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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401831.html
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The Media's Good Cop
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Every generation thinks that what it's doing is entirely novel and innovative, that it's smarter and so much more self-aware than the clowns who came before.
That's certainly the case with the burgeoning business of media criticism. You'd think that the current batch of media judges and executioners invented their trade. Bloggers catch errors in minutes. Web sites go after the media from the right and the left.
But I ask all who are engaged in these enterprises to stop clicking that mouse for a moment and acknowledge their debt to David Shaw, a Los Angeles Times writer who was a pioneer in the business of media self-criticism. Shaw died Monday of a brain tumor at age 62.
Shaw's approach was rooted not in ideological bias but in hard work. He would spend ages gathering material and interviewing everyone he could find before putting words -- usually thousands of them -- into print. His choice of targets was unpredictable, meaning he annoyed just about everyone at one point or other.
One of his last pieces, at the end of May, attacked the Bush administration for its ideological assault on the Public Broadcasting Service and suggested that it was perhaps time to discontinue PBS altogether.
He criticized coverage of the nuclear power industry as focusing too much on risk. But he also criticized negative coverage of Bill Clinton's first months in office. White House reporters, he wrote, "seemed committed to proving that they were smarter than he was and knew more about the White House than he did."
Poking at our self-importance, Shaw reminded us that "the first syllable of 'media' is ME ."
Shaw proved that self-criticism by media institutions enhances their credibility. In 1999 the Los Angeles Times entered into a deal to split the profits with the Staples Center on the sale of ads in a special issue of the newspaper's magazine devoted to the new facility. The paper's reporters were furious over an arrangement that seemed to trade coverage for money. Shaw was given absolute independence to produce a tough, 37,000-word report on the episode that was spread over 14 pages of the paper. The Times's willingness to let Shaw rip saved its reputation.
He was celebrated by many and derided by some for a lengthy 1990 report showing -- conclusively, I think -- that "the news media consistently use language and images that frame the entire abortion debate in terms that implicitly favor abortion-rights advocates."
Shaw showed that abortion rights advocates "are often quoted more frequently and characterized more favorably than are abortion opponents." His conclusion "that abortion is essentially a class issue in the United States" and that reporters reflected an upper-middle-class bias applies across a broad range of other questions. I'd argue that this bias points the media to the right on economic issues. What matters here is that Shaw had the essential trait of the best press critics: He could almost always see through his own biases.
Shaw took a lot of grief for his abortion series, but don't think he was somehow "anti-feminist." In 1991 he wrote a series on how the gender of editors affected coverage of stories on sex. Women, he found, tended to favor greater candor in reports on rape, AIDS and the private lives of politicians -- and he pointed to a shortage of female editors.
Are you reading this on the Web? On June 2, 1991, Shaw prophesied: "Twenty years from now -- give or take a decade -- you may get your news each morning from a fancy machine, a multimedia home information appliance with a dazzling array of personalized, interactive features, all of which will be as easy to use as opening a newspaper and none of which will leave ink on your hands."
Shaw was so dispassionate that he would cast a critical eye on this column. He would point out that he wrote a very generous sentence about me a decade ago, and that I have long been a fan of Lucy Stille, his wife. Bias, bias, bias.
I would point Shaw to one of his books, "The Pleasure Police: How Bluenose Busybodies and Lily-Livered Alarmists Are Taking All the Fun Out of Life," and tell him not to be so bluenose. His early death is a terrible thing, and one joy left is to savor the achievement of a press critic who didn't mind infuriating the left or the right or the center -- or his colleagues or his editors. Yes, the press can police itself. But it takes a special cop to do it right.
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Every generation thinks that what it's doing is entirely novel and innovative, that it's smarter and so much more self-aware than the clowns who came before.
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Ignorance Is Bliss; Sometimes It's Policy
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The ranch at Crawford hardly compares with the Forbidden City, but George W. Bush has something in common with the Ming emperors of China: He seems determined to make his great nation less ambitious and more ignorant.
He wouldn't see it that way, of course, but the emperors didn't see it that way either. And I don't know how else to explain policies and pronouncements that make the quest for knowledge conditional on politics. That is a prescription for decline.
In the early 1400s the Ming emperor Zhu Di made China into the world's leading maritime nation, sending huge fleets on missions of trade and exploration as far as the Swahili coast of Africa. It should have been just a matter of a few years before Chinese sailors discovered the Americas. But Zhu Di's successors, influenced by court politics, called home the fleets and forbade them to sail again, forfeiting the riches of the New World -- and five centuries of global domination -- to an underdeveloped backwater called Europe.
I guess it's a general rule of political dynasties, in China as well as in Texas, that the blood thins with successive generations.
Examples? Well, there's the way Bush insists on hamstringing American scientists who are trying to explore the potential medical benefits of therapies involving embryonic stem cells.
You are excused if your eyes glaze over at the mention of the words "stem cells," but it's enough to know that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, in a rare display of backbone, has challenged the president over his suffocating restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research -- and also that the fight is akin to arguing over what kind of lock to put on the barn door while the horse frolics in the next county.
While our leaders disagree, stem cell technology is being developed and advanced in laboratories all around the world, especially in Asia. South Korean researchers have arguably pushed farther than anyone else. At the moment it's still a long shot that embryonic stem cells will prove to be a panacea, but if they do it's increasingly likely that the key discoveries will be made elsewhere -- not in the United States.
And there's no real reason for Bush's position except politics. All that Frist and other reasonable people want is to be able to experiment on surplus embryos from fertility clinics, embryos that otherwise will be destroyed. But the radical pro-life lobby won't be reasonable, so Bush does his best to keep the United States on the sidelines of what is, at the moment, the most exciting field of medical research.
Then there's this administration's almost comical insistence that the firm scientific consensus on global climate change is some kind of mass hallucination. "What global warming?" they ask, as mean temperatures rise, Arctic ice melts, tropical diseases march north and hurricanes rake poor Florida in swarms.
The much-maligned Kyoto treaty isn't the point. Treaty or no treaty, it looks as if sooner or later the world is going to have to find a way to prosper without spewing so much heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Other nations are busy trying to develop technology and coping mechanisms to prepare for that day. When it comes, we'll be at or near the back of the line.
Maybe we'll line up all our obsolete SUVs along the coast to try to hold back the rising sea.
To round out the trifecta, the other day Bush reiterated his support for teaching "intelligent design" in America's schools along with evolution, as a way of exposing students to different points of view. This really borders on madness.
Intelligent design isn't a scientific theory at all; it's a matter of faith -- Creationism 2.0. Faith is a different kind of truth. Charles Darwin's landmark discovery of evolution, with a few minor modifications and additions over the years, has proved to be one of the sturdiest and most unassailable scientific theories of all time. To the extent that science can say anything is true, evolution is scientifically true. Done. Settled. As Walter Cronkite used to say, "That's the way it is."
To teach American children in science class that intelligent design is an alternative explanation of how birds, anteaters and people came to be birds, anteaters and people is simply to make American children less well educated than children elsewhere.
By all rights, we ought to remember the Ming dynasty for discovering America; instead, we think of gorgeous pottery but not much else. China's current leaders seem determined not to make the same mistake.
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The ranch at Crawford hardly compares with the Forbidden City, but George W. Bush has something in common with the Ming emperors of China: He seems determined to make his great nation less ambitious and more ignorant.
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Blair Acts Against Muslim 'Fringe'
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LONDON, Aug. 5 -- Prime Minister Tony Blair outlined fundamental changes in British policy and law Friday aimed at reining in what he called the "fanatical fringe" of the country's 2 million Muslims following last month's deadly train and bus bombings.
The measures, some of them effective immediately and others requiring approval by Parliament, include deporting people involved with radical Web sites, shutting down places of worship seen as "fomenting extremism," and criminalizing speech deemed to justify or incite terrorism.
"Let no one be in any doubt," Blair said in a nationally televised news conference. "The rules of the game are changing."
His program comes in response to growing public sentiment here that Britain has allowed itself to become a breeding ground for extremist Muslims from around the world, putting not only Britain at risk, but other nations as well.
"We're angry about them abusing our good nature and our toleration," Blair said. "Coming to Britain is not a right. And even when people have come here, staying here carries with it a duty. That duty is to share and support the values that sustain the British way of life."
His plan seemed set to win approval in Parliament, where the three major parties lined themselves up behind Blair after the attacks and rejected claims that Britain had brought the violence on itself by sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
But his plan drew strong criticism from people who said he was sacrificing civil liberties in the name of security. In their view, Britain is echoing the United States' response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Blair's endorsement of tighter regulation of speech -- including words that justify violence -- is particularly controversial in a nation that has prided itself on embracing a rainbow of cultures and religions and tolerating the most incendiary speech.
But Blair, recalling the July 7 transit attacks that killed 52 people in addition to the four bombers and injured more than 700, and a second failed bombing attempt on July 21, said that "for obvious reasons, the mood now is different."
His sentiment about extremists has broad support among the British public. "They're in Britain. They don't want to be British and they hate us. I say we should sling them all out," said Peter Brooks, a 57-year-old London resident.
But Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, a British human rights organization, said her group was "deeply concerned" about the measures. "The fundamental values of a democracy cannot be changed because we are provoked by terrorists," she said.
In particular, she expressed concern over the proposal to make it a crime to say something seen as "condoning, glorifying or justifying" terrorism in Britain or other countries. It was so broad, she said, that it could wind up targeting moderates critical of politicians.
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Prime Minister Tony Blair outlined fundamental changes in British policy and law Friday aimed at reining in what he called the "fanatical fringe" of the country's 2 million Muslims following last month's deadly transit bombings.
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Afghanistan Agrees To Accept Detainees
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The Bush administration is negotiating the transfer of nearly 70 percent of the detainees at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to three countries as part of a plan, officials said, to share the burden of keeping suspected terrorists behind bars.
U.S. officials announced yesterday that they have reached an agreement with the government of Afghanistan to transfer most of its nationals to Kabul's "exclusive" control and custody. There are 110 Afghan detainees at Guantanamo and 350 more at the Bagram airfield near Kabul. Their transfers could begin in the next six months.
Pierre-Richard Prosper, ambassador at large for war crimes, who led a U.S. delegation to the Middle East this week, said similar agreements are being pursued with Saudi Arabia and Yemen, whose nationals make up a significant percentage of the Guantanamo population. Prosper held talks in Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday, but negotiations were cut off after the announcement of King Fahd's death.
The decision to move more than 20 percent of the detainees at Guantanamo to Afghanistan and to largely clear out the detention center at Bagram is part of a broader plan to significantly reduce the population of "enemy combatants" in U.S. custody. Senior U.S. officials said yesterday's agreement is the first major step toward whittling down the Guantanamo population to a core group of people the United States expects to hold indefinitely.
"This is not an effort to shut down Guantanamo. Rather, the arrangement we have reached with the government of Afghanistan is the latest step in what has long been our policy -- that we need to keep dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield," Matthew Waxman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said shortly after leaving Kabul with Prosper. "We, the U.S., don't want to be the world's jailer. We think a more prudent course is to shift that burden onto our coalition partners."
The negotiations come amid intense international and domestic pressure on U.S. detention operations, with allegations of mistreatment and abuse as well as concern that detainees have been held for years without being prosecuted for their alleged crimes. Legal problems have also plagued the prosecutorial process at Guantanamo, which has been blocked for months as detainees' attorneys present challenges in U.S. federal courts.
"The Guantanamo issue is clearly a liability for the Bush administration, and emptying it has become a priority," said John Sifton, a specialist on Afghanistan and detainee issues at Human Rights Watch, an international monitoring group. "It's not a victory for human rights if a whole set of people deprived of their liberty are then moved to another place and continued to be deprived of their liberty unlawfully."
The agreement with Afghanistan is the largest of its kind so far. Prosper said yesterday that the U.S. government is working to send 129 Saudis and 107 Yemenis from Guantanamo to the custody of their home countries. If the U.S. government is able to arrange the transfer of detainees who came from all three countries, the population at the U.S. facility will drop by 68 percent, from 510 to 164.
Because the United States could hold on to those detainees who are considered by officials to pose the greatest terrorist threat, the numbers could change slightly. Negotiations depend on the cooperation of the other nations.
"We're now engaging the countries with the largest populations, so we expect to see the largest potential movement from Guantanamo," Prosper said in an interview from Dubai. "So if we can reach an understanding with these countries that will allow us to return them with the greatest assurances, then this will be the biggest movement yet out of Guantanamo."
Prosper and Waxman said that before such transfers can occur, the detainees' home countries must commit to taking steps that will prevent enemy combatants from re-engaging in hostile activity, and commit to treating the detainees humanely.
A major obstacle to the transfer of detainees to Afghanistan is infrastructure. U.S. officials have agreed to help Afghanistan build an appropriate prison and to train its guards.
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The Bush administration is negotiating the transfer of nearly 70 percent of the detainees at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to three countries as part of a plan, officials said, to share the burden of keeping suspected terrorists behind bars.
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Iran Discounts Latest Nuclear Proposal
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Iranian officials strongly criticized a European proposal they received yesterday that called on Tehran to dismantle much of the country's nuclear infrastructure. In exchange, the Europeans held out the prospect of improved political and economic ties with the West.
The offer, which was presented as a framework for further negotiations, won quick U.S. support by including many proposals the Bush administration has advocated on its own, such as requiring Iran to accept U.N. inspections anywhere and at any time. The European proposal is aimed at preventing Iran from being able to divert its civilian nuclear program to a military one.
But Iranian officials said the proposal, which includes more than a dozen conditional and sometimes ambiguous incentives, was insulting. "Maybe the Europeans are willing to sell out their own rights at a cheap price, but Iran is not," said M. Javad Zarif, the country's ambassador to the United Nations. In an interview, he called the offer "absurd, demeaning and self-congratulatory" and said it was not enough to stop Iran's plans to resume next week some of the same nuclear work the Europeans want it to give up.
That resumption, promised by Tehran last week, set the stage for an emergency meeting next Tuesday in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been overseeing an investigation of Iran's nuclear program. It also appeared to draw U.S. and European positions on the matter closer together.
Officials from Britain, Germany, France and the United States agreed in private discussions yesterday at the State Department that the Tuesday meeting, meant to ratchet up pressure on Iran, would go forward unless the threat to resume nuclear work was retracted. If Iran begins to convert uranium -- the first step in a lengthy technical process that could yield bomb-grade uranium -- the four allies would convene another IAEA meeting and call for the matter to be referred to the U.N. Security Council, diplomats said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
For more than two years, the European trio has been trying to persuade Iran to give up technology that could be used to fuel a nuclear energy program or atomic weapons. Iran has insisted that its program, built in secret over 18 years, is peaceful, but the scale and clandestine nature of the effort created deep suspicions about the country's intentions. IAEA inspectors, working in Iran for more than two years, have not found evidence of a weapons program. But questions remain, and the Europeans had hoped a political deal could persuade Iran to give up any ambitions it may have for nuclear weapons.
A new U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about 10 years away from being able to manufacture the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, and U.S. intelligence is uncertain about whether Iran has decided to build such weapons.
During the two years of negotiations, the Iranians have said they have no intention of building weapons but will not give up their right, under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to build a uranium-enrichment capability that could fuel an energy program. The Europeans had suggested they would offer Iran security assurances and nuclear fuel guarantees and boost economic and political links if Tehran agreed to give up the enrichment plans.
But yesterday's 31-page offer fell far short of Iran's expectations.
Before Iran would be eligible for any cooperation under the offer, it would have to sign a "binding commitment not to pursue fuel cycle activities" that it now has either under construction or on hold, according to a copy of the proposal. It would have to halt construction of a heavy-water reactor in the city of Arak and eventually dismantle other facilities, which the Iranians have said they would not do.
In addition, IAEA inspectors, whose access is limited by international law, would be allowed "to visit any site or interview any person they deem relevant to their monitoring of nuclear activities in Iran." That would give the inspectors the same kind of access they had in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
The agreement also would prevent Iran from leaving the international nuclear treaty even though it contains a legal exit clause, and it would force Iran to agree to buy, rather than to make, fuel for its planned nuclear energy program.
The European offer lays out several strategies for guaranteeing a fuel supply, although it does not address the fact that the United States, not Europe, controls or exerts great influence over purchasing possibilities Iran would face.
"I don't understand how the Europeans can guarantee fuel supply if the U.S. isn't explicitly saying it won't impose sanctions on companies that cooperate with the Iranians," said George Perkovich, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The same thing goes for security guarantees from Europe which aren't relevant when it is the United States" that Iran is worried about.
Iran had expected, based on early word from Europe, that the proposals would include security assurances that would protect Iran, which now has U.S. troops on its Iraqi and Afghan borders, from any future U.S. military plans. But the Europeans offered only limited guarantees of their own and did not include guarantees from the United States.
U.S. officials have long said they would not negotiate directly with Iran, a country President Bush once referred to as a member of an "axis of evil." But five months ago Bush agreed to back the European effort to negotiate an agreement, and today the European proposal was welcomed in Washington.
"We support the . . . efforts and the proposal they have put forward to find a diplomatic solution to this problem," said Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman. A senior administration official told reporters privately that much of the attention is now focused on whether the Iranians will go ahead with the uranium conversion work, a move that would effectively terminate the European diplomatic track.
"If the Iranians actually broke seals [on equipment] and tried to convert uranium, then the agreement would be violated and one would expect the action to be transferred to the Security Council," the official said.
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Iranian officials strongly criticized a European proposal they received yesterday that called on Tehran to dismantle much of the country's nuclear infrastructure. In exchange, the Europeans held out the prospect of improved political and economic ties with the West.
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U.S. Indicts 2 in Case Of Divulged Secrets
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Two former employees of an influential pro-Israel lobbying group were indicted yesterday on charges that they illegally received and passed on classified information to foreign officials and reporters over a period of five years, part of a case that has complicated relations between the United States and one of its closest allies.
Although no foreign government is named in the indictment, U.S. government sources have identified Israel as the country at the center of the probe. The Israeli Embassy in Washington also confirmed yesterday that it has been "approached" by investigators in the case.
The 26-page indictment, handed up in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, represents the first formal allegations of criminal wrongdoing against the former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC is widely recognized as one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington and has carefully cultivated close ties to Congress and the Bush administration.
The indictment also recasts the government's allegations against Lawrence A. Franklin, a Defense Department analyst who had already been charged with disclosing secret information about possible attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and other topics. One of six original counts was dropped against Franklin, 58, of Kearneysville, W.Va.
Former AIPAC director of foreign policy issues Steven J. Rosen, 63, of Silver Spring was indicted on two counts related to unlawful disclosure of "national defense information" obtained from Franklin and other unidentified government officials since 1999 on topics including Iran, Saudi Arabia and al Qaeda. A former AIPAC analyst, Keith Weissman, 53, of Bethesda, was indicted on one count of conspiracy to illegally communicate classified information.
Rosen was instrumental in making AIPAC a formidable political force and helped pioneer the strategy of lobbying the executive branch as energetically as Capitol Hill, beginning in the Reagan administration. The FBI's long-running investigation -- which has involved clandestine wiretaps and other surveillance dating back several years -- has angered many political supporters of Israel and has caused friction between the two governments.
AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman but continues to pay their legal fees. "AIPAC dismissed Rosen and Weissman because they engaged in conduct that was not part of their jobs, and because this conduct did not comport in any way with the standards that AIPAC expects of its employees," said Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for AIPAC.
A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, David Siegel, said that Israel was formally approached by U.S. investigators in the case several weeks ago and that "we've expressed our willingness to cooperate in this process." He denied any wrongdoing by embassy diplomats.
Attorneys for Rosen and Weissman also vigorously disputed the charges.
"The charges in the indictment announced today are entirely unjustified," Abbe Lowell, Rosen's attorney, said in a statement. Lowell said he expects the trial to "show that this prosecution represents a misguided attempt to criminalize the public's right to participate in the political process."
Weissman's attorney, John Nissikas, said in a statement: "We are disappointed that the government has decided to pursue these charges, which Mr. Weissman strongly denies."
Franklin's attorney, Plato Cacheris, said the charges were "not welcome but expected." Cacheris said he may request that Franklin be prosecuted separately from the others.
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Two former employees of an influential pro-Israel lobbying group were indicted yesterday on charges that they illegally received and passed on classified information to foreign officials and reporters over a period of five years, part of a case that has complicated relations between the United...
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The Heat? Suits Them
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How crazy and cool to see them waltzing about yesterday -- men in suits, in lovely pinstripe, in herringbone, in seersucker, starchy shirts and ties tied tight. Whole city blocks felt like grandma's kitchen after the pots had simmered all day. The high was 96, but something strangely called the comfort index -- a combination of temperature and humidity -- made it feel like it was 100 degrees.
Most people were wilting right along with the flowers in the front yard, but those men in suits yesterday were standing their sartorial ground.
"I just feel more whole and complete wearing a suit," said David Moses, 44, strolling on L Street NW. He works in international relations for a nonprofit. "I wear three-button suits, the kind Jack Kennedy wore. And single-vent only."
He turned around, as if he were in a Manhattan showroom. Then he went on: "And no pleats. I do it with cuffs. Never a break." He meant the pants, the way they didn't touch the tip of his shoes. They fell straight as a ruler. In his sunglasses, he looked a little Rat Packish, Sinatra, but minus the summer wind. "It's classic and clean and simple," he said, speaking of the suit. "That's the key to the heat. Simple is always better."
The suit was J. Press. The rest of his ensemble was Brooks Brothers. "You'll be able to wear this suit 30 years from now," he bragged, and said he didn't give a wit about the heat. Sweat beads began forming on his forehead, but he was way too cool to swipe at them. "Off to get my shoes shined," he said, and off he went.
There were plenty of men who walked about yesterday holding their suit jacket as if it was a piece of wet laundry. But we were interested in only those willing to don the full ensemble.
Such as the older gentleman who was nearly gliding along K Street. He was in a brown suit and had a lovely tie clasp. He works at the Womble Carlyle law firm. "I'm old enough to get Social Security," Vincent Pepper said, holding back his age while acknowledging that he graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1951. He was on his way to a luncheon. "It's actually nice out," he said with a straight face. "My body likes the heat."
Some suited men are steady souls in the world of business. John Tyson, 33, is president of a holding company. He was in a dark suit, clutching his cell phone like a baseball. "It's the simple support for my business," he said about donning a suit. "It's the credibility factor. It's about professionalism."
Bryan Smith, 51, who works for the Office of Management and Budget, rose yesterday and put on a light brown seersucker suit, blue starched shirt and peach-colored tie. He looked for his white socks, but his wife, he said, had misplaced them. So he wore dark socks with his tan suede bucks. He looked like an extra out of one of those old Noel Coward movies. ("Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun," Coward famously said.) "I do take some ribbing about it," Smith said of his dress. "My friends ask me if I'm working on an ice cream truck."
The heat doesn't worry him one bit. He simply reaches for the seersucker. "It's like wearing your pajamas to work," he said. "You ever have a dream where you can wear your pajamas to work?"
We shook our head no.
