry and their constituents.
Cognizant that they will owe their victory in part to the public's revulsion at the way Congress does (or avoids) business, the Democrats also plan to revise House rules to enable the opposition party to introduce amendments and to sit on conference committees, from which Republicans have routinely excluded them since Tom DeLay became majority leader. They also will ban members from accepting gifts and paid trips from lobbyists.
By bringing such measures to a vote in the House, and conceivably in the Senate as well, the Democrats will be in the enviable position of doing both good and well: promoting long-overdue policy shifts that the public supports and putting their Republican colleagues in a pickle. Confronted with an up-or-down vote on raising the minimum wage or making medication for seniors more affordable, many Republicans will side with the Democrats. Should the Democrats win the Senate, Republicans will have to calculate the risks of filibustering such mom-and-apple-pie measures. These bills will also pose a conundrum for conservatives such as John McCain, whose presidential aspirations have not been clouded by having to vote on these issues.
Should they make it through both houses, many of these measures will face a presidential veto. George W. Bush has already vetoed stem cell legislation, and he has staunchly opposed raising the minimum wage since the day he entered politics. What will congressional Republicans do if they're confronted with a series of vetoes of popular legislation? How large will the lame duck president loom in their calculations?
Not every issue that the Democrats will address if they control Congress will be so easy. The war in Iraq -- to which, if they win, they will owe their victory -- will surely prove the most nettlesome. If the Baker-Hamilton commission recommends a phased withdrawal, as some reports have speculated, the Democrats may be handed a relatively easy way out, whether or not the administration goes along with it. Should the administration persist in staying the course, Congress then could pass the kind of legislation it passed in the last years of the Vietnam War, stipulating the kinds of uses to which our military spending could -- and could not -- be put. At the same time, the ranking House Democrats in military matters -- Pennsylvania's John Murtha and Missouri's Ike Skelton -- might seek to increase the size of the Army, which the Iraq war has shown to be stretched to its limits.
In the course of this year's campaign, Democrats have been pleasantly surprised by the support their proposals for greater energy independence have won in all regions and sectors of the country. They will surely boost funding for alternative energy projects, which they see as a way not just to reduce greenhouse gases but to generate jobs as well. Many congressional Democrats also want to mandate stricter fuel efficiency standards, traditionally a cause that some auto-state Democrats have opposed, even though the Big Three's resistance to such standards is one reason their sales are plummeting.
"We're kidding around if we don't deal with that issue," says one leading Hill Democrat. "The time for that debate has arrived." It's part and parcel, he hopes, of life in the majority.
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Putting a fleet of carts before a herd of horses, let's envision the legislation that a Congress run by Democrats might push through the House -- and just maybe through the Senate.
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Which Way to Win?
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As we head toward Election Day 2006, political analysts are focusing on a few dozen tossup races that will determine whether the Democrats take the House and Senate. But there's a larger, overarching battle this year between two visions of America: testing whether it's a country defined by its political center or one defined by its political extremes.
This assessment of America's meta-politics is distilled in "The Way to Win," a new book by two of the media's best political observers, Mark Halperin of ABC News and John F. Harris of The Post. They see two basic strategic ideas at work in today's politics: the "synthesizer" approach of former president Bill Clinton, and the "clarifier" tactics of President Bush and his political guru, Karl Rove. Here's the way Halperin and Harris describe the two styles:
"Clinton Politics is the politics of the center. It holds that Americans for the most part, with the exception of irate groups at the edges, are less interested in ideology than in practical solutions to basic problems. People would prefer politics to be polite, civil, and compromise-minded."
"Bush Politics is the politics of the base," the authors continue. "A successful leader will stand forthrightly on one side of a grand argument. Then he or she will win that argument by sharpening the differences and rallying his most intense supporters to his side."
People from the Old Media, like me, instinctively prefer a centrist style of civilized debate. Of course we do, say Halperin and Harris. We are the gatekeepers of the old order. The shrill voices of the New Media -- the bloggers and talk-radio hosts and other partisan megaphones that Halperin and Harris describe as the "Freak Show" -- don't just threaten our beloved center. They might eventually put us out of business.
So what's working this campaign season? As I read this year's races, the centrist approach seems to be making something of a comeback. I base that judgment on a sampling of several dozen campaign ads that have been gathered by washingtonpost.com (available at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/politicalads/ ). This survey shows that even in some of the key tossup races, many candidates are looking for that warm and fuzzy place in the middle of the political landscape.
Take Rep. Harold Ford, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee. He's running even with Republican Bob Corker in part by holding the middle ground as a "values" Democrat. One ad shows him in church, with this endearingly honest opening line: "I started church the old-fashioned way: I was forced to." Corker's ads, out of the Rove playbook, take a sharper line, summed up in one spot with the phrase: "Who's he kidding?" Despite the attack ads, Ford is running far better than expected.
In Missouri, the Republican incumbent, Sen. Jim Talent, seems to be trying to find the center as well. One ad touts his nonpartisanship: "Most people don't care if you're Red or Blue, Republican or Democrat," says the ad, which boasts of legislation Talent has co-sponsored with Democratic colleagues such as Ron Wyden, Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer.
Talent's move to the center is countered by his opponent, Claire McCaskill, who has highlighted Talent's opposition to stem cell research in poignant ads featuring Missourians with medical problems who might be helped by such research.
Tester is running ahead of Republican Sen. Conrad Burns by presenting himself as the ultimate regular guy, a lumpy ex-farmer with a bad haircut. One of his spots, "Creating a Buzz," actually celebrates his crew cut. In Maryland, meanwhile, Republican Senate challenger Michael Steele may have the ultimate mindless, warm-and-fuzzy pitch, in which he rebuts a fake newspaper story, "Steele Hates Puppies," by holding a cute little mutt and saying: "For the record, I love puppies."
The great synthesizer himself, Bill Clinton, was out campaigning this week for Deval Patrick, a member of the Clinton Justice Department who is running for governor of Massachusetts. "Everyone knows that, somehow, the wheel has run off of our national discourse and our common life," Clinton said Monday. "And people don't want us to shout at each other any more. They want to be talked to, reasoned with, lifted up."
Is Clinton right about the country? Are Democrats doing well in this campaign season because Americans want to find their way back to the civilized center? Or are they profiting from the Democratic base's rage at George W. Bush? That's the troubling question that lingers after reading Halperin and Harris's book: If the Democrats win next month, will they be the heirs of Clinton's vision of politics or of Rove's? Are we heading for unity or even sharper division?
The writer co-hosts, with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues athttp://www.washingtonpost.com. His e-mail address isdavidignatius@washpost.com.
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The results of the mid-term election will show whether Americans want unity or even sharper division.
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One-Day Iraq Toll Is Highest for U.S. In Many Months
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BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 -- A roadside bombing and other attacks killed 10 American troops across Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. military reported Wednesday, making it the deadliest day of combat for U.S. forces in 10 months.
The one-day toll, part of what the U.S. military has said is a 43 percent increase in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in the capital since midsummer, occurred as casualties among Iraqi troops and civilians are soaring far higher than at any previous time in the war, according to U.S. and Iraqi tallies.
The deaths underscore the surging nature of sectarian violence and the increasing lethality of roadside bombs, which claim the most American lives in Iraq despite efforts to bolster armor and use high-technology devices to disable bombs.
Five of the American troop deaths Tuesday were caused by bombs. Four soldiers were killed in Baghdad about 6:50 a.m. when a planted bomb exploded under their vehicle, the U.S. military said in a statement. Another bomb killed a single soldier north of the capital.
Three soldiers died in combat east of Baghdad, in Diyala province, the military said. One soldier was killed in north Baghdad when armed men attacked his patrol, and a Marine died in combat in the predominantly Sunni province of Anbar, in western Iraq. Since the summer, Baghdad has surpassed Anbar as the most hostile place in the country for U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Tuesday's deaths, along with the death of an American soldier in Baghdad by small-arms fire on Wednesday, brought the number of total U.S. troop fatalities for October to 70, including 67 killed in action.
One hundred and twenty-five American troops were killed in action in November 2004, and 126 were killed in action in April 2004, during U.S. offensives in Najaf and Fallujah.
The Iraqi victims of violence on Wednesday included 30 men whose bodies were found dumped around Baghdad after they had been blindfolded, cuffed and shot, the Interior Ministry said. Ministry officials said most had also been tortured, which often involves puncturing victims' skulls, torsos and limbs with electric drills. The victims were all under 30, the ministry said.
The deaths reported by officials and published in the news media represent only a fraction of the thousands of mutilated bodies winding up in Baghdad's overcrowded morgue each month. U.S. and morgue officials say 90 percent of the killings are now carried out execution-style, with repeated shots to the head and body, usually after the victim had been kidnapped and tortured.
Most bodies are found dumped on Baghdad's streets each morning after a night of curfew, when only government security forces are supposed to be out.
Bodies are increasingly being dumped in and around Baghdad in fields staked out by individual Shiite militias and Sunni insurgent groups. Iraqi security forces often refuse to go to the dumping grounds, leaving the precise number of bodies in those sites unknown.
Civilian deaths, unlike those of American troops, often go unrecorded. No count exists of all the civilians killed in the spiraling violence since U.S.-led forces entered Iraq. President Bush earlier this year put the number at 30,000 but gave no sources. Indices drawing only on the deaths reported by news organizations put the figure closer to 50,000.
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BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 -- A roadside bombing and other attacks killed 10 American troops across Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. military reported Wednesday, making it the deadliest day of combat for U.S. forces in 10 months.
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Terror and Cause and Effect
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We know now what we didn't know then, back in the dark days of the autumn of 2001, and we still cannot get it right. After five years we now have a long track record of seeing what can, will and usually does go wrong when the administration acts unilaterally in the legal war on terror. It has been written into the record of one Supreme Court case after another, one lower court ruling following the next, and still we accept the premise that the rule of law as we knew it could and should be twisted unrecognizably, now and forever more, until this ill-defined, ever-evolving, undeclared war is over.
The detainee legislation that the Congress has just passed, with the advice and consent of White House officials hungering for more legal latitude upon their conduct, represents a complete abdication of the legislative branch's vital duty to act as a brake upon the executive branch. Worse, Congress has now officially become an explicit co-conspirator along with the Bush administration in its five-year-long effort to freeze out of the equation the federal courts, the last bulwark against tyranny. The less-than-do-nothing Congress finally did something and in doing so made a bad situation an order of magnitude worse.
Generations from now, historians and scholars and lawyers and judges will look back upon the past five years, and last month's formal legislative reaction to it, and marvel at the vast gulf between cause and effect. It is of course inapt to compare this atrocious law to the decrees that caused the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. But it is not too early to predict that our heirs will look back upon this law, and the dark effort behind it, with the same mixture of astonishment and disgust which our generation feels over what our government did in our name following Pearl Harbor. A Sept. 28 New York Times editorial compared this law with the notorious Alien and Sedition Act of the late 18th Century and, indeed, it is that bad and maybe even worse given what we know of the current war on terrorism.
But back to the grand disconnect that exists between what this law does -- gives the President new broad power -- and what preceded it -- the White House's often bungled use of its already-existing broad power. Long after both President Bush and Osama Bin Laden are gone from the scene, our successors-in-interest will look at this wretched law in particular, and the events upon which it is based, and wonder why Congress dramatically loosened the Bush Administration's legal leash at this time rather than severely restricting it.
Reasoned voices will then ask: What did the White House do between 9/11/01 and 9/11/06 to earn the trust and added authority that the Congress now has given it? What did President Bush do along the terror law front since the Twin Towers fell to cause Congress to place so much faith in him and his Administration when it comes to tiptoeing the tightrope between security and freedom?
The answer to these questions is nothing. So far, some legal experts say, the Bush Administration's track record when it comes to exercising unbridled power has been lame. To put it less mildly, as some legal experts have, it is actionable. Over and over again, they say, the executive branch has deceived Congress and the courts. Over and over again, the Administration has oversold its terror cases. Over and over again it has tried to hide its errors under the veil of "national security."
And after this foreboding pattern and practice by the executive branch what does the Congress do? Does it increase its oversight until it is satisfied that its partners in the White House are doing a better job of fighting the war on terror? Does it give the White House clear and unequivocal limits for its authority? Does it point to the abuses and excesses of the past five years and say, "no more"? No. It does none of these things. Instead, it rewards the White House's behavior with more discretion, authority, and power. And then, to ensure that the White House can safely use its new freedom, the Congress also tries to ensure that the federal courts cannot subsequently come in and put a stop to it all.
Enormous and unchecked new power now has been given to a White House whose officials at first called Zacarias Moussaoui the "20th hijacker" but were wrong; who at first called Jose Padilla the "dirty bomber" but were wrong; who at first called Yaser Hamdi such a threat to national security that he could not even be allowed to talk to his attorney -- until they decided to set him free. Freedom from judicial review now has been given to the same administration officials who allowed Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen whom we now know that they knew was not a terrorist, to be transferred to Syria for torture. Vague or narrow definitions of torture now have been given to the executive branch operatives who are responsible for Abu Ghraib. New powers have been given to the people who brought us the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, the one that some legal experts say violates both federal law and the Constitution.
The list goes on and on. The draconian USA Patriot Act, enacted just weeks after September 11, 2001 without any meaningful review or discussion on Capitol Hill, seems like the Bill of Rights compared with this effort. And yet despite the breadth and weight of this evidence, Congress, our national fact-finding body, has just reached its verdict: The culpable party doesn't just get acquitted -- it goes free with permission to operate under a brand new set of laws made especially for it, laws that will make it even more difficult to ever find it guilty again. This isn't Orwell. It's the Marx Brothers. Only there is absolutely nothing funny about it. Our elected officials have just traded the promise of more security for the actual loss of our liberty.
Thanks to this new law, fewer judges will be willing or able to look behind the curtain and help tell us all what is really happening to those individuals who, under the new law, can be rounded up and denied fundamental rights (like the right to face charges or the right to a trial). Remember the old Reagan saw? Trust but verify? Here, Congress has given the President its trust and ours without verifying whether the White House truly deserved either. The record establishes that it doesn't.
Andrew Cohen writes Bench Conference and this regular law column for washingtonpost.com.
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Congress has given the President its trust and ours without verifying whether the White House truly deserved either. The record establishes that it doesn't.
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Japan, Acting to Calm U.S. Worries, Rules Out Building Nuclear Arms
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TOKYO, Oct. 18 -- Japan "is absolutely not considering" building a nuclear arsenal in response to the North Korean nuclear test, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Wednesday, moments after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated that Japan was protected by the American nuclear umbrella.
Rice arrived here Wednesday on the first stop of a tour through northeast Asia and Russia. Her trip is aimed at allaying concerns and coordinating strategy against the Pyongyang government in the wake of the test.
The question of whether Japan would go nuclear has stoked worries within the U.S. government and increased tensions in the region. Earlier in the day, Aso told a parliamentary committee that while Japan's nonnuclear principles remain unchanged, "it's important to have discussions on the matter."
The ruling party's policy director on Sunday also urged a debate on whether Japan should consider developing its own nuclear deterrent. Japan is the world's only victim of a nuclear attack, and it has consistently refused to allow the United States to store nuclear weapons on its territory. But experts say Japan has a large supply of plutonium from its civilian nuclear power program, giving it access to the material necessary to quickly make the switch to a strategic nuclear program.
In response to a question at a news conference with Rice, Aso said: "There is no need to arm ourselves with nuclear weapons. For Japan's own defense . . . we have the commitment, and that commitment has been reconfirmed by Secretary Rice."
"Japan has answered this question," Rice said. "The role of the United States is to make sure that everybody, including the North Koreans, know very well that the United States will fully recognize and act upon its obligations under the mutual defense treaty" with Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is to meet with Rice on Thursday, also reiterated Wednesday that his government would not discuss building a nuclear bomb. "That debate is finished," Abe testily told reporters.
Speaking to reporters as she flew to Asia, Rice acknowledged that a nuclear arms race was a concern, which is one reason she planned to use the trip to assure Japan and South Korea that they remain under U.S. protection. "I think through doing that we can mitigate some of the potential for a truly destabilizing set of events to take place in the region in response to the North Korean test," she said.
During a speech in Shanghai in 2004, Vice President Cheney warned that, if faced with a reality that North Korea has a stockpile of nuclear weapons, other nations in the region "may conclude their only option is to develop their own capabilities, and then we have a nuclear arms race unleashed in Asia."
South Korea and Taiwan are also considered potential candidates to begin nuclear weapons development.
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TOKYO, Oct. 18 -- Japan "is absolutely not considering" building a nuclear arsenal in response to the North Korean nuclear test, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Wednesday, moments after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated that Japan was protected by the American nuclear umbrella.
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No Death Benefits for Studds's Spouse
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BOSTON, Oct. 17 -- The federal government has refused to pay death benefits to the spouse of former congressman Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.), the first openly gay member of Congress.
Studds married Dean Hara in 2004 after same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts. But Hara will not be eligible to receive any portion of Studds's estimated $114,337 annual pension because the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act bars the federal government from recognizing Studds's marriage.
Peter Graves, a spokesman for the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the congressional pension program, said same-sex partners are not recognized as spouses for any marriage benefits. He said Studds's case is the first of its kind known to the agency.
Under federal law, pensions can be denied only to lawmakers' same-sex partners and to people convicted of espionage or treason, Graves said.
The homosexuality of Studds was exposed during a teenage-page sex scandal in 1983. He died Saturday at 69, several days after collapsing while walking his dog. Doctors said he had developed two blood clots.
Graves said Studds could have purchased an insurable interest annuity, similar to an insurance policy, which is allowed under both the civil service and the federal-employee retirement system and is not affected by the Defense of Marriage Act. Graves said he did not know whether Studds used that option.
Peter J. Sepp, spokesman for the nonprofit watchdog group National Taxpayers Union, estimated Studds's annual pension at $114,337. That would have made Hara, 48, eligible for a lifetime annual pension of about $62,000, which would grow with inflation, if the marriage were recognized by the federal government, Sepp said.
Gary Buseck, legal director for the group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said Studds's case may offer "a moment of education for Congress."
"Now they have a death in the congressional family of one of their distinguished members whose spouse is being treated differently than any of their spouses," Buseck said.
In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage after gay couples successfully sued for the right to marry.
Studds was elected to Congress in 1972. In 1983, a 27-year-old man disclosed that he and Studds had had a sexual relationship a decade earlier when he was a congressional page. The House censured Studds, who revealed on the House floor that he was gay.
Constituents reelected Studds until he retired in 1997 to become a lobbyist for the fishing industry and environmental causes.
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BOSTON, Oct. 17 -- The federal government has refused to pay death benefits to the spouse of former congressman Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.), the first openly gay member of Congress.
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Mom Jeans Flatter No Body
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I have recently developed an unhealthy obsession with eBay and denim.
I've stayed away from eBay for years fearing something like this would happen, but okay, whatever. Last week, I bought three pairs of designer jeans within 72 hours. I know, I know, there's a possibility that they might be counterfeit, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. I was able to justify this shopping spree by noting that the winning prices for the Joe's Jeans ($158 at Nordstrom) and Earnest Sewn ($190 at earnestsewn.com) pairs were at least 65% lower than retail. Plus, a friend who's a fashion stylist promised that they'd all make my butt look at least 30% smaller. Hooray! Long math was never my strong suit, mind you, but you've got to admit those are very good-looking percentage points. And since I wear jeans nearly every day and hate nearly every pair I own, it was money well spent.
Like most women, my relationship with denim is tortured, bordering on the obsessive/compulsive. I hate shopping for them, loathe trying them on and yet, a well-stocked denim department like those at Target, Old Navy and Saks Fifth Avenue makes my palms sweaty with longing. By my calculations -- again, I'm no Rainman -- I've probably spent the rough equivalent of the cost of a used Geo Prism trying to find the perfect pair of jeans. I've certainly owned my share of real howlers: acid-washed and cropped (junior year in high school), stone-washed and torn at the knee (freshman year of college), tapered leg (the three long years as a reporter at The Baltimore Sun), you-should-know-better tight (no comment) and just plain large (the dark days between babies).
And judging by a recent Saturday afternoon jaunt to the teeming food court in Tysons Corner Center, I'm not alone in my addiction to jeans. If there was ever a doubt that denim is the main staple of the American wardrobe, a stroll through this mall -- or any around the country -- will quickly disavow that notion. Nearly every single man, woman and child in there was clad in some kind of denim, and friends, some of it was not pretty. There were dads wearing jean shorts with leather belts (ideal for cell phone hangage); packs of teenage girls wearing some version of a skin tight low-rise style that left them with rings of muffin-top waist fat; and young 20-something guys clad in baggy-butt and torn denim pants. I also saw lots of really cute women there, too, many of them pushing baby strollers and chasing squirming toddlers, styling and profiling in their well-cut, well-fitting youthful jeans. Many of them had on sneakers and simple T-shirts; some wore heels and fitted tops.
Then, there were the Women Wearing Mom Jeans. The term "mom jeans" was introduced a few years ago as part of hilarious fictitious "Saturday Night Live" commercial with an unforgettable tag line: "This Mother's Day, don't give Mom that bottle of perfume. Give her something that says, 'I'm not a woman anymore. I'm a mom!' " It poked fun at mothers who wear the matronly jeans that immediately typecast them as being women who're hopelessly out of touch with fashion trends (at best) and sexually repressed (at worst). Women who wear mom jeans can be found everywhere: waiting for a latte at Starbucks, perched atop teensy chairs at parent-teacher meetings, running errands at Home Depot, Olive Garden.
To be fair -- and before the angry e-mails start rolling in -- mom jeans serve a purpose for a very particular type of woman. The denim is made of soft, washable cotton, so the jeans are very easy to care for. The styling and cut is often generous, especially in the pants leg, waist and tummy. The fit is comfortable, which is important for active moms with on-the-go children. And finally, most of the jeans are often very reasonably priced and can be found at retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl's and JC Penney. Women who buy them are practical and likely too busy to care that fashion editors and designers have declared that skinny jeans are a "must" for the fall season.
I hear all that and I get it. But the problem is that mom jeans flatter almost no one. Though they were ostensibly designed to compliment a real woman's fuller figure, the reality is that most of them make an average wearer's behind, hips and stomach look...well, big. Every mom I know (including this one) wants to dress to minimize the cruel effects of multiple pregnancies, weight gain and the natural changes in your body that come with age. But dude, come on! If the zipper on your jeans is the same length as that People magazine you're reading in the grocery store check out aisle, you're probably losing the camouflage fight. And if the back pockets are the size of an IHOP pancake and are situated on the fleshy part between the waist and the bottom of the booty, they should have no place in your closet.
So why are so many women holding on to those tired mom jeans, thereby banishing any chance of looking like a cool mom? Many are resistant to change and prefer to keep the same style they've always had -- and one that doesn't set them too far apart from their family, friends and neighbors. Some are mindful that many of the low-rise jeans they see on non-moms aren't practical or sophisticated enough to reach from the playground to the office in the course of one day. And still others are militantly opposed to being told that they need to pay $100 and more for expensive designer jeans from hip brands like True Religion, Acme and Citizens for Humanity.
But, says Pilar Guzman, editor-in-chief of Cookie, Conde Nast's glossy lifestyle parenting magazine, price shouldn't be the sole deciding factor, especially because "at every price point, there's something that's hip, that isn't the Eddie Bauer gaucho jean. The Gap makes great jeans that have stretch in them for under $100. And living out in the boondocks is no longer an excuse because you can get anything you want on the Internet. I'm convinced that there's no body that can't find a pair of jeans that could work. I've seen every body type look good in jeans."
The mom jeans phenomenon, Guzman says, "encapsulates what happens to some women when they become parents. For many women, there's also this idea that dressing in a way that's obviously figure flattering or youthful is unbecoming to a mother. There's something insidious in this culture that suggests this. That's the thing that (author) Judith Warner captured in 'Perfect Madness,' and that other writers are picking up on. There's that message that if you're not martyring yourself, and that extends to your physical appearance, then you're not doing your job as a parent.
"You have to decide to hold on to that part of yourself that was there before you had kids," she says. "It gets harder and harder to do because your time is limited. It requires more of an effort. But you're either in that mindset of making the effort, which is more about how you see yourself, or you're not."
So deciding to ditch the sad sack mommy pants is the first step to recovery. Head out to a newsstand and thumb through a few fashion or celebrity magazines for some ideas on what's au courant in the world of denim. Steal a couple of hours away from the kids and head to your favorite store. Commit yourself to trying on as many pairs as it takes to find the pair that make you feel like you did in the years B.C. (before children). I'll continue my march along the Holy Denim Grail and I'll fire up a torch if I find 'em. In the meantime, where is that postman with my eBay box?
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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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Beltway and Beyond - washingtonpost.com
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Washington Post Metro Political Editor Robert Barnes was online Wednesday, October 18, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the most recent trends in the Virginia Senate Race, as well as, the first live debate between the Maryland Gubernatorial frontrunner's. He will also address any other mentionables from the latest headlines .
Barnes became metropolitan editor in 1997. Prior to becoming the metropolitan editor, he was political editor for five years. He has also covered the Maryland General Assembly and the first Schaefer administration.
Robert Barnes: Hello everyone and welcome to T-minus 20 days. I'd love to hear what folks thought of the Ehrlich-O'Malley debates--be objective, now--even though a Saturday night on public television and Monday night before prime time is not exactly the best way to reach vox populi. Who thinks the battlin' duo of Don King and Mike Tyson a good idea for Michael Steele? And the Big Boys are on the way--Bill Clinton to Maryland and McLean tomorrow and President Bush holding a fundraiser tomorrow night for George Allen in Richmond. Let's get started.
Arlington: An article today by Michael D. Shear and Tim Craig ("Webb Is Reluctant To Advertise Duty,") quoted "an hour-long interview" of Virginia Democratic Senate candidate Jim Webb "with Washington Post reporters and editors."
Will that interview be appearing in the Post?
I hope so. Between the packaged ads and the rigid debates, we need all the solid information we can get about political candidates in order to make truly informed choices on Election Day.
washingtonpost.com: Audio Excerpt From Post Interview
Robert Barnes: Here's a way to listen to part of it. Don't know if editors have plans to publish the whole thing. In case you're wondering, Allen has not committed to sitting down for an interview with Post editors and reporters.
Atlanta: Given the closeness of the race, do you expect that the 2 percent current polling for the Green candidate will diminish by election day, and if so, which candidate benefits?
Robert Barnes: I think it's rare that third-party candidates have a direct impact on the outcome of a race like that, but we all know that it happens once and a while. Usually, the challenger has the best chance to get that support rather than the incumbent.
Richard McLean, VA: How does the Webb-Senate poll define "Northern Virginia" -- what counties and cities are included?
Robert Barnes: The Post poll defines the Northern Virginia region as Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, Stafford, the cities of Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas and Manassas Park. It divides the rest of the state as into these regions: Shenandoah/Piedmont, Roanoke/SW Virginia, Hampton Roads, Lynchburg/Southside and metropolitan Richmond.
Richmond: Your latest article cites a poll by the Washington Post finding that "nearly one in five polled say they feel Allen was being intentionally racist when he called an Indian American supporter of Webb "macaca." An additional 44 percent view the comment as racist but say they don't think Allen intended it that way."
Question: Did the poll ask whether people felt that Webb's phrase a "horny woman's dream" was intentionally sexist and demeaning towards women? If not, why not?
Robert Barnes: Here's the wording of the questions we asked:
As you may know, Allen's campaign has criticized the language Webb used in a 1979 article denouncing the idea of women serving in combat roles and at the U.S. Naval Academy. In thinking about your vote for U.S. Senate this year, will Webb's past comments about women in the military be extremely important, very important, somewhat important, or not at all important? (17 percent said important)
As you may have seen or heard, Allen's comments to an Indian-American Webb supporter at a campaign rally have been interpreted by some as racially insensitive, a claim Allen denies. In thinking about your vote for U.S. Senate this year, will Allen's comments at that campaign event be extremely important, very important, somewhat important, or not at all important? (25 percent said important)
Based on what you know, do you think George Allen's comments to the Indian-American Webb supporter were intentionally racist, racist but not intentionally so, or not racist at all? (18 percent intentionally racist, 44 percent racist but not intentionally, 33 percent not racist at all)
You'll notice that neither "macaca" nor "horny woman's dream" are in the questions.