He went on: "In a seersucker, you can live that dream!"
There were stretches of pavement downtown where a man wasn't spotted in a suit. Shirtless men in shorts, yes. Men in short sleeves, yes. Men in smart shirts and ties.
And then along would come someone such as Alphonso Maldon, 50, in a beautiful pinstriped suit. Three-buttoned. The handkerchief rose from the breast pocket in a geometrical design. "I'm a very traditional person," said Maldon, a lobbyist who used to work in the Clinton administration. "I've never been one to be comfortable in casual dress." His attire seemed so severe, it was as if he were mocking the heat itself. "I'm retired from the military. My father was in the military. That's where some of my formal foundation came from. It takes discipline to stay in a coat and tie in this heat and not feel bothered by it."
We were sweating profusely and Maldon looked at us as if we were an alien life form.
Mac Dunaway was languidly strolling along 19th Street NW, a 62-year-old lawyer in a light-colored straw hat and beige suit and tie. "This is the way I was raised, to always dress," said Dunaway, who hails from Florida. "The heat's not an issue with me. One should always dress appropriately. Even in the heat." He said that if someone were to tell his wife he was seen downtown without suit and tie, "she just wouldn't believe it."
From across the street we spotted the bow tie, a big, red thing butterflying at the man's neck. "I go to work every day -- rain or shine -- with a tie on," said Alan Goldhammer, 57, who works for a local trade association. "Maybe it goes back to what my father always told me: You go to work, dress appropriately." He, too, was in a seersucker suit and hauling an oversize briefcase. "In the wintertime, I wear a regular tie," he said. "It gives a little more warmth around the neck area."
Goldhammer grew up in Southern California. "I didn't experience air conditioning till graduate school in Indiana." When he moved to Washington and was introduced to the city's summer heat, he bought himself a seersucker.
A woman walked by and stared at the bow-tied and suited Goldhammer standing in the 96-degree heat. Her double take -- which Goldhammer ignored -- would have made Buster Keaton proud. "I'm a slave to fashion," Goldhammer said. "We all must have standards."
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The Self-Illustrated Man
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This volume is a collection of Ray Bradbury's essays, published -- or not published -- over a period of about 40 years. It is the work of someone who has always been an anomalous figure in contemporary American literature. His backlist, the promotional information informs us, sells more than 200,000 copies a year. He was, and remains, one of our most popular writers. On the other hand, many intellectuals have spurned or, worse, ignored him. There is a wide, if ebbing, prejudice in this country against "science fiction," which is, even now, perceived by many to be a second-class genre.
To counter this viewpoint, or maybe because he really feels this way, Bradbury has long held that science fiction was the real cause of human space flight. As Adm. Byrd said as he took off for the North Pole, "Jules Verne leads me!" That saying is quoted three times in "Bradbury Speaks," in three separate pieces. Bradbury's view is that no one would explore anything unless he (or she) had read about it first, which is arguable but unprovable. To suggest that Sputnik's arrival on the scene might have jolted the United States into the space race is equally arguable but unprovable. The author's purpose here, if I read him correctly, is to put the finishing touches on his permanent niche in the roster of American Lit as a prophet of space (and other utopias), creating a lasting legend of what he himself "means" in our literary landscape.
So here are these collected essays, some no more than two or three pages long, supposedly "About Writing" or "About Science Fiction," or "People," "Life," "Paris," or "Los Angeles," but really about Ray Bradbury -- his opinions and beliefs.
Bradbury is a contrarian. He's an ardent sponsor of space travel who couldn't bring himself to get on a plane until 1982 (he was born in 1920). He respects Jules Verne's love of machinery but has never learned to drive a car. He disdains e-mail, videos and all other technological paraphernalia.
He seems to hold the belief that if we can get to outer space, we can live forever. He's an incorrigible name-dropper, but only if that name thinks -- or says -- he's a genius. Thus, Sergei Bondarchuk, who directed the Russian film version of "War and Peace," here lectures a group of somewhat dazed American film directors, including Billy Wilder, Sam Peckinpah, Frank Capra and King Vidor: "Bradbury! . . . Do you know who this is ? Do you realize what is this talent ? Your greatest genius, your greatest writer. My God. Get out of the way! Come! Where's the vodka!"
The first section here, seven essays under the rubric "About Writing," recalls how Bradbury became who he is today -- his trials, tribulations and triumphs. In "Lincoln's Doctor's Dog's Butterfly," he recounts how some movie-director-yahoo wanted to take the butterfly out of a screenplay of his story "A Sound of Thunder," originally published in Collier's magazine 50 years ago, in which a butterfly is featured prominently. His reaction is echt Bradbury: "God, I thought, here we go again! The story has been published in eighty anthologies, read by millions of students in ten thousand schools. If you shot a film minus the butterfly, there would be pandemonium." Millions of readers! He's right, of course, but shouldn't it be someone else who's praising him to the skies? It seems a little embarrassing.
Equally unsettling are his accounts -- several in this book -- of how he, Bradbury, turned Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" into a screenplay: "On other mornings I had ordered breakfast. This morning I got out of bed, stared at my typewriter across the room, and marched toward it. . . . I made a declaration to myself in the mirror: 'I,' I cried, 'am Herman Melville!' "
Then follows a discussion of metaphors and how he put them together for the script. Only a Scrooge-ish critic would remember that film as less than marvelous, with poor Gregory Peck chasing after a tawdry special-effects whale that looked like a Naugahyde couch. (But that wasn't necessarily Bradbury's fault.)
There's very little about his fiction -- other than how he got the inspiration for particular works, or sold them, or strung short stories together to make a novel. And indeed, the fiction seems to have been written by a completely different voice -- cool, introspective, sober, somber. Again, the author here chooses to be a prophet, employing a hortatory tone: "My own belief is that the universe exists as a miracle and that we have been born here to witness and celebrate. We wonder at our purpose for living. Our purpose is to perceive the fantastic. Why have a universe if there is no audience?"
Or, on space travel: "We move into the universe. We name ourselves, along with our rockets, after old deities. We make ourselves central to existence, knowing not how far we must travel before we meet other mirrors of God staring back into His vast gaze."
What else? Bradbury is a city planner in his spare time; he offered valuable advice to Walt Disney on the building of his theme parks and the people who did the U.S. Pavilion at the World's Fair in New York in 1964. He brought the (then failing) Century City shopping mall in Los Angeles to life with some well-chosen ideas; he has even more ideas for revitalizing downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood Boulevard. (It should be noted, though, that he never lets the facts interfere with his opinions: "Chinatown is abandoned, gangs roam free, so the best cafes have turned off their ovens," he writes, when the Chinatown scene has never been more hip, chic and respectable, and Chinese chefs don't use ovens very much at all.)
Bradbury is an extremely respected figure here in Los Angeles -- from where I write. He was an indefatigable lecturer in the old days, immensely popular with students. After his stroke, when it was tiring for him to sign his name, he made arrangements for Polaroid photos to be taken with buyers of his books. He is legendarily devoted to his readers. I must have seen him 30 times over the years at conferences, signings, events (and spoken to him only once). Since this book is plainly for the record, let me say, also for the record, Bradbury always looked sad. His wonderful fiction speaks from the somber, thoughtful side of him. These essays don't.
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Independents' Day
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"Was that movie . . . independent?" my mother-in-law asked me the other day after she had seen a sneak preview of "Junebug," a low-budget movie set in North Carolina (opening Aug. 26 in Washington) in which the characters are unconventional and -- in some cases -- pretty darn weird.
"Yeah, I thought so," she said. "I thought so."
By "independent," what she meant was: a movie that gave itself license to be its own bad self.
What's an "indie" movie, anyway? Well, it means independent, and it has come to mean a lot of things to different people. Whatever it is, most would agree that it is different from the usual Hollywood studio business, the kind that comes with big budgets, megablitz advertising and household stars face to face with Katie in the morning or Oprah in the afternoon. ("So, Brad, you gotta tell us -- are wedding bells in the picture?")
Because they are independently conceived and directed, in most cases, indie movies are known for taking advantage of good narrative and character quirks instead of computer-generated effects. And these movies are made free of meddlesome studio executives who never met a project they couldn't bury under a pile of memos, "notes" and audience research printouts.
Asked recently about the difference between Hollywood studio movies and independent ones, "Junebug" director Phil Morrison deliberated. He cited two independently made films, 1997's "Thirteen," by David D. Williams, about a 13-year-old African American girl who runs away from home, and Charles Burnett's 1990 "To Sleep With Anger," in which Danny Glover plays a mysterious visitor with a clearly shady side.
Films like these, Morrison said, "are not designed to make you enjoy them because they affirm a preconception of yours as an audience member. They don't pat you on the back for being how you already are but rather remind you of how to try to be better. Just doing better as a person. They're not narcotic. And I think what the studio process can do is create movies that are meant to just please us with sensation. It's like MSG [monosodium glutamate]. You know, MSG makes my food taste really, really good, but it makes me feel a little bit lazier later. It makes me feel sort of numb to reality."
Indies, at their best, are off-Hollywood creativity at its finest, a sort of inspired, low-tech rage against the machine. That machine is the hype-feeder that pours formulaic pablum directly into feed funnels atop the multiplexes. Thanks to the success of films such as Steven Soderbergh's 1989 "sex, lies and videotape," which won the Golden Palm at Cannes, and Quentin Tarantino's 1994 "Pulp Fiction," which not only won the Palm but also went on to make more than $100 million, the possibilities are too delicious to ignore. And these movies have spawned untold numbers of dreamers.
Their dream goes something like this: Some kid from Scranton, Pa., drops out of college; maxes out his (or her) credit cards; begs neighborhood doctors, friends and family to invest; and somehow gets Marisa Tomei to work for union scale because she believes in this script about a single mother and short-order cook who finds love with a moody dude named Dylan. Then the movie wins an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. And the next thing he knows, Sony Pictures Classics picks up the distribution rights for $2 million and yada, yada, yada. In a way, indie movies have become a sort of junior varsity trial for the bigger leagues. But in many cases, the indie filmmaker (such as Wes Anderson or Soderbergh) maintains his or her unique talents, and even if he becomes part of the Hollywood picture, he makes mainstream audiences that little bit hipper.
Another attractive development for indie movies is the consumer DVD revolution. People watch their movies at home these days. And they choose more unconventionally. They don't just want to rent or buy "War of the Worlds" when it comes out, they want the director's recut of "Donnie Darko." They want to catch up with that Michael Moore documentary. They want that early Errol Morris movie, the one with all those weird people in Florida. Which means indie films are making their money back in the video store. (Unfortunately, this also means that Hollywood's mediocre movies can fail at the box office but recoup in their DVD afterlife.)
In a recent telephone conversation, Jim Jarmusch took a few minutes to talk indies. He's the director whose superb 1980s movies -- "Permanent Vacation," "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Down by Law" -- were hailed as "independent cinema" back when Ronald Reagan was president. He has managed to stay around for more than two decades, making movies his way. His latest film, "Broken Flowers," opens this weekend, and the American Film Institute is showing a retrospective of his work this month. (See story on facing page.)
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Neil Diamond, Polishing His Songcraft
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For his hot August night at MCI Center Wednesday, Neil Diamond will dip into a songbook whose copyrights go back to 1966 and includes such pop standards as "Cracklin' Rosie," "Sweet Caroline," "Love on the Rocks, "Song Sung Blue," "I Am, I Said," "Cherry Cherry," "Holly Holy," "Kentucky Woman" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," his duet with old Erasmus High School choir mate Barbra Streisand.
Diamondheads could be getting a first listen to "Oh Mary," "Delirious Love" or "Hell Yeah" from an as-yet untitled Diamond album to be released in November, his first with producer Rick Rubin. Yes, the Rick Rubin best known for producing hip-hop, metal and alternative acts, including the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Slayer, System of a Down and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
But in the '90s, Rubin also produced Johnny Cash's "American Recordings," a quartet of albums that revived Cash critically and reintroduced him to a younger, rock-oriented audience. The third of those albums, 2000's "Solitary Man," featured the then 68-year-old country icon covering an early Diamond song whose title has often been used to describe its author.
"Of course I liked what Johnny did with 'Solitary Man,' " Diamond said recently from his Los Angeles home. "There were a number of other cuts I thought were extraordinary, thrilling and powerful. It wasn't only 'Solitary Man' I got caught up in, so when you get a chance to work with someone like [Rubin], you don't turn a blind eye to it.
"I'm not sure if I had expectations," says the 64-year-old Diamond of the unlikely partnership. "I had a lot of hopes ."
The album's not quite finished, but portions of a few tracks are played over the phone. They hint at the spare, acoustic approach emphasizing song over performance that worked so well with Cash. While the piano-driven "Delirious Love" is as propulsive and anthemic as its title suggests, "Oh Mary" is a love song anchored in simple acoustic guitar, "Hell Yeah" a reflective ballad in which Diamond looks back on his life and career and decides that despite "this crazy life around me / It confuses and confounds me," it's all been worth it: "Hell yeah," indeed.
According to Diamond, "Rick had a very clear vision of what he wanted this album to be. He was looking for a soulful performance with me playing guitar and singing, which I haven't done since [1966's] 'Cherry Cherry' and [1967's] 'Kentucky Woman' -- on record, anyway. He was looking to make a minimalist record, and he wanted good songs.
"All of which I agreed to, with the exception of playing on the songs while singing," Diamond says. "We butted heads as far as that one was concerned -- I complained about it every day. Fortunately, Rick stuck to his guns because the result is really some kind of magical recording."
The Diamond-Rubin connection may seem odd, but the two, both Brooklyn born and bred, even have common collegiate history: Both are New York University dropouts. Diamond, a pre-med student on a fencing scholarship, dropped out in 1960, six months and 10 credits before he would have received his degree. He didn't tell his mother until 1995, when he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts. He'd quit to work as a $50-dollar-a-week contract songwriter with assorted New York publishing companies, though without much success. Then in 1966, he rented a small storage room above the Birdland jazz club for $35 a month, installed a pay phone on a small desk next to a cheap piano, and went to work for himself.
Soon, Diamond was selling songs, including "Sunday and Me," a Top 20 hit for Jay & the Americans, and "I'm a Believer" and "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You," No. 1 and No. 2 hits, respectively, for the Monkees. Diamond, who'd learned to play guitar after receiving one for his 14th birthday, eventually overcame his shyness to emerge as a recording artist and performer in his own right: "Cherry Cherry" would be the first of many hits; 1970's "Cracklin' Rosie" was his first No. 1.
Rubin, who'd studied to be a lawyer before becoming a producer and co-founder of the Def Jam label, first reached out to Diamond after the "Solitary Man" album with Cash, but it wasn't until 2003 that the two men began talking.
"I'd heard of Rick for a number of years," Diamond says. "He's kind of a pioneer in the music business, and he's produced so many different types of music and artists that you can't help but know about him. And you wonder, 'What the heck is this guy going to do next?' without realizing that you were what he was going to do next! I found out quickly I was comfortable with him and liked what his ideas were. It was a no-brainer: Let's give it a try and have fun . . . and tell me where to stand."
Before Diamond and Rubin went into the studio, there was a lot of talk. The producer isn't attached to any particular sound or method, and Rubin is known to spend a long time in preproduction and song-prepping before he's ready to start recording. Diamond himself spent 14 months "locked up in my studio, writing, working from dawn till dark, six or seven days a week, trying to plumb the depths of my ability, my soul, my life and hopefully come out of it with songs that shed new light on things.
"It was a difficult time, but the actual creation of the record in the studio was the most eye-opening thing for me of the whole process," Diamond says. "I don't really hear a record when I'm writing, I'm basically just writing a song. But Rick had a particular point of view and a vision about what this album should be, what it should sound like, what I should sound like and what the songs should be presented as.
"I just kind of followed along. I wrote the songs, and it was up to Rick to make them come alive in the studio. He took some very strong stands on what the musicians would play [they include Mike Campbell from Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and Smokey Hormel from Beck's band, both of whom played on Rubin's Cash albums], and in particular what I would play [on guitar while singing]. I did not want to do it. It took me a number of dates to realize he was absolutely right and there was something coming off these records that I had not experienced for a number of decades in my music."
This will be the fourth collection of new material in 14 years (following 1991's "Lovescape," 1996's country-tinted "Tennessee Moon" and 2001's "Three Chord Opera"). Among the 120 million records sold worldwide as of May, including 50 million in the United States, have been Christmas collections and concert albums. (The 1972 "Hot August Night" album, recorded at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre, remains a classic and suggests why his last concert tour drew 2 million people.) His records also include numerous compilations and best-ofs and in the last decade, tributes to the Brill Building era of songwriting and film songs. Still, "Hell Yeah" aside, Diamond hasn't really looked back since 1996's self-selected career retrospective, "In My Lifetime."
"Honestly I don't think about it," he says. "I've been doing it for a long time, and I know what's important and what's relevant, and that's the songs and the records and the performances, and that's what I think about. I hardly ever go back and rethink my life or my songs. It's just that I have enough to do dealing with the present."
The present includes another toe dipped into the world of film. After his debut in 1980's ill-fated "The Jazz Singer" (unless you're counting a guest spot on a 1967 episode of "Mannix"), Diamond wisely decided to concentrate on music rather than pursuing an acting career. Two decades later, he felt confident enough to play himself in the comedy "Saving Silverman," about a trio of twenty-somethings (Jack Black, Steve Zahn and Jason Biggs) who have a Neil Diamond tribute act called Diamonds in the Rough. Diamond, who saw the film as a tribute to his fans and fans in general, ended up joining Diamonds in the Rough for a rousing finale of "Holly Holy," while also contributing "I Believe in Happy Endings," his first original movie composition since "Jazz Singer."
Though that cameo was warmly received (and compared to Tom Jones's hero turn in "Mars Attacks!"), Diamond said at the time that if he ever did another movie, it would be as "a singing serial killer." But in the upcoming "Lucky 13," he plays . . . Neil Diamond! Singing at a bar mitzvah. (The Scott Marshall-directed film is about a boy who uses his upcoming bar mitzvah to reconcile the strained relationship between his father and grandfather.) One professional Diamond impersonator has updated his Web site to advise that after the film's release, "Neil Diamond impersonators will be much in demand at bar mitzvahs."
"That's show business," laughs Diamond, who has inspired a whole subculture of impersonators: Only Elvis has more. There's obviously something about shiny shirts, sweeping stage gestures, gruff authoritative vocals and overall earnestness that make Diamond one of pop's enduring attractions and objects of imitation. Los Angeles' Super Diamond has been doing him since 1993 and every August re-creates the "Hot August Night" show. Lead singer Randy Cordeiro, an ex-computer engineer, is known to fans as Surreal Neil; once, the real Neil sat in with Super Diamond at the House of Blues, singing "I Am, I Said." Or should that have been "We Are, We Said?"
Says Diamond: "It is a little strange, I have to admit it, seeing someone up there trying to be you. A little weird but also fun. God bless them all, I hope they do great."
Diamond is quick to note that his appearance in "Lucky 13" is, again, just a cameo.
"I got a call from the director and read the script, and I thought it was a very fun thing to do," he explains. "It's not a serious marker in my career, but it had some wonderful actors and I thought I'll go in and do a day or two's work and sing at the end. That's all I did, that's all I want to do in film. I don't mind doing it once in a while, but I certainly don't want to take on acting as a profession. That 's not what I do."
NEIL DIAMOND -- Appearing Wednesday at MCI Center.
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For his hot August night at MCI Center Wednesday, Neil Diamond will dip into a songbook whose copyrights go back to 1966 and includes such pop standards as "Cracklin' Rosie," "Sweet Caroline," "Love on the Rocks, "Song Sung Blue," "I Am, I Said," "Cherry Cherry," "Holly Holy," "Kentucky Woman" and...
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New York Police Sued Over Subway Searches
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NEW YORK, Aug 4 -- The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city's police department Thursday, calling the random search of subway riders' bags unconstitutional and ineffective.
The lawsuit -- filed in a federal court on behalf of five subway passengers, including the son of a retired police captain and a naturalized citizen -- alleges that the program violates constitutional rights that protect against illegal searches and guarantee due process.
New York City's transit system is the first in the nation to institute regular, random checks of passenger bags. The searches began July 21, after terrorist suicide bombings two weeks earlier in London's transit system killed 52 bystanders. Critics not aligned with civil liberties activists also say the searches are ineffective but say they want police to begin racial profiling of passengers to emphasize searches of young men of Middle Eastern or Asian descent.
Civil liberties advocates said searches that are not based on suspicion do little to protect the public, particularly when mass-transit riders who refuse to submit to the searches are allowed to enter the subway system at another station.
"People are allowed to walk away, ensuring that only innocent people are searched," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, who called the searches a "civil liberties surcharge on a Metrocard."
The searches are performed on a rough mathematical formula of one out of five to 10 people depending on foot traffic, according to police officials.
New York subways move 4.7 million passengers, nearly half of the nation's mass-transit riders. New Jersey riders boarding trains to New York recently became subjected to similar searches.
Gail Donoghue, special counsel in the city's legal department, called the NYCLU "shortsighted" and said in a written statement that the program "preserves the important balance between protecting our City and preserving individual rights."
City police officials said they have received no complaints about the policy.
The Supreme Court has approved the use of checkpoints in special circumstances, but in 2000 the court ruled that random searches could not be employed for the "ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes."
A plaintiff in the NYCLU lawsuit, Joseph Gehring Jr., the son of a retired police captain and a "lifelong Republican," said he began avoiding police checkpoints after his bags were searched. "I've been forced to act like a criminal in my own city when I have done nothing wrong," said Gehring, who lamented a lack of opposition by New Yorkers to the program. "We are becoming accustomed to having our liberties taken away."
New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) plans to introduce legislation in the state legislature within two months that will empower police officers to single out people based on national origin and ethnicity.
"Police officers need to keep specific attention to young people -- Middle Eastern, South Asian -- based on a profile that is so obvious," Hikind said.
New York City Council member James S. Oddo (R) said he will introduce a nonbinding resolution in support of the legislation.
On a Manhattan-bound subway, Princess Alexander, 38, offered her conditional support for the police searches, saying, "This is what we have to live with right now." But Alexander, an office manager, said she is opposed to racial profiling. "We have been singled out," said Alexander, who is black.
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NEW YORK, Aug 4 -- The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city's police department Thursday, calling the random search of subway riders' bags unconstitutional and ineffective.
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Md. Man Accused of Plot to Aid Terrorists
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Federal authorities yesterday charged a Baltimore County resident with conspiring to support a terrorist organization, alleging that he said during a conversation secretly recorded by the FBI that he had attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
Mahmud Faruq Brent, a U.S. citizen who once worked as a paramedic in Silver Spring, is accused of supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Islamic group that the U.S. government has designated a terrorist organization. Brent was arrested in Newark yesterday morning and appeared later in federal court in Manhattan.
A criminal complaint filed there says the FBI listened in during a conversation between Brent, who also uses the name Mahmud Al Mutazzim, and Tarik Shah of New York, a jazz musician and self-described martial arts expert. Shah was arrested in May and has pleaded not guilty to charges that he provided material support to al Qaeda.