We asked the additional question on Allen because it was the event that altered the campaign. The wording was based on a poll question asked at the height of the controversy over former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's praise of Sen. Strom Thurmond.
Piling on or piling in, Vienna, VA: This morning Post readers who are Webb fans get a sympathetic editorial, a sympathetic Style piece AND the expected editorial endorsing Webb (GOP statewide and national candidates have about as much chance at a Post endorsement as the Nationals have of winning the World Series).
Yes, we all know that editorial and news departments are separate. But these two very sympathetic stories, joined with the recent Style piece with THREE quotes from Webb's political consultant criticizing George Allen's enthusiasm for cowboy boots, just add to the overwhelming perception that the Post's coverage is hardly more than cheerleading.
Anti-war partisans often complain that President Bush won't admit to mistakes. I wonder when the Post will admit to the equally obvious: its coverage is biased for Webb. Even your own ombudsman admitted the macaca coverage looked like "piling on."
washingtonpost.com: Don't Call Him Redneck
Robert Barnes: You make a good point about too much Webb in the paper today; it looked ridiculous.
But I can only tell you what's the truth: it's a big place where people often don't know what other people are doing.
With the editorial department, that's a good thing. I don't know who they are going to endorse or when they are going to do it. I've got total deniability!
I disagree that the new story was sympathetic. It was a pretty straight-forward account of what he said during the meeting, and it had to run today because it happened yesterday.
I liked Libby Copeland's piece in style very much and it gave me a better feel for Webb as a writer. But I wish it had run on a different day for just the reasons you state.
D.C.: I hope you have more coverage of the school board election. I know that the paper has skipped covering two debates in Ward 5 for the district 3 representative. Education is the number one issue in the city and residents need more information.
washingtonpost.com: Candidates Weigh In on System's Future
Robert Barnes: I know that the city desk has lots of plans for school board coverage. We won't cover every debate, but there will be full coverage of the candidates and issues.
Bethesda, Md.: As a Maryland Republican, who would like to see more diversity in the GOP, I can no longer support Michael Steele when he's out seeking the support and standing with convicted manslaughters (Don King) and rapists (Mike Tyson). This shows an incredible amount of bad judgment and poor leadership on Mr. Steele's part. Beyond poorly playing the race card, what in the world is Mr. Steele thinking?
Robert Barnes: Ok, so the Don King endorsement didn't play well in Bethesda. How bout Frederick?
Frederick: Do people ever note that Don King has served time for manslaughter? Why is he allowed into civilized society? Why are Republicans willing to accept his support?
Robert Barnes: Ok, not so well in Frederick either. It's not just Republicans who are willing to overlook past transgressions when seeking endorsements.
Bethesda: Is Webb married, and is his wife active in his political career?
Robert Barnes: Hong Le Webb is Webb's third wife; they were married in 2005. She's a corporate lawyer born in Vietnam and while she attends many of his political events, she doesn't campaign on her own. She's also due to deliver the couple's first child in December.
Takoma Park: Mr. Barnes, please tell me what is going on with Maryland Democrats. First, the Oreo, Michael Steele reference. Then they get caught looking at his personal financial records. Then State Sen. Mike Miller calls Mr. Steele an "Uncle Tom." And now, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, referencing Mr. Steele as "slavishly". They make themselves, and the party look terrible. If Maryland was not two-thirds Democrat, I would have no doubt that the campaign they have run would lose them the election. As much as Sen. George Allen in Virginia has seemed to have shown his true colors, Democrats in Maryland have seemed to have done the same thing.
washingtonpost.com: Hoyer Remark 'Racist,' GOP's Steele Charges
Robert Barnes: Thanks for your comments, although I must add that you've rolled about four years of events into one question. There is no doubt that Steele charging racial insensitivity makes folks think of him as a different kind of Republican, and in some cases the Democrats have helped him along. did others think Hoyer's comments that Steele had made "a career of slavishly supporting the Republican Party" had racial overtones? I've heard other Democrats accuse other Republican of slavishly following President Bush's lead. But maybe this is different?
How much credit does the Post deserve for making the Allen/Webb race so close?
I suspect that the Post's aggressive - and sometimes over the top - coverage of Allen's gaffes has led to an erosion in his poll numbers.
As a Post insider who dictates the political coverage, do you agree with the premise that your coverage can alter a race?
Robert Barnes: Certainly I think coverage can alter a campaign's direction. The difference here, I think, is that Sen. Allen himself has said this problem was of his own making. Perhaps the Post covered it too much in the eyes of some. But, as has been noted by many, the macaca coverage resonated because it raised questions about Allen already in the back of some voters' minds. The Post has been tough on Rep. James Moran in the past, and published an investigative piece on Rep. Tom Davis earlier this year, and neither of them appear to be in especially tight races.
Arlington: The poll results available on WashingtonPost.com do not include demographic data of those sampled (male/female, registered party, etc...). When will you make this data available?
Polls in previous states with gay marriage amendments typically underestimated support for the amendments, perhaps because churchgoing, conservative voters tend not to cooperate with pollsters. How did you sample for likely voters from groups who may not have been motivated to vote before?
Robert Barnes: I'm not sure what you're looking for, but the poll itself is available on the web site. As you know, voters don't register by party in Virginia. Our poll showed about the same numbers of people who identified themselves as conservative, moderate or liberal as exit polls showed in recent elections. What was different this time was a small percentage fewer identified themselves as Republicans, and said they were independents instead.
D.C.: Good afternoon, Mr Barnes,
Can you give me an example of the last time the Washington Post endorsed a candidate who was Republican, running for Maryland or Virginia office (i.e. Governor of Senator). I can not seem to remember one, which is scary.
washingtonpost.com: Our choice in Northern Virginia's 10th District
Robert Barnes: I'm afraid Fred Hiatt, editor of the editorial page, would be better to answer that. I do know that the board just endorsed Frank Wolfe in what might be his surprisingly tough battle for reelection.
Glen Burnie, MD: You asked for it, so here's my take on the debate (which, I did in fact watch):
What bothered me most about the debate was at one point, Ehrlich basically tells O'Malley that Baltimore doesn't exist without state aid. His exact quote was "I pay for you. Without us, you are done."
Well, that's just dumb. Of course, it's true that without state assistance Baltimore would be done. But so would Montgomery County, Prince George's County, and Anne Arundel. How many counties are there in Maryland? (Answer: 24) And guess what - the state funnels funds to all of them. That's how government works. For heaven's sake, Mr. Governor, Senator Mikulski, who was off-stage at the debate, (I know this because O'Malley mentioned she was there) should have pointed out after the debate that our state government would be "done" if it wasn't for her and the federal government. That's just how the system works - federal money to the states, state money to the counties, and so on and so forth, from the biggest pot down the line to the smallest.
O'Malley rightly pointed out, however: "I just wanted to remind you that the citizens of the City of Baltimore are also citizens of our state and that we're all in this together. Frankly, governor, the biggest philosophical difference between you and me is that I do believe that we're all in this together, and you believe this is a world of us and them."
To which Ehrlich responded (he did this several times), "I don't know what all that means."
Really? Because that right there tells me exactly what I needed to know about who should be Maryland's next governor.
Robert Barnes: thanks for the feedback. anyone else?
Northern Virginia: Third wife? A double divorce and any kids from previous marriages?
Robert Barnes: One child with his first wife and three with his second. And here's something I'd never seen before: at a campaign rally in Arlington, his second wife introduced him and endorsed him, while Hong Webb looked on. Guess it ended well.
Reston, Va.: Hello, I have a couple of fairly naive questions about the Virginia polling.
The intro to the data states that 1,004 people were surveyed, but only 78 percent were registered voters and some percentage of those were likely voters. Does that mean that more like 750 people actually answered the vast majority of the questions?
Also, in your analysis you have been drawing lots of interesting distinctions between Northern Virginia and the rest of the state, but I don't see a breakdown in the poll data of how many respondents were from Northern Virginia and how many weren't.
Finally, what was the definition of Northern Virginia for this poll?
Robert Barnes: I don't have that specific information on the number of likely voters, but will try to get it for you before our time is up.
Northern Virginia counts for about 30 percent of the state's vote. The differences of opinions there and the rest of the state are really quite striking.
Silver Spring: I'm confident that Cardin will win the Maryland Senate seat, but I'd like to see him be more aggressive. Do you think the campaign will ever force Steele to talk about substance? I know that isn't a fear for Cardin, but since Steele is desperately trying to avoid having people learn he is more conservative than Bush on some issues (no abortion in the case of rape, comparing Stem Cell research to Nazi experimentation), why doesn't Cardin's campaign hammer home what Steele really is?
Robert Barnes: I take it you've missed the DSCC add that puts Steele and Bush together in a heart and the Cardin ad that features Steele nominating Bush for a second term? Those don't seem too subtle to me.
Centreville, Va.: It's worth noting that Allen's first wife endorses him as well. She has also said that it's impossible that Allen used racial slurs in the way that Larry Sabato and others say he did.
Robert Barnes: Right you are.
Burke, Va., via New York, N.Y.: What kid of chance do the Democrats have in the Virginia U.S. House races? Also, where do these Democrats stand on Metro financing and public transportation in general?
Robert Barnes: Hard to generalize about all the Democrats and their views on Metro financing. The Democratic challenge to Rep. Thelma Drake in the Hampton Roads region is thought to be the best change of unseating a Republican incumbent, followed by Judy Feder's campaign against Wolfe.
20th St. & Pennsylvania, Ave., NW: I'm sorry Mr. Barnes, I find it impossible to believe Mr. Downie had no idea at all of the pro-Webb pieces would be published today. I fully expect about that same amount of propaganda until Election Day.
Robert Barnes: I can only tell you what I know, and, again, I didn't find either the news story or the Style story "pro-Webb." I just think there were too many stories today. Also, if I wasn't getting tired of defending others, I'd point out that the editorial board didn't endorse Webb in the Democratic primary.
Silver Spring again: I didn't miss the ad. But comparing stem cell research to Nazi experimentation is pretty extreme. I don't think that people get the vibe that Steele is that out of the mainstream.
moonbat Richmond Va: I don't think one can blame the Washington Post for spreading the "macaca" and "welcome to America" comments now that the Internet is here. That tape was on the Internet before the next edition of the Washington Post was out.
In my opinion, the "welcome to America" comment was by far more racist, but it never got as much air as the "macaca" comment, I guess because a funny word gets more airtime than another.
Robert Barnes: I'm always in favor of funny words.
Tyson's Corner: Today's Post story says Webb isn't comfortable with telling his personal story -- military service and medals, etc -- in order to get elected. So did the Post even bother to look at his campaign web site? Because the darn thing is chock-full of personal stories. Seems like a pretty basic fundamental reporting task was skipped here.
washingtonpost.com: Webb Is Reluctant To Advertise Duty
Robert Barnes: Yes, and profiles of Webb have gone into detail about his background. But on the campaign trail, Webb doesn't speak much about it, and he has not released the kind of biographical ad that many candidates do. I think this is mostly because his campaign was broke after the primary and has spent much of the time since then responding to Allen's ads.
Takoma Park: As a black man I didn't take offense to the word "slavishly." Look up the definition of slavishly. They include "Showing no originality; blindly imitative" and "Rigid or unwavering in following rules or instructions." It is used all the time, but I think it struck a chord because Steele is black and, it probably shouldn't have been used because of that reason.
At the same time, that is Steele when it comes to his beliefs. He is told what to think (see religion when it comes to social beliefs) and cannot think for himself.
And keep in mind that Don King has used the term Uncle Tom several times when black boxers would use white promoters. Steele didn't seem outraged using him for support.
Robert Barnes: thanks for writing in.
Alexandria: Should the content of Jim Webb's books matter as part of deciding whether he's fit to be Senator? I was looking through one of them last night and found a passage describing a man performing a perverted sex act upon his son. Should I dismiss this as fiction, or wonder where in his mind this came from?
Robert Barnes: If you want more, as Libby Copeland wrote today, the Allen campaign can detail them for you. Lots of vile things happen in the real world, and novelists often write about them. It doesn't mean they thought of them. (Webb has also written a nonfiction book, Born Fighting, that spells out pretty well his political leanings and his resentment of "elites.") But of course, folks can decide how to vote based on any information they find important.
Robert Barnes: That's all our time for today. Thanks so much for dropping by. I enjoy these chats, so come back next 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 Metro Political Editor Robert Barnes will be online every Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET to provide election analysis of local races.
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Gallaudet University officials yesterday postponed this weekend's homecoming festivities because of an ongoing clash with hundreds of protesters who have erected a tent city on campus. The protesters, in turn, vowed to stage a series of "alternate" events.
Students, alumni and employees set up on campus this month to protest the appointment of Jane K. Fernandes, the former provost, as president. Her critics say Fernandes is a divisive administrator, insensitive to the community the university serves. A three-day shutdown of the campus ended Friday with the arrest of 133 protesters, an episode that appeared to galvanize the opposition. Since then, the faculty and leaders of the National Association of the Deaf have joined in calling for the university's board to step in.
More: As Campus Protests Continue, Officials Postpone Homecoming ( Post, Oct. 18 )
LaToya Plummer , a junior at the university and a protest leader, will be online Wednesday, Oct. 18, at 2 p.m. ET to take questions about the situation at the nation's premier university for the deaf.
Programming Note: An invitation has been extended to the office of Jane K. Fernandes, president of Gallaudet University, to participate in a separate online discussion.
Listen to Gallaudet Student, Professor Speak on Protests ( Washington Post Radio, Oct. 18 )
College Park, Md.: Ms. Plummer,
You mentioned that Jane is "insensitive" to the community's needs, can you elaborate on that. Thanks.
LaToya Plummer: Yes, Dr. Fernandes is insensitive to the community's needs.
We have requested for a meeting concerning different issues occurring on campus. The issues like racism, audism, and management by intimidation must be discussed and must be solved.
Washington, D.C.: What percentage of the student population at Gallaudet do the protesters represent?
LaToya Plummer: The university has about 1,200 students. The number of protestors started real small, around 300. After last Friday's arrests and increased falsified information by the administration, the number has since grown
Rockville, Md.: Why do students expect to be able to run a university which has established and appointed leaders? Are they spoiled and expect to get their way in every instance?
Do they offer any sort of a compromise?
LaToya Plummer: We the students do not expect to run the university. We know that a university isn't run by one person. The president has to demonstrate shared governance in order for the university to operate. Shared governance means you share power and management with the faculty, the staff, and the students.
Washington, D.C.: Students at other universities don't get to pick who is the school's president. Why do the students at Gallaudet think they have a say?
LaToya Plummer: We believe in the value of shared governance.
Washington, D.C.: Can you give some examples of the school's racism?
LaToya Plummer: The university does not abide by one of its strategic goals of diversity. Currently the administration does not have a person of color that has power to make decisions. 2 out of 220 faculty members are African American. The students of color organizations frequently receive little or no funding assistance
Fairfax, Va.: What is audism?
LaToya Plummer: Audism is a word that was coined by Tom Humphries: "The notion that one is superior based on ones ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears." It's a form of oppression by people who hear and speak to people who do not.
Woodbridge, Va. : I'm an alumni. Class of '88.
I have not been able to get down to the campus as family and work obligations have me tied down, but I find it really hard to discern from news reports what the students want from this protest or what is exactly going on with negotiations with the administration.
Do you find the media has misrepresented what is going on the campus? Is the only demand that Fernandes step down and they pick a new president?
LaToya Plummer: Our demands remain the same. First, reopen the search process with the understanding that Dr. Fernandes must resign. Second, no reprisals. We have emphasized that failed leadership is not acceptable.
Washington, D.C.: If Fernandes does not resign, will the protestors ever return to class? Or will they stubbornly fail out of school? Is their education so insignificant to them?
LaToya Plummer: The protesters' education is significant. It is why we are protesting. To study in an environment as hostile as this is not healthy and we are appealing for a solution so each student can feel safe.
Arlington, Va.: What percentage of the students are minorities?
LaToya Plummer: The percentage of students of color who graduate is significantly lower than the percentage of those who enroll
Arlington, Va.: So as to help set aside the allegations that protests are about Ms. Fernandes being "not deaf enough," will you agree that she was born deaf and is fluent in American Sign Language?
LaToya Plummer: I think we have made it clear that is not the issue.
Washington, D.C.: If there is a fire or a medical emergency on campus, will the protesters allow emergency responders to enter the campus?
LaToya Plummer: Yes, we have agreed to keep one gate open. The university typically keeps one gate open
Washington, D.C.: I had never heard the term "audism" until the recent protests at the university. Could you give some examples of audism that you or others you know have experienced? It boggles my mind that anyone would be prejudiced against a deaf person. Thank you.
LaToya Plummer: There are several examples, including the lack of communication access in classrooms, meetings, and other university activities, people who speak being promoted where those who don't are not; The most recent and obvious example lies in the fact that Gallaudet Interpreting Services refused to provide interpreters for protestors at the beginning of this protest, strategically depriving us of access.
Washington, D.C.: Isn't the protest just as "intimidating" to those students who are not part of it? You have a right to protest, but why should that right interfere with other students' right to obtain the education that they have paid for?
LaToya Plummer: Social Justice means for everyone to be treated equal and to be valued and respected. How can one group of students maintain studies in an environment that is NOT safe? While we have shut down the campus, the education mode is continuing. This is the university's responsibility to ensure that each and every student is safe in a healthy environment.
Washington, D.C.: Your answers to the questions regarding the goals of this protest are still pretty vague - "issues' of racism, audism, and shared governance don't really get across what the real problem's are, or what the proposed solution would be. Is there anywhere else where the views of the protestors are explained in more detail?
LaToya Plummer: The issues are clear. A leader must be able to lead at any university. He or She must understand the concept of shared governance. He or she must have the ability to comprehend the issues occurring on campus and act to solve it for the best interest of the university. Neither Dr. Jordan or Dr. Fernandes are demonstrating quality leadership
Rochester, Minn. (Alumnus: Masters in 2003): What is the plan for this weekend now that official activities are canceled, but alumni like myself are coming home to show support for the people of Gallaudet?
LaToya Plummer: Come home to Gallaudet. The events are continuing. If you do remember, we have said we no longer recognize Jordan in the position as the university president. Activities are still on.
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: I truly do not understand what are the specific concerns of the students leading this protest. I know that you cannot state them simply in a forum like this, but is there a Web site where your concerns are enumerated? I want to understand, but all I see in the media are buzzwords, catch phrases and sound bites, none of which make any sense to me, an outsider. Can you help me out?
LaToya Plummer: Gallaudet University FSSA Coalition_______________________
Ballston, Va.: When I asked my brother, who is deaf and lives in Rochester, about the protests, he was concerned that there wasn't a clear message (other than "get rid of Dr. Fernandes") or consistent organization. How do you think the deaf community outside of Gallaudet views the protests?
LaToya Plummer: The deaf community shares the same concerns as students, faculty, staff, and alumni here- failed leadership demonstrated by both Dr. Jordan and Dr. Fernandes. Both of them currently cannot lead with 82 percent of faculty voting no confidence in Dr. Fernandes.
Reston, Va.: Are you preventing Gallaudet from providing services to students (children as well as university students) because of some impropriety on the part of the newly elected leader, or do you just not like her? Is the level of her wrongs equal to the force with which you're lodging your protests?
LaToya Plummer: We have not prevented any services from taking place at the University. However, the president has several times closed the University
Washington, D.C.: Were you arrested on Friday night? If so, how was that experienced?
LaToya Plummer: Yes I was arrested. Being a part of a cause as just as this is a good experience. However, I was not happy with the university's decision in allowing for the arrests to happen before they exhausted all other options, which include having open dialogues with the students.
washingtonpost.com: Gallaudet University FSSA Coalition
Washington, D.C.: Didn't Fernandes just recently assume her post? How can you claim that she hasn't addressed certain problems if you haven't even given her the time to do so? And, if what you're interested in is in fact getting certain important issues addressed, why is Fernandes' resignation your demand? I don't mean this as a defense of her -- I know little about her. I truly just have a hard time reconciling the protesters' demands with what you claim the problems are.
LaToya Plummer: Dr. Fernandes has a long history of employment at the University. She served as Dean of Clerc Center for 5 years before becoming the Provost of Gallaudet University. In her 11 years she has demonstrated poor leadership, management by intimidation, and other forms of divisive leadership that have resulted in a very hostile environment.
Silver Spring, Md.: Explain how this current protest is either similar or different to the protests in 1988 that resulted in Dr. Jordan's presidency at Gallaudet.
LaToya Plummer: you cannot compare the two. in 1988, the issue was about having a deaf president. In this one in 2006, the issue is about failed leadership
San Francisco, Calif.: How are Gallaudet's issues of racism and such are different from those at other universities? To me, this seems like a common problem at most universities, not one that is unique to Gallaudet.
LaToya Plummer: You're right. It is no different here than any other universities. A leader MUST address the issues with action and solutions in order for the university to remain a healthy environment
Omaha, Neb.: Hi, thanks for doing this chat. I am curious as to the intensity of everyone's reaction to the provost's potential appointment. In my experience, most college students don't even know who their provost is and could probably care less who is appointed as president of the university. Why is the Gallaudet student body so concerned about this situation? How do you see this provost impacting Gallaudet's university business should she be appointed?
LaToya Plummer: That is a good question. Our university is the lone deaf university in the world that accommodates the Deaf, Hearing, and hard of hearing students. The community is very very small. Because of the size, we tend to be more attentive to issues of leadership
Arlington, Va.: Do you think Fernandes will step down simply in order to keep the peace and in light of so many faculty members against her?
LaToya Plummer: So far she hasn't.
Washington, D.C.: Ms. Plummer, I'm hoping you can help me better understand something. In the news accounts I've read, student protesters have said that they disapprove of Ms. Fernandes' management style. However, I've never seen any elaboration on this statement. What exactly about her style that you object to?
LaToya Plummer: a perfect example of her failed leadership can be looked into on the Web site Gallaudet University FSSA Coalition(see the Clerc Center letter)
Arlington, Va.: Is the level of her wrongs equal to the force with which you're lodging your protests?
LaToya Plummer: The issues of social justice and quality leadership are ones we are passionate about.
Hard of Hearing: What exactly do you mean by "safe" in terms of a safe campus? Also, what information do you say has been "falsified" by the administration? From what I understand, Fernandes is the first woman to be selected as G.U. president. That seems to be a significant milestone in terms of diversity.
LaToya Plummer: We have been existing in a climate of fear over the last several years. Sharing our opinion means the possibility of losing jobs, missing opportunity for promotions, not getting good grades, and so on. We have never felt so safe as we do now-- in this protest, united at last.
San Francisco, Calif.: I'm confused about why you think Jane F. would not make a good president if she has not even had a chance to lead. Don't you think you should give her a chance first and see how things go?
LaToya Plummer: She has been given a chance to do so for eleven years.
Washington, D.C.: As an outside observer who has in the past worked within the deaf community, I have to state that these protests are coming across to the general public as selfish and nonsensical. "Shared governance" on any university campus does not mean that students get to pick a university president. While Deaf President Now was a legitimate, worthy and necessary protest movement, what is going on now makes the Gallaudet community look ridiculous -- and it's shameful the way the deaf community is turning its back on the very man who they legitimately fought so hard to have as president in 1988.
Your sense of entitlement is outrageous. Give the woman a fair chance to meet -- or even exceed -- your demands.
Please read the letters on Gallaudet University FSSA Coalition from many people across the community, including the original 4 DPN leaders. We emphasize, Dr. Fernandes has been given a chance and she has failed.
Washington, D.C.: If you are so unhappy with the governance of the school, why don't you just leave? You shouldn't deny others an education over your personal views.
LaToya Plummer: You are asking more than 400 students to leave, rather than asking one failed leader to resign?
Danbury, Conn.: After an interview with Dr. Jane Fernandes throughout the Washington Post Radio, she has determined that she is the change for the Deaf community and stated that there will be "New Order" going on in the Deaf Community, regardless of the expansion of cochlear implants programs.
As being a member of the Deaf Community, what she said about "New Order" is very alarming.
What will you do about that? What has it done to her reputation as a university Leader? What do you think of New Order?
LaToya Plummer: Dr. Fernandes has maintained that the issue of this protest centrals around the idea of her not being Deaf Enough. That is her take on the issue.
We stand by our concerns of failed leadership.
Cleveland Park, Washington, D.C.: Would a televised town meeting between the two parties at Gallaudet help solve the problem?
LaToya Plummer: It would make our concerns transparent.
St. Paul, Minn.: How many times did you and other leaders have met with Dr. Fernandes or Dr. Jordan this fall to negotiate? What did they have to offer?
LaToya Plummer: We have not met with Fernandes or Jordan to discuss concerns or negotiate on issues. The only person we were able to meet along with two other administrators is our current interim provost MIchael Moore. The only time we met with Dr. Fernandes was on Friday afternoon when she demanded that we open gates and refused to discuss any other issue.
Washington, D.C.: Some say the protesters need to fess up and compromise and act more adult. Are you and others enjoying protesting and being on the news every day?
LaToya Plummer: We have maintained a peaceful demonstration
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: You are creating a tautology -- King and Fernandes cannot lead because the students and faculty refuse to be led. From the outside and most reasonable accounts, King did a phenomenal job leading the university for many years. Why now is he all of a sudden unable to lead?
LaToya Plummer: Leadership is a two way street. You cannot lead without followers and you cannot follow without a leader. We also believe that we each have a responsibility not to follow leaders who are oppressors.
Arlington, Va.: How will protesters make up for the lost class time? It seems like in the pursuit of new leadership, the protesters are neglecting their education, the very reason they came to the university to begin with.
LaToya Plummer: There are so many different levels of education and this one has been an incredible learning experience. We are confident in our Faculty, who have been wonderful and will work closely with them to ensure that our education is intact.
Hard of Hearing Again: Hi, Thanks for clarifying what "safe" means to you at G.U. I'm still curious, though, about something you mentioned earlier in this chat, about what information has been "falsified" by the administration. Thanks again.
LaToya Plummer: The Friday after we shut down the center of academics, Hall Memorial Building. We maintained a peaceful blockade of the building. Department of Public Safety (the campus security) breached the building without warning. They physically harmed our students. When I say physically, I mean choking, hitting, throwing the students against the wall. We have all of that on tapes and pictures. The university sent out a press release saying that no student were harmed.
Washington, D.C.: So what is the solution? What do you want to happen? Who do the students want for president of the university?
LaToya Plummer: We want a leader who can lead with followers. We want a leader who is ready and willing to work with different groups of people on campus regarding different issues, especially the much neglected issues of social justice.
Silver Spring, Md.: In response to an earlier post, Ms. Fernandes has not assumed the Presidency at Gallaudet, she is scheduled to start 1/1/07.
LaToya Plummer: Yes, you're right. That's their plan.
Long Beach, Calif.: Forgive me for being ignorant, please. You said:
"The issues like racism, audism, and management by intimidation must be discussed and must be solved."
Is audism the conflict between those who have chosen to accept scientific advances so that they may hear, and those choosing to remain unable to hear who feel the former are "sell-outs"?
Did Fernandes make racist remarks or support those who have done so?
LaToya Plummer: There isn't enough time to get into this particular issue. Please refer to Gallaudet University FSSA Coalition for more information and feel free to contact us if you want to ask questions through email. We will respond in that venue.
Alexandria, Va.: I am not connected in any way with Gallaudet, and I don't have an opinion one way or the other on whether this new university president is good for the school or not.
But, why do you think you have the right to disrupt the school, even engage in illegal acts, just because you disagree with the decision of the board of this private institution on who should be its president?
Don't you think your efforts would be more productive in founding your own alternative institution, or leave this school and go to another one, if you don't like the way this one is being run?
LaToya Plummer: Gallaudet University is the only University for the Deaf in the world. Our passion for the health of the university runs so deep that we are willing to engage in acts of civil disobedience to ensure the future of this institution.
Alexandria, Va.: So basically having a diverse president (woman, person of color, etc.) is not as important as having a LEADER for a president, right? Is that the main thrust of the tension on campus?
LaToya Plummer: Dr. Fernandes was appointed as a result of a flawed process. A fair process would have resulted in the most qualified leader, regardless of gender, race, culture, or hearing status.
Washington, D.C.: Based on what I have been reading, I understand one of the reasons why the selection process was flawed -- it was because of insufficient diversity in the candidate pool. I also understand that the forums were scheduled at different times. How is that flawed? Is it because of the fact that Jane F. had ample time to prepare her speech? And the others did not? Was favoritism an issue? The only reason I am asking is so the outsiders can understand better the rage within the community towards the selection process. More details on the process itself would be much appreciated. Thanks!
LaToya Plummer: Yes, the time frame of selecting a university president was 7 weeks. Two candidates were given very short time to prepare for a public forum. The white man with a MA and little administrative experience got into the final pool over a black man with a PHD and more administrative experience. Those are the examples
LaToya Plummer: Many many thanks for having me here online. Our next step is that Homecoming will continue and so will the protest. Thank you all. Have a good day
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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Student protest leader LaToya Plummer discusses the current situation at Gallaudet, the nation's premier university for the deaf.
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NoVa and RoVa: Welcome to a State Of Disagreement
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Recent polls confirm the common assumption that Northern Virginians tend to be much more liberal than those in the rest of the state. In fact, NoVa seems to be a world apart from RoVa (the rest of Virginia). In NoVa, for example, when people speak of a "trailer," they mean a movie ad, and in RoVa "sprawl" is what you do on the couch after Sunday dinner.
Herewith, a few more ways NoVa differs from RoVa:
· In RoVa, they hope the South will rise again. In NoVa, they hope the souffle will.
· In NoVa, a lab is the family dog. In RoVa, a lab is the family meth business.
· In NoVa, people spend their dough at Starbucks, shooting the breeze. In RoVa, people spend time in the breeze, shooting does and bucks.
· In NoVa, a "fur piece" is something a woman wears on a special occasion. In RoVa, a "fur piece" is unit of distance.
· In RoVa, people pick blackberries. In NoVa, people click BlackBerrys.
· In NoVa, they listen to NPR. In RoVa, they listen to the NRA.
· NoVa has Crate & Barrel. RoVa has Cracker Barrel.
· NoVa: Chain Bridge. RoVa: Chain saw.
· In RoVa, they like freshly killed venison. In NoVa, they like Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
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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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Talk of Raising Gas Tax Is Just That
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There might be a simple way to trim U.S. oil imports, reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, encourage alternatives to petroleum and ease world energy shortages.
The method: raising taxes on gasoline or crude oil. Economists and policy experts across the political spectrum think it's a good idea. And with gasoline prices falling, now might be the perfect time to do it without eliciting cries of pain from U.S. drivers who have become somewhat accustomed to high fuel prices.
But on the long road to a new energy policy, the idea of a higher gasoline or crude-oil tax is just another bit of roadkill.
Because of the thorny politics of raising taxes, the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gas levy hasn't changed since Oct. 1, 1993. And few policy experts expect a higher tax soon.
"We know the broad contours of some things that have to happen," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations. "You have to price oil on a permanent basis to provide incentives to shift away from it. It's the key issue -- and the hardest one to make progress on."
Leon E. Panetta, a former congressman and President Bill Clinton's first budget director, sees things the same way.
"I don't think there's any question that as a matter of policy it makes a lot of sense to move in that direction," he said. "But politically it's a very high hurdle to get over."
Panetta knows from experience. When Clinton took office, Vice President Al Gore argued for a big gas-tax increase to promote conservation, and many administration members agreed, Panetta recalled. But, he said, "there were also those like Treasury Secretary [Lloyd] Bentsen who said, 'Are you out of your mind?' "
By the time Congress was done, what started out as a 50-cent-a-gallon proposal ended up as a 4.3-cent-a-gallon increase. Since then, just to keep up with inflation, the tax would have had to rise 6 cents, but it hasn't budged.
Many economists support oil taxes because otherwise the prices paid by consumers do not include costs -- such as pollution -- that society pays separately. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) has estimated that the U.S. military cost of protecting Middle East oil supplies runs around $50 billion a year.
Such hidden costs were called "externalities" by the British economist Arthur Pigou. N. Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard University and former chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, has created his own Pigou Club, which he describes as "an elite group of economists and pundits with the good sense to have publicly advocated higher Pigovian taxes, such as gasoline taxes or carbon taxes." But the club exists only on his Web site.
One member is Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economics professor and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. "A sharp hike in energy taxes on gasoline and other fossil fuels would not only help improve the government's balance sheet, but it would also be a way to start addressing global warming," Rogoff wrote before the IMF and World Bank meetings in Singapore last month. "What better way for new U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, a card-carrying environmentalist, to make a dramatic entrance onto the world policy stage?"
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There might be a simple way to trim U.S. oil imports, reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, encourage alternatives to petroleum and ease world energy shortages.
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Va. Tech Tries to Regain Handle
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BLACKSBURG, Va., Oct. 17 -- After suffering two consecutive losses and being criticized on national television for its actions on and off the field, the Virginia Tech football team finds itself looking for a fresh start to a season that began with four straight victories. Players vowed Tuesday they would redeem themselves, even as Coach Frank Beamer announced that defensive end William Wall was being thrown off the team for his behavior.
During last Thursday's broadcast of the Hokies' 22-3 loss to Boston College, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit sharply criticized the Virginia Tech football team, calling it selfish and more focused on getting to the NFL than winning games. His comments came as cameras showed linebacker Brenden Hill dancing on the sideline during the game's waning moments with Virginia Tech trailing 20-3. The broadcast also included shots of bickering between safety Aaron Rouse and linebacker Vince Hall near the Virginia Tech bench.
Hill met with Beamer on Monday and apologized to the coaches and players. Hill said yesterday he didn't want Boston College to know how much losing hurt, so he was dancing to hide his dejection. He said he also felt he could alleviate the tension on the Virginia Tech bench by keeping his teammates loose.
"It kind of hurt me," Hill said of the ESPN analyst's criticism. "It's something that I'm ready to move on from and put behind me. The way it came off was definitely not how I meant it. It was kind of disappointing to see it come off like that."
Rouse and Hall were not made available for comment, at the request of Beamer.
"I think there was lot of frustration there, a lot of disappointment there," Beamer said of Rouse and Hall on Monday. "I think there's better ways to handle it than screaming at each other."
"I've seen it before. It's never been caught on TV like that before," wide receiver David Clowney said. "Some guys were frustrated. We've all been through it. You got to put stuff like that behind you."
While Hill apologized, his teammates defended him and shot back at Herbstreit, whose opinions carry significant weight around college football.
"Bottom line is, some guy out there had six minutes to fill in a one-sided game," center Danny McGrath said. "If that comes down to looking at a guy dancing and saying this isn't team play, after he doesn't know the guy and hasn't watched him practice for the last five years, it doesn't make much sense. It's disrespectful because he doesn't know us as people.
"People around the program were starting to get upset. We know we're out there playing. If a guy is dancing during a TV timeout so ESPN can make more money off of us than they already do, then they catch the guy dancing. That's what the tape does to you, it makes you bitter. We looked pretty bad, but then two days later Miami took the thug title right from us. As soon as we earn it outright, they come back and do something to take it from us."
McGrath was referring to a bench-clearing brawl during a game Saturday night between the University of Miami and Florida International teams that resulted in multiple suspensions of players at both schools.
Beamer called a team meeting Monday at which he showed the ESPN footage from Thursday's loss that included Herbstreit's acidic criticism. The room fell quiet afterward, players said.
James Miller and Cornell Brown, former Virginia Tech players acting as graduate assistants, spoke. Beamer addressed the team. Several team leaders, Noland Burchette and Rouse among them, also spoke, according to players who attended the meeting. Players said Tuesday that they realized the team had fractured in its frustration at losing -- it has dropped out of the national rankings for the first time in 33 weeks -- and needed to come back together.
"It gave a point to start over again," Hill said. "A new breath, a new life."
Three players -- Chris Ellis, Josh Morgan and Josh Hyman -- have been arrested this season, each suspended one game. On Monday night, Beamer announced on his weekly radio show that he had kicked Wall, a redshirt freshman who leads the Hokies with three sacks, off the team for a series of transgressions. Wall had been suspended for an earlier game after an outburst he made toward defensive line coach Charlie Wiles.
Beamer vowed to clean up Virginia Tech's image this offseason. He wouldn't elaborate on his preseason comments Tuesday but repeated his oft-used statement that his players must "represent Virginia Tech well on the field and represent Virginia Tech well off the field."
Asked whether Beamer's appeal was reaching the players, McGrath said: "When you look at the model, I guess not. What Coach Beamer has done now as opposed to a couple years ago is, now it's serious. Maybe it was, 'I'm going to do this,' and it never happened. Coach Beamer has been throwing people off the team left and right this year."
Beamer said repeatedly Tuesday that the team was moving on and that he would only talk about Saturday night's opponent, Southern Mississippi.
"As a team, we've taken a step forward and we've gotten closer," Hill said. "Coach Beamer did a great job, not just with him speaking but the way he approached our team meeting yesterday and getting us to refocus. You'll see a different Virginia Tech football team."
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After suffering two consecutive losses and being criticized for its actions on and off the field, Virginia Tech finds itself looking for a fresh start to a season that began with four straight victories.
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Eskandarian Ready to Assert Himself Again
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D.C. United Coach Peter Nowak makes it a rule to never reveal his starters in advance, but as his struggling club prepares for its MLS playoff opener Saturday at New York, he is giving indications that striker Alecko Eskandarian will return to the lineup.
"I think he's ready to play," Nowak said yesterday following a feisty training session in the rain. "Esky brings a lot of emotions and a lot of energy to our game. This is so important in this stretch."
After missing four games with a knee injury, Eskandarian came off the bench in the last two regular season matches and played a combined 74 minutes.
Although he didn't score, Eskandarian restored a menacing presence to United's ineffective front line and, during Sunday's 3-2 loss to Chicago, tested goalkeeper Matt Pickens with a couple of booming shots.
Said Nowak, "He definitely [brought] us something special."
Asked if he is capable of contributing 60 quality minutes in a playoff setting, Eskandarian said: "I'm ready to play 90 minutes. I was kind of upset that I didn't get to start this last game and just play as much as I could until I burned out.
"I wanted to get a good game in and work on my fitness. But even the 45 minutes I was in there, I felt fine and felt like I could've gone another 45."
Despite his eagerness, Eskandarian admits to some lingering discomfort on the back of his left knee. Naturally left-footed, he said the time off actually helped him strengthen the power of his right-footed shots.
"It's been a little better than expected as far as being able to get out there and run okay," he said. "I'm not hobbling around, which is what I feared. It's just very sore afterward."
Eskandarian's return could prove critical to United's pursuit of a fifth championship. During two months of lackluster play, the club has not received as much production from its forwards as it did early in the season.
Team captain Jaime Moreno continues to be one of the best setup men in MLS, but he has scored only one goal the last 2 1/2 months. Freddy Adu had some success when moved to forward, but seems more comfortable in the midfield. He had two assists as a midfielder Sunday.
Rookie Rod Dyachenko has appeared in seven consecutive games (three of the last four as a starter up front) but has failed to convert his chances.
When give the opportunity, Eskandarian has strained to regain his scoring touch. His seventh goal came in the 20th match, July 22 at Chicago, but in 499 minutes of playing time since then, he has been blanked.
The problem goes beyond the forwards, he said.
"I feel like we're playing almost too slow sometimes, where we are just going side to side in the midfield instead of looking at our forwards' runs and slipping a through ball or even hitting a long ball," Eskandarian said.
"We're a great team in terms of combinations, but we can mix it up more. It's taking too long to get into the attack, and defenses are outnumbering us and just waiting for us."
United Note: The club denied an Israeli report that it has invited Maccabi Haifa to play a friendly at RFK Stadium next year.
United Vice President Stephen Zack said he had been approached by the Israeli Embassy about a possible game, but there were no follow-up talks and, because of several expected scheduling conflicts, "I would be surprised if we could fit in such a game."
Besides the league schedule, the U.S. Open Cup and Champions Cup, Zack mentioned the possibility of playing a tournament with Mexican clubs and a major international friendly.
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Striker Alecko Eskandarian, who missed four games down the stretch with a knee injury, will likely play Saturday as D.C. United begins postseason play.
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'The Specter of Death Is There'
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Dr. Smoke was waiting on the runway in his red Siai Marchetti. Kirk Wicker was taxiing a black-and-silver Stearman after his wing-walking act. And in the glorious skies over Culpeper, Va., Nancy Lynn once again was soaring above an entranced crowd in a sleek Extra 300.
Then flames shot up in the distance, and Dr. Smoke wondered whether Lynn had added pyrotechnics to her performance.
Her plane slammed onto the runway before an air show audience Saturday at Culpeper Regional Airport. It flipped over and burst into flames.
"Scramble! Scramble!" her son, Pete Muntean, 18, who was emceeing, yelled to the firetrucks.
Lynn, 50, was trapped in the cockpit and died in a hospital a few hours later.
She was the rare woman in a tight-knit community of aerobatic pilots -- a driven, competitive group whose members work as dentists, or salesmen, by day but live for the thrills and applause of the weekend air show. Theirs is a world of nimble, high-performance planes that tumble and plunge through the air the way no plane should, and of pilots in snappy jumpsuits and ball caps who must face high-G, or gravitational, forces and the possibility of disaster each time they fly.
Lynn, a seasoned pilot from Annapolis who was described as highly skilled, had been an executive with Procter & Gamble.
"It takes a certain kind of person," said Ron Saglimbene, the New Jersey oral surgeon who flies as Dr. Smoke, trailing colored vapors from his plane. "It's not bowling. That's for sure. . . . The specter of death is there. It's not in the forefront. . . . But it comes along with what you do."
Lynn flew a breathtaking routine of loops, rolls, spins and dives at air shows across the country. She appeared in the spring at the annual military air show at Andrews Air Force Base.
Her German-made airplane -- a so-called tail-dragger with fixed landing gear -- had a 300-horsepower engine and a maneuvering speed of about 180 mph. It could carry 45 gallons of fuel, but friends said pilots usually carry only about 12 gallons during shows, to keep the plane as light as possible.
Her business partner, Mark D. Damisch, 37, was flying the same kind of plane three years ago when he crashed nose-first into a soybean field in Queen Anne's County on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Investigators concluded that the fatal accident probably was caused when Damisch, of Arlington, blacked out during a high-G maneuver.
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Dr. Smoke was waiting on the runway in his red Siai Marchetti. Kirk Wicker was taxiing a black-and-silver Stearman after his wing-walking act. And in the glorious skies over Culpeper, Va., Nancy Lynn once again was soaring above an entranced crowd in a sleek Extra 300.
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Kolbe Matter Is Referred to House Ethics Panel
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The House committee looking into allegations that former congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) had improper contact with male former pages has been asked by lawmakers overseeing the page program to look into allegations involving a second lawmaker, House sources said yesterday.
Members of the Page Board sought the review after news reports last week that the Justice Department had opened a preliminary inquiry into a camping trip that Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) took with male former pages in 1996. That report sparked a conference call Monday among board members.
But because the Page Board, which consists of three House members and two senior House officials, does not have the authority to investigate members of Congress, the matter was turned over to the House ethics committee, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
"It was about other allegations and I'd like to leave it at that," Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.), a member of the Page Board, told reporters Monday as he exited a closed-door meeting of the ethics panel. "Let me just say" that the allegations are "not about Mr. Foley," he said. "It's only been allegations."
It was not clear what allegations the board was concerned about. But The Washington Post has learned of a potentially inappropriate incident involving Kolbe and a male page. The man recently told the House clerk's office and the FBI about an encounter with the Arizona Republican that occurred about five years ago when he was 16, according to someone familiar with the man's account. The page told authorities that he was "uncomfortable with a particular social encounter" that involved physical contact when he and Kolbe were alone, the source said yesterday.
The incident was not reported at the time, said the source, who emphasized that the encounter was based on the perception of a teenager five years ago.
A number of concerns about alleged improprieties in page matters have been referred to the committee since Foley abruptly resigned from the House on Sept. 29 after ABC News asked him about salacious instant messages he had sent to a former page, House leadership aides said. But such concerns so far have involved allegations that Foley's actions had been covered up or improperly handled, not that other House members have possibly engaged in inappropriate behavior.
"I haven't been contacted by anyone on this matter but if I am, I will fully cooperate with the appropriate authorities," Kolbe said in a statement last night.
Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, will retire this year. He was a Senate page for three years.
Kolbe has said that he was aware in 2000 or 2001 of inappropriate e-mails that Foley had sent to one of his pages. Kolbe has said that he did not see the messages and was not told that they were sexually explicit. But a source with direct knowledge of the matter has disputed Kolbe's assertions.
Numerous pages have said that Kolbe kept in close contact with them during their time on Capitol Hill, and in some cases, after their service. Most of those pages said they viewed the congressman as a friend of the page program, and some considered him a mentor.
And Kolbe was known to be friendly with pages, sometimes joking with them in the cloakroom and corridors of the Capitol.
"Both Congressman Kolbe and Foley were known as friends of pages and really mentored the pages," said Billy Peard, a former page. Matt Schmitz, another former page, said he cautioned his younger brother, who also was a page, not to get too close to members of Congress.
Several pages said that Kolbe regularly offered up a dinner at his home for bids at the annual page auction, which raised money for charity and for the page prom. In 2002, a group paid $210 for the Kolbe dinner. Kolbe picked up the group at the page dorm and drove to his house on East Capitol Street.
After dinner, the guests talked about the history and beauty of the house and Kolbe made them an offer, according to one page in the 2002-2003 class who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Kolbe said the pages were "free to stay here" if any of them were ever back in town after the program ended, the former page said.
The former page said he did not consider the comment to be "a red flag. It was a personal decision not to go back" to Kolbe's house "without a friend or two."
The invitation emerged in an instant-message exchange between one former page and Foley, in which Foley seemed to be jealous of Kolbe. In January 2003, that former page, Jordan Edmund, told Foley that he and three other former pages had been invited to sleep at Kolbe's house during a one-year reunion of their page class.
The event that captured the Page Board's attention was a camping trip that Kolbe took with two former pages and others in 1996, an outing first reported by NBC News and now under review by the Justice Department. One law enforcement official cautioned that the inquiry is based on allegations from an unidentified source that have not been substantiated. The allegations involve Kolbe's behavior toward one of the former pages, the official said.
The three-day trip down the Grand Canyon also included several Kolbe staff members; Kolbe's sister, Beth; and National Park Service employees, Kolbe spokeswoman Korenna Cline said last week. She denied any improprieties had occurred.
The ethics committee has moved expeditiously through its Foley investigation, taking testimony from Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, who told the panel last week that he brought Foley's behavior to the attention of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff in 2003. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) is expected to testify this week about his contention that he alerted Hastert this spring about Foley's conduct.
Tomorrow, former House clerk Jeff Trandahl -- perhaps the most important witness -- will appear before the committee. Trandahl should know about suspect e-mails that were referred to him as far back as 2000, about repeated efforts that Fordham said Trandahl had made to raise alarm about Foley's behavior, and about his own confrontation with Foley last November, just before Trandahl's abrupt departure from the House, sources said.
Meanwhile, Foley's attorney said in Miami that the former congressman will identify the Roman Catholic priest who he says sexually abused him as a young boy as part of Foley's "healing process."
Gerald Richman said Foley will identify the man to the Archdiocese of Miami so the church "can then deal appropriately with the issue," according to Reuters.
Soon after Foley's resignation, his attorneys confirmed that Foley is gay and said that he had been sexually abused by a priest while he was growing up in Florida.
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The House committee looking into allegations that former congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) had improper contact with male former pages has been asked by lawmakers overseeing the page program to look into allegations involving a second lawmaker, House sources said yesterday.
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As Campus Protests Continue, Officials Postpone Homecoming
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Gallaudet University officials yesterday postponed this weekend's homecoming festivities because of an ongoing clash with hundreds of protesters who have erected a tent city on campus. The protesters, in turn, vowed to stage a series of "alternate" events.
Protesters control all but one entrance to Gallaudet, the nation's premier university for the deaf. In a posting on the university Web site yesterday afternoon, Gallaudet President I. King Jordan said their refusal to "open all of the gates" left administrators no choice but to postpone homecoming.
The decision to sideline the school's signature fall event came as alumni and parents were already arriving in town, some for the game, others to join in a campus protest over the appointment of president designate Jane K. Fernandes. The protest has been gaining currency in the broader deaf community.
"To cancel that is just a kick in the face," said Tami Hossler, mother of a 21-year-old Gallaudet student, who said she and other parents have secured a meeting with Jordan for tomorrow. "How do you get thousands of people not to hold homecoming? How do you stop that many people?"
But Prof. Janet Pray, who supports Fernandes, said she was surprised that homecoming wasn't canceled earlier. With just one gate open and people coming in through a gantlet of protests, it's difficult for emergency vehicles to get through, she said. The addition of homecoming throngs could create "a very unsafe situation."
Students, alumni and employees set up on campus this month to protest the appointment of Fernandes, the former provost, as president. Her critics say Fernandes is a divisive administrator, insensitive to the community the university serves. A three-day shutdown of the campus ended Friday with the arrest of 133 protesters, an episode that appeared to galvanize the opposition. Since then, the faculty and leaders of the National Association of the Deaf have joined in calling for the university's board to step in.
Fernandes has repeatedly said she will not resign. Gallaudet administrators and trustees have defended her selection and pressed protesters to yield control of the campus gates.
Protesters resisted a fresh attempt by university employees to open a blocked entrance before dawn yesterday. One entrance, off Florida Avenue at the southwest corner of campus, is open, and administrators had demanded Monday night that protesters clear two additional gates by 6 a.m.
Physical plant employees approached the Brentwood gate, on the northwest side of campus, shortly before 6 a.m., according to LaToya Plummer, 25, a Gallaudet junior who is among the protest leaders. Plummer said she encouraged the protesters to form a human chain and deny the workers access to campus. They retreated. She called the ultimatum an "empty threat."
Administrators said they could still assert their right to open the blocked entrances at any time. Protesters, for their part, said they had been assured by both District and campus police that there would be no further arrests. A D.C. police spokesman, Officer Junis Fletcher, said access to the private campus was "not an issue" for D.C. police.
University spokesman Mercy Coogan cited a growing conviction among administrators that "something is going to have to give" at the entrances.
Gallaudet faculty gave overwhelming endorsement Monday night to a proposal calling for Fernandes to resign or be removed. Last night, about 30 faculty members marched from the student union building to Jordan's on-campus home, in a further show of solidarity. Jeff Lewis, a professor in the counseling department, said some faculty members had discussed a walkout.
At a news conference yesterday, representative faculty, staff, alumni, parents and students urged Gallaudet alumni in the Washington area to come to campus Saturday to show support.
Noah Beckman, president of the Gallaudet student government, said he thought it unlikely that any Spirit Week activities could be salvaged, nor could the customary pre-homecoming bash Friday. Other events, such as an off-campus homecoming ball scheduled for Saturday, might go on as planned.
Staff writer Susan Kinzie contributed to this report.
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Get Washington DC,Maryland,Virginia news. Includes news headlines from The Washington Post. Get info/values for Washington DC,Maryland,Virginia homes. Features schools,crime,government,traffic,lottery,religion,obituaries.
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53% of Voters Say They Back Va. Same-Sex Marriage Ban
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A majority of Virginians support a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions, although voters split on the measure when presented with interpretations of its potential impact, according to a new Washington Post poll.
Fifty-three percent of likely voters said they would vote for the amendment, and 43 percent would oppose it, the poll found, indicating that three weeks before Election Day opponents still have a long way to go to make Virginia the first state in the country to defeat a same-sex marriage amendment.
The only part of the state to oppose the measure was Northern Virginia, where voters rejected it 55 percent to 42 percent, further evidence that the Washington suburbs have become a political and social world apart from the rest of Virginia. Respondents in the rest of the state backed the measure 58 percent to 38 percent, according to the survey, conducted over three days last week.
Despite the overall results, the poll provided some hope for opponents of the measure. Their chief argument is that the language of the amendment is too broad and would endanger contracts between unwed heterosexual couples. Supporters contend that the measure is limited to declaring that same-sex marriages would never be approved or recognized in Virginia.
When respondents were read the arguments on both sides of the question, enough voters showed a willingness to reconsider that the gap narrowed to a virtual tie -- 48 percent said they supported the measure and 47 percent opposed it, within the poll's margin of error of three percentage points.
"I really do think that we need an amendment like this that defines marriage," said Ross Williams, 50, a salesman from Annandale, who considers himself a Republican and a likely voter for Sen. George Allen (R) in his reelection bid Nov. 7. "But we don't need to pass something that we don't know what it's going to do. I wouldn't call myself an undecided voter yet . . . but I am going to read the wording and make up my mind about what it's going to do before I vote."
The poll also found that Virginians are virtually split over whether gay couples should be able to form civil unions, which would give them health insurance, inheritance benefits and other legal rights of married couples. The poll found that 48 percent believe gay couples should be allowed to engage in civil unions and 47 percent do not. The amendment would constitutionally ban civil unions between gay couples, although they are already illegal in Virginia.
"We've been seeing this for a long time now: When people read the entire question and think about what it means, they vote no," said Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, campaign director for the Commonwealth Coalition, the group organizing opposition to the amendment.
Victoria Cobb, executive director of the Family Foundation, said that she believed the amendment would pass and that voters understood that the ballot question was simply about defining marriage. She said an internal poll conducted by the group found strong support for the measure.
"We are very confident that Virginia is going to join the other 20 states that have passed constitutional amendments," she said. "Virginians know this is about marriage between one man and one woman, and we have complete confidence that when they step into the voting booth, they will vote for traditional marriage."
Several political scientists who have studied state ballot measures said the polling data from Virginia appeared to defy expectations, given the commonwealth's reputation as a conservative state.
"This is quite a surprise," said Daniel A. Smith, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida. "In an ostensibly conservative state like Virginia, you'd expect to see the numbers up around 60 or 70 percent."
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A majority of Virginians support a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions, although voters split on the measure when presented with interpretations of its potential impact, according to a new Washington Post poll.
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The Coalition of the Unwilling
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Our national headache, otherwise known as the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be a lot more tolerable if our so-called allies in the war on terrorism were willing to step up and accept custody of some of their own nationals. And, indeed, just yesterday, two detainees were released from Gitmo and returned to their native Pakistan. But as Craig Whitlock writes in this morning's Post we are not getting the sort of help and cooperation we could use in dispersing the detainees- even from some countries that would like to count themselves as some of our staunchest allies.
Whitlock writes: "According to documents made public this month in London, officials there recently rejected a U.S. offer to transfer 10 former British residents from Guantanamo to the United Kingdom, arguing that it would be too expensive to keep them under surveillance. Britain has also staved off a legal challenge by the relatives of some prisoners who sued to require the British government to seek their release. Other European governments, which have been equally vocal in assailing Guantanamo as a human rights liability, have also balked at accepting prisoner transfers. A Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany was finally permitted to return from Guantanamo in August, four years after the German government turned down a U.S. proposal to release him.
"In addition, virtually every country in Europe refused to grant asylum to several Guantanamo prisoners from China who were not being sent home because of fears they could face political harassment there. The Balkan nation of Albania agreed to take in five of the Chinese in May, but only after more than 100 other nations rebuffed U.S. pleas to accept them on humanitarian grounds, State Department officials said."