The complaint against Brent alleges that Shah told authorities after his arrest that he had trained Brent in martial arts and that Brent was committed to jihad. The complaint says Shah agreed to arrange a meeting with Brent at a hotel near Columbia. The FBI monitored that meeting using video and audio surveillance, the complaint says.
According to the complaint, Brent said during the meeting that he had traveled to Pakistan and trained with mujaheddin. Brent called the decision to go to the camps "one of the better decisions in my life" and urged Shah to seek similar training, the complaint says.
Brent spoke of the difficulties he encountered in reaching the camps and said Shah's decision would come down to a question of "how much" he was willing to "sacrifice" and whether he was willing to "take a risk," the complaint says. Brent said that he was moved by videotapes of Muslims "suffering" and that the tapes "kind of like pushed me over the, over the edge," it says.
An attorney for Brent did not return phone calls late yesterday seeking comment. Attempts to reach his family members at phone numbers listed in the complaint and elsewhere were unsuccessful.
The complaint also links Brent to Seifullah Chapman, a member of the "Virginia jihad network" who has been sentenced to 65 years in prison for conspiring to support Lashkar-e-Taiba and other offenses. Chapman was charged with taking part in paramilitary training, including playing paintball in the Virginia countryside, to prepare for holy war abroad. The complaint says Chapman wrote a letter in support of an application for an expedited passport that Brent filed in 2000.
The complaint says that Lashkar-e-Taiba translates roughly as "Army of the Pure" and that the group claims to have trained thousands of militants to fight in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Kosovo and elsewhere. The United States designated it a foreign terrorist organization in 2001 after the Indian government blamed it for an attack on parliament that killed 12.
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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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Real Estate Live
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Welcome to Real Estate Live, an online discussion of the Washington area housing market, featuring Post Real Estate editor Maryann Haggerty.
Maryann's been with The Post for 18 years and has served as real estate editor for the last five years. She's been a business and real estate editor and reporter for about 25 years. In all that time, she still hasn't figured out where you can find a lovely but inexpensive house in a charming neighborhood.
Today, we discussed the specifics of the market, from condos and investment properties to contracts and mortgages.
Rockville, Md.: Actually Maryann -
I have a house I'm selling in metro Detroit, Michigan. I know from reading your discussions (but many of your readers may not believe this) that it is possible for real estate to lose value.
I hope to at least sell my house for what I paid (I'm not counting the improvements I've made). I can't afford to buy in DC so I rent.
I guess my question is, what should I do if (God forbid) I have to come up with cash at close. I hardly have any savings.
Maryann Haggerty: In a falling market, sellers do sometimes have to write checks at closing. There's no magic way around it. Do your best to sell at a price where you can at least break even. Sorry.
Maryann Haggerty: Greetings, all, on this steamy August day. It's so hot out that--well, that it's like August in Washington.
That means the sidewalks downtown are about as empty as they get all year, because everyone is gone (except us.) Last weekend, I did manage to get away to a friend's lake house. As usual, that gave me a roaring case of weekend-house-envy. Eventually, my rational side will reapper. After all, I can barely keep up with the one house I have now. Why would I ever want two? What do you think?
Now, onto your many good questions. I'll do my best to answer, but here's my regular reminder: I do not have a crystal ball...
Silver Spring, Md.: What's a good way to get comparables for single family rents other than contacting a real estate agent? I've tried that and the results were worthless. Thank you.
Maryann Haggerty: Read the classified ads. Most landlords in this region don't bother wth real estate agents.
Purcellville, Va.: Out here in Loudoun, 90 percent of the new homes being built are enormous. The median price of a home has gone up tremendously as a result. Is there any way to get a true idea of the house appreciation rate that is not tied to the median house price? Thanks!!
Maryann Haggerty: The house-appreciation numbers that OFHEO uses (www.ofheo.gov) are tied to same-house sales over time. (It's a complex formula that I do not want to explain.)So they smooth out differences in housing stock. That contrasts with the aggregate sales used in The Post's weekly Zip code maps & the appreciation numbers prepared by Realtors, etc.
rent or sell, va: everyone says it's a mistake to sell. that you should always hang onto your house, hire a property mgr and rent it out. but if it's SO easy, why do so few people do it?
Maryann Haggerty: Why isn't everyone a landlord? Because lots of people would prefer to roll accumulated equity into a move-up house. And because dealing with tenants can sometimes be absolutely no fun.
Bethesda, Md.: I bought a pre-construction condo in Silver Spring -- not many frills, 2BR, 2BA, 1200 sq. ft., near the metro, for around $350,000 just over a year ago. I heard that similar pre-construction condos in the area are now selling for $550,000 plus - but can't find anything to verify this. Is it true? Is my long wait for my still not delivered condo really worth the investment? I would feel so much better knowing that this is the case...Thanks!
Maryann Haggerty: You "hear" this it what condos are selling for? Why not just go out Saturday afternoon and do a little shopping on your own? Or even just cruise a few Web sites for pre-construciton condos that are marketing in the neighborhood? Sales prices of new condos are not a state secret!
I'm between a rock and a hard place. Is it better to sell first and then look for a new place to live, or find a new place and then sell? I've been in my current home for almost 3 years and have no idea what the current selling price would be, so it's hard to know how much I can afford. Please advise!
Maryann Haggerty: It's easy enough to figure out roughly how much yourplace will sell for. Just ask real estate agents. They would be happy to tell you.
Now, buy or sell first? Depends on your needs. If you absolutely need the cash from the sale to afford to buy, then there's your answer. Perhaps you can negotiate a rent-back in the contract, or arrange a bridge loan. Or perhaps you'll find yourself in a position where you have to rent for a while in between houses, which is a royal pain, but not necessarily the end of hte world.
Mortgage question: Hi, is a $7,500 salary increase worth mentioning to my mortgage guy, to discuss refinancing? I recall he said I was "on the bubble" of another financing program when I got my first one, back in March, but didn't quite qualify. Thanks.
Maryann Haggerty: $7,500 more per year may indeed be enough to get you off that bubble. So call the mortgage guy. And congratulations!
Vienna, Va.: I'm over a year out of college, making close to 55K (and more with overtime), and want to move out of my parents house, where I have been my entire life. I want to use the money I have saved to BUY something. Given my salary, about how much money would I have to put down to afford a condo around 275K. Does it make sense to hold out and keep saving even more for a downpayment (so the mortgage is lower) or get in now with less, if I'm even in the ballpark? I have at least 25K saved up right now that I'm saving to use to get in this terribly foreboding housing market.
Maryann Haggerty: Those numbers may be a bit tight. (Remember, you will need several thousand for closing costs, etc.) However, I just ran some numbers through the "How Much House Can You Afford" calculator on Fannie Mae's Web site, & it could be do-able for you. (http://www.fanniemae.com/homebuyers/calculators/index.jhtml?p=Resources&s=Calculators)
You might find, however, that making those hefty mortgage payments wll be a shock after you have been living in parent-subsidized housing. You'll likely have to tighten your belt some.
Alexandria, Va.: At what point should one hire an attorney? Before you make an offer or just before you go to closing?
Maryann Haggerty: A lot of people buy & sell without any lawyer at all, letting the real estate agent & title company deal with hte details. I'm gonna upset my lawyer friends by saying that in most cases, that's just fine. BUT BUT, if you're involved in a for-sale-by-owner transaction, I would hire a lawyer, & I would do so before the contract offer.
Fairfax, Va.: I am a tennet currently leaving in a building that is being sold to new investors. The current landlord has been very accomidating and respectful. So how does one deal with real estate agents who aren't? I can't tell you how many times I have come home to discover they have been in my home without permission or even letting anyone know. It is very clear that they are to get permission, but they never do. All of us who live in the building are getting more hostile over the situation and one other got into an argument with an agent who was standing IN HER BEDROOM when she got home. What exactly are the laws here?
Maryann Haggerty: They're supposed to give you reasonable notice. Period. But what are you going to do? Have them arrested for trespassing? That's not gonna happen. So lock up your valuables, & politely insist, EVERY time this happens, that you receive proper notice. And every time it happens, notify your landlord AND the listing agent of the problem. Listing agents are well aware of the passive-aggressive ways that aggrieved tenants can complicate sales...
Silver Spring, Md. : I bought a house in SS in June and paid full price. I was the only offer. Now I see the market may turn and I feel like I made a mistake. What is your opinion about the SS market in the next couple of yerars. Can I lose money?
Maryann Haggerty: You have buyer's remorse. It's common. Of course you could lose money--or you could make money. No one knows. If the market softens considerably, & you have to sell at a soft time, you may lose. (Especialy because transaction costs can really mount up.) That's why the standard advice is to buy only when you have good reason to believe you'll stay in the house at least 5 years. That's generally enough time to weather swings in the market, & to recoup transaction costs. In the meantime, live your life.
Alexandria, Va.: Is the 6% (or so) commission to the realtors from the seller taken off the purchase price of the home? I've been asked to sell my house directly to a broker and she wants me to reduce the price of my house 6% from the going rate. I think I would reduce it 3%, since my realtor would want her piece of the pie.
Maryann Haggerty: I'm not sure precisely wha you mean by "taken off." So, to be clear: The price a buyer pays includes the 6% commission. Then that 6% is deducted from the amount the seller receives (along with any other closing costs paid by the seller.) There's no rule that if you sell to a broker you need to deduct X from the price. In fact, you likely have agreed to pay that 6% or whatever directly to your listing agent, & then the listing agent would separately split it with htebuyer's agent. So look at your contract with your agent vis a vis commissions, etc. But, more important: The broker is simply using a negotiating tactic with you. Decide whether you want to go along with that tactic, or hold firm to your price. Your call!
Alexandria, Va.: This is the first time I'm selling a house. The literature I've read suggests renting a storage unit to put your personal belongings. Is that necessary in this market? Thanks for this chat!
Maryann Haggerty: Depends how much junk you have. If you need that space to declutter, maybe. (I mean, you can try selling the place when old magazines are stacked to ceiling, but you may get an appreciably better price if the place looks better.)
Montgomery County, Md.: Can you tell me about title insurance? I know the lender requires it, but what are the advantages of me getting an additional policy for me?
Maryann Haggerty: Title insurance covers some big, big unknowables. You will almost never actually use it. But if you are in one of the situations where you need it, there is no replacement. It's not that expensive; you only pay it once (not every month.) I've always bought it; I know people who refuse. Your call, as usual.
Burke, Va.: A couple of days ago I ran into a Web site that displayed real estate market sentiment by surveying real estate agents across the country. I can't seem to find the web site again. Would you know of any such Web sites?
Maryann Haggerty: Hmmm, I've seen that one, too, but now can't remember where either. A quick Google brings me just commercial market results. Anyone else have this answer?
Springfield, Va.: Do you know of any sources to keep updated on new residential housing development in DC? I'd like to move back to the city at some point and wanted to keep tabs on new home construction, such as around the new baseball stadium.
Maryann Haggerty: The Post's District Extra section prints a (monthly, I think) map of what's proposed for construction where. You can also find rumors, etc., on just about any neighborhood listserv. And one of my colleagues/neighbors actually follows development in near-Southeast in obsessive, interactive-map-detail on her blog. It's www.jdland.com; click on the green column to the left to see much, much info...
RE: Home in Mich.: If the poster cannot afford to sell it, s/he could try to rent it to cover expenses until the market starts back up there.
Maryann Haggerty: Of course. If rents come anywhere near covering operating costs. Gotta do the math...
Washington, D.C.: Hello! A 33-year-old apartment renter here now looking into buying. I have checked out the D.C. housing Web site and the Montgomery county Housing Web sites, but am left wondering -- do if I found a home in MD would I have needed to be a resident of MD for a certain amount of time to get first-time homebuyer benefits or sign up for any assistance programs? I have the same question about DC, in case I end up renting for a year in MD, but want to buy a home in DC. Thanks!
Maryann Haggerty: The big benefit in DC--the $5,000 federal tax credit--is NOT restricted to current residents. The idea of it is to draw new people to the city, after all.
Some Montco benefits are indeed restricted, tho. Check with the county Housing Opportunities Commission for more info.
Cranston, R.I.: I own a house in D.C. that I've been renting out for many years. I would like to let one of my adult children live in it. I understand that to vacate the house (the tenants are on a month to month basis) I must submit an affadavit to the D.C. housing authorities affirming I plan to take back the property for my 'personal use'; would use by one of my children qualify, or must I move into the property myself? Can I or must I charge my child rent? If I do take the house off the market, at what point is it no longer investment property eligible for a 1031 swap?
Maryann Haggerty: At least once a week, I try to quote my long-time columnist Bob Bruss, and this is one of those times. "For more information, please consult your tax adviser." I'm sure I would mess up this answer!
Washington, D.C.: I've noticed over the past few weeks that LOTS of properties around the area are coming down in price. But why? To spark a bidding war? Overpriced in the first place?
Maryann Haggerty: Who knows? If someone cuts a price, odds are they aren't trying to spark a war; odds are they came in too high in the first place. But war might break out anyway. It could be a sign of that long-foretold softening in the market. Or it could simply be that it's AUGUST...
Alexandria, Va.: The PMI risk index (in CNN/money) predicts only a 20 percent chance of a downturn in the D.C. real estate market. Compared to Boston and parts of California that have more than a 50% chance, we seem to be doing well.
Then again, California real estate is downright scary right now.
Bourgas, Bulgaria: I read lately that the Bulgarian real estate market is as intense and profitable as the U.S. real estater market in the main cities. Is that true and why?
Maryann Haggerty: OK, you really don't expect me to know the answer to this one, do you?
Staunton: Hi. I will be selling my house early next year. I have been in my house for 22 years. Do you suggest getting an appraisal to help me with how much to list it for? I will be doing FSBO initally. And typically how much more (percent-wise) is usually asked for above the appraisal amount?
Maryann Haggerty: There's no percentage formula based on appraisal for setting an asking price. After all, a good appraisal is AT the market price, not below it. Even if you're going FSBO, still do the interview-three-agents routine. Tell them right up front that you'releaning FSBO. It's up to them to tell you why they think it's worth your while to pay them. It's up to you to decide whether to do so. In the process, you will receive three educated estimates of what your house is worth.
Alexandria, Va.: Thanks, Maryanne. By "off the top" I meant if I sold the TH for $400K, as the seller I'm responsible for 6 percent (or so) commission which is deducted from the $400K. So if I go the FSBO why would I pay 6 percent instead of 3 percent?
Maryann Haggerty: I thought from your question that you already had a contract with a listing agent. In which case, you aren't FSBO. If you are a true FSBO, the buyer is being very logical in asking for a 6% price cut, because no agents at all will be involved. Of course, your counter-negotiation-point should be that you have ALREADY asked 6% below market, because as a FSBO you set your price at an attractively low level, right?
Re: Lawyer: If you choose to use a lawyer, you can save money by just having your documents read over before closing. You'll get charged a lot less for an hour or so of document review than if you have the lawyer attend settlement, and will still have the peace of mind.
Baltimore, Md.: My husband and I are building a new home but in order to get a mortgage for this new house we have to already have our old house 'listed' with a realtor. Our new house won't be ready until next summer. What are we supposed to do!
Maryann Haggerty: Shop lenders to find if everyone levies that same requirement. Sounds pretty illogical to me, because there's at least a year to go, AND, as everyone knows, new houses have been known to deliver late.
Leesburg, Va.: Will the Washington market see a drop in prices?
Maryann Haggerty: More on this theme: Who knows?
Washington, D.C.: I'm trying to have my mortgage bank cancel the PMI on my condo. I've owned it for 2 years and within those 2 years the value has incresed enough that my loan to value ratio is at 60%. So, since since that ration is below 80%, what's the best way to get them to cancel the PMI? Can I send them my DC property tax valuation (which is actually below the market value)or should I have it professionally appraised? The bank has itself has been less than helpful. What have other people done in similar situations?
Maryann Haggerty: The bank WILL require a professional appraisal--& it will require that the appraiser will be on its approved list. So don't waste your money up front getting your own appraisal. Ask them to give you their policy on dropping PMI. (These days, most reputable lenders have a policy in writing.) That will let you know how they deal with increases in value vs. loan pay-down. (The law doesn't require them to take increases in value into account at your point.) And sometimes they become a whole heck of a lot nicer when you remind an individual bank officer that the easiest thing for you to do is just to refinance with a different lender.
Crime in PG: Do you think the recent "crime wave" in P.G. County will hurt the real estate market? I am thinking of buying there.
Maryann Haggerty: Crime, real or perceived, is one of those things that has held down prices in PG compared with the rest of the region. But it's a big county.
Virginia: If I want to live in a neighborhood with particular demographics, e.g., Irish or catholic or asian....is it against fair housing to ask the realtor this?
Maryann Haggerty: It's not against the rules for you to ask. It's against the rules for them to answer!!!
Alexandria, Va.: Do you know the average percentage of your gross income that lenders will allow you to spend on housing around here nowadays?
Maryann Haggerty: Some lenders have totally blown out the traditional ratios & will give anyone a loan for anything. This upsets the bank regulators no end. (See Ken Harney's column in the Real Estate section tomorrow for a look at some of the ways lenders are being made to tighten up on some of their riskiest product.)
Despite that, the ratios remain the same: Conventional: 28/36
Let me explain that: The first number is the percentage of your gross (ie, pre-tax) income that you can spend each month on housing (principal/interst/taxes/insurance). The second number is the total percentage of your gross that can go to all debt, ie, housing, car, credit cards, school loans. "Conventional" are mortgages that fit the rules set by Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac for basic white-bread loans. FHA is set by the feds, for loans intended to help first-time buyers. A lot of other first-timer programs follow those ratios instead of the conventional.
Bowie, Md.: BTW, on the intro question about weekend homes.
Sometimes I fantasize about it, but one of the things I really love about living in this area is the terrific variety of weekend destinations. I can't think of any one of Rehoboth Beach, Front Royal, Deep Creek Lake, Gettysburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Richmond, or Solomons Island that I'd want to sacrifice the others for more of.
Maryann Haggerty: Thanks you. That's the way I tend to look at it.
Catonsville, Md.: Ok, I know I'm late on this, but I tried to e-mail you several times after reading the last chat, and it kept bouncing. I had to tell you my "bad house" tale. Last spring, we heard about a FSBO -- 125 yr old Victorian -- that would be going on the market soon. We wait for weeks, watching dumpster after dumpster being filled up and removed. Our Realtor says don't even THINK about looking at it yet, because even she, with her 20 yrs' experience, had trouble seeing past the mess.
We finally get in, 6 weeks, FOUR dumpsters, and a month of garage sales later. Several rooms are STILL so full of boxes that you can't step more than five feet into the room. We are not allowed to enter one room, because that is where she has shut up the six cats. Part of the sunporch has been enclosed as a birdcage. The two giant dogs have been relocated, but have left reminders by way of large black stains on the wood floors. The entire house smells. The kitchen is a teeny "L" that used to be a back porch, with one window, dark oak cabinetry, formica countertops that have been repaired (as best I can tell) by squirting epoxy into the holes and covering the edge with masking tape, and a side panel on the washing machine that is held on by duct tape. Oh, and we can barely walk into the carriage house, because it is also completely full of stuff that the owner claims was there when SHE bought the house 18 yrs before. Including a hanging bicycle that has a bird's nest in it - which couldn't be moved, because there were two chicks living there!
Believe it or not, we bought the house (and I now owe my husband an unbelievable number of brownie points). There just aren't that many great old houses around, esp that are affordable. And you know what? Once she got all of that crap out of there, it turns out that the house is large and gracious and truly lovely -- and even the smell is gone! Sometimes, it's worth taking a flying leap. . . .
Maryann Haggerty: Here you go, folks. A woman married to a man with the patience of a saint--and everything turns out well in the end.
And poster, can you try e-mailing me again? It's haggertym@washpost.com. [NOT washingtonpost.com]
Bowie: Have you read anything about foreigners buying up large amounts of US real estate, because the current high prices are largely the result of the weak dollar, so that current prices are not high when denominated in Euros, for instance?
Maryann Haggerty: Yes, I've read that a number of times. Odds are, that the really big spenders are buying in the commercial market. Individuals are likely buying in the markets that have traditionally attracted foreigners--California, Miami, New York. And, I guess, Washington to a degree.
Washington, D.C. wannabe: Hi Maryann, Thanks for taking my questions. I feel like a sitting duck: We own a condo but with the 2nd baby on its way we need to trade up for more spaces very soon. I know this market is near-peak but I don't have much time to wait for it goes down or level off. Renting a space for a family of four isn't cheap either. I think people here are paying too much for housing. Do you think it will come to a point that most households' disposable incomes are tied up by mortgage which lead to spending declines and then economic reccession?
Maryann Haggerty: That is indeed the worst-case fear. And I wish I could tell you what will happen. But DON'T feel under pressure. YOu don't want to move in the last months of pregnancy or those first few months of a sleepless infant, anyway, right?
Washington, D.C.: I recently entered into a sales contract on a condo (I'm the seller). Shortly before closing, the buyer backed out because she lost her job. She had put down $10K in earnest money. What recourse do I have to tap into this funding for losses/costs on my end, etc.?
Maryann Haggerty: Read your contract. Odds are that's your money, but both sides will have to sign to release it from escrow.
San Diego, Calif.: I wanted to amend your comment about CA real estate. I moved from Northern Va=irginia in November with a 225K downpayment in my pocket. With 90K income, I qualified for 500K here in San Diego. 500K buys you NOTHING unless you want quite a commute. I ended up in a 2 bed/2 bath condo for 485K. I love my new house but. . . median home here is 650K. Enjoy living in D.C., people!
Maryann Haggerty: Thanks for the perspective
San Diego, Calif.: Oh, and I mean to add, lenders here will go as high as a ratio of 60. You heard me, 60 percent of your gross to be spent on housing. My lender told me seriously that with my 90K income, she could qualify me for a $1 million house.
Maryann Haggerty: And from the same poster, I think.
Fairfax, Va.: We love your column. Could you explain what a 1031 Tax Exchange is? We are selling a condo and the purchaser has mentioned that he was using the transaction as a 1031 Tax Exchange.
Maryann Haggerty: Read Benny Kass's column in tomorrow's Real Estate section. It goes over some of the basics of 1031 exchanges. Essentially, it's a way an investor can defer capital gains taxes. Fron your perspective, it doesn't mean much, except that the buyer faces time constraints on when closing muct take place.
After renting in Dupont Circle for the past couple of years I had decided to take the plunge and buy a house. Seven months later and eight unsuccessful offers, I've finally had my last offer/contract accepted on a semi-detached colonial house across from Fort Chaplin Park in southeast DC.
I could only afford a home priced at $300,000, which meant that my search would be limited to certain neighborhoods in the District. It would have been nice to stay in northwest DC, however, most homes and many of them fixer-uppers were way above what I could afford. To my surprise there are many nice homes and nice neighborhoods in Ward 7 & 8.