What's happening down there at our makeshift prison is the legal and diplomatic equivalent of the "you break it, you buy it" doctrine. Having created an ambiguous and legally dubious class of prisoner, the United States now finds itself unable to pawn most of these men off on any other nation, even those nations that obviously have an interest in what happens to their own citizens. The nations of the world don't want to spend the time and energy and money prosecuting these men upon their return. Or they don't want to open up their own legal system to the sorts of challenges we've seen here. Or they are fearful that their detainees will foment unrest upon their return.
Whatever it is, we seem to be stuck with these men, the vast majority of whom, as the U.S. government itself has conceded, are not terrorists or otherwise a threat to our national security. Welcome to the war on terrorism-- where the Coalition of the Willing doesn't really mean what it is supposed to mean.
By Andrew Cohen | October 17, 2006; 11:30 AM ET Previous: The Dog Ate My Jury Summons... How to Fix The System | Next: The Death of a Journalism Icon
It shouldn't be a surprise that other countries are very reluctant to take GITMO detainees, given the usual conditions. "Please take John Doe, and keep him confined or under close surveillance for the rest of his life. We can't legally tell you what we did, since the evidence for that was obtained through our tough, approved, but classified interrogation techniques." What a mess we're throwing at them.
Posted by: David Seibert | October 17, 2006 02:43 PM
The Coalition replies: "We may be Willing, but we're not Stupid. You lot, on the other hand ..."
Posted by: Realist | October 17, 2006 02:45 PM
Why not leave them for Fidel?
Posted by: Brian | October 17, 2006 02:48 PM
Awww. I feel so sorry for the Bush administration. I can't believe that they set up an extra-legal gulag on an island belonging to one of our enemies, filled it with people who have nothing to do with terrorism, and then wonder why those mean coalition parters aren't willing to share the burden Bush created.
Good thing we have The Post to point this out for us so we can easily shift blame for a problem Bush created to the real culprits.
Posted by: Byron | October 17, 2006 02:52 PM
Yeah, it's all their fault, da noive of some countries.
Posted by: johannesrolf | October 17, 2006 03:33 PM
Why not just shoot them or throw them into Guantanamo Bay for the sharks? After sniveling for years about Gitmo the Europeans should be overjoyed to welcome such wonderful, tolerant, and productive elements back home.
Posted by: Samuel Taylor | October 17, 2006 03:41 PM
So, if a guy soaks his his house with gasoline and sets it on fire, he can blame his neighbor for not helping him put out the flames? This is yet another example of how this president takes no responsibility for his screwups. He's the only sane person in a world full of crazy people.
We got what we wanted, didn't we. We wanted the opposite of Clinton. Clinton was an intellectual; Bush isn't. Clinton cheated on his wife; Bush hasn't (that we know of). Clinton dealt with problems thoughtfully; Bush doesn't.
I know people who voted for Bush because they thought, "He's one of us." He's a regular guy who goes with his gut feelings in tough situations. He thinks with his heart rather than his head. He likes NASCAR, and he clears brush. OK, fine. I can name 20 other guys who fit that description, but it doesn't make them qualified to be president.
If we have learned anything from the debacle of a presidency it should be that intelligence matters.
Posted by: Frank | October 17, 2006 04:20 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
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Rice Tries to Head Off Nuclear Arms Race
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ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska -- North Korea's nuclear test could set off an atomic arms race in Asia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday as she sought to reaffirm U.S. obligations to defend two nations most at risk.
In addition to settling nerves among allies, Rice's Asia trip is meant to reinforce pressure on South Korea and especially China to enforce sanctions. Those include what the United States describes as an aggressive inspection and interdiction program that stops short of a full blockade of North Korean trade.
The United States is concerned that Japan and South Korea may want to develop their own nuclear weapons programs to counter the threat from North Korea, and part of Rice's assignment on this week's hastily arranged trip is to lessen that temptation.
"Obviously an event of this kind does carry with it the potential for instability in the relationships that now exist in the region," Rice said en route to Japan, her first stop on a tour devoted almost entirely to answering North Korea's nuclear threat.
"That's why it's extremely important to go out and to affirm, and affirm strongly, U.S. defense commitments to Japan and to South Korea," Rice said.
Her diplomatic language refers to the calculus of nuclear deterrents and to the long-standing U.S. pledge to use its own nuclear arsenal to defend its friends.
Rice would not comment in detail about worries by the U.S. and other governments that the North may be preparing for a second test explosion.
"We're concerned about further action by the North Koreans," Rice said, "but further action by the North Koreans will only deepen its isolation, which is pretty deep right now."
Concern over a second test stems partly from new satellite imagery showing increased activity around at least two other North Korean sites, a senior defense official said Tuesday.
The activity, started a number of days ago, included ground preparation at one site and construction of some buildings and other structures, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it involved intelligence gathering. He said that although the purpose of the structures is unclear, officials are concerned because North Korea has left open the possibility of another test.
The White House said Tuesday that it wouldn't be surprising if North Korea were to try another nuclear test "to be provocative."
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that while it was unclear what role the U.S. military might take in enforcing new U.N. sanctions, he did not expect the United States or any other nation to do so unilaterally.
"It takes cooperation among a great many countries to participate, and things move by land, sea and air, and it's complicated, and only time will tell," he told reporters.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has ruled out developing nuclear weapons, but a ruling party policy director raised that possibility soon after the North's Oct. 9 test.
The measures passed by the U.N. Security Council over the weekend were watered down to suit China and Russia, but still impose harsh penalties. The measures ban trade with the North in major weapons and materials that could be used in its ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs. They call for all countries to inspect cargo to and from North Korea to enforce the prohibition, although it is not clear how that will work in practice.
The U.S. does not think of that as an embargo, said a senior official traveling with Rice, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Rice had not yet met with her Asian counterparts.
Earlier Tuesday, the communist North said U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing the country for its nuclear test amount to a declaration of war. The government said it would not cave under such pressure now that it is a nuclear power.
Japan and the United States have gone beyond the U.N. measures to impose or propose separate financial, trade and other restrictions on North Korea over what the U.S. claims is a pattern of lawbreaking by a rogue nation.
China has long been one of North Korea's few friends, but relations frayed in recent months when the North ignored China's warnings not to conduct missile tests or last week's nuclear test.
Although China's cooperation is key to making sanctions effective, Beijing fears that coming down too hard could topple the fragile government of Kim Jong Il or send hundreds of thousands of hungry refugees flooding across the border.
Even with full Chinese compliance, it isn't clear the sanctions can pressure North Korea to resume multicountry negotiations on dismantling its nuclear programs. The country has lived on the edge of famine for a decade and its trade with the West is severely limited by the bans the U.S. has already imposed.
South Korea has said it would fully comply with the sanctions but has also indicated it does not plan to halt key economic projects with the North, despite concerns they may help fund the North's nuclear and missile programs.
Associated Press Writers Barry Schweid, Robert Burns and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.
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FDA Is Set To Approve Milk, Meat From Clones
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Three years after the Food and Drug Administration first hinted that it might permit the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, prompting public reactions that ranged from curiosity to disgust, the agency is poised to endorse marketing of the mass-produced animals for public consumption.
The decision, expected by the end of this year, is based largely on new data indicating that milk and meat from cloned livestock and their offspring pose no unique risks to consumers.
"Our evaluation is that the food from cloned animals is as safe as the food we eat every day," said Stephen F. Sundlof, the FDA's chief of veterinary medicine, who has overseen the long-stalled risk assessment.
Farmers and companies that have been growing cloned barnyard animals from single cells in anticipation of a lucrative market say cloning will bring consumers a level of consistency and quality impossible to attain with conventional breeding, making perfectly marbled beef and reliably lean and tasty pork the norm on grocery shelves.
But groups opposed to the new technology, including a coalition of powerful food companies concerned that the public will reject Dolly-the-Lamb chops and clonal cream in their coffee, have not given up.
On Thursday, advocacy groups filed a petition asking the FDA to regulate cloned farm animals one type at a time, much as it regulates new drugs, a change that would drastically slow marketing approval. Some are also questioning the ethics of a technology that, while more efficient than it used to be, still poses risks for pregnant animals and their newborns.
"The government talks about being science-based, and that's great, but I think there is another pillar here: the question of whether we really want to do this," said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America.
That there is a debate at all about integrating clones into the food supply is evidence of the remarkable progress made since the 1996 birth of Dolly, the world's first mammalian clone, created from an udder cell of an anonymous ewe.
Scientists have now applied the technique successfully to cattle, horses, pigs, goats and other mammals. Each clone is a genetic replica of the animal that donated the cell from which it was grown.
Cloning could solve a number of long-standing farm problems. Many prize males are not recognized as such until long after they have been tamed by castration. With cloning, that lack of semen would not matter. Cloning also allows farmers to make many copies of exceptional milk producers; with natural breeding, cows have only one offspring per year, and half are males.
In the eyes of many in agriculture, cloning is simply the latest in a string of advances such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization that have given farmers better control over animal reproduction.
"Clones are just clones. They are not genetically engineered animals," said Barbara Glenn, chief of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
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Politics and KIPP
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Tracy McDaniel is a very talented educator who grew up in northeast Oklahoma City and knows that survival sometimes means a fight. He started a new middle school in his old neighborhood. His mostly low-income African American students were doing better than anyone expected. But city school administrators told him that despite his rising test scores, school budget cuts meant he could not recruit more students. His dream of helping more kids like himself was dead.
The name of the school founded by McDaniel, a former Oklahoma vice principal of the year, was KIPP Reach College Prep. KIPP stands for Knowledge Is Power Program, a group of independently run public schools that have shown impressive achievement gains for low-income students and have been a frequent subject of mine. Usually I focus on how KIPP students are taught -- the longer school days, careful teacher recruitment, focus on proper behavior, instructional flexibility and complex rewards and punishments. The political problems McDaniel had to deal with irritate me and seem irrelevant to how children learn, my first interest.
But I have to admit, grudgingly, that McDaniel's battle with the school establishment in Oklahoma City is worth some attention, since he would have far fewer students, or perhaps none at all, in his classrooms today if he had not fought to save his school. His story, based on information from KIPP officials and articles in The Oklahoman, shows that even promising innovations like KIPP must do more than teach children well. There are always going to be adult scuffles going on. Winning them is important, as much as I like to avoid writing about them.
McDaniel, 50, is an unusual figure in KIPP, the group of 52 schools in 16 states and D.C. that have shown some of the largest achievement gains in the country. He is much older and more experienced than most KIPP principals, who tend to be in their late 20s or early 30s. KIPP was started by two principals in their 20s, Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg. They often found themselves at war with educators McDaniel's age who had surrendered to the get-along-to-go-along, bureaucratic impulse.
But McDaniel was a very different breed of educator. When Oklahoma City superintendent Bill Weitzel picked him to be the city's first KIPP principal, he displayed the energy and optimism of a teenager. He went through the six month KIPP leadership training. He won school board approval to start his school in the summer of 2002. But the board's contract had a flaw. State law made it valid for only one year. When Weitzel suddenly resigned in January 2003 leaving McDaniel with no bureaucratic protector, both he and KIPP Reach were in trouble.
Hopeful experiments are often threatened by changes in district leadership. Weitzel's replacement told McDaniel and KIPP officials that he wanted KIPP Reach to operate more like a traditional school, remaining under the control of the school board and superintendent. Both he and the board said they would not allow it to become a independently run charter school, as most KIPP schools are, because that would mean raising the per pupil payment to the school from $3,563 to $4,400. They said the district couldn't afford it.
McDaniel, with the help of Feinberg, KIPP Foundation founder (and GAP store magnate) Don Fisher, foundation president Scott Hamilton, foundation general counsel John Kanberg, foundation spokesman Steve Mancini and several others in the organization, worked to build public and political support for the school. Oklahoman editorial writer Christy Watson and education reporter Michael Bratcher, and local NBC reporter Quin Tran, were all invited to visit. In their reports, they emphasized the vibrancy of the teaching and the fact it outscored almost all of the school district's other fifth grades.
McDaniel, a veteran of many bureaucratic wars, had some strategic tools of his own. When the district refused to increase his budget in order to force him to keep the 126 students he had but add no more, he recruited an incoming fifth grade anyway and said the budget limit would force his graduating sixth graders to go elsewhere because he would not have enough money to create a seventh grade for them. This riled their parents. Before a key school board vote, McDaniel visited local churches and inspired more than 500 people to attend the meeting.
They won those battles, but seemed likely to lose the war. The only solution, McDaniel and the KIPP people thought, was to seek charter status. City school administrators denied the application based on the "financial detriment" a new charter school would cause the district. Mancini gave copies of this decision to Bratcher at the Oklahoman, who quoted a state official saying that "financial detriment" was not one of the reasons allowed under state law for denying a charter application. In an op-ed in the Oklahoman, Louis Buchanan, a lawyer and judge who was on the KIPP Reach board, noted that the board had said no to this middle school full of black kids in the northeast part of the city, but had approved a new charter school for the arts in the city's mostly white northwest section.
Finally Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.), a powerful Washington figure who represents part of Oklahoma City, came to the rescue. Istook was one of many influential politicians who had accepted invitations to visit the school. The KIPP people stayed in regular contact with his aides and explained how the district was slowly strangling the school. Istook told the district leadership that he would reconsider supporting a federal grant if they didn't treat KIPP Reach fairly. In addition, several influential city residents, such as Inasmuch Foundation President Bob Ross, rallied behind McDaniel. Eventually Ross brokered a compromise that got the charter approved. And when there was a year's delay in getting KIPP Reach its new funds, Ross's foundation and some others made up the difference.
That's all politics, of course. I would rather write about McDaniel's warm way with students and his careful assessment of teachers. But schools live in a public arena, and it is useful to know one more lesson from the tale of KIPP Reach: All those good statistics that had won McDaniel so much political support turned around and bit him. Just as the charter deal had been completed, the third year results were tabulated and scores in some subjects went down. In the Oklahoman, Bratcher covered the test score drop in detail and Watson in an editorial told the school it was going to have to do better.
It is refreshing to find an educational organization like KIPP that focuses on achievement, but it is a tricky game. It has to keep giving the public scores each year and openly deal with failures. McDaniel has made some staff changes and says he welcomes the easing of the political strain so he can focus on his kids. Mancini, with a candor uncharacteristic for school spokespersons, pointed out that only 35 out of the 63 students who were in KIPP Reach's first fifth grade class graduated from eighth grade four years later. He said about 40 percent of the missing students moved out of the district or out of the state, and only one was asked to leave for disciplinary reasons. More than half of those who transferred from KIPP left because they could not adjust to KIPP's long hours and high standards.
The students who did graduate did very well, and the school's scores rebounded. They all scored proficient or advanced on the state mathematics test, and all but one reached that level in reading, compared to the district averages of 63 percent in math and 59 percent in English. The Deerfield Academy, an exclusive New England boarding school, gave scholarships to three of the KIPP Reach students, which admissions director Jeff Arms said was the most scholarships ever awarded in a single year to graduates of one school.
These numbers, both good and bad, are important to determining how KIPP fits in the effort to improve education for low-income children. I am glad to get the statistics, but of course I will be among the many people demanding more every year. And that will be one more headache for a school warrior like McDaniel who knows this is all a part of the politics of making schools better.
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Burden of Proof - washingtonpost.com
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The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War
By Michael Isikoff and David Corn
In October 2002, a file of documents from the U.S. embassy in Rome arrived on the desk of one of the State Department's senior nuclear proliferation analysts. The papers had been handed over by an Italian journalist, who had been given them by an informer who had, in turn, obtained them from a mysterious source in the embassy of Niger. The documents purported to show that Niger had signed a July 2000 deal to supply Iraq with 500 tons of yellowcake uranium -- about one-sixth of the African country's annual production and a key ingredient in a uranium-enrichment process that could provide Saddam Hussein's regime with a nuclear bomb.
As Simon Dodge of the State Department's intelligence bureau began to review the documents in Washington, he soon concluded that they were fakes. One of the papers described a secret meeting in Rome at which representatives of Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya and Pakistan formed a joint "plan of action" to defend themselves against the West in alliance with "Islamic patriots accused of belonging to criminal organizations." Dodge later told Senate investigators that he considered the claim "completely implausible," or, as Michael Isikoff and David Corn put it, "something out of James Bond -- or maybe Austin Powers." Niger embassy stamps, palpably fake, linked the "plan of action" document to those depicting the Iraq deal. The papers are a hoax, Dodge e-mailed colleagues.
This was not what most in the White House wanted to hear. By October 2002, when Dodge began examining the Niger documents, the Bush administration was already accelerating its drive for war against Iraq. An authoritative demolition of one of the most dramatic parts of that case -- that Baghdad was building a nuclear weapon -- was deeply unwelcome and, coming from the diplomats at the State Department, viewed with particular suspicion by Vice President Cheney's office. Partly by accident (the CIA merely put its copy of the "obviously forged" Rome papers in a vault and left them there) and partly because it simply did not want to know, the White House remained in denial about the unreliability of the whole Niger uranium story. Fatefully, the president would use the claim in his State of the Union address in January 2003. It was the principal basis for the administration's repeated rhetorical flourish that the Iraqi smoking gun might "come in the form of a mushroom cloud." And it was a phony.
The Niger claim provides the central thread in Hubris , Isikoff and Corn's exhaustive reconstruction of the formulation and selling of the Iraq War. For those who wish to understand how one of the most powerful officials in the land -- Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- came to be under indictment for obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements arising out of the Niger story, this book is indispensable.
But Niger was not the only proffered justification for the attack on Iraq that eventually crumbled to dust in the light of day. So did the false claims of Iraqi defectors, such as the shadowy informant known as "Curveball," that Iraq possessed mobile biological laboratories, a claim that was a centerpiece of then-secretary of state Colin Powell's U.N. presentation in February 2003. So did the misguided conviction that Iraq's purchase of aluminum tubes was proof of a nuclear-arms program. So did the long-disproved claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague in April 2001, which became almost an article of faith for the administration's hawks.
There have been many books about the Iraq war, and there will be many others before we are through. This one, however, pulls together with unusually shocking clarity the multiple failures of process and statecraft that led so many people to persuade themselves that the evidence pointed to an active Iraqi program to develop weapons of mass destruction and that it was in the interests of the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
This is seemingly an eternal theme. The deeper we are drawn into Isikoff and Corn's account, the more we enter March of Folly territory. When the late Barbara W. Tuchman published her masterly 1984 account of the ruinous policies that governments have pursued through the ages, she ranged across a canvas stretching from the Trojan war to Vietnam.
To qualify as folly, Tuchman wrote, a policy must meet three criteria: It must have been seen at the time as counterproductive; a feasible alternative course of action must have been available; and the policy must have been that of a group of people, not merely a single tyrant or ruler. If ever a policy qualifies on all counts, it was the U.S.-imposed regime change in Iraq. Isikoff and Corn are reporters (for Newsweek and the Nation, respectively), not historians, but they still compel the reader to confront a further, essential dimension of folly's march. In each case -- the Niger uranium papers, the mobile labs, the aluminum tubes, the Atta-Iraq link -- there were people up and down the policy chain, including some at the very top, who either knew at the time or should have known that the claims were false or unreliable.
Many critics of the Iraq War have highlighted the ideological drive behind the invasion. Fewer have grappled with the more complex question of why it was impossible for skeptics, doubters and more scrupulous analysts to stop it. Isikoff and Corn enable us to understand better how this devastating policy tragedy played out. But as Coleridge once observed, the light of experience is but a lantern on the stern, illuminating only the waters through which we have passed. Sadly, Isikoff and Corn can't tell the next generation how to avoid such tragedies. ·
Martin Kettle is a commentator and a former U.S. bureau chief of the Guardian newspaper.
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Two reporters charge the Bush administration with using fraudulent intelligence to start a war.
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Oliver Stone Film Sets Sights on Osama Bin Laden
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LOS ANGELES - In a follow-up to his recent drama "World Trade Center," filmmaker Oliver Stone plans to direct a movie about the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, Paramount Pictures said on Monday.
The film will be based in part on "Jawbreaker," a recent book chronicling the U.S.-led assault on the al Qaeda stronghold in Afghanistan's Tora Bora region and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a spokeswoman for Paramount, which will make the film with Stone, told Reuters.
Stone and Paramount, which released "World Trade Center" in August, optioned rights to "Jawbreaker" months ago, she said, confirming a report in the Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety. Paramount is a unit of Viacom Inc.
The Oscar-winning director told Variety the book deal was kept quiet until now to prevent "World Trade Center" from being caught up in controversy surrounding the memoir, which suggests the U.S. military bungled a chance to get bin Laden.
"World Trade Center" largely avoided political overtones by focusing on heroics of two cops -- played by Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena -- who became trapped in the rubble of the Twin Towers after hijackers crashed airliners into the buildings.
Stone called it "the least political film I've made." And he insisted his objective with "Jawbreaker" similarly would be to "create compelling drama, not a polemic."
But the subject matter is bound to spark debate about the Bush administration's conduct of its war on terror, especially if the movie ends up being released in 2008 before the next presidential election.
No production date for the film has been set, and there was no word on casting decisions.
The book was written by Gary Bernstein, a CIA officer who led the so-called "Jawbreaker" paramilitary unit that helped topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Among his more controversial assertions is that bin Laden was present at Tora Bora during the U.S.-led assault on the region in 2001 but managed to slip away.
His account contradicted public statements by President George W. Bush and retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, that U.S. officials were never certain bin Laden was at Tora Bora.
Stone drew sharp criticism for his 1991 film "JFK," in which he was accused of giving credence to widely debunked conspiracy theories in his portrait of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Adding potential fuel to the fire is Stone's choice of Cyrus Nowrasteh, the producer-writer behind ABC's controversial miniseries "The Path to 9/11," to write the second draft of the "Jawbreaker" screenplay.
Nowrasteh came under fire last month from leading Democrats who claimed the ABC miniseries was filled with inaccuracies and distortions that painted the Clinton administration as slow to confront the threat of Islamic militants prior to the September 11 attacks.
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LOS ANGELES - In a follow-up to his recent drama "World Trade Center," filmmaker Oliver Stone plans to direct a movie about the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, Paramount Pictures said on Monday.
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Bankruptcy's New Era
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Sharon Moore says life "felt like a whirlwind" after her seven-month-old restaurant in Portland, Maine, failed in February.
The 38-year-old single mother said she struggled to find work and keep up payments on a small-business loan and other debts that totaled more than $18,000. Late fees and other penalties sent her finances spiraling out of control.
In July, after working two jobs still didn't make ends meet, she filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection. Under a court-sanctioned plan, her escalating penalty charges are halted, but she must make a fixed payment on her debt each month for the next five years. She can keep her house and car and, by the end, she says, will just about have repaid her obligations. Best of all, she says, "the creditor calls have stopped, and I can breathe again."
Moore is one of an estimated 450,000 people who have sought court protection from creditors since a new law took effect one year ago today that made filing for personal bankruptcy harder and more expensive. While that number may seem high, it is down by about 1 million from the average in the preceding four years.
Lawmakers, consumer advocates and industry executives say that much of the sudden drop in filings after Oct. 17, 2005, can be explained by the fact that 600,000 people filed in the two weeks before the law took effect, a scramble that was 10 times the normal level of filing over 10 business days in recent years.
But the filing rate for the first half of 2006, about 10,000 a week, is well below what could be attributed to last year's mad dash, surprising the lawmakers who wrote the legislation and the industry executives who lobbied for it. "So far, I think it is too soon to make firm judgments," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), one of the bill's chief architects.
The legislation, the most significant change to the nation's bankruptcy laws since 1978, was the culmination of a decade-long push by the credit card and auto-financing industries to make it harder for consumers to wipe out debts through bankruptcy. The new law toughened the rules with the intent of steering more debtors into a form of bankruptcy that requires people to repay more of their debts.
Typically, people file for one of two types of bankruptcy: Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. Under Chapter 7 bankruptcy, people can seek cancellation of most of their debts after some of their assets are sold to help creditors. Under Chapter 13, debtors must repay debts under a court-supervised repayment plan, as Moore is doing.
Industry executives had argued that about 10 percent of debtors filing each year for Chapter 7 under the old law, or about 100,000 people, abused the system because they could repay a large portion of their obligations and therefore should be required to do so under Chapter 13. Consumer groups and several lawmakers, mostly Democrats, argued that the number of Chapter 7 filers who misused the system is closer to 3 percent but that, in any case, the new legislation does little to weed them out.
The new law requires people seeking bankruptcy protection to pay higher filing fees and attend mandatory credit-counseling sessions with an accredited firm before and after they file. The goal is to discourage people from filing if they don't have to, and if they do, to pay off as much of their debt as possible.
Ed Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association, which fought hard for the bill, agrees that it's too soon to know the bill's impact but says the first year seems promising. "It seems to be wringing out people who abused the system, and those who really needed to file can do so," he said.
But projections about the long-term trend for bankruptcy filings vary widely. One major credit industry company privately estimates that consumer bankruptcy filings will top 1 million in 2007. The estimate was provided to The Washington Post on the condition that the company not be named because the projection is not public information. That estimate is still far below the 1.5 million in annual filings in the years before the law, though the company also predicts a "slow rate of return to historic levels."
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Sharon Moore says life "felt like a whirlwind" after her seven-month-old restaurant in Portland, Maine, failed in February.
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Lower Deficit Sparks Debate Over Tax Cuts' Role
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With great fanfare, President Bush last week claimed credit for a striking reversal of fortune: New figures show the federal budget deficit shrinking by 40 percent over the past two years, a turnaround the president hopes will strengthen his push for further tax cuts.
Bush hailed the dwindling deficit as a direct result of "pro-growth economic policies," particularly huge tax cuts enacted during his first term. "Tax relief fuels economic growth. And growth -- when the economy grows, more tax revenues come to Washington. And that's what's happened," Bush said.
Economists said Bush was claiming credit where little is due. The economy has grown and tax receipts have risen at historic rates over the past two years, but the Bush tax cuts played a small role in that process, they said, and cost the Treasury more in lost taxes than it gained from the resulting economic stimulus.
"Federal revenue is lower today than it would have been without the tax cuts. There's really no dispute among economists about that," said Alan D. Viard, a former Bush White House economist now at the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute. "It's logically possible" that a tax cut could spur sufficient economic growth to pay for itself, Viard said. "But there's no evidence that these tax cuts would come anywhere close to that."
Economists at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and in the Treasury Department have reached the same conclusion. An analysis of Treasury data prepared last month by the Congressional Research Service estimates that economic growth fueled by the cuts is likely to generate revenue worth about 7 percent of the total cost of the cuts, a broad package of rate reductions and tax credits that has returned an estimated $1.1 trillion to taxpayers since 2001.
Robert Carroll, deputy assistant Treasury secretary for tax analysis, said neither the president nor anyone else in the administration is claiming that tax cuts alone produced the unexpected surge in revenue. "As a matter of principle, we do not think tax cuts pay for themselves," Carroll said.
But, he said, "we do think good tax policy can lead to important economic benefits. . . . The size of the tax base is larger than it would have been without the tax relief."
The subtleties of that argument have been lost on the campaign trail. With less than three weeks to go until the Nov. 7 election, Republicans are promoting the good fiscal news, eager to talk about something other than the House page scandal and mounting casualties in Iraq.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) claimed credit for "driving down the deficit" and accused Democrats of plotting to roll back the tax cuts if they win a majority in the House, a move Hastert said "would destroy jobs and hurt the economy." Bush, meanwhile, called on Congress to permanently extend the cuts, which are scheduled to expire by 2010, at an additional cost to the Treasury of $2.2 trillion by 2016, according to CBO estimates.
Democrats criticized the president for celebrating a deficit that still ranks among "the largest in our nation's history," as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California put it. And they pointed to CBO projections that the deficit will rise again next year and balloon in coming decades as 78 million retiring baby boomers make claims on Social Security and Medicare.
"The truth is that the administration's fiscal policies have failed," said Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.), the senior Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee. "They have not benefited most Americans. They have dramatically worsened our long-term budget outlook. And they are putting our fundamental economic security at risk."