Many of my colleagues and friends were surprised that I would venture to the other side of the river to buy a house. I think people are missing out on good affordable homes by limiting there search to one particular area. From your experience, do you see more and more people looking to buy in Southeast DC? Your comments are appreciated.
Maryann Haggerty: Prices in Southeast are indeed lower than in the rest of the city, & there is some nice housing stock. Numerous new developments have been built there in the last 5 years or so, attracting new people, so yes, that's "more" people buying. Of course, if you're buying an occupied existing home from a seller, the net number of households does not increase.
Takoma Park, Md.: Maryann, thanks for chatting with us today!
I recently put a deposit on a condo conversion. In Takoma Park, $260K 2 bedroom 1 bath brand new kitchen and bath and refinished floors.
However, like most area's it will cost me an additional $1k a month instead of renting in the same area nad same size and place. Should that be a concern to a 24 year old first time home buyer?
Maryann Haggerty: An extra $1,000 a month? That is a sign that purchase & rental markets are truly out of whack, & indeed it has become more common. It is one of the macroeconomic indicators of an overinflated market. But if you can afford it, you like the place, etc...
Washington, D.C.: I have a TH I'll make over $250K in profit on, so I think it's best to sell now and put that $$ into a SFH. I'm worried though that this "frothy" area will have a correction and my new house will be worth less than the loan. Justified worry?
Maryann Haggerty: Again, that's always a concern. Maybe the market is frothy. Or maybe the job growth here will continue to support the housing market, as an entire other group of economists thinks. But you can't take advantage of the froth on one hand, as a seller, and not face dangers from it on the other, as a buyer. Unless you realy really really think the froth is gonna go flat, in which case, you may want to rent. But do put that extra $1,000 a month (see above) into your savings account, please?
Alexandria, Va.: Is it standard practice in this area to NOT have any contingencies? I really want to put an appraisal and inspection contingency in my offer, but my realtor says if I do that, the seller will pick a contingency-free offer. Are most buyers really forgoing these type contingencies?
Maryann Haggerty: For the last year or two, contingencies have become rare in some segments of this market. (Not "standard practice," rather, a sign of the raging seller's market.) Recently I was chatting with a group of agents, however, who told me that contingencies are creeping back into contracts. If you do indeed make an offer without appraisal & inspection contingencies, you are taking a big risk & you better be comfortable with it.
Anonymous: "The second number is the total percentage of your gross that can go to all debt, ie, housing, car, credit cards, school loans."
I'm curious about this: is the monthly credit card debt amount in this formula the minimum payment? The amount you regularly pay?
Maryann Haggerty: Minimum required payment.
Alexandria, Va.: If FSBO sellers should set their price 6% below the value, what is the point of FSBO? Why do the work yourself? I thought the whole point of FSBO was to pay yourself the 6% instead of a couple of agents...
Maryann Haggerty: Actually, I exaggerated. You likely want to set the price somewhere in between. Enough lower to make your place attractive. Enough higher to put the money in your pocket. But there is some market leeriness toward dealing with FSBOs, & you have to take that into account.
Alexandria, Va.: I'm planning on staying in my next home for at least 10 years and am more comfortable knowing what my mortgage payment is going to be -- so I'm leaning towards a 30 year fixed loan. My friends say I'm nuts to not take advantage of the arm or interest only loan and just pay more than the minimum. Aren't interest only loans dangerous?
Maryann Haggerty: Ten years in place, and buying when interest rates are near the lowest point in decades? As opposed to an ARM that has nowhere to go but up? Honey, I'm conservative. I know which one I would pick.
Re: Ratio question: Maryann, Is there any good way to figure out if the traditional ratios you mention leave enough room for the high cost of living in this area?
Maryann Haggerty: They really don't. However, they do reflect the relatively high incomes, too.
Baltimore, Md.: Ms. Haggerty --
On the second home lust: I got it really bad a couple of years ago when we were in New Mexico, started dreaming of a place in Taos. We fought it by doing the math: how much would a mortgage be, how much could we rent it out for. THEN we took that difference and calculated how much extra vacation that difference would buy us if we didn't rent. Turns out the money we'd lose per month could have "bought" the biggest room in our favorite B&B for one weekend a month, year round. So my "dream" vacation home would basically trade maid service, great free food, and all the amenities for DIY, hassling with tenants, and not even being able to use the place in high season! Not surprisingly, that kinda took the bloom off the rose for us.
Maryann Haggerty: Yes, that is the calculation I do when I'm rational. A B&B, with a nice hot tub.
Folks, it's 2pm & I have to run. Thanks so much for spending time today. There are dozens of questions I didn't get to; I'm sorry.
Please pick up the Real Estate section tomorrow. We answer a lot of your questions--& I hope we give you some enjoyable surprises, too. In the meantime, whether you're buying, selling or just taking a walk around the block--stay cool!
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.
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Join Post Real Estate Editor Maryann Haggerty as she discusses all aspects of the local real estate market.
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Tell Me About It
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Appearing every Wednesday and Friday in The Washington Post Style section and in Sunday Source, Tell Me About It Bæfers readers advice based on the experiences of someone who's been there -- really recently. Carolyn Hax is a 30-something repatriated New Englander with a liberal arts degree and a lot of opinions and that's about it, really, when you get right down to it. Oh, and the shoes. A lot of shoes.
Submit your questions and comments any time before or during today's discussion. Other mail can be directed to Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com .
Washington, D.C.: Hi Carolyn...My old high school boyfriend and started seeing each other again 8 months ago. At first, it was clearly a "friends with benefits" situation, but we recently vacationed in Hawaii together, so I feel as if it's progressing. The main problem is, he lives in Connecticut, I live in DC, and he has obligations in CT that keep him there every weekend, so we only see each once a month, if that. He has also told me that he sends me "consistent mixed signals." I've completely fallen for him, but at the same time I'm frustrated that he doesn't seem like he wants this to work. I've tried to talk to him about it, but he doesn't get it, and it just makes me feel worse. I'm thinking of telling him that I love him too much to continue like this, and just "breaking up" with him. Do you see another alternative?
Carolyn Hax: There are always alternatives, which is why it's so important to concentrate on your own feelings and your own situation and your own set of facts. Including whether you're actually getting mixed signals from him or whether you're expecting too much from a long-distance obligation-laden guy or whether these differences even matter when either way you're unhappy. In other not-really-advisory words, if you feel you need to step away, then step away. Just make sure you mean it and are ready to keep your word, and it's not a sub- or semi-conscious test of his feelings.
Vienna, Va.: My girlfriend has been living with me this summer (a good 3 months). She heads back down to finish her DVM in a couple of weeks, and there's a little bit of me that's almost excited to see her go. It's been absolutely wonderful and we've both learned that we can live with each other in the future. Should I be mad at myself for getting excited about my upcoming "release"?
Carolyn Hax: Of course not, you feel what you feel (and even halves of the most devoted couples will do a little dance at some precious alone time).
This should be helpful not only if you want to feel normal, but also if you want to think clearly about your future with this girl. Feeling guilty might make you try to rationalize away your excitement, and that just screws everything up.
Potomac, Md.: Where is the line between banter and flirtation? I have a business acquaintance who is quite charming and whose company I enjoy, but our lunches and emails are getting progressively more friendly. We're both married, so though I enjoy his company a lot, I need some guidelines here. He's fun and exciting, but I don't want this to get out of hand.
Carolyn Hax: If you wouldn't want your spouse to read what you're about to write or witness what you're about to do, then don't write it or do it. Certainly some people can push things a little more with a clear conscience, since flirting can be one harmless way to remind yourself you're alive, but that's only if you trust yourself completely to keep it harmless. Since you don't and you're looking for guidelines, then you use the guidelines (and if those don't work, put the colleague down and back away slowly).
Waynesboro, Va.: Dear Carolyn, How do you deal with someone who overreacts to the little things? My boyfriend got angry when I called a trip to pick out a tux for his friend's wedding, shopping. The implication was that I called him feminine for even suggesting that he was going shopping. Of course I wasn't doing that, shopping is what I call going to pick something up from a store. But he insisted that I was insulting him. How should I deal with this in the future? Should I let him overreact and apologize to him or stand my ground?
Carolyn Hax: Oh my goodness. In the future, you decide whether a whining, screaming little toddler constitutes suitable boyfriend material.
Oh, what the hell, do it now.
Seriously. What's there to like about being with someone who responds to "little things" with a temper tantrum? Are you going to get married and move to the land of Nothing Ever Goes Wrong? Are you going to stay on earth and just cave in every time? And where will your soul be after even a few years of this?
Get out of this thing while you still can. I'd even suggest a call to 1-800-799-SAFE before you do. Between his temper and your hesitation about standing up for yourself, I see potential for trouble here. Not to scare you, just to prepare you.
Confused, Md. (from last week): Carolyn,
First, I wanted to thank you for your advice. My wife has agreed to go to counseling. first for herself, then we will enter marriage counseling.
Secondly, I wanted to respond to a comment someone made re: infertility. We know about adoption. We even went as far as to consider foster care. Couple dealing with infertility know the alternatives that are out there. But until you experience it, you won't understand what it is like to not a baby that is not your genetic material. Thank you.
Carolyn Hax: Thanks for checking back in, and that's good news about the counseling. People are really pulling for you.
Why didn't you suggest (in today's column) that it sounds like her husband cheating on her again?; I think you tiptoed around it, but you didn't actually say it. Suddenly her husband madly in love with her?;!; Yeah, right!; (neon flashing signs!;)
Carolyn Hax: Yes, maybe. And maybe not. This is someone who has seen her boyfriend/fiance/husband cheat on her plenty, putting her in a far better position than I am to read possible signs that he's cheating. Which is why I said what I said: Run his new behavior through the laugh meter, and read the results for yourself.
Besides, more infidelity isn't the only credible possibility here. Could be he sensed her alienation and that got his attention--i.e., he's a chase-the-unattainable kind of guy, and she finally became unattainable, and so now he wants her. It could also be a third or fourth or 19th possibility, which is why scrutiny, from her, is a lot more promising than a bunch of assumptions from me.
Privacy: You wrote: "If you wouldn't want your spouse to read what you're about to write or witness what you're about to do, then don't write it or do it."
Is one not entitled to a degree of privacy, even from one's spouse?; Must every thought and action be shared?; Without reasonable boundaries, even the best marriage can become suffocating.
Carolyn Hax: Who said the husband had to read or witness? I meant it as a mental exercise for her to judge the propriety of her behavior.
Response to Waynesboro: Of course you should stand up for yourself. This isn't necessarily a break-up offense. If he says "I'm angry" and you say "I didn't mean to make you angry, and I think you're overreacting," he may back down. You'll never know until you try.
Carolyn Hax: Take the anger out of it, and his complaining that the word "shop" feminizes him is in itself a breakup offense. At best his brain's made of rocks.
Washington, D.C.: Hi Carolyn & co. - Hope you can give me some ideas... my close friend's mom passed away this week, after a long, painful struggle with cancer. She'll be back home from the memorial services this weekend and I wanted to send her something that might take her mind off things for a bit or at least make her smile. Maybe bright flowers, or a massage gift card?; I don't want to trivialize her loss of course, but think she might need something. Any thoughts?; (especially if you think the whole idea is inappropriate) Thanks!;
Carolyn Hax: I think giving her something that shows you're thinking of her is not only appropriate but also kind and thoughtful. I will caution you against the whole idea of getting her mind off things, though. For one thing, it's not going to happen. This is the death of a parent, not a bad day at work, and major loss has a way of making things like a little pampering seem trivial and silly, not relaxing and distracting. There's also the chance she'd love and welcome it, of course, but my point is it's really thorny territory so you need to choose your gesture carefully. This is why bringing dinner, for example, is a safer bet--people need to eat and so you can give her the pampering you want through providing a needed service. Or even just visiting and giving her a hug--then flowers would be nice if you don't' want to come empty-handed.
The other thing is, she probably doesn't want to get her mind off things. Thinking of her mom will be painful at first but even then it'll be a comfort, and in time comfort will overtake pain and she won't need to think about it so much. She needs to do this at her own pace. That doesn't take friends like you out of it, it just means you need to follow her lead.
Last thing. I put a lot of cautions into this, but it might be helpful to remember also that you mean well and you care about your friend, which is more important than doing and saying everything perfectly.
I'm glad that you're back. I have a question and I'll try to keep it brief:
A little over a month ago a co-worker (of whom I'm very fond) kind of tricked me into going out on a blind date with a friend of hers she'd mentioned casually before. After getting over the initial shock of being "set up," I couldn't be mad at her because she's so cool. And he's fantastic. We talked so long on that first "date," that the restaurant had to throw us out to get ready for the dinner hour. We were both in and out of town for the next couple of weeks on work-related travel but he called every day, we had great talks, saw each other whenever we were both in town and -when our schedules settled- we began to see each other quite regularly. It has been a month and I'm completely smitten. And afraid that I'm going to sabotage this by over analyzing it. He's funny, cultured, smart, extremely well-educated, unbelievably attentive, great conversationalist, just my kind of handsome, very sexy, really interesting... the list goes on.
And I can't avoid the unsavory sensation that, while he does really like me and is genuinely interested, he is overcompensating to prove to himself that he is better than he was in his past when it comes to having a relationship. Writing it out like that it sounds really stupid. He has a job about which he is really passionate, it takes up a lot of is time, he travels quite a bit. And, apparently, this has been a problem with a lot of women he's been with. He's mentioned this, not extensively, but with some detail. I just can't help but feel that some of his "full-court press," is less about how enchanting I am and more about how he wants to view himself when it comes to women.
What's wrong with me? Is this some hidden pocket of low self-esteem I can only discover when faced with the most fantastic man I've ever met in my life? Is this just the way men over 36 become -no more game playing or feigning slight disinterest? (I just turned 29, he's 38) Or am I on to something here? And if so, how would I bring this up while making it clear that I enjoy him and his company immensely?
Just being hateful--it's a really good question and needs the detail.
I think you need to be careful about blaming yourself for these suspicions you have. That's so often the first step in dismissing what eventually turn out to be very well-founded doubts and suspicions. You have a set of facts before you, and you have a brain and feelings, and all those together could be telling you, wisely, to give this thing a lot more time before you decide what it all means.
Not only will that give you a chance to see if he is in fact enchanted by you, and not just by the idea of not getting dumped again, but it also will relieve you of the burden of having to say anything about it to him. After "a little over a month," he probably isn't even sure himself what he feels about you and why. Keep enjoying his company and see what the skeptical little voices say along the way.
Condolence Gifts: I've had good luck with giving gifts that are both completely unexpected and useful. After our neighbor's mother died, we bought a bat house (which our friend had be talking about buying for awhile). It broke the mood and allowed our friend to laugh. Now we fondly refer to the gift as the Jane Smith Memorial Bathouse after her mother.
And she bought us the Fred Lee Memorial Lawn Bench when my grandfather died.
Carolyn Hax: That's a really great idea--reaching back into your memory for something the person had long been wanting to get but hadn't had the time/money/excuse to get it. It's that kind of thoughtfulness that's truly unexpected, not the gift--even when the gift is a bat house. (Nicely done, by the way.)
Washington, D.C.: Hi Carolyn...why is it that to get a man's attention a woman often has to resort to extreme measures? I tell my boyfriend several times that I would like him to attend a very important event to me and that it means a great deal to me. Boyfriend agrees, but then finds out a very exciting football game is also happening that day and starts to waffle. I have to get mad, raise my voice and pitch a fit before he says 'ok, I didn't realize how important it was. I'll go'. Why does it have to escalate for the importance to be realized, when I know for a fact (really, I do) I emphasized it when I originally asked him. ERRRRRRRR...... And now I know he would really rather be at the game.
Carolyn Hax: Then don't get mad, raise your voice and pitch a fit. It may get the guy's attention, but, read your own words--it's not attention you want. The attention you want is for him to understand that this is important to you and to want to give it to you for that reason alone. Fine. Nothing to apologize for there. So when you invite him, you tell him this is really important to you, and when he blows you off in favor of doing something important to him, you say this to him, calmly, voice not raised. "I'm really hurt that you're not going, because I said this was important to me, and I wanted you to want to come with me for that reason alone."
Then, if you still don't get his ungrudging companionship, you'll know that this is something you're not going to get from this guy, and therefore you're faced with a choice: You either keep this guy and let him watch his football game and accept that he's not one to make you happy for the sake of making you happy; or you break up with the guy.
Recap: No more pitching fits, for attention or anything else.
BTW--how important is the important event? Before you ask it, you need to mean it, and not just want him to pass up his football to prove his devotion to you. Anatomy of a train wreck.
Bad News Business Etiquette: Dear Carolyn,
First off, thanks for all you do. You have helped me many times over the years with your great perspective.
Please help me out with this: a client has just had a terrible tragedy in her family - her young grandson was killed as a result of child abuse.
Mailing a sympathy note seems like a pale and weak response - but what the heck else is there to do? She lives in a small town (we're in a small state, the whole place is a small town) and three will be an outpouring of sympathy(and publicity) in the days and weeks to come.
My instincts say send a note, pray, and sit back - I'm too distant a connection to be of any use right now. Am I justifying?
Carolyn Hax: Oh my. Unspeakable. You can do something, though--a note, of course, is appropriate, but is there any way you or your company could also make a donation in the child's name to an organization that helps prevent such abuse, or helps victims of it? If we can spare even $5, we are always in a position to be of use in the face of horrors like this.
Washington, D.C.: (online only please!!!) Carolyn, I have a friend who has developed a reputation of being cheap. When everyone takes turns buying a round of drinks he'll blatantly not buy. If people overpay him for the tab, he doesn't give change. He'll leave a dinner early without paying his portion of the bill. When invited over to someone's house for a get together where he knows everyone is bringing something, he won't bring anything at all. Other friends have mentioned this individual occasions to him in passing, but I don't think he realizes that it's problem. He is losing friends and people have stopped inviting him out solely because he is cheap. If someone mentions that he has to pay, he doesn't seem to have a problem paying up so I really believe that he doesn't realize he's doing it. My question is this: is it appropriate to approach him on this topic? And if so, is there a diplomatic way to make him understand this is a serious problem and he needs to be more aware, or do I just lay it all out there with the possibility of him becoming upset? Thanks for your help.
Carolyn Hax: You can lay it all out there and hope any hurt feelings are for his own good, but if he really is clueless, you have another option. Since you seem to be there for a lot of these unbought rounds and unpaid tabs, you can say to him, "Hey, X, your turn," or, as he's leaving dinner early, "I'll cover you and let you know what you owe," or even, "Why don't you leave 40 bucks and if there's and change we'll hold onto it for you." If he starts to collect for a bill, say, "Forget it, when you do it I never get any change back." Like a friend, though, not like a p'd off friend. If you're consistent, you may eventually get the message across. If that fails too, then, definitely, write it out for him in crayon.
Thinking in Circles, Tex.: I've been working in admin at a private school for six years. In my current position I'm stuck--no upward movement in the foreseeable future, and the school is too poor to give generous raises. I've been offered a corporate job for work I enjoy (I've been doing it part-time on the side), lots more money, the opportunity to travel, working from home, and future upward mobility, all win-wins in my view. Still, I'm having trouble walking away from a place I love, with people I love and a mission I believe in.
In last week's discussion I was struck by the comments about not looking back at what you have invested in a relationship (the girl in question has been with a guy for 3 years and was having trouble letting go of that history), job, etc, but looking ahead to to the future in that same job, relationship, etc. I've done a lot of thinking and reasoning myself into circles (there truly are a lot of pros and a lot of cons to taking this job) and I've reached the conclusion that in the big picture, long-term of my life, this is better for me.
My question is how do I let go of a place I am happy at, and more importantly, how do I get the courage to disappoint my boss so hugely? I'm dreading that conversation (Monday) like nothing ever before. I like and respect her and I have always had a great fear of disappointing those for whom I hold admiration. Help?
Carolyn Hax: Be honest about how torn you've been and hope your boss understands. If your respect is properly placed, she'll understand completely and might even be happy for you and applaud your move. I don't think (good) bosses expect people to stay in thankless jobs for long. They just appreciate that people stay as long as they do. Maybe you can keep up the relationship with the school in some way?
Class Reunion, USA: Hi Carolyn!; Love the chats.
Here's a slightly fluffy question--My twenty year high school reunion is quickly approaching. I've received an invitation, but can't decide whether or not to go. I only attended this school for a year and a half, was quite a geek (still am), and kept in only sporadic touch with one person from school. I AM curious, though, as to how people "turned out." I recognize some of the names on the RSVP list, and my husband is willing to go with me, so I won't be alone. I guess my question for you and the 'nuts is two-fold--should I go?; and if I do, any quippy lines for that awkward silence when people look at me and clearly don't remember who I am?;
Carolyn Hax: Go, watch, enjoy, and leave the quippy lines on the buffet next to the mystery dip. They never work unless they're yours and they're spontaneous.
Washington, D.C.: My husband and I have two children under the age of 4. My husband stays home with the kids three days a week, does most of the housework and shopping, and makes most of the money because of his wonderful and incredibly flexible job. It's an understatement to say I appreciate everything he does. However, my husband has an extremely short fuse with our kids. He doesn't spank or hit, but he screams at the top of his lungs (it scares me, I can't imagine what it does to them), swears, and calls them horrible names when they commit what I feel are pretty minor "infractions." We've discussed this at length, and he has made an appointment to begin anger management counseling, but I know there's a lot I need to do too. I feel helpless because I have a job which I love but at which I work about 60 hours a week including nights and weekends. I don't see my kids enough and I'm not around to help my husband. Is it weird of me to want to quit the "dream job" and apply for a part-time position with less responsibility so that I can be with my family more and shoulder my fair share of the household responsibilities? I've broached the subject with my husband but he's reluctant to see me give up what he feels is something valuable that I worked so hard for. But frankly, my marriage and family are what I want to work for. What can I do?
Carolyn Hax: Quit the "dream job" and apply for a part-time job with less responsibility. It's what you want, and the only other person who has a say in your decision, your husband, is hesitating only because he's concerned by what he thinks you want. You know your heart, so do it.
And now the other reason: Screaming, swearing and calling kids names, especially such little little kids, is child abuse. Get in there ASAP. If for some reason you couldn't quit, I'd say to go on leave till the counseling works.
Dissertation, Inertia: Hi Carolyn, I'm writing my dissertation and have been having a terrible motivation problem. I mean TERRIBLE. I sit in front of my computer every day, all day. And surf the Internet, participate on message boards, etc. If I am lucky, I work for an hour or two.
I really want to finish this thing, I really do. I just don't know how to stay focused. I work from home, which is part of the problem - no social contacts at all during the day, so I start to feel depressed, lethargic, etc. Any words of wisdom to get me through this?
Carolyn Hax: 1. Go work where you have no Internet connection. If you have a wireless connection on your laptop, take it out. If you keep getting the urge to go home, get on a train and ride in circles.
2. Schedule your day to include social breaks. Work 8 to 11; go visit somewhere; work 1 to 4; take a walk; from 5 to 6, plan out your work for the next day, quit for the day at 6.
3. And if you have a day when you're really cranking, keep working; use that as permission to quit for the day if you're just not in the right frame of mind. Just make sure the two roughly even out.
Alexandria, Va.: (Online only, please!) I have done an absolutely horrible thing and cheated on my girlfriend of a year and a half. I'm really angry at myself for hurting her, and I feel very guilty for violating her trust. I've resolved to be a better boyfriend and to never do something like that again, but I still feel guilty for lying to her about it. Do you think I should tell her the truth and deal with the consequences of hurting her, or should I not tell her and simply act better towards her, which prevents her from finding out and being devastated but is still dishonest?
Carolyn Hax: I wish I had an answer for you. One of the things that has taken shape over the eight years I've been doing this is that there are two large and distinct camps on this--tell or don't tell. And specifically these are people saying, "I'd want to know" or "I wouldn't want to know," which really exposes the loophole in the Golden Rule. What you'd want for you might emphatically NOT be what she'd want for herself.
You have to do what you think -she- needs and deserves, not what will alleviate your guilt. That's about the best I can do. Oh and also, remember, if she finds out by some other means than your telling her the truth yourself, you're pretty much toast.
And since someone's going to post it, here's my preemptive strike: Your possibly exposing her to an STD is something to factor into your decision.
Warrenton, Va.: In addition to the increasingly snotty and convoluted answers that you are giving (not all of which clearly address the relevant question), I strongly resent your tendency to give domestic violence hotline numbers to every woman whose boyfriend complains about some little thing. Every time a boyfriend exerts a little authority in a relationship, you go off the deep end and interpret this as a case of potential abuse and violence. It is really outrageous and I am surprised that you don't get called on it more often. More likely, you don't print those type of questions in your chat. I can't believe others don't see through your disrespecting, feminist, man-hating bias here.
Carolyn Hax: "Asserts a little authority in a relationship"?
You're right. I am the problem here. Man rules the cave.
I am so ridiculously awkward.
I used to be awkward and loud, but around sophomore year of high school got really quiet because I realized most people were annoyed by me. (I'll be a senior this year.)
Instead of following people around and vying for their approval like I used to, these days I pretty much keep to myself. (Read, draw, sleep, pet my kitty, go for walks.)
The one place (until school starts up in the fall) that I am around people a lot is work. My bosses and coworkers are all friendly, jovial people. They tell good stories and are fun to listen to. But when we start interacting with each other, I get so scared. I could either come across as snobby, tense, or jittery. I wish I could just relax and be happy conversing with them.
Unrelated: Your column should be daily (though that would mean double the work for you). And your ex's drawings are so cool. It's neat how his cartoon people manage to have real-people qualities about them. Most comic artists don't do that.
Carolyn Hax: Hi, and thanks. I'll pass your observations along to Nick.
I don't want to freak you out, but there's been a lot of progress recently on understanding and treating disorders that can result in extreme social awkwardness. This is not to say (by any means) that you have one, just that it couldn't hurt for you to get yourself screened for one.
Of course to get this help you have to ask someone, which I'm sure is the kind of thing to give you nightmares--but if you do a little homework behind the scenes you can make sure you're asking someone who has a clue and won't make you feel silly. A school counselor is one place to start, or a teacher you like and trust; a clergy person; your pediatrician.
Actually, I should have listed the pediatrician first. You can put in a call to the office to ask him or her to call you back, and then you can state your concern and ask what the process is for getting checked. Even if you don't have a diagnosable disorder of any kind, this could help you establish an ongoing relationship--with the doctor or counselor or clergy person--through which you learn concrete ways to venture out slowly, and thereby develop some confidence.
Last thing. You say "most people were annoyed by me." Meaning, some weren't. "Some" is enough for great friends, great colleagues, love. Look at that guy a few posts up. I annoy most people too, and I only cry once a week (2:30 to 2:45 pm on Fridays).
Fairfax, Va.: My girlfriend has a bit of a temper. She'll sometimes say things like "I loved you and I thought you loved me.. " as emotional blackmail. This past weekend during a fight, she got mad when I wouldn't respond to her questions which were asked solely to escalate the fight, so she pulled out her cell phone and proceeded to chat with her ex-boyfriend for 10 minutes in the car while I was stuck in it with her.
She's apologized, and agreed to go to therapy for how to resolve conflict better. I'm skeptical of the chances though, and how long will I have to wait for the next fight to see if she really changes or not? I really love her, but if she continues to deal with conflict in this away, it's obviously a deal-breaker. I just don't know how I'm going to tell if she's really changed until it's too late.
Carolyn Hax: You don't have to wait for a fight, since a non-fight is equally telling. All you have to do is see how you get through a situation that is normally a trigger for her. Is it all way-too-easy agreement (i.e., possible burying of resentment for fear of getting dumped), or can she disagree with you--and express feelings genuinely on the subject, and not hear what she wants to hear in response--without getting emotional, taking personal shots at you, blackmailing?
A caveat, though. People rarely go from such wretched behavior as her vengeful phone call to mature emotional balance. She's got a long trip ahead of her, and if you're assessing your future with her, you need to assess first your willingness to be on any trip like that with her. If not, it's kind of a moot point then whether she actually means to keep her promise to change.
Re: screaming and swearing at kids: Regarding the husband who screams and swears at his under-4 children: In addition to counseling, some early-childhood education may also be beneficial here. Sometimes just knowing what is age-appropriate behavior--and realizing that the kiddos aren't doing things just to drive you insane--can be very helpful.
Carolyn Hax: Great point, thank you.
Olney, Md.: My mom is having some eye surgery in 2 weeks and seems rather scared. I'm planning to visit tomorrow, bringing the grandbaby with me. I'd like to provide an empathetic ear, but am really socially-challenged that way. Any suggestions for how to approach this without either "accusing" my mom of being afraid or of sounding dismissive of her concerns? -tactless daughter
Carolyn Hax: You'd be scared, too, if someone were about to cut into your eye. Think of that before you respond to her concerns. Remind her that it's normal to be scared because it's her eye, and also that the surgeons aren't scared because they do this every day, it's routine for them.
Washington, D.C.: Just wanted to send a quick word of encouragement to the shy teen - first, I've been there too and you can definitely learn ways to feel more comfortable. Second, I used to work for a mental health practice in reception - it was amazing to see the changes many people made in their lives, especially young women in their late teens/early 20's. There was one young lady I'll never forget whose mom almost dragged her in to her first appointment. Within a couple of months she was chatting with all the receptionists and we discovered what a lovely person she was. If you take the time to work on shyness (whether informally or through counseling), you will let other people get to know and like you.
Carolyn Hax: Like an e-hug. Perfect. Thank you.
Falls Church, Va.: RE: Warrenton
Carolyn, you rock! Never think otherwise.
Anyone who uses the word "authority" when referring to a personal relationship clearly has issues that require professional assistance.
Carolyn Hax: Thank you. I always think otherwise, but I won't bore you with my personal problems.
I don't think Warrenton is at any risk of imminent conversion, but I'm posting this for anyone who nodded in agreement with him. This way of thinking is in fact what drives so much traffic, male and female, to the domestic abuse hotlines.
Washington, D.C.: Re: Waynesboro- Carolyn, I think you are right in your assumptions. I recently got out of a relationship with someone who did the exact same thing. I thought he would stop, or change-but it got worse. He started to make up things to throw temper tantrums about and continually make me out to be the bad guy in situations any "normal" person would react to in a calm and non-angry manner. Maybe it isn't this serious in your case- but if this is a pattern, I'd get out before you end up feeling like I did-no self esteem and like I was the worst person in the world.
Carolyn Hax: Posting this for anyone else who doesn't agree that it's a warning sign of something bigger. Check out also "The Gift of Fear," or the Peace at Home Web site (www.peaceathome.org), or any reputable treatment of controlling and/or abusive behavior. It is not rocket science. It has a clear pattern, and it starts small, so people dismiss it, and then one day they find themselves hostage to temper tantrums and petty criticisms and jealous accusations. It happens to men and women, perpetrated by men and women, and it's bad news and any time I see it, even in nascent form, I'm making the call.
If a question does not get answered one week...: ...do you mind if we submit it again the next week? Is it annoying to see questions posted again and again, or do you like having the chance to answer a question that you might have wanted to answer the prior week but just didn't get to?
Carolyn Hax: I don't see most of the questions till after it's over, so, yea, please do resubmit. Just not twice to the same chat. Thanks.
Outta here. Thanks everybody, stay cool, type to you Friday.
(Maybe ... I also may be off. I'll have to huddle with Liz next week, so watch the schedule.)
Re: Fairfax: It takes two: Having raised 3 kids, I believe it really does take two to fight. What about the boy friend's role in this?;
Not responding to her?; She may see that as the "silent treatment" which isn't helping this situation. This sounds more like two kids who both need time out.
Carolyn Hax: He also could have been "not responding" by saying, "That's not a fair question, and I'm not going to respond," which would be right and fair in that instance. But yea to the rest, that it takes two. Thanks.
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Sprint-Nextel Union Gets Final Approval
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The merger of Sprint and Nextel Communications Inc. won approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department yesterday, clearing the way for a combined company with more than 35 million mobile phone subscribers.
The companies said they expect the $35 billion merger to close within two weeks and joint operations to begin within two months, meaning consumers may see joint advertising on television and new signs in stores by October.
The combined Sprint Nextel will be the nation's third-largest mobile company and will have more ammunition to compete against its much bigger rivals, Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless, and to forge potentially lucrative partnerships with cable companies.
The company will continue to market to Sprint's customer base and to Nextel's loyal business clients, who are devoted to its "push to talk" walkie-talkie-like feature.
For now, the companies will continue to operate two different network technologies, so customers will not have to switch out their phones. They hope to develop a new version of Nextel's "push-to-talk" service that will operate over Sprint's network, allowing current Nextel customers to use the feature with Sprint customers.
The combined company also plans to expand into key areas -- pushing its customers to "cut the cord" with their land-line phones, and marketing its wireless service through cable companies.
Sprint Nextel aims to expand its wholesale business, striking deals with companies such as Walt Disney Co. and ESPN to market customized phone service to niche customers.
The FCC said in a statement that the merger would "serve the public interest, convenience and necessity, and that the likely public interest benefits of the merger outweigh any potential public interest harms."
But FCC commissioner Michael J. Copps signaled some skepticism because of the flurry of mergers in the last year that have reduced the number of major U.S. mobile phone companies from six to four: Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile.
"I am . . . concerned about what this substantial reduction in the number of competitors may mean for wireless consumers. The FCC will have to take a hard look at whether we have gone about as far as we can go," Copps said in a statement.
Cingular Wireless is owned by SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp.; Verizon Wireless is owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Britain's Vodafone Group Plc; and T-Mobile by Deutsche Telekom AG.
The Justice Department, which completed an antitrust review, said in a separate statement that it saw no reason to challenge the merger, saying consumers "will continue to have a number of other carriers from which to choose."
The companies argue that consumers will see benefits in the form of new services, such as faster networks that allow reliable Internet surfing over mobile devices.
The FCC's only significant concern about the merger was resolved when Sprint and Nextel promised to use some of their high-frequency spectrum to offer such services to 30 million people within six years.
The companies sought swift regulatory approval in the hopes of being able to launch a full marketing campaign for Christmas, and they have already unveiled a new corporate symbol -- a yellow-and-black "Sprint" logo.
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Stay updated on the latest technology news. Find profiles on different sectors of the tech industry. Learn about new developments in tech policy. Read technology reviews for PCs, laptops, cell phones, and other new gadgets.
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Democrats to Compare Roberts's Views Now, Then
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Senate Democrats signaled yesterday that they plan to question Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. vigorously on what they see as discrepancies between recent statements and his writings as an up-and-coming lawyer in the Reagan and first Bush administrations.
In particular Democrats said that at next month's confirmation hearings they plan to focus on Roberts's stated views on the issue of how much justices should be influenced by rulings of the high court. That is a critical question for those who want to know whether he would vote to overturn decisions such as Roe v. Wade , the landmark 1973 case that established a constitutional right to abortion.
Responding to a Senate questionnaire, Roberts said he would respect previous Supreme Court rulings. "Precedent," he wrote in a 67-page statement released this week, "plays an important role in promoting the stability of the legal system, and a sound judicial philosophy should reflect recognition of the fact that the judge operates within a system of rules developed over the years by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath."
Democrats said Roberts needs to reconcile that statement with memos he wrote in the 1980s and early 1990s questioning court precedent when he was a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith in the Reagan administration, as well as with actions he took as a principal deputy solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush.
"There are a lot of questions that have to be asked," Helaine Greenfeld, the senior nominations counsel to the Democratic senators, told reporters in a conference call. "The senators will want to know how his view of precedent now squares with his view of precedent then."
The conference call was organized by staffers of Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In one 1981 memo, for instance, Roberts questioned the legal reasoning used by the Supreme Court in its finding that anti-discrimination laws did not prohibit all race-conscious affirmative-action plans. Just two years after the decision, Roberts noted that because of a change in the court's makeup, it now "has only four supporters," intimating that it could be struck down by a new majority. He added: "We do not accept it as the guiding principle in this area."
In another 1981 memo, Roberts discussed a Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws imposing a one-year residency requirement for welfare benefits, criticizing the court's finding that there was, as he put it, a "so-called 'fundamental right to travel.' "
In a third memo that year, Roberts called the legal concept that underpins the right to an abortion the "so-called 'right to privacy.' " In the memo, Roberts praised a lecture given by a former solicitor general, who, as Roberts put it, argues "as we have, that such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution."
During Roberts's 1989-1993 tenure in the solicitor general's office, he also co-wrote a brief that argued that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned.
During his confirmation hearings two years ago for his current seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Roberts said that "nothing about what my personal views were or are should be inferred from the fact that my name appears on the federal government's brief."
To date, the Bush administration has resisted requests by Senate Democrats to turn over documents from that period that could help clarify his personal views on the matter, saying they should be kept confidential to ensure that administrations receive candid legal advice.
Sean Rushton, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, said the Democratic strategy is predictable. "They want him to all but commit to vote in certain ways, and when he won't answer those questions, they'll claim he's not being forthcoming and that they have no choice but to vote against him."
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2004 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.
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Orioles Star Faces Inquiry For Testimony on Steroids
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ANAHEIM, Calif., Aug. 3 -- The House Government Reform Committee -- which heard Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro's testimony in March that he had never used steroids, while he jabbed his index finger in the air for emphasis -- has opened an investigation into whether Palmeiro may have lied under oath.
Committee Chairman Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) spoke by telephone with Palmeiro -- suspended Monday for violating baseball's steroid policy -- on Tuesday night and informed him of the committee's plan to investigate the veracity of his March 17 testimony. During the conversation, Davis said, Palmeiro pledged to cooperate with the inquiry and repeated his assertion, first made during a conference call with reporters on Monday, that he did not know how the substance got into his system.
"He stayed with that story," Davis said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "I said, 'Raffy, you understand we have an obligation to pursue this, because you testified to us under oath,' and there is some question now as to how long [the steroid] had been in his system" at the time of the positive test.
"If there's anybody in the world I'd like to give a free pass to in this, it's Raffy," Davis said. "But I didn't give a free pass to [former president Bill] Clinton, and I can't here, either."
In a statement released by the team Wednesday, Palmeiro said: "I spoke with Congressman Davis yesterday and told him that I will fully cooperate with him and the Committee. I will provide them with any information they need and if he or any other Committee member has additional questions, I am ready and willing to answer each and every one of them."
Two New York newspapers reported Tuesday night that Palmeiro tested positive for stanozolol, a potent steroid, and a source with intimate knowledge of the matter confirmed it Wednesday morning.
"If it's true that he used that particular drug," said committee member Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.), "it's even more damning of Mr. Palmeiro's conduct in this case."
Palmeiro's agent, Arn Tellem, blamed Major League Baseball officials for Tuesday's leak of the name of the drug. "The confidentiality rules that the arbitrator set in this case have been broken by MLB," Tellem said in a statement. "Rafael has respected the rules by not discussing the specifics, but unfortunately MLB has not done the same. What MLB has done is outrageous and it undermines the integrity of their drug testing program. There is another side to this story, and Raffy will tell it soon. I hope that the public will wait to make a final judgment about Rafael until they hear his story in its entirety."
In reply, Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president of labor relations, said in a telephone interview, "Major League Baseball respected the confidentiality order that was imposed and the only one that has been talking about the facts of this case is Rafael Palmeiro."
Drug experts say it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which an athlete could inadvertently or unknowingly consume stanozolol, which is known as Winstrol or Winny. Stanozolol is the drug for which Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive at the 1988 Summer Olympics.
Stanozolol, which has a very distinctive structure, is not found in dietary supplements and has not been associated with supplement contamination, unlike steroids such as nandrolone.
Don Catlin, the director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory in Los Angeles, said stanozolol showed up in 11.8 percent of positive drug tests recorded by the International Olympic Committee between 1988 and 2002. Only nandrolone and testosterone (as measured by a ratio test) showed up more often, Catlin said.
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ANAHEIM, Calif., Aug. 3 -- The House Government Reform Committee -- which heard Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro's testimony in March that he had never used steroids, while he jabbed his index finger in the air for emphasis -- has opened an investigation into whether Palmeiro may have...
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The Rock Journalist At a High Point In Music History
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If only there were a highlight reel. As one of the first pop music journalists in the business -- the godfather of rock journalism, he was often called -- in the '60s and '70s Al Aronowitz knew everyone worth knowing. The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, David Bowie, Johnny Cash, Pete Townshend -- he either wrote about them, befriended them or both.
Aronowitz, who died Monday night at the age of 77, was a trove of great yarns. But one stood out. It was Aug. 28, 1964, in a hotel room in New York. That was the evening Aronowitz introduced Bob Dylan to the Beatles. It was also the night Aronowitz introduced the Beatles to pot.
A big deal? Well, it was to the man who arranged it all. "Looking back, I still see that evening as one of the greatest moments of my life," he wrote in a 1995 essay. "Actually, I was well aware at the time that I was brokering the most fruitful union in the history of pop music, certainly up until then," he modestly judged. And he wasn't referring to the dope.
The next year, 1965, you can hear the echoes of Dylan in John Lennon tracks like "Norwegian Wood," a moody and introspective number that was a long way from "Do You Want to Know a Secret." Dylan, for his part, would put more rock in his folk, performing with an electric guitar for the first time in 1965.
But we don't need to overstate the impact of this smoke-filled tete-a-tete to realize that it must have been one heck of an evening. Aronowitz might have been the only guy who could arrange it. Born in Bordentown, N.J., a graduate of Rutgers University, Aronowitz made his first splash in journalism in 1959 with a 12-part series for the New York Post about the "beat" movement, getting him close to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
A few years later he met the Beatles in Liverpool, on assignment for the Saturday Evening Post. His cover story on the band, he'd later claim, sold more issues of the magazine than had ever before been sold, and he became chums with Lennon. Aronowitz had written for the Post about Dylan as well. Initially, neither of these titans wanted to meet the other -- Lennon because he felt that Dylan was already so big a deal that there'd be an imbalance of power. "Yeah, I wanna meet 'im," he told Aronowitz. "But on me own terms." Dylan dismissed the Beatles' music as "bubble gum." The idea of an audience of shrieking 12-year-olds horrified him, Aronowitz recalled.
Despite all these misgivings, Aronowitz persisted in trying to bring them together. When the Beatles took their second trip through the United States in '64, they stayed at the Delmonico Hotel in New York. Aronowitz received a call from Lennon. He was ready. Dylan came down from his retreat in Woodstock.
Aronowitz and Dylan didn't arrive empty-handed. The Beatles had never smoked pot until then, Aronowitz claimed. Like a lot of people at the time, Aronowitz recalled in his essay, the Fab Four didn't differentiate between marijuana and harder drugs, like heroin. At first, both Aronowitz and Dylan were incredulous. Wasn't Lennon singing "I get high! I get high!" on "I Want to Hold Your Hand"?
Actually, it was "I can't hide! I can't hide!" Lennon would later explain.
The Beatles offered some champagne. Dylan asked for his beverage of choice, cheap wine. Aronowitz suggested lighting up. Dylan rolled the joint, Aronowitz remembers, with some of the pot falling into a fruit bowl on the table. The battalion of cops stationed outside the hotel room door to protect the Beatles from their fans was apparently oblivious.
None of the Beatles, it seems, was eager to inhale, but somehow Ringo went first. ("You try it!" Lennon told him.) Instead of passing it around, he treated it like a cigarette and kept puffing. Soon enough, everyone had a joint of his own and then the whole thing turned into an outtake from a Cheech and Chong movie.
"In no time at all, [Ringo] was laughing hysterically," Aronowitz wrote. "His laughing looked so funny that the rest of us started laughing hysterically at the way Ringo was laughing hysterically. Soon, Ringo pointed at the way Brian Epstein was laughing, and we all started laughing hysterically at the way Brian was laughing."
Paul McCartney then instructed a road manager and friend named Mal Evans to follow him around with a notepad and write down everything he said. Not long after, the band began a new creative phase. As authors Peter Brown and Steven Gaines put it in "The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles," the band "started to compose under marijuana's spell." In late '64 the band released "She's a Woman," which contained the line "Turn me on when I get lonely," a winking reference to pot, the Beatles later acknowledged. But the effect of both Dylan and drugs would surface most notably in the group's gradual evolution away from teeny-bop pop toward more mature and even dark themes like "Baby's in Black," a tune about courting a woman in mourning.
Aronowitz had many giggling evenings and many stories ahead of him. He would later become a music columnist for the New York Post, and he wrote for the Village Voice, among other publications. There were personal falling-outs -- so many of his tales ended with him explaining why he and one star or another never spoke again. Toward the end of his life, a tinge of bitterness crept into his writing that had something to do with his lack of money. To his chagrin none of his access and connections ever yielded a big payday. He also lacked friends.
But he was never one to understate his own significance -- and if you had introduced two of the greatest creative forces in the history of rock, maybe you would feel the same way. "The '60s," he once wrote, with no irony, "wouldn't have been the same without me."
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If only there were a highlight reel. As one of the first pop music journalists in the business -- the godfather of rock journalism, he was often called -- in the '60s and '70s Al Aronowitz knew everyone worth knowing. The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, David Bowie, Johnny Cash, Pete Townshend -- he...
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Beltway Fantasies
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Adozen big old American cars come rumbling down a grassy hill, drivers flooring it, nobody bothering to brake as they merge into a single lane, and in a matter of seconds, fenders are flying, tires are popping and, with the gut-wrenching thud of heavy metal against heavy metal, we are enjoying fun for the entire family.
The demolition derby somehow survives as if in a land before lawyers, in a world in which every thrill has not yet been hemmed in by worries about whether someone might get hurt or be offended. A signature on a waiver, a $40 entry fee, a quick inspection of your vehicle -- doors chained shut, all glass removed but for the windshield, drivers wearing helmets and seat belts -- and you're ready to aim thousands of pounds of steel at your fellow man.