Without question, the deficit is receding. Despite spending swollen by storm cleanup on the Gulf Coast and the war in Iraq, the deficit fell to $248 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, down from a record $413 billion in 2004, as higher tax receipts poured into the government's coffers.
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With great fanfare, President Bush last week claimed credit for a striking reversal of fortune: New figures show the federal budget deficit shrinking by 40 percent over the past two years, a turnaround the president hopes will strengthen his push for further tax cuts.
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Landscaper Is Slain in SE; Man Charged
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A landscaper who lived in Mount Pleasant was shot and killed yesterday morning as he mowed grass at an apartment complex in Southeast Washington, police and residents said.
Jose Villatoro, 35, was shot several times in the head and body about 11 a.m. in the 2600 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, in Anacostia's Parkchester housing cooperative. He died at the scene.
Police said they have not determined a motive. They arrested a suspect minutes after the shooting: Lankward Harrington, 22, who was charged with first-degree murder.
Lt. Robert Glover of the police department's violent crimes branch said the homicide was an "unusual occurrence" in that area because landscapers and other workers generally do not have trouble with residents and visitors in the community.
Neighbors agreed, saying Villatoro, who lived in the 3200 block of Mount Pleasant Street NW, was at the complex simply to do his job.
"These people who come and cut the grass, they don't have money. They're just like us," said Scott D'Angelo, who lives a half-block from the crime scene. "This is just a senseless act of murder."
Police received the first report of the shooting from new technology that recognizes the sound of gunfire. A device known as the "ShotSpotter" recently was installed in the area and helped police pinpoint the location of the shooting.
A landscaper who works for Virginia-based GMI Professional Landscape Services sat on a truck yesterday afternoon with red, watery eyes and bloodstained gloves. He said he worked with Villatoro and was working near him when Villatoro was shot. A man in a GMI landscaping truck, who would not identify himself, instructed the landscaper not to talk to a reporter. He said the company did not want to discuss Villatoro or the shooting.
Parkchester resident Rhonda Pratt, who also lives a half-block from the killing, said she heard three shots about 11 a.m. as she was having breakfast. She said it is common to hear gunfire there, and she did not immediately look outside.
"You hear gunshots and you don't immediately move," Pratt said. "You have to be careful."
D'Angelo, who was with her, went out to see what happened. He said he saw Harrington lying there and a wallet on the ground. The hand-held grass cutter Harrington had been using was still running.
"It gives this whole area a black eye because of what some crazy fool did," D'Angelo said.
Harrington was arrested two blocks away from the scene when officers saw him walking by Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school. He matched the description of the shooter that went out over the police radio: a man wearing a black tank top and carrying a black backpack. Police approached him, searched his bag and found a gun believed to be the murder weapon, Cmdr. Joel Maupin said. A witness identified Harrington as the shooter, police said.
Harrington, of the 200 block of 56th Street NE, was charged with first-degree murder while armed, being a felon in possession of a firearm and other gun-related charges.
Firetrucks came by the scene several hours after the shooting and used hoses to wash away Villatoro's blood. Then the police took down their yellow crime scene tape and reopened the street.
Residents walking back to their apartments had to step over the large wet spot on the pavement where the blood had been. Several made faces and tiptoed over it, then headed home, not looking back.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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A landscaper who lived in Mount Pleasant was shot and killed yesterday morning as he mowed grass at an apartment complex in Southeast Washington, police and residents said.
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Diminished Body, Persevering Spirit
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KENNETT SQUARE, Pa. -- In the middle of the night, when a rhythmic routine settles over the intensive care unit at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center, nurse Jamie DeFazio marvels at the patient in her care.
"Sometimes it's just the two of us sitting there," she said. "He's easy when he's sleeping. You can pet him, and he's not the macho guy, and you say, 'Horse, do you even know how many people care about you?' I think he knows he's special, sitting there one-on-one with him."
Five months after he shattered his leg moments into the Preakness Stakes, Barbaro no longer looks like the majestic animal whose quicksilver blend of speed and stamina won the Kentucky Derby and made him an overwhelming favorite to capture racing's Triple Crown.
Yet, Barbaro has overcome enormous odds thanks to some of the most advanced medical care ever given to a horse -- and to a small group of doctors and nurses who have fed, washed, walked and otherwise nurtured him.
When Barbaro arrived at New Bolton, he had massive injuries to his rear right leg -- a fractured cannon, sesamoid and long pastern bone. Most horses would have been euthanized. Instead, a complex, painstaking operation followed that included the insertion of a titanium plate and 27 screws in an effort to stabilize the leg and save his life.
The lower half of his leg remains encased in a large, heavily taped fiberglass cast. His left rear hoof, removed in surgery in July after the onset of a life-threatening case of laminitis, a debilitating inflammation, continues a creeping regeneration that will take at least six more months. A protective boot over the stump recently was replaced by heavy bandages.
Largely confined to a stall in the intensive care unit, the bay colt's battle for life has left visible marks. His muscular frame has atrophied. His left side is scarred from blistering during surgery and a bulbous sore from lying down when he couldn't stand. When he is led out for daily late-afternoon grazing, he lurches gingerly. Still, the staff at New Bolton is hopeful.
"He was a tremendous physical specimen," said Dean Richardson, the chief surgeon who performed the surgery the day after Barbaro broke down and has shepherded his recovery. "For all his problems, he's in excellent physical condition."
DeFazio, who grew up in Kennett Square and went to camps at New Bolton as a child, was watching the Preakness on television the afternoon of May 20 when she saw Barbaro pull up at Pimlico Race Course. "I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, it's over, and it's going to be devastating for our community, especially since I live" near Barbaro's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, she said.
DeFazio, 27, works the midnight to 5 a.m. shift at New Bolton every other week. She was scheduled to work that night. After the race ended, DeFazio took a nap -- missing further coverage of the tragedy on the evening newscasts -- then got ready for work. When she arrived at New Bolton at 10 p.m., she learned that the horse in her care would be Barbaro.
"When I got in and saw him, I was just awestruck," she said. "He looked like an athlete in his prime. I half wanted to cry and half was excited. You didn't know how to explain it: He's a horse -- one of our patients -- but he's Barbaro, and he won the Derby, and he's all over the news, and he's right in front of me, and I need to make sure he makes it through the night."
Much of the country also was fixated on Barbaro's plight. While many people just wanted to see the Derby winner survive, others debated whether he was only being saved for a chance to earn millions in stud fees. The Jacksons, who had never seen one of their horses suffer a serious injury, said they would have gone to the same great lengths for even the lowliest gelding.
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Get sports news,schedules,rosters for Washington Redskins,Wizards,Orioles,United,Mystics,Nationals. Features Washington DC,Virginia,Maryland high school/college teams,Wilbon and Kornheiser from The Washington Post.
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Jamison Wants More Than Good Numbers
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CHARLOTTE, Oct. 16 -- Antawn Jamison's storybook first season with the Washington Wizards is encapsulated in a picture that hangs in the locker room at Verizon Center: Jamison is smiling and hugging team owner Abe Pollin on the night the Wizards clinched a playoff berth in 2005 -- an image that is hauntingly reminiscent of the bear hug Wes Unseld gave Pollin after the Bullets won the championship in 1978.
But here is an easily overlooked fact about Jamison's two years in Washington: He had his best statistical season as a Wizard last season.
It didn't feel like it, though. Jamison averaged at least 20 points for just the third time in eight seasons, grabbed a career-high 9.3 rebounds and played in all 82 games but he didn't make the all-star team and was benched for two games in December. The Wizards also had fewer regular season wins (for which Jamison blames himself) and the team failed to get out of the first round of the playoffs.
Entering his ninth season in the league, Jamison, 30, knows that statistics in the NBA can be hollow, that respect comes with wins, not 20 and 10. "Everybody says '20 [points] and nine [rebounds], I'll take that,' " Jamison said. "Back in the day [it would've meant something], but maybe it's a sign of my maturity, but I see the bigger picture. I see it as a sign that it's not about 20 and nine or 20 and 10. It's about 16 wins in the playoffs.
"I'm at a point in my career where I realize I don't have another nine years left in me. The closer and closer you get to that -- the realization that you're not going to be in this game forever -- you think, 'What do you want to be known as?' For me, it's a guy who was able to hoist that trophy above his head."
And unfortunately, the haunting image from last season that sticks with most Wizards fans -- and will never grace the hallways of Verizon Center -- is of Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James dribbling around Jamison along the baseline for a driving bucket with 0.9 of a second remaining in overtime of Game 5.
"It wasn't a great year, wasn't an ideal season. The numbers were decent, but I just looked at it [and] I didn't help my team at all," Jamison said. "I think I did hurt the team with my play last year. Not playing up to par. Not playing up to my standards. I'm my harshest critic."
Jamison said he has constant flashbacks from last season, which he will use as motivation this year, including the times Gilbert Arenas had to urge him to shoot the ball ("You know that's not me," he said), the phone call when Coach Eddie Jordan benched Jamison in favor of Michael Ruffin to help establish a defensive mind-set for the team ("That situation wouldn't normally happen," he said). Jamison said his poor play in late November and early December cost the Wizards "about seven, eight, nine games" and contributed to the team struggling to get into the playoffs, let alone failing to get home-court advantage in the first round.
Although Jamison was recovering from offseason surgery in his right knee, he refused to use that as an excuse. And, while he was able to bounce back with a strong finish, Jamison said getting off to a better start this season is imperative. He added that his goals are to get tougher and to not be a liability on defense.
"I'm more focused this season and I'm trying to go after it," Jamison said after scoring 22 points on 9-for-14 shooting in the Wizards' 100-91 preseason win against the Charlotte Bobcats on Monday. "Expectations are a bit higher than normal around here. I'm the guy that not only has to make [my teammates] believe but really think we have an opportunity to be successful.
"This team feels and we know we can beat anybody in the Eastern Conference. I can pick any team and ask them, 'Do you want to play this team in a seven-game series?' " Jamison said. "We don't have anything to play for but a championship. In the past, it was about getting to the playoffs and seeing what you can do. Now, that approach -- it's old. We've been there. Now it's time to take that next step."
Jamison is coming off an offseason in which he finished the two-year process of building his dream home in suburban Charlotte and discovered that his wife, Ione, is expecting to give birth to his third child, a baby boy. Jamison also was a member of the U.S. men's national team that won a bronze medal at the FIBA World Championship in Japan.
Understandably, Jamison was unhappy with his limited playing time, but he didn't take the approach of Arenas, who threw verbal darts at USA Basketball when his stint was complete. "I think I was more realistic about it. It's more politics than anything," Jamison said after averaging 3.6 points and 1.7 rebounds in seven games. "It's an experience that I'll always cherish. It was finally being recognized that I'm one of the best players in the league. I felt like I belonged. I learned a lot of things that can help out this team."
Jamison smiled when he thought about the trade in June 2004 from the Dallas Mavericks that helped bring him and the Wizards to such heights. And the Charlotte native chuckled when he remembered that before he was traded to Washington, he was hoping the Mavericks would leave him unprotected in the expansion draft so that the Bobcats could take him. Jamison now hopes to retire as a Wizard.
"Until I give it up, this is a situation that I want to be in," said Jamison, who is signed through 2008. "People labeled me as a guy who could never lead a team to the playoffs. A selfish guy. All those things have changed. Now, the only tag on me is, 'Can he win a championship?' But I'm glad I'm in that situation. To me, it's all about winning now."
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Forward Antawn Jamison had his best statistical season as a Wizard last year, but statistics ring hollow to the nine-year vet without success on the court.
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Lawyer Sentenced for Aiding Terrorist Client
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NEW YORK, Oct. 16 -- Lawyer Lynne Stewart was sentenced Monday to 28 months in prison for helping a terrorist client communicate with his followers, a far less severe sentence than the 30 years sought by federal prosecutors.
As U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl delivered his sentence in a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan, Stewart lifted her glasses and dabbed at tears while her husband gave a tight hug to their daughter. An hour later, the 67-year-old lawyer emerged from the federal courthouse holding hands with her granddaughter and grandson and, to loud cheers and applause from hundreds of supporters, declared a victory of sorts over the Bush administration.
"The judge did a fair and right thing," she told a thicket of reporters and television cameras, as a supporter placed a bouquet of roses in her arms. "This is a great victory against an overreaching government."
And of her sentence, she sounded almost jaunty: "As my clients say to me, 'I could do that standing on my head.' "
In fact, Koeltl made it clear that Stewart had committed a serious offense by smuggling messages between her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and his followers in the Middle East, including a statement withdrawing the sheik's support for a cease-fire with the Egyptian government. Stewart's actions, Koeltl said, constituted "extraordinarily severe criminal conduct" and material support for terrorism, and could have had "lethal consequences."
Koeltl noted, however, that neither Stewart's actions nor those of her co-defendants, translator Mohammed Yousry and Rahman aide Ahmed Abdel Sattar, resulted in violence in the United States or overseas. Having lashed Stewart for her criminal conduct, the judge executed a pivot, commending her for leading an otherwise exemplary life as a legal advocate for the poor, despised and dispossessed. Many of her clients have been known for their radical views.
"Ms. Stewart performed a public service, not only to her clients but to the nation," Koeltl said. "She's made an extraordinary contribution."
Taken as a whole, the judge argued, her accomplishments amounted to a strong argument for departing from nonbinding federal guidelines that otherwise might have led him to impose a 30-year sentence.
Koeltl's decision to mete out a comparatively mild sentence amounted to a slap at federal prosecutors in a case that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft repeatedly had hailed as a nationwide model. U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia released a statement expressing disappointment and held out the possibility of appealing the sentence. It is not unusual for a federal appeals court to reverse a sentence handed out by a lower court.
More than a few legal observers divined a message in the judge's sentences.
"There's no doubt the government has tried to use this case to chill effective advocacy in terror cases," said Neal R. Sonnett, a former federal prosecutor, past chair of the American Bar Association's criminal justice section and current chair of the association's task force on the treatment of enemy combatants. "I'm delighted the judge was not swayed by the frenzy over terrorism."
More conservative legal commentators -- including Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted Rahman -- had urged the court to impose a stiff sentence on Stewart.
When the government convicted Rahman in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York landmarks, prosecutors and prison officials imposed stringent restrictions on his contact with the outside world. By smuggling out the sheik's messages, they said, Stewart strayed far across the invisible boundary between zealous advocacy and criminal conspiracy.
Stewart acknowledged as much in a letter to Koeltl before her sentencing. "I inadvertently allowed those with other agendas to corrupt the most precious and inviolate basis of our profession -- the attorney-client relationship," she wrote.
Koeltl also rejected the government's request for a 20-year sentence for Yousry, the translator, meting out a far shorter sentence of 20 months. Yousry, prosecutors acknowledged during the trial, was not a practicing Muslim, disliked fundamentalism and did not believe in violence; nonetheless they successfully argued that he -- at Stewart's direction -- had helped Rahman take his messages to the outside world.
Koeltl gave a far more substantial 24-year sentence to Sattar, a postal worker and legal aide who was found to have spoken by phone with known terrorists in the Middle East. This sentence, however, still fell short of the sentence requested by prosecutors.
The judge allowed Stewart and Yousry to remain free while they appeal their convictions, a process that could stretch for more than a year. This will enable Stewart, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, to continue to receive treatment.
"Am I surprised? I'm happy," Stewart's attorney, Elizabeth Fink, said afterward as she walked north from the courthouse toward a celebration in Chinatown. "It could have been much, much worse."
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NEW YORK, Oct. 16 -- Lawyer Lynne Stewart was sentenced Monday to 28 months in prison for helping a terrorist client communicate with his followers, a far less severe sentence than the 30 years sought by federal prosecutors.
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Homes Raided In Rep. Weldon Influence Probe
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The investigation focuses on actions the Pennsylvania congressman took that may have aided clients of the business created by his daughter, Karen Weldon, and longtime Pennsylvania political ally Charles Sexton, according to three of the sources.
A grand jury, impaneled in Washington in May, has obtained evidence gathered over at least four months through wiretaps of Washington area cellphone numbers and has scrutinized whether Weldon received anything of value, according to the sources. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.
The investigation focuses on Weldon's support of the Russian-managed Itera International Energy Corp., one of the world's largest oil and gas firms, while that company paid fees to Solutions North America, the company that Karen Weldon and Sexton operate.
The congressman, for example, intervened on Itera's behalf when U.S. officials canceled a federal grant to the company. He also encouraged U.S. companies to do business with Itera at a time when its reputation had been sullied by accusations of Russian corruption.
Weldon said in a prepared statement that he had done nothing wrong and would cooperate in the investigation "100 percent." Michael Puppio, a campaign spokesman, said Weldon hoped that "reliance on leaks would cease and the media would rely on facts that are verifiable."
Weldon said that the House ethics committee looked into the allegations in 2004 "and found that I had engaged in no wrongdoing." He said he was "extremely disappointed that we are discussing this topic three weeks before an election that could determine control of Congress."
Yesterday's raids of six locations in Pennsylvania and Florida were moved up in part because of leaks about the investigation late last week, according to two of the sources. Top federal prosecutors supervising the inquiry concluded early this month that they were progressing significantly on another front in the investigation and did not want to make their work public too soon by conducting searches, especially so close to the Nov. 7 elections.
McClatchy Newspapers reported Saturday that the FBI had recommended that Justice Department officials investigate Rep. Weldon's actions, leading to yesterday's searches.
Debra Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office, confirmed that the locations included the homes of Karen Weldon and Sexton; the suburban Philadelphia offices of Solutions North America; and the downtown Philadelphia offices of John Gallagher, a lawyer who represented Russian companies linked to Itera.
Two other sites searched were the U.S. headquarters of Itera International in Jacksonville, Fla., and a Jacksonville home, the sources said.
Prosecutors are usually loath to conduct raids against a public official so close to an election. But some involved in the investigation debated whether holding off could also appear to have been influenced by the election, sources said.
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Federal agents raided the homes of Rep. Curt Weldon's daughter and one of his closest political supporters yesterday as part of an investigation into whether the veteran Republican congressman used his influence to benefit himself and his daughter's lobbying firm, according to sources familiar with...
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How many ways can you confuse the new rules about bringing liquids and gels through airport security? Lots, apparently. Security lines in many airports have been jammed as a result, said Darrin Kayser, spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.
The rules state that you may bring through security as many three-ounce (or smaller) containers that will fit into a one-quart zip-top plastic bag. Here are common mistakes:
· Emptying liquids and gels into the bag. "It happens," Kayser says. Reader Butch Titcomb of Chester, Va., reports that he witnessed one case in Charlotte in which a woman had poured her toiletries into separate baggies and carefully labeled each "shampoo," "hand lotion," etc. She told security she had weighed each bag to make sure it wasn't more than three ounces. Officials let her through, but don't count on that.
· Putting large bottles into the bag, then claiming that all but three ounces has been used. "Security officials don't have scales and can't be expected to weigh each container," Kayser says. "That would create very long lines."
· Bringing more than one quart-size d bag per traveler.
· Bringing huge plastic bags. Quart-sized baggies are 7.5 by 8 inches, and the box is labeled "quart-sized."
· Bringing bags that fold at the top . Zip-top bags have a little piece of plastic that fits into a track, like a zipper.
· Bringing mesh bags . Yes, you can see through a mesh bag, but that's beside the point. You must use a zip-top bag.
Questions? Check the TSA Web site: http://www.tsa.gov/ .
You'd have to look closely to find evidence of Hurricane Wilma's devastation of Cancun a year ago. An extensive beach recovery project has been completed along the Mexican area's 12 miles of coastline, and all but a handful of Cancun's hotels and attractions are running at full capacity, says Lourdes Salazar, spokeswoman for the Cancun Hotel Association.
Not only have property owners made repairs, but many are making improvements : A complete overhaul of the golf course at the Hilton Cancun Golf and Spa Resort is expected to be completed by December. The Ritz-Carlton Cancun has a new culinary center. The J.W. Marriott Cancun Resort and Spa features a redesigned pool area and lobby. And the CasaMagna Marriott Cancun Resort has a new children's playground area. Both Marriott properties have been outfitted with windows designed to withstand Category 5 hurricanes.
Even though the current storm season has been less treacherous than last year's, those bound for Cancun before the hurricane season officially ends in November should ask their hotels what measures have been taken to protect or evacuate guests if necessary.
As for post-hurricane rate breaks, you're out of luck. With strong bookings at most hotels through the holidays and beyond, CoGo could find none offering significant discounts.
Shop for bargains at a New York City fundraiser Nov. 9 and 10. For access to "Lucky Shops," you pay $65 the first day or $40 the second (if bought in advance) and get discounts while raising money for infants and toddlers. Details: 866-458-2598, http://www.luckyshops.com/ . . . Call from London to the United States for as little as 4 cents a minute with a new phone card. Details: http://www.visitlondon.com/ . . . Call 877-FIND-ATM to get a text message on your mobile phone telling you the closest ATM that accepts MasterCard.
United has a sale to destinations throughout Colorado's Rocky Mountains for travel through Dec. 15. The round-trip fare from Washington Dulles to Eagle County Airport near Vail is $339, including taxes; the fare usually starts at about $477. Buy by Thursday Oct. 19 at www.united.com, or pay $15 more by calling 800-864-8331; seven-day advance purchase required. Cheapest fares apply to Monday, Tuesday and Saturday travel; blackout dates are Nov. 22 and 26.
Reporting: Cindy Loose, Gary Lee
Help feed CoGo. Send travel news, road reports and juicy tattles tocogo@washpost.com. By fax: 202-912-3609. By mail: CoGo, Washington Post Travel Section, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.
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How many ways can you confuse the new rules about bringing liquids and gels through airport security? Lots, apparently. Security lines in many airports have been jammed as a result, said Darrin Kayser, spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.
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Post Magazine: The State of the Plate
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Washington has become a culinary powerhouse, thanks to hot chefs, hip dining rooms and affluent customers eager for fabulous food, asserts Tom Sietsema , whose annual dining guide appeared in this week's Washington Post Magazine .
Today, Sietsema will be online fielding questions and comments.
Tom Sietsema is the Washington Post's food critic.
Tom Sietsema: Whew! It's done! Time to go on the diet ...
Puttting the annual dining guide together is like writing a book every year. I start visiting restaurants in May, get really busy over the summer months and typically don't turn in my last review until mid-September (or even later, if my editor lets me).
I hope you like what you see. I certainly enjoyed working on the project.
Bring on your questions and comments.
All that eating out!: Tom, I think you said in a previous chat that you eat out 50 - 60 times per month?!? Do you ever get sick of it? Don't you ever want to stay home and have something simple? There's not much that beats a PB&J in your PJ's!! =D
Tom Sietsema: I don't get tired of eating out, but I DO miss cooking at home. My refrigerator is filled with coffee beans and wine and not much else.
People who do what I do often crave simple things -- scrambled eggs, a good burger -- because their work lives are filled with a lot of what's fancy, new or otherwise hot.
Roast chicken sounds pretty tempting right now.
Arlington, Va.: Do you regard all three branches of Jaleo as equally strong? It seems like they each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but your guide and past reviews tend to lump them together.
Tom Sietsema: The Jaleo in Washington's Penn Quarter -- the original tapas restaurant -- is my favorite.
How long do you usually give a new restaurant after it opens to work out the kinks? A lot of times, my friends and I want to try a new place we see right away, but much like "The Rules", we tend to stay away for the first couple of weeks.
Tom Sietsema: I give a new restaurant about a month to work out any kinks before visiting multiple times for a formal critique. So much can change in those first 30 days, and I don't want to write about what is essentially a moving target. It's not fair to the restaurant or useful for readers.
Alexandria, Va: Tom, know this question is not about the Dining Guide, (which BTW was great as always), but our whole office is waiting and wondering intently -- when is Bebo's Trattoria opening in Crystal City?
Tom Sietsema: I believe Bebo begins serving lunch this Wednesday.
Fairfax, Va: Hi Tom, Enjoyed the dining guide as always, but have a general question: in your lists of the restaurants by location and cuisine, why not also include the star rating for each? It would be nice to have all the ratings as part of these lists without having to separately refer back to the individual writeup for each restaurant to get its rating. Seems like an easy fix....(guess I put alot of stock in your stars!)
Tom Sietsema: Space is always a consideration. I guess I'd rather fit in a couple extra reviews than a side bar repeating information. But we'll consider your suggestion, which is a good one, for next year.
Foggy Bottom, Washington, DC: Tom, One thing I don't quite understand about your new dining guide is the numbering system. I'm assuming each restaurant within each subject is number by preference, yet the corresponding stars don't quite add up (i.e. a 2.5 star restaurant is first, followed by a 3 star restaurant second). How should the reader interpret this?
Tom Sietsema: Easy. The restaurants are listed alphabetically in each category.
Given all of the examples that uniquely exist in our fair city I was curious why there was not a single Ethiopian restaurant listed in your ethnic best bets? You've hinted recently that some former favorites have slipped, but have they slipped so far that not a single one merits a recommendation? Not doubting your judgment, just wondering why such a staple of local cuisine (and one that always comes up as something D.C. should be proud of) is completely absent.
Tom Sietsema: I knew I'd get this question, and it's a good one. For the guide, I went back to a few Ethiopian restaurants that I previously liked and didn't find one that was noticeably better than the others. Etete is fine -- period. I enjoyed it a lot more a year ago. Given how much more I liked the work at the other places in the "ethnic" category, I decided not to include an Ethiopian representative this time around.
Thanks so much for doing such a great job each week. I know that it must be a major effort to winnow down all your reviews to the dining guide. I don't have any major quibble with the guide, though I am suprised that there was no Ethiopian restaurant in the Ethnic section, and I had hoped that Urban BBQ would be mentioned again, but that is because I live near enough to go often and love their wings.
I guess my question is, how did you decide to use the format you did instead of just saying that "I think these are the 40 or 50 best restaurants in the DC area."
Tom Sietsema: Every year, I aim to come up with a riff on the popular "favorites" theme. My first year, I told readers where I would spend my own money. Another year, I spilled the contents of my little black (restaurant) book. Last year, I put the restaurants in categories defined by occasions. This year it was so obvious: DC has become a fabulous city to eat in. The guide is my supporting evidence of that theory.
Capitol Hill, Washington DC: Tom--I notice that none of Jeff Tunks's restaurants are included in this year's guide. In recent chats, you have said that both Ceiba and Ten Penh have been performing below their previous high levels, and I haven't heard a word about DC Coast in some time. What's going on with his restaurant group, in your opinion?
Tom Sietsema: Honestly? I think filling seats and making money has become more of a priority for the company than serving great food. While the service at all four restaurants is good, the food is middling at best. It's sad.
Loved the Dining Guide (again). My question: With thousands of restaurants in the Metro DC area, how in the world do you choose which ones to review?
Tom Sietsema: Well, it's my job to stay on top of the scene. For this year's guide, each restaurant had to be a place that contributed to making DC the great food city that it is.
Washington, DC: TOM: do you have any thoughts about Butterfield 9? I want to treat my wife to a night out and I've heard some good things about the place. Is it worth the trip?
Tom Sietsema: Yep. Butterfield 9 is delicious again.
I noted that you gave 2 Amys and 1789 both 3 stars. I DID read the review of both, of course, but still don't understand the fascination with 2 Amys' pizza--the 3 times I've been there, the edges were burnt, and the toppings did not go anywhere NEAR the crust. Please consider this question--I do value your opinion and truly do not understand.
Tom Sietsema: I've eaten at Two Amys about 15 times over its life. I love the crust, which I could it all by itself, and I prefer that the round not be piled high with toppings. I like other things about the experience, too: the thoughtful wine list, the scrumptious appetizers and desserts, the relatively affordable cost.
I know others who disagree with me - one friend asks for his pie to be burnt, but he never gets it that way -- and wonder where they prefer to reat pizza in the area.
Has Mark and Orlandos suffered a drop off since your initial review or were they a victim of limited space and a plethora of noteworthy restaurants?
Tom Sietsema: I'm charmed by the owners and the space -- and some of the cooking. But in the end, I obviously didn't include it because there were other places I thought were more significant.