The kids lap it up. The women, by general consensus, are the most aggressive drivers. And the guys -- well, some of them spend the whole year working for these few adrenaline-soaked minutes in the pit.
We're in Arcadia, Md., an otherwise quiet hamlet on the northwestern edge of Baltimore County, about an 80-minute drive from Washington, and here at the base of a gentle hillside in a dirt pit filled with nearly 2,000 spectators, the volunteer fire company is staging one of five derbies it holds annually. (Two remain this year: Aug. 27 and Oct. 1.)
Your average county or state fair may offer a demolition derby, and the commercial version is a fine show, real-life bumper cars having at each other in front of a grandstand full of vicarious thrill-seekers. (The next will be tomorrow, at the Warren County Fair in Front Royal, Va., followed by the Prince William County Fair's on Aug. 15, 17 and 18, and Aug. 19-20 at the Montgomery County Fair.)
But in Arcadia, they cater to people who live, as the track announcer says, "derby-style." This is seven hours of action, from roundy-round races in which cars chase each other in circles around the short track to the big event, the smash-and-crash derby in which there is no pretense of a race, just a bunch of vehicles thrown into the pit slamming into each other until all but the winner are stuck in the mud, spinning wheels and getting whacked until the checkered flag flies.
Participants in the derby don't do it for the money -- even if they win the big event, the $700 purse will barely cover their expenses in buying cars and prepping them for the show. (The bulk of the proceeds go to support the fire company.)
They're people like Brian Beares, 20, a Baltimore County man who brought two cars to Arcadia, a '94 Saturn that he bought from a junkyard in Laurel for $75, and a 1980 Buick LeSabre, also a steal at $75, the former for the roundy-round and the big one for the crash-up event. Beares, who works a landscaping job by day, puts in two or three hours each evening for several weeks to get his cars ready for their six minutes in the pit.
On this day, he doesn't finish in the money, but he has a whale of a time; he even flips the Saturn during one race. (No air bags allowed in derby races.) Beares climbs out through the driver's window, waves to the cheering crowd, waits for the Bobcat tractor to come turn his car right side up and then, to another ovation, climbs back in -- but only after wiping the debris off his passenger seat for a friend who's come along for the ride.
This is not exactly precision work. The tools of choice in the pit are the sledgehammer -- "Knock off that mudflap," referee Skip Schildhauer tells one driver during the pre-race inspection; "Get rid of that rearview mirror," he orders another -- and the spray paint can, wielded to adorn the cars: "Redneck Rocket," "Psycho Steve," "Weapon of Mass Destruction" and the always alluring trunk decoration "Kiss Me."
On the hillside, the thrills are a step removed from the action in the pit. But only a step. As the cars turn the tight corners, mud and rocks fly into the front row of beach chairs and blankets. When the red flag waves and the racers halt so firefighters can put out some flames, the kids up front feel the heat rising off the engine.
And the views are spectacular. You see tires getting slashed off in a sideswipe, hear axles crack, glimpse the frustration on a driver's face when he gets maneuvered into a Jersey barrier or marooned on a dirt pile. Coming down the hill into one race, a driver hits a rut and his hood flies up, almost entirely blocking his view of the track. No matter: He soldiers on three times around the track, until finally a red flag gives him the chance to climb out and slam the hood down. (It bounces right back up another minute into the battle.)
This is a game of raw force but also of skill -- a good driver can weave through the blockade formed by the early losers or punch a hole through a pile of wrecks without doing fatal damage to his own vehicle. There are moments of admirable strategy, especially during the derby itself, when a driver must hit another car every 60 seconds or be disqualified, and of raw showmanship, as when the aforementioned Psycho Steve had his steering wheel fall off into his lap during an attempt to jump his Dodge Neon over a limousine -- and then taped the wheel back on for a second try.
Roz Snyder is the wife of an Arcadia firefighter who also runs a garage in town. Both drive in the derby. They buy old jalopies for $200 or $300 -- your primo demo derby car is a big old American vehicle from the 1970s or early '80s, made back when steel was steel and the major plastic item in the car was the Jesus figure hanging from the rearview mirror -- and spend the winter getting the cars ready. A neighborhood mechanic does the tear-down, ripping out windows and back seats, welding the doors and trunk shut.
"You build up all winter long, all your frustrations, and with three kids and a husband, this is a good outlet," Snyder says. "The first hit is the hardest, but after that, your adrenaline kicks in. You're really only going about 10 miles per hour when you hit, but it sure feels like a lot more than that."
Like most drivers, Snyder has suffered her share of bruises, but no serious injuries, and she says every black-and-blue mark is worth it: "Wouldn't you like to go out on the highway and hit people?"
Some drivers, like Snyder, say taking out their aggressions in the derby pit makes them more careful motorists on the highways. But the beauty of the derby and the crowd that loves it is that some drivers make no such claim. They drive this way because this is the kind of life they want to live, "derby-style."
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Adozen big old American cars come rumbling down a grassy hill, drivers flooring it, nobody bothering to brake as they merge into a single lane, and in a matter of seconds, fenders are flying, tires are popping and, with the gut-wrenching thud of heavy metal against heavy metal, we are enjoying fun...
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Chinese Drop Bid To Buy U.S. Oil Firm
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NEW YORK, Aug. 2 -- Chinese oil company Cnooc Ltd. on Tuesday withdrew its $18.5 billion takeover bid for California energy firm Unocal Corp., saying it could not overcome resistance from politicians in Washington who said such a deal could threaten U.S. national security and violate the rules of fair trade.
In dropping its effort, Cnooc, of which the Chinese government owns 70 percent, said the opposition in Washington was "regrettable and unjustified" and that it would have increased its offer had the resistance not been so strong.
Cnooc's decision ended a politically explosive takeover fight but could have larger implications for already tense economic relations between the dominant economy in the West and the rising commercial power in the East.
Experts said Cnooc's withdrawal could lessen Chinese interest in future deals with U.S. companies and stiffen its resistance to other priorities of the Bush administration and Congress, such as allowing further appreciation in the value of the yuan, China's currency. It could also increase China's interest in making energy deals with nations that Washington considers dangerous rogue states, such as Iran and Sudan.
"I think reciprocal reaction will come," said Oded Shenkar, a professor at Ohio State University and an expert on China-U.S. trade relations. "It may be that the next time there is an opportunity for a joint venture in China, you will see U.S. investors shut out and the deal going to the French or to Royal Dutch/Shell instead of Exxon Mobil.
"The reaction may not come tomorrow because the Chinese approach is not to do tit for tat. But it will come, and it could come in the energy sector or it could come in another area."
Others said the impact would be muted because China generally encourages investments by Western companies. "They want that investment. Our companies help them build their industrial, scientific and technological base," said Patrick A. Mulloy, a member of the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was established by Congress to study trade relations between the two countries.
Cnooc's decision to abandon the largest attempt by a Chinese company to buy a U.S. firm clears the way for Chevron Corp. to acquire Unocal, which has extensive oil and gas reserves in Asia. Unocal's board has endorsed Chevron's $17 billion cash-and-stock offer and shareholders are to vote on the deal Aug. 10.
Cnooc made its unsolicited bid on June 23, two months after Unocal agreed to be acquired by Chevron. The reaction in Washington was swift.
Members of Congress, many of them heavily lobbied by Chevron, lined up to attack Cnooc's bid. They said that the company benefited from sweetheart financing from the Communist government in Beijing and that the purchase would be a dangerous energy grab by China.
Sources close to Cnooc said company executives expected opposition and a thorough review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the multi-agency panel chaired by the Treasury secretary.
But the sources said Cnooc Chairman Fu Chengyu and other executives and directors were shocked by the intensity of the negative reaction from Congress and by signals that the administration did not want to decide whether to accept or reject Cnooc's bid. The president has final authority to accept or reject such deals.
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NEW YORK, Aug. 2 -- Chinese oil company Cnooc Ltd. on Tuesday withdrew its $18.5 billion takeover bid for California energy firm Unocal Corp., saying it could not overcome resistance from politicians in Washington who said such a deal could threaten U.S. national security and violate the rules of...
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Drug Company Guidelines
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Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein was online to discuss his latest column , which examines drug company advertising and other guidelines announced Tuesday by the industry.
You can also read The Washington Post's coverage of the new guidelines: Drug Firms Seek Ad Remedy .
About Pearlstein: Steven Pearlstein writes about business and the economy for The Washington Post. His journalism career includes editing roles at The Post and Inc. magazine. He was founding publisher and editor of The Boston Observer, a monthly journal of liberal opinion. He got his start in journalism reporting for two New Hampshire newspapers -- the Concord Monitor and the Foster's Daily Democrat. Pearlstein has also worked as a television news reporter and a congressional staffer.
His column archive is online here .
Laurel, Md.: Steven, we've discussed before the way economic and societal factors distort the priorities of the medical profession, such as sports medicine is a much more lucrative practice than delivering high-risk babies.
But, has the profitability of these well-advertised drugs targeted at high-end customers (sexual enhancement for middle-aged men; blood clots for airline passengers) reduced the number of drugs developed for those with more need but less money, like reducing the risk of birth defects to poor mothers or psychotic drugs for those marginally employable?
Steven Pearlstein: I don't think we're dealing with a zero sum game here. These companies have lots of money, and access to plenty of capital. If they thought a project had a good payoff, they'd do it, irrespective of whatever else they are doing. I don't think there is a crowding out effect. What there might be, however, is that the kind of drugs you speak of offer such great returns that the drug companies have become used to such returns, and turn their collective noses up at a project with higher risk or the kind of "good" returns that other industries consider acceptable. They set their hurdle rates very high, in other words.
Hartford, Conn.: How much do drug companies spend on advertising and marketing?; How much do they spend on research and development?;
Steven Pearlstein: This is something of a candard. Drug companies spend more on research and development than they do on advertising. They spend more on R&D than advertising and marketing combined, including marketing to docs, which is still bigger than direct to consumer advertising. But in recent years, the marketing and advertising budget is getting close to the research budget.
Liberals and industry critics love to cite these figures. I think they are somewhat irrelevant, and unrelated. They spend on advertising and marketing because it works, and increases their profits. There is no evidence, as I wrote, that it increases prices, since prices are set in this industry NOT on the basis of cost. So there is really no reason we should care whether they advertise or not, except if it drives up the cost of the overall health system, which it does.
As for what they spend on R&D--again, they spend what they think will give them a good payoff. No more, no less. But its not like, if they didn't spend on advertising, they would spend that money on R&D. That's not a given. The amount of money is not fixed, in the way the question implies.
Pipeline, PA: Good morning: So, what did they do that woman's eyes in the Levitra ad to go well beyond dreamy? Do drug companies pay doctors to promote thier new products, samples and the like? Thanks
Steven Pearlstein: Don't know much about the woman in the Levitra ad (too bad for me!). As to whether drug companies pay doctors to promote their products, the answer is: not directly. That would probably violate some ethical code. But they do accept research dollars, trips to conferences, payments for providing consulting services, payments for participating in trials. They also accept free samples. All of this marketing to doctors amounts to about $5 to $6 billion a year, if my memory serves. Its a big business.
Washington, D.C.: "A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that each $1 invested in advertising yields an extra $4.20 in sales."
That's a phenomenally good return on advertising dollars, although it probably diminishes some as spending approaches $1 billion for one specific drug.
One important aspect of drug company advertising is to make people aware of beneficial medicines. Some doctors aren't aware of all the new drugs and some doctors won't prescribe drugs for the wrong reasons (i.e., they push old drugs from favored companies). Some doctors dole out pills like candy prizes to the most satisfactory patients. And it isn't a stretch to believe that Viagra would never have been shared with any other males on earth if the drug company hadn't bypassed doctors directly through advertising.
Drug advertising is a component of an efficiently working marketplace, even though some ads are directed to narrow audiences with odd phrases like, "if you have a uterus..."
Steven Pearlstein: Yes, it is a good return -- so good, in fact, that there almost certainly has been some diminishing returns as the ad spending has increased. That's one reason why the companies have recently begun to back off. If I had had room this morning, I would have mentioned, for example, that Viagra sales haven't really suffered much since the company pulled all its ads last year. And overall, drug advertising is off for the first half of this year, after several years of big increases. I think the general feeling is that, with so many companies now doing it, often with competitive products, there are better, more targeted ways to spend some of that money.
I think you are right about Viagra, by the way, which is why I didn't take off after that advertising in the column. I'm all for empowering patients with more information and breaking the monopoly control that docs have traditionally had on the health care system. But advertising is not just about conveying information. There's a lot more to it, including the emotional and irrational content of advertising. And that's where the problems come in.
Washington, DC: I just wanted to point out the irony of reading this chat on a page blanketed with ads for a prescription toe fungus remedy. Who knew there was an epidemic of killer toe fungus we needed to be saved from?
Steven Pearlstein: Actually, I don't see that advertising on the screen I am working on, so thanks for that. It is ironic indeed.
By the way, I don't know whether there is an epidemic of fungus, but that may be a common enough malady that it is a good subject for advertising, particularly if people have been just living with it for years and never really knew there was an easy remedy. That's why we need to be careful about banning all advertising. I'm not for that.
Lorton, VA: One way the FDA can create a more realistic market for certain drugs is to do what they did with Claritin and designate the drugs as over the counter (against Schering Plough's strong objection). This way patients have to pay for them out of pocket rather than relying on insurance companies, dramatically lowering the price.
Obviously, many drugs need to be restricted, but do you think more common drugs like Claritin will be designated OTC?
Steven Pearlstein: That's a very good question. And I tend to agree with you. Rather than preventing the drug companies from advertising, I'd rather have the government be as aggressive and creative in dealing with these issues as the drug companies are, including using their powers over reinbursement and designating which drugs need prescription from doctors. Once a drug goes off prescription, it seems to me the market works pretty well, since the person deciding whether to use/buy the drug is the person paying for it, just like most other goods.
DC: "So there is really no reason we should care whether they advertise or not, except if it drives up the cost of the overall health system, which it does."
Let me try and parse that so it makes sense, OK:
'The real reason we should care about whether the drug companies advertise or not is that it does drive up the cost of the overall health care system.'
So, there we have it, in your own words, almost. Why the torturous qualifiers?;
Steven Pearlstein: Thanks. I needed a good editor. But to be more precise, , "The real reason we should care about whether drug companies advertise or not is that it drives up the cost of the overall health care system in a way that doesn't deliver enough benefit for the increased cost." How's that.
Steven Pearlstein: Thanks, 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.
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Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein was online to discuss his latest column. It looks at drug company advertising and other new guidelines announced by the industry.
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AU President's Expenses Examined
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American University's governing body is investigating allegations that school President Benjamin Ladner inappropriately charged the university for personal and travel expenses, a source with firsthand knowledge of the probe said yesterday.
University officials said last week that the Board of Trustees was investigating the school's finances. But on Monday, the board released a statement in an internal newsletter saying that the probe focused on "certain expenses in one department of the university" and that it was launched after several board members received an anonymous letter.
That letter was identified by the source yesterday as similar to one received last week by The Washington Post alleging broad expense account violations by Ladner and his wife, Nancy Bullard Ladner. The source said he could not be identified because it could compromise his role in the probe.
According to the letter received by The Post, the Ladners charged the university over the past five years for their son's engagement party, presents for their children, a personal French chef, vacations in Europe, maintenance of their personal residence in Maryland "including garbage bags," and wine up to $100 a bottle for lunch and dinner.
Ladner would not comment, said David E. Taylor, the president's chief of staff. The more than half of the board reached by phone declined to comment. Leslie E. Bains, the new board chairman, did not return phone calls.
It was unclear when trustees received the letter, but the board recently retained the law firm Arnold & Porter LLP to review the expenses, according to Taylor and Monday's statement in the newsletter. The lawyers then hired Protiviti, a risk management consulting group, to audit the records in consultation with the board's audit committee.
"The review and any wrongdoing discovered will not affect the university's strong financial position," the newsletter said.
Ladner came to the 10,000-student university in Northwest Washington in 1994 after a period of turmoil at American, which had five leaders in less than five years. He has been credited with improving academic standards and increasing fundraising at the 85-acre campus but came under early criticism for hiring a personal chef and other spending issues.
According to Internal Revenue Service records, Ladner's base salary was $633,000 for 2003-04. Ladner's compensation does not include campus housing; he has lived on campus in a house purchased for him by the trustees. He also spent more than $200,000 for drainage work and landscaping.
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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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Americans Are Warned About Overseas Travel
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The State Department issued an updated worldwide caution on terrorism yesterday, warning Americans about the threat of extremist violence against U.S. citizens and interests abroad.
The warning did not list countries, nor did department officials offer any additional specifics about threats. The statement said "current information" indicates that al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups are planning attacks against U.S. interests in "multiple regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East."
The department's official caution, which supersedes an alert issued in March, said attacks against private and official targets could come in the form of assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings or bombings.
The targets could include places where Americans meet or visit, such as residential areas, hotels and restaurants, as well as places of worship, schools, clubs, business offices and public areas, the caution said. It also noted that "demonstrations and rioting" can occur with little or no warning.
As causes of concern, the department cited spillover from the U.S. intervention in Iraq in and outside the Middle East, as well as other recent terrorist attacks in Europe. "Ongoing events in Iraq have resulted in demonstrations and associated violence in several countries; such events are likely to continue for the foreseeable future," the statement said. "U.S. citizens are strongly encouraged to maintain a high level of vigilance, be aware of local events, and take the appropriate steps to bolster their personal security."
For more information, Americans can check http://travel.state.gov or call 888-407-4747 in the United States or 202-501-4444 from abroad.
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World news headlines from the Washington Post, including international news and opinion from Africa, North/South America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Features include world weather, news in Spanish, interactive maps, daily Yomiuri and Iraq coverage.
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Lawyers Seek New Legal Protections for Reporters
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Lawyers for Washington Post journalist Walter Pincus urged a federal district judge yesterday to recognize new legal protections for reporters with confidential sources and refuse a request to hold him in contempt in a case involving former government scientist Wen Ho Lee.
The reporter's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer to recognize a common-law privilege similar to one that shields confidence between priests and penitents, and between therapists and patients, to reporters and their sources. A reporter's privilege is recognized in the courts of 49 states and the District.
Most federal courts recognize a privilege under the First Amendment, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected its application for four reporters from other news organizations and affirmed contempt orders against them in the Lee case. Pincus argued that there should be a broader, common-law privilege that allows him to keep his sources secret.
The effort by the newspaper comes at a time when journalists are facing unprecedented demands and threats in federal court to break their promises and name government officials who secretly gave them information.
New York Times reporter Judith Miller is spending her fifth week in jail for refusing to discuss confidential government sources with a special criminal prosecutor in his probe of a government leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Another group of reporters faces the threat of subpoenas or contempt citations in two civil lawsuits that center on government leaks.
Pincus is seeking to avoid being held in contempt for refusing to divulge the names of confidential government sources with whom he spoke when reporting in 1999 and 2000 on a criminal investigation into whether Lee was a spy. Almost all charges against Lee were later dropped; he has sued the federal government for violating his privacy and has alleged that high-ranking government officials in the FBI and the Energy Department leaked to reporters information about the investigation.
Lee argues that his civil suit hinges on learning the names of those sources by questioning Pincus and the other reporters.
Kevin Baine, a lawyer for Pincus, urged Collyer to extend the common-law privilege by following a recent opinion by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge David S. Tatel in the Plame case. Tatel concluded that a reporter should not have to reveal a source if the value of the leaked information to the public outweighs any harm caused by the leak. In the Plame case, Tatel wrote that Miller must identity her sources because there was a greater public interest in investigating the outing of a covert CIA officer.
Without some threshold test, Baine said, reporters could nearly always be ordered to break their promise.
Lee's lawyer, Betsy Miller, told the judge that requests for federal courts to create a privilege are extremely rare and should be discouraged in all but the most extraordinary cases, especially as Congress considers a federal shield law.
"This is not the case to create a new common-law privilege," Miller said.
Collyer said she felt obliged to consider the request seriously. "I'm inclined to think I can't decline the invitation to address whether there's a common-law privilege," she said.
A high-profile precedent for the Post's request is the 1996 case Jaffe v. Redmond , in which the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to extend the privilege to a psychotherapist who had confidential conversations with a police officer then suspected of killing an innocent bystander. The court found that the need for confidence in therapy outweighed the public interest in the conversation.
In the case of Pincus's stories, Baine argued yesterday that they were of critical value to the public because they focused on whether the government was aggressively investigating lax security at the Los Alamos, N.M., laboratory where Lee worked. At the same time, Baine said, the public would gain little by learning which public officials prematurely disclosed that Lee was the focus of the criminal investigation in the weeks before he was publicly charged with misappropriating classified government secrets.
"The harm from those leaks was nothing compared" with Lee being publicly charged with 59 counts related to mishandling documents and then being detained in solitary confinement for nine months, he said. Lee eventually pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling classified information.
Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said Tatel's opinion about balancing the harm of divulging the source's identity against the public's interest in the information seemed a "sensible argument" and "an important one for us to make."
"The harm of divulging the identity of confidential sources is that people whose safety and whose jobs are on the line would have to think twice or more than that before they took that chance" of talking to reporters, he said. "We also want reporting to be on the record. But in the highest-stakes reporting, people are risking their jobs to talk to us. They need that protection. And the American public needs that protection."
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Get Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland and national news. Get the latest/breaking news, featuring national security, science and courts. Read news headlines from the nation and from The Washington Post. Visit www.washingtonpost.com/nation today.
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Writing Agenda A Major Test of Clinton's Skill At Navigation
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For nearly five years, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has been a diligent lawmaker, introducing a blizzard of bills and amendments, forging relationships across party lines, establishing credentials on national security, and boosting her approval ratings at home by paying close attention to all regions of her state.
What she has lacked, according to some of her advisers and other Democrats, is a broader, more imaginative frame, a forward-looking national message that Democrats say they badly need in the wake of two demoralizing defeats at the hands of President Bush.
Now she is embarking on a project that could provide a new blueprint for the Democrats, and the foundation for her own possible presidential candidacy in 2008, as the leader of an initiative by the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) to create an agenda for the party. How she uses her new platform will demonstrate just how much she would take Democrats back to the 1990s or is prepared to lead them forward in a new direction.
Clinton's challenge will be to avoid offering the politics of restoration, whose appeal is built on an implicit return to the policies that guided her husband's administration. That would appeal to many Democrats who yearn for the successes of the 1990s, but the Clinton years carry considerable baggage for many independent and swing voters.
Some Democrats wonder whether Clinton can grapple with what ails the party today and come out of the experience as a candidate with an appeal and an identity distinct from her husband's administration -- one that fits far different times than existed when he was president.
"There's a feel of nostalgia creeping into her message that she has to be particularly sensitive to," said one veteran of presidential campaigns, who declined to be identified as publicly critical of the senator. The strategist added: "I think there's a sense of let's go back and revisit the Clinton model and that's the way to get elected. . . . I think it's going to be very hard for her to get out of the comfort zone of the Clinton administration."
Defenders say she can easily navigate from past to future. "I would quote her husband who often said -- and it's absolutely a truism -- that people vote the future, not the past," said Harold Ickes, who was White House deputy chief of staff in the Clinton administration. "Rhetorically she will invoke the halcyon days of the 1990s. The fact is she knows that people are concerned very much on the future and that she very much has to address that."
The Clinton brand is a powerful asset and a divisive force. As Bush showed when he ran for president in 2000, an attractive brand and past association with a presidency is not sufficient to win the White House. Bush's first presidential campaign may have been motivated by a desire to avenge the defeat of his father at the hands of Bill Clinton, but he did not run as the political twin of his father's administration or as the instrument to resurrect his father's agenda. He traded on the Bush name but did not allow it to restrict his vision.
How Sen. Clinton plans to deal with this, if she becomes a candidate in 2008, is far less clear. Bill Clinton presented himself as a New Democrat, Bush as a compassionate conservative. The senator has been a workaday legislator without a defining imprint of her own. In her DLC speech last week, she offered a description of an ideal America in 2020, which many in the audience regarded as an appealing vision, but it was not intended as the kind of hard-choices agenda that DLC leaders may envisage.
Clinton is the biggest celebrity in her party, but not the freshest face. If she hopes to be a bridge to the past and a gateway to the future, she may have benefited from listening to several potential 2008 rivals -- Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner and Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.), who also spoke to the DLC conference. Each addressed more directly than Clinton questions Democrats will have to answer to win back independent voters and appeal more successfully to those in towns and exurban neighborhoods.
Warner noted, for instance, that Democrats have been talking about education, health care, the economy, fiscal responsibility and national security, but he said accelerating change in the world renders old ideas obsolete. "In a post-9/11, flat world, sometimes even the solutions that we offered in the 1990s aren't enough," he said. "Sometimes defending the same programs, thinking they're going to give us new results, makes no sense. We need leaders who can see farther down the road."
Clinton's work on the Armed Services Committee and her support for the invasion of Iraq when many rank-and-file Democrats opposed it show her determination to overcome the party's historic weakness on national security that plagued Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) when he ran against Bush last year. Her work on economic development issues crucial to Upstate New York has given her an understanding of how a Democrat can make inroads in red-state environments. Her admission of mistakes in trying to restructure the health care system in 1993 and 1994 shows she knows when to cut her losses.
The political benefits of Clinton's high-profile role with the DLC may seem obvious to the New York senator and the centrist organization. Clinton gains a platform from which to reinforce the moderate side of her political profile, and the DLC, struggling to maintain its influence inside the party, can trade on her star power to raise its profile and power.
But for the aspiring presidential candidate and the organization that helped launch her husband toward the White House more than a decade ago, the relationship may prove more difficult than first appearances suggest.
Her advisers say Clinton begins without an agenda of her own and with a goal of bringing all wings of the party together, which on issues from trade and Iraq to the role of religion in politics could prove extraordinarily difficult to achieve. "She begins with a clean slate," said Lorrie McHugh, Clinton's communications director.
The DLC risks being used by Clinton to blur differences between left and center within the Democratic Party. Clinton risks being caught in a political time warp that could make it more difficult for her to establish that she is not merely an extension of her husband's administration. And in taking on the assignment, Clinton has made it more difficult for her advisers to say she is focused only on winning reelection in 2006.
Gina Glantz, who managed Bill Bradley's campaign in 2000, said Clinton has an "extraordinary opportunity to set an agenda, a bold agenda, not amendments to legislation, but to really put forward a strong policy framework for the country."
If the new initiative results in a sharper, fresher, more future-oriented profile for a politician who already has been on the national stage for a decade and a half, the political benefits for the Democrats may be genuinely significant. If it produces lowest common denominator policies, vague statements of principle or intraparty warfare, then the DLC exercise may accomplish neither the DLC's nor Clinton's political aspirations.
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2004 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.
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For Ramsey, It's Now or Never
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Whenever Patrick Ramsey thinks his job is secure, he knows he's the only quarterback on the roster not handpicked by Joe Gibbs. Whenever he feels good about his play and his team, Ramsey must know Gibbs brought in Mark Brunell to take his job a year ago and in April drafted Auburn's Jason Campbell, who naturally would like to replace Ramsey this year.
"Initially, when I heard about [Campbell], I thought, 'What's going on? What's the plan here?' " Ramsey said.
He calmed down after Gibbs explained he rarely passed on drafting a talented quarterback in the first round. "He made clear his reasons for doing it weren't solely to replace me," Ramsey said.
"We'll cross those other avenues if we come to them," Ramsey said. "But it's certainly there, in the back of my mind. If I falter and don't play well, I'd be ignorant not to recognize that. It's the NFL. You don't produce, you don't play."
What a realistic, adult perspective from a guy nearly traded before he played a down for the Redskins.
In the four years since the Chicago Bears almost dealt for him, Ramsey's employers have benched him, failed to protect him and toyed with his psyche in hopes that some quarterback -- any quarterback, it seems, except Patrick Ramsey -- would emerge as the franchise's future starter.
Steve Spurrier's fascination with everything Gator -- Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews -- meant Ramsey didn't get the starting nod in 2002 until the University of Florida first failed. In 2003, he made the cover of the team's media guide and started well before unofficially becoming the most punished quarterback in the NFL. Ramsey played in an offense in which protection was an afterthought.
Gibbs was hired in January 2004 and immediately went out and did what Gibbs does: find a tested veteran to move the ball, kill the clock and win games. When Brunell was not the answer, Ramsey was reluctantly brought in.
It's not exactly the conventional way to nurture and bring along a young quarterback -- in fact, Ramsey's career has been a study in how not to develop a player.
Yet he is still here, comfortably taking snaps out of the shotgun on a hot, sticky summer afternoon in Ashburn. The shotgun for Gibbs -- who equates six-yard hitches to Art Monk with throwing downfield -- is a dramatic offensive concession. It's a scheme catering not to plodders but to cannons.
"This is his big opportunity, he knows it," said Jon Jansen, the right tackle and Ramsey's best friend on the roster. "The offense, the confidence coach has shown in him, everything. It's a big year in the NFL for him. That's when quarterbacks are supposed to show they can play and win at this level. He's ready."
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Quarterback Patrick Ramsey feels that he is being given a good opportunity to succeed this season under Joe Gibbs.
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Researchers Create First Cloned Dog
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After creating over 1,000 laboratory-grown embryos, researchers in South Korea announced that they have successfully cloned a dog. Snuppy, who is the world's first canine clone, originated from a cell taken from the ear of a three year old Afghan hound. While scientists noted this as a major milestone in genetic technology, others expressed concern that this latest breakthrough could be a step toward human cloning.
Dr. Autumn Fiester , a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics who specializes in animal cloning, was online Thursday, Aug. 4, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the creation of the world's first canine clone in South Korea.
Read the latest: In a Furry First, A Dog Is Cloned In South Korea.
Washington, D.C.: Is South Korea poised to dominate the world of cloning and stem cells? Do they already?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: They are certainly out in front on many technologies. Scientists have been worried since 2001 that this would be the kind of effect that our national policy would have on science and technology. But with new initiatives at the state level, most dramatically California's new stem cell funding, I think we are going to see a lot of exciting work done by US scientists.
University Park, MD: I don't understand the shrill voices demanding that all cloning research be stopped, lest mankind "usurp the prerogatives of God." What is the difference between cloning an animal and keeping a brain-dead woman on artificial life support for three months while her fetus develops enough to have a chance of survival with millions of dollars worth of medical care?; The latter seems far more "unnatural" to me.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: The biggest problem we have today in evaluating science and technology is consistency. There is no doubt that we are very comfortable embracing certain technologies, while we fear or condemn others. Probably the most problematic argument against medical or animal biotechnology is the "playing God" or "unnatural" argument you mention. It is very hard to explain how the people who make this argument can accept all of the other manipulations and modifications that scientists have made to both animal and human life over time. I think it is tremendously important that we try to help people think through these issues, so that we can get clear on what lines ought to be drawn and which projects embraced or rejected.
Arlington, Va.: Maybe a silly question, but ... Where does the embryo actually grow? Inside a dog after it leaves the dish or inside a lab? And who would the dog's parents be? The parents of the dog that is was cloned from, or the dog that it was cloned from? Thank you for helping me to sort this one out ...
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Embryos are live cells, so they are growing from the moment they are created -- just like in human in vitro fertilization. But most of the growth will take place inside the surrogate animal's uterus, just like in a natural pregnancy. The genetic parents are the same parents whose DNA created the original dog; the surrogate is the female who carries the fetus.
Clifton, Va.: Not sure why you would want to clone a dog and especially a Afghan hound. Afghan's although a beautiful are recognized as one if not the dumbest breed of dog. I herd competitively at herding trials on the east coast with a rough collie and have no desire for a cloned dog. And would prefer to see the cloning of dogs banned since I see cloning ruining various herding breeds just like the AKC and conformation shows.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: You raise an excellent point: what purposes does or should animal cloning serve? The purpose of the pet cloning firms is not to mass produce the same dog (or even the same breed), but to enable clients to have the genetic twin of one beloved dog. The idea of pet cloning is to embrace the uniqueness of a special pet by creating its identical twin. The kind of mass- or over-production you are talking about goes completely against the spirit of why clients want to use this technology to help them with the loss of their pet.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Given the clients' reason for cloning, it won't matter to them what the natural endowments were of their pet. In other words, if dog cloning becomes commercially possible, it may not be the smartest or fastest dogs that get cloned.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Hello. Thank you for inviting me today, It is honor to be here.
Chicago, Ill.: I've got lots of curmudgeonly things to say about cloning dogs at a time that million are facing starvation, etc., but the comment that keeps coming to the forefront of my mind is the recent Onion parody headline: "Cloned pet neutered."
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Many people do argue that it is morally wrong to clone a dog when there are millions languishing in shelters. I don't find that a persuasive argument against animal cloning for a few reasons. First, if it isn't wrong to go to a breeder to get a pure-bred dog, despite how many dogs are already in shelters, then it isn't wrong to clone one. In fact, the number of animals that will ever be cloned is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of animals that are naturally bred(intentionally or by accident). Also, if I love a particular animal and want either its offspring or identical twin, I am not obligated to adopt some entirely unrelated animal that already exists.
Vienna, Va.: This experiment raises two questions for me, and I was hoping you could clear them up. First, during the growth of the clone fetus, did its DNA express itself (unzip, develop, genetically interact to create the organs, etc.) exactly the same way that the donor's DNA did when it was a fetus? It's my understanding that even though a clone has the same DNA, its genetic development (the myriad interactions between genes that create and maintain an organism) will not replicate the donor's genetic development. Thus, someone who clones a pet in order to "keep" it longer than its life span will not get the same cat or dog -- similar in appearance, but probably not the same temperament, habits, etc. Is this right? The second question has to do with timing. If you take a 5 year-old dog's DNA and clone it, aren't you cloning DNA that is 5 years along in it's natural life span? Does the cloning process itself "reset" the DNA entirely, or do some of the problems and eventual breakdowns (and changes to the DNA that have taken place during the donor's lifetime due to environment, nutrition, etc.) that are taking place in the donor get passed onto the clone? Sorry, that's more than two questions.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: You are certainly right that cloning an animal is not "getting the same dog or cat back." The clone will only ever be a leter-born identical twin. How similar the twin will be is an open question, given the different environmental factors that go into temperament. But people who want to clone their animal may not be asking for the resurrection or immortality of their pet: they may just want something to be left of the original animal -- some "part" of him that they can hang on to. And if cloning is seen by clients as a type of solace or way of coping with grief then it isn't a problem that they aren't getting the "same" pet back.
Washington, D.C.: Were any dogs sacrificed during the process? I read they experimented on hundreds of dogs before succeeding in cloning one. What happened to these dogs? Thanks.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: This is the most pressing issue for the ethics of companion animal cloning: how much animal suffering is involved? There are three parts of the process where animals might suffer: harvesting the eggs from the donors, carrying the cloned fetuses to term, and the health of the live clone. How much animal suffering is involved in these procedures depends a lot on how the scientists are conducting the work. IVF done, and it is uncomfortable, but not an extreme amount of suffering. So the donor and the surrogate need not suffer -- and they certainly don't need to be euthanized -- in principle. In cat cloning, for example, the surrogates are adopted after the clones are produced. As for the health of the clones that are born alive -- this is the data we all need.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: (I omitted a sentence in my first response; let's try this one again). This is the most pressing issue for the ethics of companion animal cloning: how much animal suffering is involved? There are three parts of the process where animals might suffer: harvesting the eggs from the donors, carrying the cloned fetuses to term, and the health of the live clone. How much animal suffering is involved in these procedures depends a lot on how the scientists are conducting the work. The harvesting of the eggs and the implantation is similar to what a human woman goes through in IVF, and it is uncomfortable, but it is not an extreme amount of suffering. So the donor and the surrogate need not suffer terribly -- and they certainly don't need to be euthanized -- in principle. In cat cloning, for example, the surrogates are adopted after the clones are produced, and the eggs are retrieved from spay clinics, so the donor cats aren't even subjected to an additional procedure. As for the health of the clones that are born alive -- this is the data we all need.
Washington, D.C.: This talk that these people are just trying to replace a beloved pet is disturbing, and a little pathetic. Pets die. I've had two dogs and a cat die. Coping with the grief and accepting the loss is part of life- it's part of growing up and maturing.
What kind of message does it send to the kids. "Don't be sad that Fido died, Katie. We'll resurrect him."
Really, it's a sick commentary on where society is heading.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Well, that depends on whether clients are trying to avoid their grief or trying to find some type of solace for their loss. You are certainly right that if cloning is used to escape grief, then we will have lost something very valuable in human life -- the kind of deep valuing of someone that provokes the grief in the first place. But this may not be what clients are doing. They might not be trying to "replace" the pet, but "have something" from the pet. And we have this in the human context: if my adult son dies, I might say, "Thank goodness he had children." And what we mean is that I still have a little bit of him. For pets that were neutered, this is not an option; so the genetic twin might be the next best thing.
New York, N.Y.: It certainly appears that South Korea (and possibly many other Asian countries) do not approach cloning and stem cell research with the same trepidation as the U.S. Conservatives are decrying this achievement as another step in the slippery slope to human cloning. Do they have anything to worry about? Are there any treaties banning human cloning and, given the non-binding nature of international law, is there anyway to enforce such a prohibition against a "rogue" state?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Although I think many of these technologies are important advancements that will improve human (and animal) life, I certainly think that we all have something to worry about in terms of the capability to do human reproductive cloning. If the question is: "will these technologies take us closer to the ability to clone a human baby?", the answer is "absolutely yes." But that ship has already sailed. This science has advanced so fast in ten years that there is no going back to pre-cloning days, any more than there is going back to pre-nuclear weapons days. What we must do is create an enforceable ban on human reproductive cloning. The slippery slope is not inevitable. We must get international agreement that human reproductive cloning will universally be considered a criminal offense. The risks to the cloned child are too great to even consider allowing such research.
Washington, D.C.: Pardon me, but I believe the person who asked about the ethics of cloning "beloved pets" when millions are starving was referring to PEOPLE and NOT DOGS! And this is my problem with the whole thing as well.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: I misunderstood. If that is the objection, then there is a different answer. If the problem is the expense (it currently costs $32,000 to have your cat cloned), then this is the same objection you would raise to any spending on luxury goods. It is not more wrong to buy a $30,000 cat clone, than a $30,000 horse, or $30,000 boat or BMW. The world might be a better place if we all took our non-necessary spending money and put it towards good causes, but at this point, there seems to be no more justification to condemn cat-cloning (or dog-cloning) than boat-buying.
Harrisburg, Pa.: When an animal is cloned, does it have a lower average life span than a similar animal born naturally? Is it true that some aging elements of the original animal are passed along to the cloned animal?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: That is the essential question! And right now, there is no way to answer it because none of these clones have been around long enough to know. But this is absolutely the data we need. We need long-term studies on the health and life span of clones to know what type of suffering is involved.
Arlington, Va.: Neutering of pets is highly promoted for obvious reasons. But if a person is going to get their dog cloned, isn't better just to let a dog reproduce and then neuter it? I guess it true cloning you get one animal and reproduction you might get tons, but I'm sure cloning will be very expensive.. it seems like such a waste of resources...
Dr. Autumn Fiester: I believe that many of the pet cloning clients would have elected to breed their animals if that were possible. But these animals are neutered at a very young age.
Munich, Germany: By the sound of today's article by Rick Weiss, the cloning of dogs will primarily help stem cell research, which in turn will be of use in human stem cell research. I'm sure that Christopher Reeve would approve of this concept.
However, I dread the thought of any intelligent animals being tortured for the purpose of stem cell research. I've seen TV programs of mice or rats having their spinal cords severed, and then injected with stem cells. I'd hate to see dogs put to this use.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: I would, too. But this is why we need to look at each research project on a case-by-case basis and evaluate how much benefit could come from it versus how much suffering on the part of the animals it will exact. The public is not made aware of what types of projects are done and under what conditions -- we only hear the results. I think we need more public debate about what the boundaries of scientific research ought to be.
Virginia: Why are Asian countries on the leading edge of cloning research and the U.S. is not?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: I think there are two reasons: funding and culture. Our national science budget is not growing fast enough to keep up with the kind of projects we need to undertake. And, second, there are projects that we would not embrace in the US that seem unobjectionable in other places. For example, the Koreans cloned a human embryo (this is the first step in human reproductive cloning; this is NOT human therapeutic cloning, like what we are talking about with stem cell research); they actually took an enucleated egg and transferred another nucleus into it. They did not implant it, but they created it. That is not something the American public is ready for.
I seem to remember a company that was launched a few years ago that offered pet owners the opportunity to invest some (thousands?) dollars now and get a clone of their beloved Bowser when the technology became available (now?) Do you know about this sort of venture and were any such monies used to finance this dog cloning project? Just wondering about the business/university research connection. Thanks!
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Yes, there is a company that is cloning cats commercially, and it has sold its first few. Dog cloning is not yet available because only the Korean scientists have been able to achieve it. There is a great deal of research being conducted on dog cloning, and there has been business/university connections on these projects.
Easier to clone humans?: I enjoyed the sci-fi movie 'The Island'. It's about how rich people pay $5 million to have themselves cloned. And when they need an organ (heart, liver, etc.)it is taken from the clone. The clone of course dies.
I thought this was just good science-fiction, but today's article stated how difficult it is for even brilliant scientists to clone dogs. The article also stated that it's easier to harvest fertile eggs from a woman than a dog. That left me with the impression that it might easier to clone humans. Maybe 'The Island' will actually be close to reality by 2019, the year it takes place.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: It might be easier to get to the embryonic stage in humans than in dogs -- after all, the Koreans did clone a human embryo before they cloned the dog. But even if it is easier to create an embryo, it is likely to be much, much harder to get the embryo to become a viable fetus. The human body is very complex, and the body will usually abort fetuses with even subtle genetic problems, so getting to a live baby would likely be much tougher -- though we all hope no one will try.
Sausalito, Calif.: In the 1970's when human in vitro fertilization was new, many people objected to so-called "test tube babies" and expressed fear and concern about this new technology. Some of those fears were based on ignorance or myths or science-fiction-type ideas about the technology. Today that controversy has subsided and I think most people regard in vitro fertilization as a useful technology that has increased the quality of life for people who have used it. Do you think the same thing is happening now with cloning in general, or pet cloning in particular? Do myths or misunderstandings play a part in objections to it? Will it generally be accepted some day?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Yes, there is a certain amount of fearing what's new and unusual going on. But there is also a backdrop of legitimate concerns about both human reproductive cloning and animal welfare issues that we need to take seriously. I think the biggest problem we will have is sorting out which projects we want to support and which ones we ought to condemn. Right now people are either "for" or "against" these technologies. That seems dangerous to me. Let's look case-by-case and decide the ethics on the merits of each particular use of these technologies. In general, I think much of this technology will be accepted in the long-run, but I hope not all. Some projects ought not to be done. Two of my favorite candidates for condemnation are human reproductive cloning, and on the animal front, xenotransplantation.
Washington, D.C.: Am I right in remembering there was some question about whether Dolly the sheep was actually a clone? Or am I misremembering some controversy?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: I have never heard that. Mainstream scientists accept that she was a clone. But there have been many, many clones since her.
Pittsburgh, Pa.: The implication from some is that because animal cloning will lead to human cloning, that is a bad thing.
Why is that a bad thing? What, exactly, are the arguments against human cloning?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: There are quite a few arguments against human reproductive cloning but let me give you two. First, there are so many stillbirths and deformities in animal clones, that the risk to a human child is too great. We would never allow anyone to take Thalidomide because we know that it can create birth defects; human reproductive cloning would be worse.
That is reason enough to ban it, but another compelling argument (assuming you could get a healthy child without many others dying) relates to the clone's self-identity and self-worth. How would it feel to be the clone of someone else? Questions like, "Why was I created?" could be psychologically detrimental to the child, especially if the child was cloned because of the death of the "original" twin.
Washington, D.C.: I have to say the whole thing creeps me out. I believe it was inhumane, and yes, I do think that people should seek shelter pets rather than a breeder for purebreds. Also, as a twin myself (ironically), I find the whole "identical clone" thing freaky, whether it's in humans or animals.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: If you are arguing that prospective pet owners should always go to a shelter for their companion animals and that breeders are morally wrong to breed animals until all shelter animals have been adopted, then you are consistent in your objection to pet cloning. This is a legitimate position, but it is not shared by most people. One question you might think about is why is pet adoption different from human adoption: if I want a biological child, you don't say that I should adopt one of the millions of orphans that exist in the world instead. Why is animal adoption different? It might be, but it is an interesting thing to think about because people seeking pure-breeds or clones want something very specific, just as human parents want a genetic offspring.
New York, N.Y.: The Post article describes Snuppy as a major step forward in cloning technology. Why is more difficult to clone a dog, as opposed to a pig or sheep? Are there any plans to clone more complex mammals, such as higher primates?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Not only are their "plans" to clone non-human primates, there have been projects underway for ten years to accomplish this. So far, they haven't succeeded, but it won't be long. The advancement with dogs has to do with the eggs in that species: in dogs, the eggs at ovulation are not mature; in humans and other species they already are. So the "trick" was to mature the eggs outside of the female body. In overcoming this problem, scientists learned more about the reproductive process.
Washington, D.C.: Dr. Fiester: You gave an incomplete answer to an earlier question, so let me repeat the part you didn't answer: If you clone a 5-year-old dog, will (or might) anything have happened to the dog's DNA that would make the clone genetically (not environmentally) different from its "parent"?
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Yes, this is possible. In fact, a new study of human genetics found that our DNA was constantly changing, and this absolutely has implications for how similar or different a later-born genetic twin will be from the original. In fact, it has implications for genetic twins born at exactly the same time.