S. Rockville, Md: Do you offer up advice for national magazines when they rate or review DC-area restaurants? There's a national magazine that recently mentioned a couple of newish DC restaurants, and I wonder if they got the word from you.
Tom Sietsema: I get calls all the time from magazines and other publications, asking me for tips and suggestions. In some cases, magazines also call publicists (PUBLICISTS) in different markets, which is why you see places like --- well, I won't go there today -- getting raves in print when in fact they don't even rate very well in their own market!
Washington, DC: The one thing I missed was this: I think the best oysters I've ever had in the USA are at Old Ebbitt. I know the rest of the menu is corporate-flat, but in terms of your theme, whaddaya think?
Tom Sietsema: I've raved about the bivalves there in the past. But this wasn't an oyster issue. ;)
Washington, D.C.: Were there any "borderline" restaurants - ones that at the last second you decided against including?
Tom Sietsema: Yes. In the last week, I raced back to four or five places to have another taste of them.
How do you account for the dramatic disconnect between your review of Buck's Fishing and Camping and the average reader review of One Star (from 14 reviews!), the lowest rating possible? Could you be getting treatment and food different from the masses?
Tom Sietsema: Does the staff at Buck's know me? They do. Can a chef suddenly become better or worse if I'm recognized? Not likely. As I point out in my mini-review of Buck's, I haven't loved every dish and the menu could be longer. But when Carole is on, she's ON. And I love the space.
If those reader comments had real names attached, I might give them more credence. Until then, they're just ... anonymous reader reviews.
Washington, DC: Not that Washington, DC is known as the fashion capital of the world, but are there any restaurants in the area where you've just walked in and said, "Wow! They've really made an attractive spot."
Tom Sietsema: I certainly feel that way about CityZen and to a lesser extent, places like Rasika, Buck's Fishing & Camping and Jackie's.
Washington, D.C. : Do you know where chef, Sharon Banks, is offering her excellent fare?
Tom Sietsema: Fans can still find her zesty jerk chicken, fried kingfish and rum raisin bread pudding, but they have to travel to Brooklyn to do so. Earlier this year, Sharon (late of Washington's Ginger Cove/Ginger Reef) launched a small catering operation there, Yellow Yam, a nod to a staple of the Jamaican pantry. For details, e-mail yellowyam1@nyc.rr.com.
Should we consider that a four-star rating would be comparable to what, say, the New York Times would give? New York has a lot more restaurants, but their four-star ratings seem to be like a major event. I'm surprised that even as good as DC might be, that they really have four comparable four-star restaurants.
I'm thinking of my hometown, Louisville KY whose local food critic gives out 3 and 4 star ratings practically every week. There are about a dozen restaurants there with four-star ratings that would probably rate 2 to 2 1/2 stars by your ratings.
Thanks for all your hard work.
Tom Sietsema: For the most part, I compare DC restaurants to DC restaurants. Four-star establishments should be "superlative." I'd rather be conservative with stars than throw them around.
P.S. I believe the Times has given four-star ratings to seven restaurants in New York.
Downtown Washington, DC: I wholeheartedly agree with you about 2 Amy's. I love not only the pizza, but also the wine list ( on a hot summer day, the prosecco hits the spot!) The Cod Fish Croquettes are so good I want one right now! I also agree with your inclusion of the Jose Andres restaurants, they are definitly my go to when I want a great meal that doesn't break the bank, with the exception of Minibar, which I have yet to try. About Minibar, can you make special requests? My husband and I would love to try it, but he is diabetic and I can't tell if we would be able to make the chef aware prior to going.
Tom Sietsema: When you book a seat at Minibar, you will be asked if you have any dietary restrictions.
The thing that amazes me about Jose Andres is how he and his staff juggle so much so well. He and his crew prove that a company can have multiple concepts and do all of them well. That's rare, in this business.
Reston, Va: Tom: What was the most surprising establishment to drop off your list?
Washington DC: 4 stars for the Dining Guide this year! It hits high notes (and surpasses the prior 2 years) in terms of organization, presentation, utility. What is less exciting is how few surprises are in it in terms of destinations. Is DC fully explored and we just continue to plumb the same depths - or is there more on the horizon? Also does the 4-star rating for CityZen mean they have worked out their service & attitude problems? They seemed off kilter a bit earlier this year.
Tom Sietsema: Recently opened or on the horizon: PS 7's from chef Peter Smith, late of Vidalia; Roberto Donna, scheduled to open Bebo in Crystal City later this week; Michel Richard (planning Central); Robert Wiedmaier (planning Beck's); New York's Laurent Tourondel (planning BLT Steak); New York's Eric Ripert (aiming to open a place in the Ritz Carlton next year); and Ris Lacoste (considering her options in the city's West End).
I went to CityZen three times, just to make sure it merited another star. It is not perfect, but pretty close! But that's true of any enterprise run by humans, right?
Charm City: Tom- Looks like Charleston was the only Baltimore restaurant that made it into the dining guide. A much deserved accolade, IMO. Any other Baltimore establishments close to inclusion?
Tom Sietsema: You must be reading an old dining guide! Charleston is not on this year's list. As great as that restaurant remains, I wanted to concentrate on places that are nearer Washington, or more closely identified with our dining scene.
Centreville, Va: Tom, we loved your reviews yesterday. But do you have any advice on where we can take our 2 1/2 year old and our 10 month old to eat. Somewhere that doesn't have a drive thru and is close to Centreville, Chantilly area. Both do fine in restraunts. We just want t upgarde teh experience from the fast food chains and still be accepetd with kids.
Tom Sietsema: Asian restaurants tend to be good with children. Try the modestly pretty Thai Basil on Lee Jackson Memorial Highway, which has a long and varied menu.
Arlington, Va: Tom -- I know that this is not your area but I have to gripe. I keep your annual dinig guide at the ready until the next one is released (actually I usually hang on to each one for a few years). But once again the magazine arrives completely mangled. Why oh why can my Sunday magazine not arrive without a cover missing, pages torn, etc.
Great guide, by the way. I think. At least what I could read was great.
Tom Sietsema: Are you a home subscriber? Doesn't the Magazine come in plastic wrap?
Send me your address (via asktom@washpost.com) and I'll send you a "clean" copy.
Washington, DC: Tom, great job with the dining guide. But the list is growing old! Is it time to move to a new city? I know, I know Blue Duck, Rasikan and a few others are new but for the most part, the guide is full of recycled ideas. Maybe DC really only has 30 or so really good places and that's the reality?
Tom Sietsema: Recycled ideas? I don't understand your thinking. In addition to highlighting a bunch of newcomers (Ray's the Classics, Cuba de Ayer, the Oval Room, etc.), I've changed a number of star ratings. And the theme -- Washington as a top-tier restaurant destination -- is certainly news, right?
Sterling, Va: Tom, Why didn't Restaurant 2941 make the fall dining guide? I have been there, it seems to be one of the top ten in the metro area. Is there something you know that the rest of us should be told?
Tom Sietsema: I thought 2941 would make the list, too! I had high expectations going in, but my most recent visit there was not a particularly memorable one. Our white wine was served at too warm a temperature, there weren't any dazzlers among the 10 or so dishes I sampled and what used to be fun -- cotton candy presented at meal's end -- now seems dated. Dinner cost about $115 a person; for that price, I want to leave saying "Wow!" not "Huh."
Washington DC: Hi Tom, As usual you have done a great job with your dining guide. Now you need a vacation. If the editor asks you to take a paid vacation anywhere in the world, where would you like to go first? Just curious....
Tom Sietsema: Thanks for the chance to day dream ...
I'm sure you're getting a million "What about this restaurant?" questions today (and this week, and this month). I know it's tiresome but I'm curious, what about Marcel's? I think they fancy themselves one of DC's top spots for food and service (their prices certainly reflect that self-confidence), though you seem to mention them infrequently and you decided not to include them in the dining guide. Did they not fit any of your categories or are you just not that impressed? I've had incredible food there and I believe they were just named 3rd overall in DC by Zagat readers. Yeah, I don't buy into Zagat either but that does make them a significant presence in the DC scene. What are your thoughts on the place?
Tom Sietsema: I wish Robert Wiedmaier spent more time in his kitchen. He's a talent who isn't using his gifts very well (very much) these days. At the prices he charges, I want to see him in the restaurant more often.
If Bob Kinkead can do it, if Patrick O'Connell can do it, if Michel and Fabio and Eric can do it, so should Robert.
Washington, D.C.: Mostly just a comment: I think by focusing on restaurants that make DC a great restaurant city, you excluded more truly inexpensive restaurants. Obviously Kotobuki is a treasure, and I don't expect pizza places to be expensive, but Corduroy isn't really an inexpensive restaurant.
Tom Sietsema: Corduroy was one of those restaurants that could have fit into several categories. What I like about the place is, a diner can get excellent French cooking for a reasonable sum. Power is a very fine chef. I could eat his food every day.
Bowie, Md: Tom, to prevent your cover from being blown, do you pay cash when you eat alone, and ask friends to charge it when you eat with them? Also, I assume everyone working for the Post knows who you are and what you look like.
Tom Sietsema: I'm not going to answer the first question, only the second:
After six years in the building, I'm STILL meeting colleagues. And if I wear a disguise, I only do it when I'm leaving from home, not from the office. Only a few close friends and associates know my cloak-and-dagger routine.
Landrum's Tantrum: So what do you think of your chum Michael Landrum's vitriolic missive to your colleague Marc Fisher? Is he has nuts as he seems to come across in writing?
Tom Sietsema: Some call him nuts, I call him "passionate."
I have great respect for what he's done with his two restaurants.
Bethesda, Md: Hello! We're new here and enjoyed reading through your recommendations. We'd like your thoughts on the best places to eat vegetarian. Thanks!
Tom Sietsema: Welcome to Washington. For casual, meatless dining, I head to Yuan Fu in Rockville, Sunflower in Vienna and Nirvana in downtown Washington. Reviews for all three can be found online.
Arlingtondria, Va: How can you dismiss Evening Star Cafe or Tallula as neighborhood dining spots to die for? I don't get your evaluation system at all!
Tom Sietsema: It's not that hard to understand: I simply don't think either of the restaurants you mention are "to die for" and Tallula in particular gets a fair share of reader complaints.
Bravo, Dear Chap: Excellent work on the dining guide. I agree completely with your sentiments on the DC dining scene taking it to another level. Now, what can we do about Jaleo's 1 star ranking for reader reviews on the WaPo website? What are these people (admittedly only 2 reviews) smoking?
I have little control over reader reviews on this site. Keep in mind, those summations are written by people who can remain anonymous. My work, whether you agree or disagree with it, at least has a real name attached to it.
Washington, DC: Fabulous job, Tom. It was "interesting" to see an ad in this issue quoting Phyllis Richman's review of the place. Next they'll be quoting Craig Claiborne or Clementine Paddleford in their ads!
Tom Sietsema: Hey, Phyllis Richman still carries clout in this city. But I hear you about reviews and freshness. Always check the date on when a rave originally ran!
Washington, D.C.: This is a stupid question, but I'm curious, so here goes. What do you do when you're sick? Doesn't it throw your sense of smell/taste off? Do you have to scrap those tasting days? Thanks for indulging my sophomoric curiosity.
Tom Sietsema: If I have a really bad cold or something, I don't review. It wouldn't be fair to the restaurant. (Although there WAS that time in Paris, where I sat through a pricey, Michelin-starred lunch with stomach cramps because I was staring at a Postcard column deadline ...)
You're stranded on a desert island and can eat only one type of food for every meal each day. What type of food is it?
Tom Sietsema: Does wine count as food?
Maybe a rather indelicate and peripheral question, but--
How do you keep your weight in check? I'd be so tempted to eat all of everything. Do you have to exercise a lot?
Tom Sietsema: I think I gained about five or so pounds doing this guide. I'm pretty religious about hitting the gym and I rarely finish everything on my plate, since I know another meal is only hours away.
Baltimore, Md: Tom, Love the dining guide, as usual. Was curious about the decision to exclude Acadiana--were they on the borderline? I saw that Esquire recently named it one of the best new restaurants in the country(along with Rasika).
Tom Sietsema: I prefer the service to the cooking at Acadiana.
Georgetown, Washington, DC: Hi there
Great job on the Dining Guide, as always.
My impression is that Rasika is THE place to go for Indian food. Is Heritage India on upper Wisconsin still worhtwhile (or did I miss its mention)?
Tom Sietsema: I went back to Heritage India for the guide. These days, for traditional Indian cooking, I'm partial to the menu at the Bombay Club, which recently brought in some fresh kitchen talent and tweaked its menu.
Sarasota, Fla: Tom, are there ever times where when you've eaten something that you think "needs something" that you've ever brought it up to the chef?
Tom Sietsema: Rarely. My forum for those kinds of comments are in the newspaper or an online discussion, not in the dining room.
Bravo: I think your latest review is above and beyond any of your past dining guides. The writing, photography, and restaurants selected are just superb! Thank you for giving 'us' the readers a view into the magic that our restaurants are creating.
Tom Sietsema: Wow. Are we related?
Arlington, Va: Is there any reason to fear that the breakup of the personal partnership between Patrick O'Connell and Reinhardt Lynch, discussed in a recent Post article, will jeopardize the extraordinary Inn at Little Washington?
Tom Sietsema: I visited the Inn after the breakup and couldn't see or taste any difference. Those guys are pros. And they're not so foolish as to take anything away from something they've both spent decades burnishing.
Falls Church, Va: Kudos!!! As a life long DC native who has watched the restaurant scene evolve over many decades ( I won't say how many years since that would hint at my vintage, but let's just say that I remember when fine dining was defined as French only and there were mainly two to choose from, Rive Gauche and the one on 17th near the White House whose name escapes me at the moment), I am wowed at what a sophisticated food city DC has become. Though I mourn the passing of several old favorites, and rue the proliferation of national chains, I applaud the newcomers, those who are willing to risk a lot of money (it's big money), their reputation, and hard work to succeed at what is one of the riskiest business ventures one could start.
And, I'd like to say that restaurant critics' work has evolved as well, and in this case, I'm applauding you. I appreciate your efforts to provide broad coverage, well-researched and as-objective-as-you-can reviews of the DC dining scene. While I may not always share your view, I appreciate the effort you put into it and how seriously you take the service you provide. I, like another chatter today, hope that you have a well deserved vacation planned soon. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Tom Sietsema: You just made my day.
Washington DC: I think where Washington is lacking is good everyday, neighborhood kinds of restaurants. I'm sure the 4 star restaurants are exciting, but I'd be lucky to go to those places once in a year.
Where is the cheap but good pasta house now that Il Radichio is gone? Chinese better than PF Chang? Mexican better than Chipotle?
Tom Sietsema: But I DID include inexpensive and other-than-fancy ideas in the guide!
Cheap pasta: Amici Miei in Rockville
Chinese: Joe's Noodle House in Rockville
Prince George's County: Not one restaurant in Prince George's in your dining guide. Which isn't surprising since there hasn't been a mention of one Prince George's restaurant in any column you've written all year.
Tom Sietsema: Point me to something good -- and worthy of the attention of a million sets of eye balls -- and I'll show up.
Washington, DC: Hello Mr Sietsema,
Eagerly awaited your dining guide and was not disappointed.
We've booked a table for Citronelle for our 20th anniversary, and are looking so forward to it. What should we absolutely not miss?
(Also, as an aside, how do you pronounce your last name?)
Tom Sietsema: Don't miss the chef's eggplant soup - SO much sexier than it sounds -- or his mosaic of seafood.
Thanks for spending your lunch break with me, everyone. I'll be back here chatting again on Wednesday at 11 a.m., mu sual time and place. Ciao.
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An Offer Kim Can't Refuse
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Though the hour is late and the odds long, there is still a chance that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il can be persuaded to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Despite what many have suggested, this cannot be achieved simply through face-to-face negotiations or by offering security guarantees and economic aid. Kim is a cynical realist and will not exchange his nuclear capabilities for empty acts of diplomatic deference or what he would doubtless regard as mere scraps of paper. The hope that he might be tempted to ease the suffering of his people is also sadly misplaced. Kim has been described by psychological profilers as a "malignant narcissist"; he cares only for himself and is indifferent to the pain of others.
Whatever his quirks, Kim is also a cunning and rational strategist with one overriding objective: ensuring his own survival by maintaining an absolute grip on power. The only way to move him is by confronting him with a stark choice -- turn over existing nuclear weapons, dismantle production facilities and submit to rigorous international inspections, or face a steadily rising risk of overthrow and untimely death. This demand can be sweetened with promises of aid and peace pacts, but in the end Kim needs to be presented with an offer he cannot refuse.
North Korea is an impoverished nation with virtually no legitimate exports. Most of its citizens scratch out a meager subsistence. Yet Kim and those around him enjoy a life of comfort, driving powerful foreign cars, drinking expensive imported whiskey, watching bootlegged DVDs and treating their ailments with the best Western medicines.
The hard currency needed to pay for these luxuries, as well as imports essential to the North's programs for weapons of mass destruction, is generated through a variety of illicit activities: counterfeiting U.S. and other currencies, manufacturing and exporting narcotics and phony name-brand cigarettes, and selling weapons from small arms to ballistic missiles to any customer with cash.
Choking off the flow of dollars to Pyongyang would do more than cramp Kim's lavish lifestyle; it would threaten his grip on power. Like other crime bosses, Kim rewards his underlings and ensures their loyalty by letting them share the loot. Kim's extended family, the top echelons of the Communist Party, and the upper ranks of the military and security services all benefit from this arrangement.
For his part, Kim is able to sleep at night because he knows that those on whom his safety depends have a stake in his well-being. If times get tough and money grows tight, however, those people will begin to feel the pinch, the circle of beneficiaries in the spoils system will become smaller and Kim will steadily grow less secure. What Kim has to fear is not a popular uprising but a palace coup. The North's people are too beaten down and weak to stage a revolution, but Kim knows that a handful of disgruntled generals or disaffected party leaders could bring a sudden end to his brutal reign.
With the help of allies such as Japan and Australia, Washington has already taken steps to disrupt North Korean arms sales, counterfeiting and drug smuggling. Last year the United States also began to go after the network of financial institutions through which dollars flow back to Pyongyang. These initiatives need to be greatly intensified and coupled with other measures to constrict Kim's dollar lifeline.
Recently announced U.N. sanctions are a step in the right direction, but they are not enough. China must take responsibility for preventing illicit activities on or through its territory, and both China and South Korea need to ensure that whatever assistance they provide the North's people cannot readily be converted to cash by Kim and his cronies.
Seoul and Beijing have thus far been reluctant to take such steps for fear that they might provoke Kim or cause the North to collapse. The time for hesitation has long since passed. Kim may test more nuclear devices and ballistic missiles, but he is not about to attack the South or make other moves that would bring crushing retaliation. As for the danger of regime collapse, the "Dear Leader" has even more reason to fear it than do his neighbors. It should be made clear to all, including Kim, that the objective of ratcheting up financial pressure is not to topple him but to squeeze him until he chooses to abandon his nuclear ambitions.
Getting China and South Korea on board will not be easy. Both may prefer feeble gestures and empty rhetoric to tough, united action. If Seoul and Beijing remain reluctant, however, they must be made to understand that they are endangering not only the security and stability of Northeast Asia but also their future relations with the United States. The weapons Kim is perfecting could one day lay waste to an American or Asian city. Passivity in the face of this threat will lead to sharp questions from Congress and the public about the continuing value of the U.S. alliance with South Korea, to say nothing of China's supposed status as a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system.
Absent sufficient cooperation, Washington will have to weigh other risky measures. Among these are a stop-and-search blockade of North Korea's ports, secondary sanctions against companies that continue to trade with it, and aggressive criminal proceedings that could entangle individuals and institutions in other countries, including China, with unforeseeable but potentially far-reaching diplomatic and economic consequences.
The writer is a professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and a former deputy assistant for national security affairs to Vice President Cheney.
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Though the hour is late and the odds long, there is still a chance that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il can be persuaded to give up his nuclear arsenal.
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Chávez's U.N. Moment
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It's election day for Hugo Chávez -- not in Venezuela but at the United Nations General Assembly. Today a vote is due on his government's bid for a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council. Chávez has spent most of this year campaigning for the job, traveling the world and promising tens of millions of dollars in aid to poor countries in Asia and Africa whose votes he's counting on. His ambition is a big one: to become the leader of global opposition to the United States, or, as he puts it, to "radically oppose the violent pressure that the empire exercises."
There's a fair chance he'll lose. Most vote counters at the United Nations think Venezuela will fall short of the 122 General Assembly votes it needs on the first ballot, as will its opponent for the seat, Guatemala. One of the two might win on subsequent ballots, but Latin American governments are already anticipating that a third candidate from the region -- such as Uruguay or the Dominican Republic -- will end up getting the job. If so it will be a wounding rebuff for Chávez following his Bush-as-devil tirade before the assembly last month, and one that could hurt him in another vote, if it is free and fair: his bid for reelection as president in December. His opponent in that race has been hammering home the point that Chávez is squandering the country's oil revenue on foolish foreign adventures.
A Chávez defeat would save the Bush administration from embarrassment and spare the Security Council a nuisance factor. Still, there won't be much to celebrate. The fact that a clownish populist who has eagerly embraced the presidents of Iran, Belarus, Zimbabwe and Libya could even come close to getting two-thirds of the votes of the 192 U.N. members is testimony to how low U.S. prestige has sunk around the world. More specifically, it's a measure of how twisted U.S. relations with Latin America have become -- and also, how fragile the appeal of democratic values is in that region.
How twisted? Let's look at Chile, a country that has been convulsed by debate the past two months over whether to vote for or against Chávez. Chile's democratic president, Michelle Bachelet, is a moderate leftist; her government has a free-trade agreement with the United States and just took delivery of new F-16s for its air force. Some in her party were sheltered during the Pinochet dictatorship by Venezuela's then-liberal democratic government. Chávez has not only dismantled that democracy but has vociferously supported Bolivia's claim to a piece of Chile's coastline. Under a military pact he signed with Bolivia's leftist government, Venezuela is committed to building new military bases on Bolivia's border with Chile.
All this, and yet Bachelet was unable to decide on her government's vote by yesterday. Only strong opposition from the centrist Christian Democratic Party, a member of her coalition, prevented her from backing Chávez. Why? A vote for Guatemala, she told Christian Democratic congressmen earlier this month, "would be a signal of little independence from the United States," which has been pressing hard for Guatemala's candidacy, according to an account of the meeting by the newspaper El Mercurio.
In other words, as Chile's president sees it, it's better to support a budding autocrat who promises to defend Iran's nuclear program on the Security Council, and may threaten her own country's security, than to be seen as close to Chile's largest trading partner and strategic arms supplier at a time when it is trying to use the Security Council to stop Iran (and North Korea) from acquiring nuclear weapons.
This certainly says something about Chile, and neighbors Brazil and Argentina, which are also supporting Chávez: that they value Venezuela's investment in their economies more than preventing nuclear proliferation (Chávez is buying debt from Argentina and aircraft from Brazil); that solidarity with a neighbor matters more than solidarity with other democracies (probably the only votes for Venezuela in the free world will come from Latin America and the Caribbean); that their governments prefer a weaker United States to a chastened Hugo Chávez.
But this affair also underlines the continuing fecklessness of the Bush administration's approach to Latin America. There is its overreliance on faithful but small allies in Central America and its inability to come to terms with the region's giant, Brazil. There is its heavy-handed lobbying, which prompted Guatemala's foreign minister to say that he wished Washington "would not promote our cause so much." Most disturbing, there is the inability to win support from a nominally close ally such as Chile, even against an autocratic demagogue. Chávez may lose the U.N. vote, but in the contest for Latin America, the United States isn't winning.
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The fact that Venezuela has a chance at winning a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council is a measure of how twisted U.S. relations with Latin America have become.
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The Center Fails
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With Mark Warner out of the 2008 Demstakes, the chief anti-Hillary centrist is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. This is a depressing commentary on the state of the Democratic Party. Bayh may have cleared his schedule to woo Warner supporters on Thursday. But he has yet to prove himself a real contender -- and he may not be a real centrist, either.
Two weeks ago Bayh circulated a preposterous letter to his Senate colleagues. It urged them to oppose what Bayh called "documented unfair trade" in a type of steel that's used in vehicles. It noted the Commerce Department's finding that lifting the tariff on this steel would lead to dumping by foreign producers. That would hurt U.S. steelmakers, the letter continued; so when the fate of the tariff is considered at a sunset review tomorrow, it should on no account be lifted.
This is not a policy that protects workers, as Bayh's letter pretended. It's a sellout to a self-serving lobby. It would help the steel guys at the expense of the car guys, even though the car guys are hurting more and they employ more workers.
The tariff that Bayh wants to preserve is one of more than a hundred that protect the steel industry. These fortifications were erected on the theory that the steel business is inherently unfair because every nation in the world wants its own steelmaker. The creation of these national champions guarantees global oversupply of steel, or so the argument used to go. Therefore the United States had to protect itself from dumpers' unfairly low prices.
This argument was always flawed. If foreigners wanted to sell artificially cheap steel, the United States should have been happy to pocket the subsidy. But the protectionist argument is now worse than flawed, because the steel industry has changed substantially. A wave of mergers has rationalized some of the old national champions, and the alleged oversupply of steel has disappeared in the face of exploding demand from developing countries.
You can see this transformation in the steel companies' own statements. When they are lobbying senators such as Bayh, the steel guys plead that they are poor and weak and hungry. But when they are addressing investors on Wall Street, they boast that steel is scarce and that they can charge what they want for it.
If there is now a sellers' market in steel, why does the Commerce Department assert that lifting the tariff would trigger dumping? It's nice that you asked, because the answer is hilarious. The department's practice, in sunset reviews such as this one, is to rely on its original analysis -- and never mind that this dates from more than a decade ago, when the steel industry looked utterly different.
Wait, it gets better. The steel lobby has been running newspaper advertisements citing another Commerce finding: that lifting the tariff would allow foreign steel into the country at prices 10 to 36 percent below normal value. But that 36 percent margin is a fraud. The Commerce Department applied it to Nippon Steel because Nippon failed to cooperate with its review, not because Nippon is selling 36 percent below cost. During the previous go-round, when Nippon did cooperate, Commerce found a dumping margin of just 2.5 percent.
Why did Nippon refuse to cooperate with Commerce in the latest review? Nice question again: because Nippon had entered an alliance with one of the top producers in the United States and did not want to compete with its partner. In other words, consolidation generated the fraudulent 36 percent margin, but the margin is nonetheless used by the steel lobby to pretend that it remains as weak as in the pre-consolidation era.
Bayh is not the only senator to take dictation from the steel lobby. When the sunset hearing convenes at the International Trade Commission tomorrow, the steel lobby will present a petition from Sens. Arlen Specter and Jay Rockefeller, co-signed by perhaps 10 others. But Bayh stands out because centrists like him have traditionally been pro-trade and because his sights are set on the White House. Presidential aspirants are supposed to champion the national interest, not special interests.
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Presidential aspirants are supposed to champion the national interest, not special interests. Someone should tell Democratic hopeful Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana.
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Hastert's Team Mentality to Be Tested as Foley Scandal Unfolds
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On a table near the desk of the speaker of the House, nine bears sit in a wooden rowboat, eight with oars and one in charge. But the boat can't move unless the oars all row in the same direction. That's why House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) bought it.
Ever since an odd combination of scandal and turmoil catapulted Hastert into the speaker's job in 1999, the beefy former wrestling coach -- who's a bit bearlike himself -- has pushed House Republicans to work as a team. And he's had remarkable success. Largely unknown outside Washington, routinely underestimated as a powerless figurehead inside Washington, the accidental speaker has helped unify his fractious caucus, promote President Bush's agenda and expand the House's GOP majority.
VIDEO | The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei speaks about House Speaker Dennis Hastert's legacy and future career.
"That rowboat is how he sees his job," said lobbyist David Thompson, a former Hastert aide. "He wakes up every morning thinking about how he can help the Republican team."
But now the Republican rowboat is leaking, and the longest-serving GOP speaker in history is at the center of the storm.
As investigators probe whether Hastert ignored warnings about former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.), Democrats across the country are portraying him as a symbol of a see-no-evil Republican House. They say Hastert's intense partisanship repeatedly blinded him to GOP misconduct -- not only Foley's inappropriate electronic messages with teenage pages but the corruption of lawmakers such as Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), as well as Bush's missteps in Iraq and New Orleans. Even Hastert's defenders acknowledge that his top priority as speaker has been protecting the GOP majority, not investigating the president or his own caucus.
Hastert doesn't seem capable of intense anything; he has a conservative voting record but a moderate temperament. He looks like a cross between actor Wilford Brimley and Jabba the Hutt, and his unassuming Midwestern public demeanor makes for dull television. He has shown none of the restless intellectual energy of Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the frenetic revolutionary who preceded him as speaker; and he has often been dismissed as a frontman for former majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), the conservative firebrand who anointed him.
Hastert does not deliver the polished speeches and Sunday-show ripostes that typify leadership in Washington. But he sees himself as a coach, and his overriding goal is to help his team -- the Republican caucus, not the House. That team has enjoyed quite a winning streak over the past seven years. Republicans agree that if good-cop Hastert couldn't have done it without bad-cop DeLay, DeLay couldn't have done it without Hastert, either.
"Denny really smooths out the rough edges in the caucus," said former representative Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who is now Bush's budget director. "He's a kinder, gentler guy, but when he puts that big arm around you and says he needs you, it's hard to say no."
Coach Hastert is still beloved by his players, which is why he's survived the Foley mess so far. They appreciate how he listens to their concerns, shares credit and works overtime to keep the team together. He schlepped to 42 districts in August to try to maintain the GOP majority; it's no coincidence that his political arm is called the Keep Our Majority PAC.
"No one ever thinks he's put himself ahead of the team," said Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.), a 32-year-old Hastert protégé who chairs the Republican Policy Committee.
The question is whether Hastert's quiet commitment to winning at almost any cost will taint his legacy. He has always been loyal to team players like Foley, who defied his longtime supporters in the sugar industry last year to help Hastert pass a Central American trade bill. He eviscerated the House ethics committee after it admonished DeLay, and tried to change the House ethics rules to help DeLay stay in power. He didn't pay for a fundraiser he held at disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's restaurant until reporters asked about it two years later; the same month of the fundraiser, he wrote a letter opposing an Indian casino that Abramoff was trying to kill, and received $27,500 from Abramoff and five Indian tribes.
Now Hastert finds himself disputing his leadership team over what he knew about Foley, insisting he did not know about Foley's inappropriate behavior until recently, while others say they warned him last spring. He is also under fire for a multimillion-dollar windfall he earned by buying land and then promoting a federal highway nearby.
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On a table near the desk of the speaker of the House, nine bears sit in a wooden rowboat, eight with oars and one in charge. But the boat can't move unless the oars all row in the same direction. That's why House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) bought it. Denny Hastert was an unlikely...
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Dan Froomkin - Bush in a Snit - washingtonpost.com
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The notion that President Bush is not just in denial -- but is petulantly in denial -- is taking on greater credence thanks to two recent Washington Post stories.
One describes Bush's seemingly inexplicable confidence that Republicans will maintain control of both houses of Congress in the upcoming elections. He doesn't even seem to have a backup plan.
The other describes Bush's growing penchant for calling events on the world stage that he doesn't like "unacceptable" -- an awfully strong formulation in diplomatic circles -- even as his ability to affect those events continues to wither away.
Michael Abramowitz writes in Sunday's Washington Post: "Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove. . . .
"The official White House line of supreme self-assurance comes from the top down. Bush has publicly and privately banished any talk of losing the GOP majorities, in part to squelch any loss of nerve among his legions. Come January, he said last week, 'We'll have a Republican speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate.'
"The question is whether this is a case of justified confidence -- based on Bush's and Rove's electoral record and knowledge of the money, technology and other assets at their command -- or of self-delusion. Even many Republicans suspect the latter. Three GOP strategists with close ties to the White House flatly predicted the loss of the House, though they would not do so on the record for fear of offending senior Bush aides."
In a similar vein, Kenneth T. Walsh writes for U.S. News: "Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7--a concern aggravated by the president's news conference this week. . . .
"'The Bush White House has had no relationship with Congress,' said a Bush ally. 'Beyond the Democrats, wait till they see how the Republicans--the ones that survive--treat them if they lose next month.' GOP insiders are upset by Bush's seeming inability to come up with new ideas or fresh approaches. . . .
"There is also considerable criticism of Bush for making little or no news in his 63-minute encounter with the press.
"'He had nothing to say at the press conference,' says a prominent GOP insider. 'My question is, why call it?'"
Marc Sandalow of the San Francisco Chronicle examines the history of harsh words between Bush and House Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi and asks: "So if Pelosi's party wins control of the House for the final two years of Bush's presidency, can the new Democratic speaker and the Republican chief executive put aside their rhetorical disdain long enough to forge a productive relationship?"
Pelosi says yes, on her terms: "If Democrats are in control of the House, the president will have to listen," she said.
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The notion that President Bush is not just in denial -- but is petulantly in denial -- is taking on greater credence thanks to two recent Washington Post stories. Michael Abramowitz writes in Sunday's Washington Post: "Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the... Sheryl.........
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Crop Insurers Piling Up Record Profits
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In 2002, a small upstart insurance company approached the federal government with an idea. The company, Crop 1, was one of 16 firms that sold federally subsidized crop insurance policies to farmers under rates set by the government.
Crop 1's plan was modest. It wanted to introduce a slight amount of competition by offering farmers discounts of up to 10 percent on their premiums.
An eruption ensued. The other companies quickly turned to Congress to quash the idea. In congressional testimony and letters to lawmakers and regulators, they complained that competing on price threatened the "unique public-private partnership" that the companies had with the government.
With the help of several powerful members of Congress, the program was eventually derailed.
"Why would you want to kill a program that saves farmers money unless you don't like to compete?" asked Steve Baccus, chairman of the company that now owns Crop 1. "This is about keeping the status quo."
The episode illuminates the power of a collection of niche insurance companies that have made billions in profits from the federal crop insurance program, even as the government has lost billions covering the riskiest claims, a Washington Post investigation has found.
Last year, the companies made $927 million in profit, a record. They received an additional $829 million from the government in administrative fees to help run the program. On top of that, taxpayers kicked in $2.3 billion to subsidize premium payments for farmers.
All of that to pay farmers $752 million for losses from bad weather.
"We would probably be better off just giving the farmers the money directly," said Bruce A. Babcock, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University who recently published his own study of the program. "That way we would save on all of the fees going to the private insurers."
The insurance companies say they cannot afford to offer farmers coverage without the government subsidies because of the risky nature of farming. As for their profits, they say they are taking on more risk than ever and need the money to protect against a potentially catastrophic loss.
"You've got to have a good year to make up for the bad," said Sam Scheef, president of ARMtech Insurance Services, which sells federal crop insurance policies in 40 states. He added that other companies aren't "exactly rushing to get into the business."
Federal crop insurance, one of the largest pieces of the nation's costly and sprawling farm subsidy system, does not resemble any other insurance. Unlike firms that sell auto or homeowners insurance, the companies do not compete on the basis of price but on service.
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In 2002, a small upstart insurance company approached the federal government with an idea. The company, Crop 1, was one of 16 firms that sold federally subsidized crop insurance policies to farmers under rates set by the government. In 1980, Congress turned to private insurance companies and......
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Why Everyone You Know Thinks the Same as You
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You can see it the next time you visit your office cafeteria or a nearby park: Whites sitting together with whites, blacks with blacks, young people with other young people. When individuals from these groups mix, it is usually because they share something else in common, such as a pastime.
Sociologists call this phenomenon homophily, a somewhat grand word to describe the idea that birds of a feather flock together. Thinkers from Plato and Aristotle onward have observed that people seem to be drawn to others like themselves.
But while the basic idea is simple, homophily has surprisingly complex causes and consequences. Three weeks ahead of a midterm election, for example, it is playing a powerful, but largely invisible, role in politics.
Studies show that most people interested in politics associate nearly exclusively with others who have similar political beliefs. In fact, research by sociologist David Knoke at the University of Minnesota shows that if you know whether a person's friends are Republicans, Democrats or independents, you can predict with near certainty that person's political views.
Homophily may help explain some of the bitter partisanship of our times -- when your friends are drawn exclusively from one half of the electorate, it is not surprising that you will find the views of the other half inexplicable.
"I often hear people say with absolute certainty that whoever they are in favor of is obviously going to do well because they haven't talked to 'anyone' who supports the other person" in the election, said Lynn Smith-Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who has studied homophily. She rolled her eyes and said, "Oh yeah, sure! That is a good argument."
While the instinct for homophily in politics and other areas seems hard-wired, technology may be fueling our nature. Cable television and the Internet have allowed enormous numbers of people in distant areas to form virtual groups that are very similar to what you see in the office cafeteria.
Smith-Lovin's research, for example, shows that homophily is on the rise in the United States on nearly every dimension of social identity. Ever larger numbers of people seem to be sealing themselves off in worlds where everyone thinks the way they do. No Walter Cronkite figure unites audiences today, the sociologist noted. We can now choose cable stations, magazines and blogs that see the world exactly as we do. If the research on homophily is right, those heavily e-mailed partisan screeds from the op-ed pages are largely talking to those who agree with those points of view to begin with.
But while people may choose blogs or op-ed columnists because they agree with those points of view, do they really choose friends the same way? When was the last time you met someone at a social gathering and quickly asked him his views on abortion, gay marriage and the war in Iraq before deciding to be friends? That does not happen, of course, so one of the most interesting puzzles about homophily is how it turns out that friends often end up having the same views on those subjects.
While beliefs matter, there are two other powerful but subtle factors at work, said sociologist Mario Luis Small of the University of Chicago: One is demography, and the other is shared experiences.
Take, for example, two mothers who become friends after meeting at a day-care center. Beliefs, especially about politics, may never be part of their explicit conversation. But the day-care center exerts a very powerful role in selecting people with similar demographic backgrounds and shared experiences. The mothers are likely to be about the same age, to face common child-rearing challenges and to have similar views on how to balance parenting and work. The fact that they are at this day-care center means they can afford it, which suggests they are in roughly the same socioeconomic class.
"It is not quite the case that I meet you and say, 'Oh my goodness, you also believe in the elimination of Roe v. Wade ,' " said Small. "Two years later, these guys are friends, but it is not because we believe the same things, but our experience and our demographics put us together in the first place."
What this ultimately suggests, Small and Smith-Lovin added, is that while organizations and schools and workplaces and neighborhoods and churches may seem to bring together broad mixes of people, they really do not. Organizations play a very powerful role in bringing together similar people and in creating homogenous views on a variety of topics. University professors, for example, are prone to believe in education, financial aid and research, but those views also lead to other beliefs about the importance of government and activism, Smith-Lovin said.
While there is nothing wrong with being around others who are similar to yourself, both Smith-Lovin and Small said that people and organizations pay a price for homogeneity. In politics, for example, the fact that people rarely have friends with different views makes it difficult to seek common ground or to examine one's positions closely.
"Most of us would be hard-pressed to provide clear explanations for our political beliefs," said Small. "If you ask the average person why they believe what they believe on Roe v. Wade , you are not going to get a coherent answer. We participate in settings where we don't have to explain ourselves because everyone else agrees with us. What this means is, 'I have no reason to challenge or question my own beliefs.' "
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You can see it the next time you visit your office cafeteria or a nearby park: Whites sitting together with whites, blacks with blacks, young people with other young people. When individuals from these groups mix, it is usually because they share something else in common, such as a pastime.
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The Master Cubist, Cubed
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When philistines say that Jackson Pollock's paintings are scribbles, they're right. His pictures are busy scribbling out the most important art that came before. For Pollock, as for almost every other American artist of the first half of the 20th century, that art was by Pablo Picasso.
A particularly telling moment in "Picasso and American Art," a major new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, shows Pollock trying to cover up the Spaniard's influence -- figuratively, like all his fellow artists in New York, but also literally. Research by scholar Pepe Karmel, presented at the Whitney, shows how Pollock began a famous 1950 "drip" painting with a series of Picassoid figures. He then obliterated them under his trademark skeins of paint.
"That [bleeping] Picasso . . . he's done everything," Pollock said, even as he did his best to make him disappear. He seems to have expressed the general feeling in this country. For at least 50 years, Picasso was the one to watch. If you had the guts that Pollock had, he was also the one to beat.
The Whitney's exhibition -- one of its most ambitious efforts yet -- shows how the entire history of 20th-century American art would have been different if Picasso's art had never crossed the Atlantic. (The man himself never made the trip.) Its 149 works, including 36 Picassos, let us watch one American artist after another first discovering the foreign genius, then coming to grips with what his peculiar art could mean and finally struggling to crawl out from under its shadow.
"Shadows" might be more accurate. Each generation of American artist seems to have had a different Picasso to contend with. Picasso may have been the most important artist of the 20th century, but that didn't make his art a fixed quantity. It made what his art meant, and how others reacted to it, even less stable than usual. This show proves a crucial principle of contemporary art history: that the meaning of even the greatest work can depend as much on how it's used as on what it looks like -- that a work becomes the kind of thing it is because of the social frameworks it fits into, as much as because of its aesthetics.
What Picasso meant to American artists, and what they took from him, depended on how big a deal he was at any given time, and what the big deal about him was supposed to be. He could be one innovator among many, or the ruler of the entire scene, or a friendly, funny icon surviving from the salad days of modern art.
Picasso's art first came to this country in dribs and drabs. Max Weber, a Russian-born American artist who had hung out for a few years among the Parisian avant-garde, brought the country's first, tiny, tame Picasso home from France in his luggage in 1909, along with a single tile painted by Matisse and some reproductions of Cézanne. (Agnes Meyer, wife of the modern founder of this newspaper, brought a much better Picasso back with her from Paris in 1914. The little "Still Life With a Bunch of Grapes," now owned by a Berlin museum, is one of this show's least familiar gems.) In 1911, Weber's influence led to a show of Picasso drawings and watercolors at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery in New York, the first home of European modernism this side of the Atlantic. The modest little exhibition was "the wildest thing you ever saw laid out for fair," according to photographer Edward Steichen. When Stieglitz tried to coax a purchase from the Metropolitan Museum, its curator said that "such mad pictures would never mean anything to America."
At that point Picasso's star was rising fast, but it still wasn't the only one in the heavens. An art lover touring Paris in 1910 still could refer to the promising work of "a Spaniard whose name I don't recall." Picasso's art was even less well known in the United States -- Cézanne and van Gogh were still largely undiscovered here -- but such as it was, it stood for all the radical experiments of European modernism. Rather than strictly defining what kind of novel art to make, it gave artists a general permission to innovate.
Under the loose rubric of "cubism," Americans such as Weber, Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove and the young painter Man Ray -- later a key member of the dada and surrealist movements and best known for his photography -- made pictures that depended on Picasso but weren't slavish imitations of him. The Whitney exhibition shows Weber and Man Ray starting from Picasso's great "Demoiselles d'Avignon" -- which they knew from an influential 1910 magazine feature called "The Wild Men of Paris" -- but taking it somewhere surprisingly un-Picassoid. Weber turned Picasso's hard-to-read brothel scene into a more straightforwardly sensual image, and Man Ray gave it a colorful Machine Age look.
These earlier American modernists had such limited exposure to Picasso's work that at first they couldn't really get what he was all about. They had a vague sense that cubism set out to pull the world apart, but no clear idea of how Picasso chose to do the pulling -- or that his way was supposed to be the way to do it, as would have been the growing sense in Paris at the time. That gave them room to interpret trends in European modern art in any number of peculiar ways. They knew that they should "make it new" and that hard edges, wild angles and unnatural colors should be in the mix. Beyond that, they were mostly on their own to interpret, or even misinterpret, Picasso's long-distance example.
Stuart Davis, possibly the best American artist of that generation, took one absolutely atypical facet of Picasso's work and built a whole style around it. In the very early 1920s, Davis had been making more-or-less cubist paintings that were not too far from Picasso's recent work, if a touch more colorful and playful and clean. In 1923, however, he would have seen a Picasso show at the Whitney Studio Club -- predecessor of today's museum -- that included little stenciled images on paper that were so simply colored and so crisply designed that they could almost have passed as art deco advertising imagery. (They were also inexpensive enough for impoverished junior artists to buy them.) Now this was a Picasso Davis could really work with. He did, for the remaining 41 years of his career. In 1925 he painted the bold, brightly colored, pop-artish painting "Super Table," which is already Davis working in his trademark mode. He came up with it by genuflecting to Picasso at his least Picasso-like. As art historian Meyer Shapiro later recalled, "To be a disciple of Picasso in New York in the 1920s and early '30s was an act of originality." It didn't matter what form your discipleship took.
By the later 1930s, and certainly by the 1940s and '50s, Picasso's most important work was behind him. His later pictures didn't redirect the whole of art the way his work had done just before and after World War I. But that didn't stop him being crowned the undisputed Monarch of Modern Art.
In the years to either side of World War II, when American greats such as Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock were hitting their stride, Picasso loomed so large that almost the best that anyone could do was copy him. That's what all three did.
The Whitney show documents how closely several Gorkys from the later 1930s riff on individual Picassos he had seen -- often quite early or late Picassos we might not think much of, but Picassos nonetheless, which made them more than good enough. Gorky was willing to buy into good and bad Picassos, in such a range of styles, either because greatness mattered less than sheer Picassohood, or because the two terms simply counted as synonymous. Gorky copied from Picasso because he was, by definition, worth copying.
There are also early paintings by de Kooning, Pollock and Lee Krasner that are only slightly less derivative. Picasso loomed so large in 1940s New York that if you made any change at all to what he did -- Pollock's and Krasner's coarser surfaces; de Kooning's smeared and acid-colored paints -- it must have felt like taking a major step.
Toward the end of the decade, when these American artists really pushed beyond the master's example, it must have seemed a leap into the void. Grace Hartigan, a painter still active today in Baltimore, recalled her friend Pollock saying he was out to kill Picasso; in 1950 she celebrated his success with an abstract painting called "The King Is Dead" (it's not at the Whitney). But this exhibition doesn't really ask us to think of these artists as having finally done away with Picasso. It begs us to think of them as taking him to places he'd have gone if he'd still been the talent he was in 1910. It lets us imagine these artists as the cast of Picasso: The Next Generation.
If the Whitney show has a significant flaw, it's that it focuses only on how a few great innovators in postwar New York took off from Picasso's work. It doesn't recognize the horde of Picasso clones and drones who surrounded them. Had curators dedicated even a single gallery to the utterly imitative paintings of once-prominent but now unknown American artists, that would have given a better sense of just how much air Picasso could suck out of a room. By showing how completely Picasso dominated the early careers of those American artists who went on to matter to posterity, the exhibition actually manages to underplay his influence.
By the 1960s, Picasso had become so famous, such a symbol of what great art was supposed to be, that he'd almost risen above the fray. He'd become more of a figurehead than a figure to reckon with. He was a star, the Marilyn or Elvis of modern painting. And that made him a perfect subject for pop art.
Roy Lichtenstein frequently used his trademark comic book colors and Benday dots to rework the Parisian artist's work. In 1964, he painted his dotty version of a Picasso still life onto the back of plexiglass; the finished painting's shiny front pulls Picasso into the world of signage and postcard reproduction. As with most pop work, there's genuine affection here for the popular icon. There's also a kind of gentle mockery Picasso had never known before.
Pop artists gave Picasso the same treatment they gave to comics and Mickey Mouse and Campbell's soup -- which gives some idea of how far he'd moved into mainstream culture, and how fine art had moved on from him.
In 1969, pop artist Claes Oldenburg took the maquette for a huge late-Picasso sculpture that the "establishment" artist had recently given to the city of Chicago and remade it out of cloth. Where Picasso's steel original had stood strong and proud, Oldenburg's flops.
Oldenburg's soft sculpture, on loan to the Whitney from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, is as much as anything a portrait of Picasso at the end of days: a presence, still, but fading and, after the longest of long runs, at last detumescent.
Picasso and American Art runs through Jan. 28 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Ave., New York. Call 800-944-8639 or visit http://www.whitney.org/ .
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NEW YORK When philistines say that Jackson Pollock's paintings are scribbles, they're right. His pictures are busy scribbling out the most important art that came before. For Pollock, as for almost every other American artist of the first half of the 20th century, that art was by Pablo...
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After the Falls
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Here I am in remotest northern Peru, hard on the trail of the world's third-largest anticlimax.
This is a story of waterfalls and expectations, and you can count me a waterfall skeptic. I know they are picturesque. I know they are soothing, in that stock greeting-card way of rainbows and unicorns. I know they figure largely in the preflight videos they show on planes to take the edge off your airport rage.
But actual waterfalls? They're seldom worth the walk. Somebody always insists on taking the two-mile side trail to see the local waterfall. And so you go. And there's a waterfall, dribbling (picturesquely) down the rocks. And then you hike back.
In my experience, waterfall = anticlimax.
But the press release that crossed my desk last spring was darned near irresistible: "World's Third Highest Waterfall Discovered in Peru." Howzat? Discovered? The Age of Discovery was ages ago. The biggest things they discover these days are new species of beetle and, every now and then, a forgotten cable network. But the major landforms were all mapped out long ago. A 25-story waterfall that instantly climbs up on the podium with Venezuela's Angel Falls and South Africa's Tugela Falls? How did that avoid the unblinking eye of satellite cartographers?
Who cares? If it was that big and that remote, I just wanted to get there before they bulldozed a road, built the hotels and generally tarted up the place.
And so in September, I set off on the most harrowing waterfall side trip of all: an overnight flight from Washington to Lima, a dawn hop to the northern coastal city of Chiclayo and a 12-hour drive over dicey mountain roads to Peru's impossibly secluded upper Amazon basin. This high, dry tropical Shangri-La was the domain of the Chachapoyas, a mysterious Andean race that predated the Incas. The new waterfall, dubbed Gocta after an ancient Chachapoyan village, is deep in one of the many blind valleys they inhabited between 800 and 1400 AD. You can still see their carved tombs, some with intact mummies, in the surrounding cliff walls.
According to the press release, the government of Peru was hard on the case, promising safe tourist access and basic accommodations, hopefully starting in 2007 (don't count on it). In the meantime, getting to Gocta requires bone-jarring days on the terrifying roads and hours on steep and dubious valley trails. All to see a waterfall.
This had better be good.
So how do you discover a waterfall? The local people knew about it, of course. It just wasn't a big deal to them.
Luis Chuquimes is an elder in the tiny village of San Pablo, a few hours' hike from the falls. Tourists were unknown in San Pablo before word spread about Gocta last spring. Now Chuquimes's little cantina serves as an unofficial visitors center. According to the wrinkled sign-in book on his bar, more than 70 people had made the trip by the time I got there at the end of the dry season. On the other side of the valley, another village has logged just over 1,000 Gocta tourists. It's mostly Peruvians coming so far, eager to make the acquaintance of a new national icon. A couple of Israelis and Germans have been. No Americans have signed in yet. (Now that boggles the mind).
"We knew it was there," Chuquimes said as he busily delivered bottles of beer and Inca Kola to a group of Gocta-bound students from Chiclayo, a day's drive away. "But we didn't know it was one of the tallest in the world."
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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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2004 GOP Tour Prepped Steele for Senate Run
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Some of the ministers gathering at the Genesis Dreamplex Hotel in Toledo were wary of the concept of a black Republican.
Only after everyone agreed there would be no photographers, the ministers grudgingly accepted the invitation to breakfast with Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele and other members of the Empowering People of Color Tour.
As coffee was poured, a former Cosby Show actor warmed up the room. Then Steele took the microphone.
"My charge," Steele told ministers, according to news accounts, "is to take the president's positive policies, which are empowering people of color, [and bring them] out to the African American community."
It was Oct. 19, 2004, a year before Steele would be drafted by top Republicans in Washington to launch his bid for U.S. Senate. And although his lieutenant governor's office schedule gave no indication of his whereabouts, Steele was out of state, barnstorming the country for his president and party.
The national tour, organized by then-Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, teamed Steele, boxing promoter Don King and a handful of semi-celebrities and mid-level politicians to stump for Bush's reelection bid and present African Americans with a new face for the GOP.
His days on the road served as a formative experience, Steele said recently. In some ways, it became a precursor to the campaign Steele is running as he seeks a Senate seat in Maryland, a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1. In fact, King arrives today to stump for his old friend. Then, as now, Steele was honing his most powerful skill: his ability to extend a hand to Democrats, particularly black Democrats, and try to bring them around.
"What I discovered was there's an enormous opportunity for Republicans if we engage," Steele said. "If we start breaking down some of the barriers."
"We weren't bashing other candidates; we weren't bashing Democrats," said Erika Harold, Miss America 2003, an emcee on the tour. "We were just asking for the opportunity to compete for their vote."
Traveling with a state police escort, Steele crisscrossed the Midwest. From Toledo, he headed for Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, then Detroit. A few days later, he hopped a plane to Cleveland, and then Miami, Philadelphia and New York. The group made more than a dozen stops, all with the goal of persuading African Americans to leave behind decades of allegiance to Democrats.
In some towns, it was a tough sell.
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Some of the ministers gathering at the Genesis Dreamplex Hotel in Toledo were wary of the concept of a black Republican.
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Cardin Joined by Kerry In Crucial Pr. George's
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U.S. Senate candidate Benjamin L. Cardin teamed up with his party's last presidential nominee, John F. Kerry, yesterday to build support among black business owners in Prince George's County, rally volunteers in Montgomery County and raise campaign cash at the Redskins game.
The appearances by the Massachusetts Democratic senator came as fundraising figures released by Cardin and his Republican rival, Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, show that both candidates raised about $1.3 million during the five-week period ending Sept. 30.
Steele has raised a total of $6 million and had $2 million in the bank, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission. Cardin, a Baltimore congressman, has collected $6.4 million and had $1.6 million on hand, according to numbers provided by his campaign.
The figures provided yesterday are two weeks old and do not account for the costly TV commercial time both campaigns have purchased since then.
Speaking to about three dozen federal contractors, lawyers and local politicians gathered in Upper Marlboro yesterday, Cardin expressed support for locating government facilities in Prince George's, leasing space for government offices in the county and providing more opportunities for minority owners to secure contracts.
"Prince George's needs to be the first priority," Cardin said.
With the retirement of Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D), Kerry emphasized the importance of keeping both of Maryland's Senate seats in Democratic hands as control of Congress is at stake in next month's election.
"People in Maryland can't be fooled by slick advertisements, by the rhetoric," said Kerry, seated between Cardin and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) at the company headquarters of Cool Wave Water. "You've got to send us Ben Cardin to fill [Sarbanes'] shoes."
Kerry, who won Maryland with 56 percent of the vote in the 2004 presidential election, joins other prominent Democrats who have campaigned for Cardin, including Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights leader from Georgia.
Prince George's is home to the lieutenant governor, the first African American elected statewide, and has become a battleground in the Senate contest as Steele has tried to make inroads with black Democrats.
Steele's campaign manager, Michael Leavitt, called Kerry's visit a "desperate attempt" by Cardin to "try and gain ground" in the county and in a news release sought to discredit Cardin's record on issues important to businesses.
Steele has made overhauling the state's Minority Business Enterprise Program a hallmark of his four-year tenure in Annapolis.
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U.S. Senate candidate Benjamin L. Cardin teamed up with his party's last presidential nominee, John F. Kerry, yesterday to build support among black business owners in Prince George's County, rally volunteers in Montgomery County and raise campaign cash at the Redskins game.
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Cold Streak Leaves United Worried Entering Playoffs
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D.C. United will enter the playoffs this weekend with the best record in MLS, with the top candidate for league most valuable player and with perhaps the most seasoned roster among the eight surviving clubs. From a statistical standpoint, it will boast the most formidable attack and one of the stingiest defenses.
But after another worrying performance last night -- a 3-2 loss to the Chicago Fire before 18,652 at RFK Stadium that began terribly and got only marginally better -- United would be hard-pressed to claim the favorite's role for a fifth championship.
"We give up the goals like an under-12 team," Coach Peter Nowak said. "We cannot do that because in the playoffs it's going to cost us a game, it's going to cost us a series, and we'll all go fishing."
D.C. (15-7-10) has lost three in a row, the longest skid in league play since Nowak's arrival in 2004. It has dropped five of six and is 2-6-5 since a 13-1-5 start that launched the club to the top of the league.
United has won just one of its last six home matches and, in the past nine days at RFK, suffered glaring defensive breakdowns en route to losses to potential Eastern Conference title-game opponents.
First, though, United will have to find a way past the New York Red Bulls in a first-round, total-goals series, Saturday afternoon at Giants Stadium and Oct. 29 in Washington.
Despite a 2-0-2 record against the Red Bulls this year and New York's 9-11-12 overall mark -- the poorest in the playoffs -- United hardly seems like a team that would be favored against anyone.
By the midway point of the first half yesterday, United faced a two-goal deficit.
And if not for reserve goalkeeper Nick Rimando's early diving save on Chris Rolfe and a penalty kick stop on Andy Herron, it could have been much worse.
Christian Gomez's exquisite goal in the 34th minute cut the deficit in half, but the Fire (13-11-8) restored its comfortable margin before Gomez scored again in the 82nd to further enhance his MVP credentials.
United could have tied it in the waning moments, only to see Ben Olsen's close-in bid strike the crossbar.
"We're just not getting results," forward Alecko Eskandarian said. "In the first half of the season, even if we were playing badly, we were getting those results. Now it seems like no matter what we do we're not getting them. Good performance, bad performance, it doesn't matter, and that's what is most disturbing to me."
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D.C. United enters the playoffs this coming weekend with the league's best resumé, but Sunday's sloppy loss to Chicago may temper their enthusiasm.
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For India's Traditional Fishermen, Cellphones Deliver a Sea Change
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PALLIPURAM, India -- Babu Rajan pointed off the starboard bow and shouted: "There! There!"
In choppy, gray seas four miles from shore near India's tropical southern tip, Rajan spotted the tinselly sparkle of a school of sardines. He ordered his three dozen crewmen to quickly drop their five-ton net overboard.
VIDEO | Babu Rajan prizes his cell phone, which he uses to negotiate with buyers on land while working for a day's catch on the Arabian Sea.
Within five minutes, the cellphone hanging around his neck rang.
"Hallo!" he shouted, struggling to hear over the big diesel engines of his 74-foot boat, Andavan. "Medium sized! Medium sized!" he said, estimating the haul for a wholesale agent calling from port, who had heard by cellphone from other skippers that Rajan had just set his nets.
Minutes later Rajan's phone rang again -- another agent at a different port.
"When I have a big catch, the phone rings 60 or 70 times before I get to port," he said.
The cellphone is bringing new economic clout, profit and productivity to Rajan and millions of other poor laborers in India, the world's fastest-growing cellphone market.
At the beginning of 2000, India had 1.6 million cellphone subscribers; today there are 125 million -- three times the number of land lines in the country. With 6 million new cellphone subscribers each month, industry analysts predict that in four years nearly half of India's 1.1 billion people will be connected by cellphone.
That explosive growth has meant greater access to markets, more information about prices and new customers for tens of millions of Indian farmers and fishermen.
A convenience taken for granted in wealthy nations, the cellphone is putting cash in the pockets of people for whom a dollar is a good day's wage. And it has made market-savvy entrepreneurs out of sheepherders, rickshaw drivers and even the acrobatic men who shinny up palm trees to harvest coconuts here in Kerala state.
"This has changed the entire dynamics of communications and how they organize their lives," said C.K. Prahalad, an India-born business professor at the University of Michigan who has written extensively about how commerce -- and cellphones -- are used to combat poverty.
"One element of poverty is the lack of information," Prahalad said. "The cellphone gives poor people as much information as the middleman."
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PALLIPURAM, India --Â Babu Rajan pointed off the starboard bow and shouted: "There! There!" The sky was black and hot at 4:44 a.m. on a late September day when the Andavan, a 74-foot, steel-hulled boat owned by Rajan and 14 other fishermen, pulled away from the dock and headed into the Arabian...
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Relic of Chicago's Bloody Past Gets A Modern Rewrite
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CHICAGO, Oct. 15 -- It was at the Biograph Theater that bank robber John Dillinger was gunned down by FBI agents on July 22, 1934, after taking in the movie "Manhattan Melodrama" and being betrayed by the "Lady in Red."
The Biograph is one of Chicago's last remaining landmarks from its gun-slinging past; Al Capone's Lexington Hotel hangout and the warehouse site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre have been demolished.
Over the weekend, the Biograph held its coming-out party as a newly rehabbed venue for Victory Gardens Theater live shows, and theater leaders echoed Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) in playing down its bloody past.
"We just assume that part of Chicago history goes away," said artistic director Dennis Zacek, who led Victory Gardens to a 2001 Tony Award for best regional theater. "That's all in the past. We've converted it to something new."
But their efforts to bury Dillinger's ghost have been in vain. Tour buses still regularly pass by and point out where Dillinger was killed in the alley, the agents tipped off by brothel madam Anna Sage, who was trying to avoid deportation to Romania.
At the theater's grand opening Saturday, audience members gushed about the past. As the audience filed in, a tuxedo-clad man brandished a plastic machine gun. Several women wore red dresses, including Gina Petersen, wife of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" star William Petersen, a Victory Gardens alum. He logged his first Equity role playing Dillinger in a 1978 play of the same name that was directed by Zacek.
"I guess I'm the lady in the red dress," Gina Petersen said. "Maybe this shows Chicago is turning over a new leaf, going from a Mafia town to a cultured theater town."
The red-brick and terra-cotta building is a city and national historic landmark, because of the Dillinger history and also because it was among the first theaters designed to show motion pictures.
"It was run by entrepreneurs who were trying to make movies legitimate," Zacek said.
It was also one of the first air-conditioned buildings in the city, one reason Dillinger went there on that hot July evening. A photo shows the marquee with a banner that reads "Cooled by Refrigeration" in dripping letters.
Zacek and several other patrons noted that whenever they travel overseas and tell people they are from Chicago, Capone is always mentioned. Zacek said he would rather Chicago be known as the home of 190 theater companies, a city he calls "the theater capital of the country or even the world."
"It has a bad reputation because of Al Capone and Dillinger," he said.
But the Chicago History Museum's chief historian, Russell Lewis, says Dillinger had a more noble reputation than Capone. Some likened him to Robin Hood.
"Capone was an organized criminal mastermind, and he was very ruthless," Lewis said. "But Dillinger was just a bank robber. It was during the Great Depression and banks were foreclosing on people. He was exciting and entertaining, and at the time some people really pulled for him."
Dillinger's legend grew in death. Crime writer Jay Robert Nash asserted in two books that Dillinger was not killed, but had learned of the plot and dispatched a look-alike petty criminal in his stead. Members of a Chicago club called "John Dillinger Died for You" have been known to march through the alley accompanied by a bagpipe player on the anniversary of his death.
The theater, which showed movies until 2004, was gutted and converted from a 1,000-seat chamber into a 299-seat theater with a reception area and offices. Cost: $11 million. The original marquee was donated to the Chicago History Museum -- Zacek calls it "a piece of junk" -- and was replaced with a $110,000 replica.
Even though Zacek plays down the memory of Dillinger at the Biograph, he not only directed the Victory Gardens play about the robber but also wrote his 1969 Northwestern University doctoral dissertation on a topic linked to theater and gunplay in the District. He analyzed the acting technique of Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, the actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
"Edwin was a classical actor," he said. "John Wilkes was more of a romantic lead. They were an eccentric family."
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CHICAGO, Oct. 15 -- It was at the Biograph Theater that bank robber John Dillinger was gunned down by FBI agents on July 22, 1934, after taking in the movie "Manhattan Melodrama" and being betrayed by the "Lady in Red."
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Specter's Role in Passage Of Detainee Bill Disputed
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The news reached Democrats working on the military commissions bill in the Senate cloakroom the morning of Sept. 27. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a sponsor of two amendments giving detainees a right to challenge their detention or treatment in federal court, had decided to bring the more extreme amendment to a vote.
Democrats had lined up behind Specter because the Judiciary Committee chairman told them he shared their antipathy to language in the bill stripping detainees of habeas corpus rights. But the amendment Specter put forward was defeated 51 to 48, allowing the bill to win congressional approval without change. It handed the White House an important pre-election victory.
The last-minute maneuvering before the Sept. 28 vote remains a hot topic of debate among lobbyists, lawmakers and staff members. They are wondering if Specter, as several Judiciary Committee staff members privately asserted at the time, was pressured into discarding a less extreme and more politically palatable amendment at the Bush administration's request, in favor of an alternative more likely to be defeated.
Specter says that he was not, and that he has no reason to believe the less extreme alternative he sponsored but withheld from a vote -- allowing detainees limited access to the courts -- might have won. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) backs Specter's account, but some other sources on Capitol Hill dispute it.
The stakes were considerable: The White House had been waging an intense three-month effort, set off by an adverse Supreme Court decision in June, to win explicit congressional support for the right to detain indefinitely, and without guaranteed recourse to the courts, people -- including U.S. citizens -- who are designated as "unlawful enemy combatants."
The White House was keen to secure the bill's speedy passage, because officials were worried that Congress would be more reluctant to strip detainees of their rights after the Nov. 7 midterm elections. Keeping the Senate bill free of amendments was key to avoiding a wrangle with the House, which had passed the administration-backed version and was set to leave for a recess Sept. 29.
Questions about Specter's role in the last-minute maneuvering arose in part because he had taken a maverick position before -- and then backed President Bush's policy on the floor or in his votes.
Specter said in December, for example, that he had "no doubt" the administration's warrantless surveillance program for terrorism suspects was inappropriate and should not be condoned. This summer, he sponsored a bill to legalize the program by providing for limited judicial review. Since 2001, Specter's support for Bush initiatives in Congress has fluctuated between 85 and 89 percent, according to Congressional Quarterly.
On the detainee bill, Frist had make clear his desire to ensure that no amendment passed, spokeswoman Amy Call said. She said "we were worried about both" of Specter's amendments.
The more extreme version would have deleted the bill's suspension of habeas corpus rights. The less extreme alternative, which Specter co-sponsored with Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Gordon Smith (R.-N.H.), would have allowed detainees to file a single habeas corpus petition after a year of detention.
"The compromise looked like it had a strong chance of success," and it would have given detainees at least "a one-chance shot to appeal their innocence," said Jennifer Daskal, U.S. advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "Rather than doing the right thing and allowing the amendment to go forward, the strategy seems to have been to put forward an amendment doomed to defeat," she said.
Frist was so determined to help the White House that on Sept. 26, he told a group of GOP lawmakers at a private meeting, in the presence of White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that no amendment that could pass would be allowed to come to a vote, according to one person present. Call declined to comment on a private meeting.
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Clinton's Iowa Visit May Serve Wife's Aims
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DES MOINES, Oct. 15 -- Former president Bill Clinton entered the Hy-Vee Hall here on Saturday night like an aging rock star, striding up a red carpet, wearing a big smile, his arms outstretched to touch the hands of Democratic admirers lined up along his walkway to the stage.
Clinton came to rally Democrats three weeks before critical midterm elections. But his visit may have served another purpose as well. Alone among prospective Democratic presidential candidates for 2008, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has not set foot in the state all year, and the futures market in Clinton political stock here has been suffering.
Early polls by the Des Moines Register have shown former North Carolina senator John Edwards, the Democrats' 2004 vice presidential nominee, to be more popular among Democratic activists than the New York senator. A more recent survey of Iowans showed her running weaker than Edwards, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) in a series of hypothetical general election matchups against prospective Republican candidates.
The senator's political advisers dismiss those numbers and perhaps for good reason. Clinton has chosen to focus on her own reelection in New York, they note, and so has not spent time in a state where voters insist on getting to know the candidates before they make a commitment to support them. If she decides to run, say her advisers, attitudes will change.
But Iowa Democrats said Clinton's standing reflects more than her absence. They say there is general unease within the party about her ability to win a general election. Beyond that, some Democrats are troubled by her support for the war in Iraq long after other Democratic politicians such as Kerry and Edwards had renounced their votes for the congressional resolution that authorized President Bush to launch the invasion.
Attitudes in Iowa are important in part because the state holds the opening caucuses of the nomination battle every four years. But Iowa also is a small but significant Midwestern swing state, one that swung to the Republicans in 2004. Any Democrat running for president will need to convince voters that he or she can win Iowa.
"I think Hillary's got a problem with just about everybody with that under-the-radar thing of 'she can't win,' " said Rob Tully, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman, and as one of Edwards's leading supporters, someone with his own biases. "That's something she's going to have to get over if she gets in. She knows that. She's an articulate, astute politician."
Antiwar sentiment has always run deep among Democratic activists in Iowa, which was why former Vermont governor Howard Dean found traction for his long-shot presidential candidacy in the opening of the 2004 nomination battle before his campaign collapsed in the weeks just before the caucuses.
If she runs, Clinton will meet skepticism or hostility among many of these antiwar Democrats. "The problem I have with Hillary is she voted for the Iraq war and did [support it] until a few months ago," said Bruce Stone, a liberal activist who attended Saturday's dinner.
Ann Selzer, who conducts the Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register, said Clinton's problems go beyond the fact that she hasn't spent much time here recently. The problem is that many people already have an unfavorable opinion of her. "Her negatives are so negative," Selzer said in a phone interview.
It was Bill Clinton, during his first presidential campaign in 1992, who described the political partnership with his wife to voters as a buy-one, get-one-free deal. That still appears to be the case. He carries obvious political baggage, some of which his wife would inherit if she runs, but he is demonstrating that there are things he can do, small and large, that she cannot do for herself right now that could boost her candidacy.
The New York senator has avoided New Hampshire this year, like Iowa. Among other things, this has kept her out of the effort among New Hampshire Democrats to preserve their state's first-in-the-nation primary status, which the Democratic National Committee is challenging.
Every likely Democratic candidate save for Clinton has signed a letter to Gov. John Lynch (D) backing the state. But when the former president visited last summer, he offered a ringing endorsement of New Hampshire's traditional status at the front of the calendar and said his wife shared those views.
Many Democrats still look at Clinton as the party's most effective strategist and communicator, and on Saturday night he was applauded just for saying, "Here's what we [Democrats] ought to say," and used part of his 49-minute speech to road-test a message that will resonate long after next month's election.
He advised on how Democratic candidates should talk about national security and Iraq -- robustly but also critically of the administration. He outlined an ambitious domestic agenda: expanded health-care coverage, energy independence, fiscal responsibility, tax cuts for the middle class. He condemned what he described as the giveaways to big corporations, drug companies, corporate executives and the wealthiest Americans.
It was all in the guise of the midterm elections, but it could and likely will be taken right off the shelf with minimal modifications by Hillary Clinton, if she chooses to run. She already has on some of the issues he outlined.
Clinton joked that one of his main jobs these days is as the "chief caseworker for the junior senator of New York." But he is working in her behalf far beyond the borders of the Empire State and is reaching people she is not -- some of them more receptive to him than to her.
Asked before Clinton's speech what he thought of the former president, Stone brightened. "I think he walks on water, and the only way you'd get me to vote for Hillary is to tell me it's a package deal." She will decide how explicitly to make such an offer.
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DES MOINES, Oct. 15 -- Former president Bill Clinton entered the Hy-Vee Hall here on Saturday night like an aging rock star, striding up a red carpet, wearing a big smile, his arms outstretched to touch the hands of Democratic admirers lined up along his walkway to the stage.
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Presidential Race In Ecuador Heads To Second Round
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QUITO, Ecuador, Oct. 15 -- A banana magnate who portrays himself as a friend of the poor and a young economist close to Venezuela's mercurial leader, Hugo Chávez, will face each other in a presidential election runoff on Nov. 26 after neither obtained enough votes to win in a first round Sunday in this chronically unstable country.
With 60 percent of the vote counted, Alvaro Noboa, 55, one of the wealthiest men in Latin America, had 27 percent of the vote to 22 percent for Rafael Correa, 43, a charismatic former finance minister who has sharply criticized the Bush administration.
The election in this tiny, mountainous country of 13 million has attracted widespread attention beyond its borders because of the rapid rise of Correa, an economist who promises to overturn Ecuador's old economic order and calls for a constitutional assembly that could dissolve the National Congress.
Calling himself a friend of Chávez, who has become Washington's leading antagonist in Latin America, Correa says his government would shutter a U.S. military base in Ecuador, crack down on multinational companies and possibly declare a moratorium on payment of the country's $10 billion foreign debt. If he wins next month, he will join a growing list of left-leaning leaders elected in Latin America since 2002.
"He's prepared, and we need someone who knows how to run things," said Fanny Ceron, 38, a nurse, moments after casting her ballot for Correa. "We need someone who comes from the people. The others are just moneyed people. They want power. They have the money, but no ideas."
Correa would face a furious challenge from Noboa, who has spent $2.5 million on his campaign, far more than any other candidate, casting himself as a populist. This is Noboa's third try at the presidency. He lost in 1998 and 2002. At campaign rallies, Noboa gives away T-shirts, wheelchairs and even cash. He also pays for mobile medical clinics run by his wife, Anabella AzÃn, a physician who also has political aspirations.
His campaign ads have attacked Correa as a dangerous extremist who would align Ecuador with Venezuela and Fidel Castro's Cuba, bringing more instability to a country that has had seven presidents in 10 years.
"Correa is selling hope," said Blasco Peñaherrera, a businessman and president of the Quito Chamber of Commerce, who does not support Correa. "I'm sure his opponents are going to sell panic."
Support for Noboa surged in the past three weeks. He was a distant fourth as recently as Sept. 20, according to the Cedatos-Gallup polling firm in Quito. But Noboa, who falls to his knees before supporters and invokes God, quickly gained and in recent days surpassed Leon Roldos, a former vice president who had led in the campaign but began a fast slide last month.
On Sunday evening as results began to come in, Noboa charged that Ecuador would become another Cuba under Correa. "Rafael Correa's posture is communist, dictatorial," he said on Ecuadoran television. He also denied that he employs child laborers on his banana farms -- an accusation first made in a 124-page Human Rights Watch report in 2002.
"I don't have child workers in my companies," he said.
Noboa once made the Forbes 500 list of the world's richest people, and in the past he frequently boasted about his friendship with well-known American luminaries. A slick campaign has side-stepped questions about his businesses and has resonated with people such as Jorge Teran, 46, a technician who is fed up with a lack of progress in Ecuador. He said he likes Noboa's plans to increase the state oil company's production and his promise to build affordable housing and create jobs. Teran also said he feels Noboa may benefit from divine intervention.
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QUITO, Ecuador, Oct. 15 -- A banana magnate who portrays himself as a friend of the poor and a young economist close to Venezuela's mercurial leader, Hugo Chávez, will face each other in a presidential election runoff on Nov. 26 after neither obtained enough votes to win in a first round Sunday in...
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What's the Deal?
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· Italy rail passes have been discounted by at least 20 percent for travel this winter. The "Trenitalia Winter Promo" for travel Nov. 1-March 31 offers second-class passes good for three days of travel within two months; prices start at $128 per person ($161 for first class) for groups of two to five traveling together. A single person pays $151 for a three-day second-class ticket, and $189 for a three-day first-class ticket. Discounted passes are also available for longer travel periods and for children and youths. Buy by Dec. 31. Info: 888-538-7245, http://www.italiarail.com/ .
· Lake Austin Spa Resort in Austin has savings of $500 per person on four- or five-night stays and $1,000 on six-, seven- or 10-night stays. Four-night packages -- including lodging, meals, fitness classes and use of all facilities -- start at $1,690 per person double (plus 6 percent taxes and 18 percent gratuities); spa treatments are extra. Book by Oct. 31 and complete stay by Jan. 31. Info: 800-847-5637, http://www.lakeaustin.com/ .
· Auberge La Lucarne aux Chouettes, an inn in the Burgundy region of France owned by actress Leslie Caron and her son, has a 20 percent discount off room rates for travel through mid-March. A room for two starts at about $146 per night. Info: 011-33-3-86-87-18-26, http://www.lesliecaron-auberge.com/ .
· Save $350 per person on a Mekong River cruise through Vietnam and Cambodia departing Nov. 7. Price on the Value World Tours trip now starts at $2,149 per person double plus $98 port charges. The tour includes three nights' hotel in Ho Chi Minh City; three nights' hotel in Siem Reap; most meals; seven-night cruise ; sightseeing tours; shore excursions; and guide. A Dec. 19 departure has been discounted by $250. Info: 800-795-1633, http://www.valuecruises.net/ .
· Viking River Cruises has $299 round-trip airfare from Washington to China , a savings of about $801 per person, on select "China's Cultural Delights" itineraries. The offer applies to June-August departures and must be booked and paid in full by Dec. 18; price for the cruise starts at $3,179 per person double. The 15-night trip includes three nights' hotel in Beijing, one night in Xian, two nights in Shanghai and a nine-night Yangtze River cruise from Chongqing to Nanjing. Mention code 01P to get discounted air. Air taxes and port charges are an extra $365. Details: 877-668-4546, http://www.vikingrivercruises.com/ .
· Book a European holiday market cruise with Uniworld (800-733-7820, http://www.uniworld.com/ ) and receive $99 round-trip airfare from Washington . Several itineraries, ranging from seven to 12 nights, are available. For example, the two seven-night itineraries -- one cruises between Frankfurt and Nuremberg, Germany, Nov. 25 and Dec. 2 and 9, and the other travels between Basel, Switzerland, and Cologne, Germany, with departures Nov. 24, Dec. 1, 8 and 15 -- start at $1, 998 per person double including the $99 airfare (air taxes and port charges are an extra $319). Airfare priced separately would start at about $507.
· Air New Zealand has an $883 round-trip sale fare (plus $77 taxes) from Los Angeles to Auckland, with a free stopover in Fiji . Depart Nov. 1-30 and complete travel by Dec. 12; some dates are sold out. Combine the sale fare with a round-trip ticket -- now about $322 -- from Washington to Los Angeles, and save about $498 compared with purchasing a ticket from Washington to Auckland with the Fiji stopover. Purchase by Oct. 31 at http://www.airnewzealand.com/ .
· If you can fly from Los Angeles to Papeete, Tahiti, on Nov. 2 and return Nov. 11, Air Tahiti Nui has a one-time deal of $518 round trip plus $78 taxes; fare usually starts at about $1,294. No advance purchase necessary. Info: 877-824-4846, http://www.airtahitinui-usa.com/ .
· Air France Holidays has discounted packages to Madrid . A vacation with round-trip air from Washington to Madrid and four nights' lodging at the tourist-class Sercotel Togumar Hotel is $549 per person double (plus $105 taxes); priced separately, the package would cost about $798. Cheapest rates apply to Thursday departures Nov. 2-Dec. 14; buy by Oct. 26. Info: 800-237-2623, http://www.airfranceholidays.com/ .
· European Destinations has discounted packages to Prague and Budapest . The price for midweek November travel is about $826 per person double including taxes. The price includes air on United from Washington Dulles to Prague, with return from Budapest; three nights at Hotel Golf in Prague; a second-class rail ticket from Prague to Budapest; and three nights at the Hotel Frankfurt. Priced separately, the trip would cost about $1,162 per person. Info: 877-267-2247, http://www.europeandestinations.com/ .
Prices were verified and available on Thursday afternoon when the Travel section went to press. However, deals sell out quickly and are not guaranteed to be available. Restrictions such as day of travel, blackout dates and advance-purchase requirements sometimes apply.
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Tempting offers include spa savings in Austin, a package deal to Madrid and a two-week Chinese cruise.
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'The Empire State Strikes Back'
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NEW YORK -- What is happening to the Republican Party in New York state is the national GOP's nightmare. The once-thriving political organization of Nelson Rockefeller, Al D'Amato and George Pataki is a shambles.
And the way the Republican coalition has broken up should have national Republicans scurrying for a new game plan.
For many Americans, "New York" evokes the liberal salons of Manhattan. But Manhattan is a small piece of the Empire State. Political change has been driven by the populous suburbs of Long Island and Westchester and Rockland counties, and by the vast stretches of Upstate New York that are far closer in spirit to the Midwest than to the Upper West Side or the Silk Stocking District.
The Republican collapse here has been driven by two streams of defectors: suburban moderates and Upstaters.
As a result, the entire Democratic ticket, led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, the party's candidate for governor, is expected by just about everyone to sweep the state. As many as five Upstate Republican congressional seats -- they would constitute a third of the 15 seats that Democrats need to win the House -- are in jeopardy.
"It's 'The Empire State Strikes Back,' " says Democrat Dan Maffei, a former congressional aide who is running a surprisingly strong race against Rep. Jim Walsh, the Republican incumbent, in a district that stretches from Syracuse to the Rochester area.
Maffei sees the immediate trend toward Democrats powered by frustration with President Bush and the Iraq war. But it is also rooted in long-term factors: the economic troubles of many Upstate communities, the area's "libertarian" leanings on cultural issues and the homelessness felt by many moderate Republicans in the face of a national party increasingly dominated by conservatives.
"Bush Republicanism," Maffei says, "is not for them."
D'Amato, the voluble Republican who served 18 years in the U.S. Senate until he was defeated in 1998 by Charles Schumer, sees demographic change -- the increasing number of Hispanic and African American voters -- as augmenting the Democrats' advantage in party registration. Hispanics, of course, are also a growing part of the electorate in other key states, some of them traditionally Republican.
But he adds that "there is something broader than the Republicans falling on hard times, which they are." He notes that in New York, "after the tenure of a strong governor," the party that long held power often sees its organization fall apart. This happened to Republicans after Rockefeller's long run and to Democrats after Pataki defeated Mario Cuomo in 1994. With Pataki retiring, said Assemblyman Pete Grannis, a Manhattan Democrat, it's the Republicans' "time in the skillet."
State Sen. Kemp Hannon, a Long Island Republican who has spent nearly three decades in the legislature, also worries that the coalition of "Reagan Democrats" that D'Amato helped build -- "they were Irish, Italian and Polish Democrats and some Jews" -- is a thing of the past. "I believe that Bush has destroyed that whole thing," Hannon says. "It's not here any longer in the Northeast." And the parts of Upstate New York "not moving ahead economically whatsoever . . . feel it a great deal."
Adds D'Amato: "It's very similar to an Ohio kind of thing," meaning that vulnerable New York Republicans are in much the same spot as their endangered congressional colleagues in former industrial powerhouse regions to their west.
Bill de Blasio, who managed Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign and is now a New York City Council member from Brooklyn, sees the pincer movement against Republicans from the suburbs and Upstate as similar to what's happening in other parts of the country.
"The two trends are quite universal," de Blasio says. "There's a growing body of suburbanites who are increasingly concerned about the rightward drift of the Republican Party, and voters very worried about what's happening to real wages." Paul Tokasz, the retiring Democratic majority leader in the state Assembly -- he hails from Cheektowaga, just outside Buffalo -- says the same suburban movement away from the Republicans that is so visible in the New York City area is happening in metropolitan areas across the state.
D'Amato, normally a happy Republican warrior, is in a blue mood about November. "You have a foreign policy which is groping and a domestic [Mark] Foley scandal, so you have a lot of disaffected people, and I think it's going to result not only in the Democrats taking over the House, but also with substantial numbers."
As New York goes, so goes the nation?
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NEW YORK -- What is happening to the Republican Party in New York state is the national GOP's nightmare. The once-thriving political organization of Nelson Rockefeller, Al D'Amato and George Pataki is a shambles.
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