Dr. Autumn Fiester: Thank you all for joining me. This was an excellent set of questions -- thought-provoking and challenging.
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.
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Dr. Autumn Fiester, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, discusses the creation of the world's first canine clone in South Korea.
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'Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records'
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The American Masters film "Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records" airs on PBS on Wednesday, August 3, at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings).
Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf and Little Milton all got their start at Sun Records. This documentary includes rare footage of rock's founding fathers, input from some of today's best-known stars and candid recollections from Sun pioneers Billy Lee Riley, Sonny Burgess, Rufus Thomas and Jack Clement. It contains some of the last-ever conversations with Sam Phillips, who opened the storefront recording studio at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tenn., more than 50 years ago and who died in 2002.
Jack Clement -- songwriter, producer, recording studio pioneer, publisher, artist and executive -- was online Thursday, April 4, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the legacy of Sun Records and the American Masters documentary that features it.
The American Masters documentary, which earned a Gold Cindy award, is highlighted with exclusive studio performances by Paul McCartney, Mark Knopfler, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and Bryan Ferry, performing together with original Sun musicians D.J. Fontana, Scotty Moore and Jerry Lee Lewis, in homage to the early Sun greats.
"Cowboy" Jack Clement was born in Whitehaven, Tenn., near Memphis on April 5, 1931. After four years of service in the Marines as a teenager, Clement toured in a bluegrass band, then returned to Memphis in 1954. He found work at Sun Records and worked at the mixing board for recording sessions with Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich and Jerry Lee Lewis. Another Sun artist, Elvis Presley, even opened for Clement at the Memphis club "The Eagle's Nest." During those years, he wrote two of Cash's songs: "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" and "Guess Things Happen That Way." Clement now operates out of his Nashville home -- with a fully equipped studio upstairs.
Jack Clement: Hello folks out in TV land, radio land! Hi, this is Cowboy Jack Clement. What do you want know?!?
Detroit, Mich.: How is it that Memphis became the center of the early rock and roll universe, and why did so many of the early start musicians come from mostly southern backgrounds?
Jack Clement: I think Memphis was so instrumental because it was centrally located, between north and south, east and west, it was a convergence point. There was people coming from different directions. Most of them weren't born there necessarily, lots of people were from the sticks, like "darkest Arkansas" as people used to say. It was just a happening place. It started with blues, then country, but different country from Nashville. I loved it. I grew up in Memphis. WE didn't get good reception. I would lay up in bed when I was a teenager at night, I had a wire on my toe used it as an antennae so I could get the Grand Ole Opry. Now they did broadcast it at 10 PM, but if you wanted the whole thing, and if you were this side of the Smokey Mountains it was hard to pick it up. Nevertheless, a lot got thru and it got thru to me. And I liked the country music, or hillbilly music as we called it. I grew up in this convergent point, mixing, like New York was in the old days - a melting pot. Course I had a lot of gospel music, I was a Baptist, I'm still a Baptist, I'm not a John, I'm a Jack. I grew up hearing not just white but black gospel music, because it was all over the radio in Memphis. So I heard a lot of stuff, a lot of that rhythm of black gospel music is in my guitar playing to this day. And I am the worlds greatest rhythm guitar player to this day. Ask Johnny Cash! So anyway, I heard all this stuff, I like hearing all different stuff, I don't want to hear bluegrass for 24 hours, or Polka for 24 hours. Although I do love a polka fix! How many people go to Cleveland for R n R. I do. I like a polka fix now and then. Heck I wound up on Frank Yanakovic the polka king's last album. I think it was the last one. So I like a lot of that kind of music. And Memphis produced people like me, a little nuts, a little of this, and that, and a lot of black gospel music - (singings - give me a little of that ol' time religion...give me a little o' that ole time religion....) I host a show on Sirius on Saturday from 2 to 6 eastern, and then rebroadcast from 6 to 10 PM on Sundays. I'm in their Nashville office now, I just finished a show.
Anonymous: On the Masters program this evening, what is the name of the contemporary artist or group who sang "I'll Walk the Line" by Johnny Cash?
Jack Clement: Oh, I forgot.
Jack Clement: The show was very entertaining and informative. Gives you rock and roll history.
Maryland: How would you compare these guys when they were at Sun to much later after they hit it? Was there a consistency to the changes fame brought or did they each react differently? In other words, were they nice young guys who stayed nice or did they turn sour with fame?
Jack Clement: Well for the most part I think they stayed pretty nice. A couple were hell raisers in the first place, like Billy Riley and of course, Jerry Lee Lewis. And me. I never saw Elvis much, I only saw him once after he went into the army. But he used to drop around Sun Studio a lot. It was like a homing instinct. It wasn't his idea to leave Sun. He was attached to Sam Phillips. He never got over calling him Mr. Phillips. He was a very nice young man. It wasn't his idea to leave Sun. I asked Sam about that one time on the phone, we were talking. He said no, Elvis, didn't want to leave. But somebody made Sam an offer at that time, $35,000 which was the biggest offer anyone had made. They got Ray Charles for $3,000. Ahmet had offered $25,000. He said, Sam, I got Ray for $3,000. It was a lot of money at that time. Sam always said he needed that money to promote Blue Suede Shoes. I think it was a bunch of hooey. I think he was doing OK. But that $35,000 was very tempting. And he owed some money in royalties. And plus he published some of the songs Elvis had recorded, so he was still making money. And of course Blue Suede Shoes was a huge hit. But I never believed Sam when he said he needed that money to promote Blue Suede Shoes.
Phoenix, Ariz.: Do you like Sam Phillips?
Jack Clement: I did like Sam Phillips. Even though he fired me. But then he would hire me back. I was ready to go though. Because Johnny Cash had gone, Carl Perkins had gone. They'd signed with Columbia in Nashville. And Jerry Lee Lewis went to England. So you know, it was kind of in the doldrums around Sun. It wasn't' inspiring. I was ready to get out of there. I should have gone to Nashville. I started a label in Memphis. And I had some pretty good money coming in from writer royalties, Ballad of a Teenage Queen, and Guess Things Happen That Way, and I had written the B side of Whole Lotta Shakin. And you get paid royalties from record sales for B sides too. So I had the money coming in. I messed around for a year starting a record label but that didn't work. Summer Records. We had all these postcards saying, Some Are Hits, Some Are Not, We Hope you like the ones we got. Then there was, Some Are In Spain, Some in France, if you don't play our records we ain't got a chance. And they didn't play our records. And there was one for the distributors. Summer Comes, Autumn Follows, You owe us $375. Or something like that. I don't think I ever sent that one out actually. But we put out silly stuff on the label. Like Motorcycle Michaels. How did it go? Where's old charley, with my Harley.... Another line was Where's Ole Shroeder with my motor....Silly record. I always had a silly streak. I think I got it from Johnny Cash. But I did love Sam Phillips. I liked him too. Some people I love em more than I like em. But in the case of Sam I loved him and I liked him. Even though he could be an a-hole sometimes.
Jack Clement: He discovered me. I might not have amounted to anything if it hadn't been for him. It was a time and place in Memphis.
Williston, N.D.: The credits moved too fast for me to write down the 800 number to order the video of the "Good Rockin Tonight: The legacy of Sun Records." Will you e-mail me the 800 number so that I can order one?
Jack Clement: See the link below.
washingtonpost.com: For Information on How to Buy the DVD (amazon.com)
Chicago, Ill.: I caught the show last night by accident after putting the kids to sleep. I missed the first half hour, but what I saw was extraordinary. I am amazed that you got Sam Phillips and Billy Lee Riley to sit and deal without any violence because Billy Lee has been incredibly bitter for years. How did you manage to keep the peace? Ha! Did you have any burly bouncer-types standing by? I wasn't too enamored of Matchbox 20 and some of the other new bands, but Jerry Lee Lewis, who's an even more volatile type than Billy Lee, seemed like he'd taken a fistful of xanax and was having a good time. How come you didn't get anything more out of him? Thank you for some great television.
Jack Clement: Jerry Lee playin' the piano seemed absurd, overdubbed or something. It seemed a whole different version. I didn't really go for any of the stuff other than the original Sun guys. I loved the Italian guy though, doing the Charlie Rich song, and he really sang it well. I've been around them guys for a long time and I guess they just kind of let me do that. But I didn't say much. They want to make fools of themselves, let them do it. They've been doing it for a long time. I was in the Marine Corps for four years. So I can keep the troops quiet if I want to. I guess I am a peace maker come to think of it.
washingtonpost.com: Information on How to Buy a CD (amazon.com)
Columbus: Were you ever on Johnny Cash's TV show?
Jack Clement: I was a couple of times, I know I did the 25th anniversary. I sang When I Dream on there, that I recorded on my first of two albums. In 1978.
Jack Clement: I did another show of his five or six years later. I remember Sam Phillips was there and Minnesota Fats was there for whatever reasons. He was hanging out and after the show was over he and Sam and Sam's girlfriend Sally and I, we all went out to dinner. So I got to hang out with Minnesota Fats, who used to play pool where I used to play hookey when I was a kid, Peeple's Pool Hall, in Memphis. It was a famous place. He was there a lot, I never met him. But another thing about Minnesota, he was a champion eater. He told me how he ate a whole ham one time.
Winnipeg, Manitoba: Of all the music legends you worked with, who would you say was the most serious musician? Who was the easiest to work with?
Jack Clement: Johnny Cash. No question about it. My favorite. As a person, as a fun guy, greatest wit. Go in the studio and have fun. I played on some of his last albums. I played on some records of his when I wasn't producer. I was playing with him at his studio, dobro on some of them, till the end.
Louisville, Ky.: You produced sessions for both Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun. How did these two artists work in the studio and did your role differ much in working with the two?
Jack Clement: Completely different personalities. They weren't combustible, they could work together. They seemed to admire each other. Everyone liked both of them. Elvis was a big fan. You work differently with everybody. Jerry lee is bombastic and totally extroverted, totally uninhibited. So he would walk in and if there was a piano in the room and at least one person, he was the show, like he was in front of 10,000 people. Johnny Cash was a little more dignified, not that there's anything wrong with that. A little shy. Whereas Jerry Lee wasn't shy at all. But Johnny Cash had the fire for sessions once he got going. Jerry Lee walked in feeling like that.
Anonymous: Do you think that it was Carl Perkins or Buddy Holly that was the musical link connecting Rock-a-Billy to Rock and Roll? In other words, was it one artist's style that was the direct "link" there -- or was it just a combination of everybody's emerging styles at the same time as the commercial radio and the teenagers being ready for it?
Jack Clement: Carl Perkins and Buddy Holly were both a big part of it. And Bill Haley in Baltimore. That's where I first heard something they call Rock n Roll. See I had heard Bill Haley before he became famous. I was in Washington D.C. at the end of my enlistment, and after I got out I started playing gigs around there. We were playing a place called North Beach in the summer, on Chesapeake Bay. There was a group playing a song by Bill Haley called Rock This Joint. So before I heard Bill Haley I heard someone singing his song. And it had the word Rock in it. Bill Haley is a legitimate rock n roller in my opinion, part of the formation of it and everything. Of course, Carl Perkins, his influence on guitar players - he was a hip guy, he had that southern thing, that southern boogie woogie stuff. Boogie woogie, black gospel and bluegrass..I really liked rock a billy, I don't know about rock n roll, but rockabilly, that's where you get that slapping bass (sings it...) I like to have a slapping bass in my rock n roll, unless of course it's a slow song, but we don't need too many of them in rock n roll. But I have a band, we play around some. But we don't think about what we play, we might go from Brazil to Rocky Top, to Tommy Dorsey. I was a dance instructor at Arthur Murray's in Memphis, before I got to Sun Studios, I liked waltz's, and tango. Never did like Mambo, too jerky.
Jack Clement: Little Richard - definitely rock n roll. Never knew him, just met him a few months ago. I wasn't too happy with his show, seemed like he was hiding behind a ten piece band. Maybe over exposure. But he's great, no question about it. And he's really what I'd call rock n roll.
washingtonpost.com: According to PBS, the band "Live" performs "Walk the Line" on the Sire/London/Rhino recording.
Austin/San Antonio, Tex.: Savage Ranch, circa 1975, outside of Austin.
A bunch of us, including Mae and Tompall, perched on and around an old picnic table next to the pool, six or seven taking turns strumming, pickin', and "chiming in" on perhaps a dozen little ditties that ...
According to you, nobody in this group is ready to take sole credit for these songs.
Every one of them sounded like a hit to me. Best live music in my lifetime.
If someday I come see you and Niles, let's catch up and then pick for a while. I still play and still have the old j45 that was passed around the table that day. I've missed y'all.
Jack Clement: Hi, I remember the various sessions. Call me. Or go to my Web site. cowboyjackclement.com is my site.
I just got my Oxford American magazine Music issue with your rendition of "Teenage Queen." You helped break the color barrier in Nashville with Charlie Pride.
What do you think of today's barriers in Nashville?
Jack Clement: Well they got a wall of ignorance down there running everything. Walls of ignorance. The music business sucks these days. Or as I said the other day, the music business isn't so bad if you're not in it. I believe in satellite radio, I'm hoping it's going to change some things. Add some freedom to music. The record labels don't give you any freedom. It costs a million dollars to put out an artist. I'll tell you something Sam Phillips said to me one time, it sounded a little preposterous then but it's come true. We were talking about the record business, and he said the record business is going to get so big that if you're not selling a million records the labels will drop you. And it's come to that. Too big a business, you know. Too much business and not enough music.
Phila, Pa.: Hey Jack is the Sun studio building still standing on Union st. Is the Stax studio building still on Maclamore st. Did you know Buzz Cason, Big Jim Halsey or Shelby Singleton -- Has Jerry Lee done a gospel album yet.
Hope to hear from you. PEACE.
Jack Clement: I don't know. I do know Buzz Cason. I know Shelby very well. I met Big Jim a few times. But he didn't live in Nashville I don't think. He was a manager. Sun Studio is still there and I think it's still in operation. Stax I don't know about. I think it's become a museum. Quite a bit of that stuff last night was shot in Sun Studio.
Washington, D.C.: The documentary revealed that the early successes of Sun records revolved around recording black musicians, who within a few years moved on to other labels. Then, there was an abrupt change with essentially all the musicians being white (Sam described this himself in the film).
Why the abrupt change? I wonder why Sun seemed to draw mainly black artists at first (why did whites not come as they did later on?), and why did blacks then largely stop recording for Sun after those first few years? Was it that they preferred to seek contracts with other labels, or was there some sort of new 'policy' at Sun that discouraged the black musicians from recording there? Thanks.
Jack Clement: It was Elvis. He came along and turned it into a different game. It wasn't' that Sun wasn't receptive to black artists. A lot of the stuff Sun did with black artists was for other labels. Chess Records and some others. He produced a lot of records not on Sun. He got paid so much a record as a producer. And Sam was successful at that and started his own label. But when Elvis came along he was drifting into white country music. When Carl Perkins came along he was singing country stuff. His first releases on Sun, actually it wasn't Sun, Sam had a secondary label for more hardcore country stuff, which was what Carl Perkins was doing, not rock n roll. And I don't think, it just sort of sequed, Elvis came along, but Sam was still receptive to black artists. They were mostly gone when I got there, there was some there, and I enjoyed working with them. Roscoe Gordon I worked with. But the emphasis shifted. Elvis came along, Johnny Cash came along, Jerry Lee came along, and you just go with the flow. And then I think maybe black music just started to get a little too sophisticated for Sam, you know what I mean. Me too, a lot got too modern for me. Too much phrasing.
Jack Clement: Over production, over phrasing. Sam liked the gut bucket stuff, like I do. I think also that Sam didn't leave the black people, but also that the black people left Sam, his orbit.
Baltimore, Md.: I think Johnny Cash may be the single most important musical figure in our culture's history. Even more than Elvis. How did he get to be so influential? He was a cotton farmer and he had problems, but he rose to such great heights. He was a voice for so many people. He was accepted by outlaws and preachers and just about everybody. I have been wondering, though, how this man achieved such greatness, not only in records, but as a cultural icon.
Jack Clement: I think he was just a really great guy and everybody loved him, he had a way of getting to people, they trusted him, and he was just sort of a natural born leader I think. And he had this wonderful voice that pulled people into it. Sam used to talk about Johnny Cash and how when you heard him sing, you listened. It sounded important. A magnetic personality, a great guy. A very good man, even despite the pill taking he got into for awhile, a good man. I considered him a real Christian. And I think he got more saintly as he went along. A good soul.
Jack Clement: And that goodness seeped out somehow. Came out of his pores. These are hard questions, you know!
Goodyear, Ariz.: Hi Jack, After watching the 'Good Rockin' Tonight' program on You, Sam and the rest of the boys, I'll bet you a million dollars that there are about several million fans that would like to buy a couple of Sun Records T-shirts with the original Sun Record Label on the front. You can share the profits with Billy Riley and the rest of the original Sun artists. We (the fans from the middle 50's) would be proud and happy to wear them. One of my very 1st records (as a teen-ager) was 'Blue Suede Shoes' by Carl, (and later on, 'Flying Saucers Rock & Roll' by Billy Lee). Good Luck and God Bless You.
Jack Clement: Well thank you! I think they still sell T-shirts at the sun studio. They got a store next door and a restaurant. I think somebody somewhere is selling them. You could probably just call Sun Studios in Memphis and they'll tell you, send you a price list or something.
Jack Clement: If I was going to go to Memphis to buy something, I'd go to Bernard Lansky's place in the Peabody Hotel. He was Elvis' clothier. He had a famous place on Beale Street. Billy Lee would buy things there. I'd buy things there too, but I wasn't on the road a lot so I didn't need a lot of clothes. But I was there a couple of years ago and bought a couple of Elvis robes, one for me and one for my leading lady.
Falls Church, Va.: Just curious - what did you think about the Stray Cats and the mini-rockabilly revival in the '80s? Also, did you ever hear of Tex Rubinowitz, a local DC guy who could really rock the joint? He had a minor hit in England with a song called Hot Rod Man, also in the '80s...
Jack Clement: I love Brian Setzer and the Stray Cats. I don't listen to the radio a lot, haven't in years. Now I keep it on Sirius all the time. Radio is corrupt. It's a dictatorship. I always like Rockabilly music. I got to hang out with the stray cats a little bit. Brian Setzer is a talented musician. Besides rockabilly he can do a lot of stuff. The other stuff I don't remember.
I loved that American Master's special--saw it last night. Phillips is a nut. You must be proud of what you all did.
Two quick but general questions: what do you think of the state of the recording industry today? And will there be a revival (if there isn't already) of small indie studios like Sun which can turn out original, quality stuff and give the little guys a break??
Jack Clement: I said awhile ago, the recording industry sucks. You hear that crap on the radio. I do hope that independent labels come along. And I do think that satellite radio is the great white and black hope. I hate these monopolies that own thousands of stations and play the same records over and over that I didn't like in the first place. Music on the radio today isn't much to sing about.
Jack Clement: I'd like to say, Aloha, Oe, Nui Nui - means hello very much! I'd like to think that anyway.
Jack Clement: This is Cowboy Jack Clement - I've enjoyed this chat room, it's been different. I might get hooked on it! I'd love to have you come visit my web site, CowboyJackClement.com and happy trails!
washingtonpost.com: Next week's American Masters, "Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues," airs on Wednesday, August 10, at 9 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). A Live Online discussion will follow on Thursday, August 11, at 11:30 a.m. ET with director, writer and producer Morgan Neville and Colin Escott, co-writer/co-producer and author of "Hank Williams: The Biography." Escott is also author of "Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records & the Birth of Rock & Roll."
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.
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Jack Clement, songwriter, producer, recording studio pioneer, publisher, artist and executive, discusses the legacy of Sun Records and the American Masters documentary featuring it.
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Search for Missing Da Vinci Work Hits Wall
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FLORENCE -- Few artists marked the dawn of a painting's creation as precisely and dramatically as Leonardo da Vinci did with his "Battle of Anghiari," a vast fresco of war and rage that he undertook on commission for the Florentine Republic.
"On the 6th of June, 1505, a Friday, at the stroke of the 13th hour, I began to paint in the palace," he wrote in a journal. Just then, the weather turned rotten, he reported. Bells began to toll and wind blew his paper designs all over the place. "Great rain poured down until nightfall," da Vinci continued, "and it became dark as night."
The painting's impact lived up to its thunderous conception, according to critics and commentators of the time. Such was the beauty of the fresco that it was dubbed a "school for the world," that is, a model for all artists to emulate. In 1549, a visitor to the room in Palazzo Vecchio, where the fresco covered part of a wall, called it "something miraculous."
A few years later, the room was remodeled. No one saw the painting again.
Fast forward to this summer and meet Maurizio Seracini, a biomedical engineer and art conservationist. He believes he can bring the "Battle of Anghiari" to light.
Using lasers and other electronic sensing devices, he has conducted a painstaking study of the Room of the Grand Council, where "Battle" was located. The results, he said, suggest that da Vinci's fresco still exists. When the room was altered in 1563, a separate wall was built in front of the painting and, Seracini maintains, a cavity exists between the new wall and the old. Look behind the newer wall, he says, and you will see the fresco.
"There would have been no reason to destroy the 'Battle of Anghiari' in order to remodel the room," he said in an interview. "That kind of thing wasn't done, and especially it would not have been done with this fresco." He made his findings public at a news conference in June.
The claim made headlines in Italy -- the possibility that an unseen da Vinci exists had the mesmerizing attraction of uncovering an unknown poem of Dante's or a hidden statue by Michelangelo. While finding an intact "Battle" is still a long shot, a controversy quickly arose that has all the fury of the June 6, 1505, storm: Who should be tasked with revealing the fresco and possibly reaping the fame and financial benefits?
Seracini's contract with the city of Florence to study the council room expired in 2002. City officials have declined to grant him more time. "Just as we were getting close, suddenly the city saw the possibilities and it is thinking about money," the engineer said. Documentaries, rights to print reproductions and fees from investigators to do further studies are all part of the potential booty, he said.
City officials say Seracini is after a cornucopia of benefits for himself. Simone Siliani, Florence's culture adviser, said officials were upset that Seracini held the news conference in June and recruited donors to continue his research without telling them. "Our duty is not to make movies or scoops," Siliani said. "Our duty is to study and let the people know about the history of the city."
In the meantime, the search for the "Battle of Anghiari" has come to a halt. City officials say they're unconvinced and plan no follow-up.
The painting was commissioned at one of the sparkling heights of Florence's cultural and political history. A republican government, 13 years old at the time and beset by enemies in Italy and abroad, wanted da Vinci to glorify a 15th-century battle in which the Florentines bested an army from Milan.
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World news headlines from the Washington Post, including international news and opinion from Africa, North/South America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Features include world weather, news in Spanish, interactive maps, daily Yomiuri and Iraq coverage.
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Saving Stuff
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Yellowed pictures and childhood art projects fill boxes in the attic while, in the basement, prized albums (the vinyl variety) slowly warp with age. If only one had the knowledge of a museum conservator to stop the rot and preserve our collectibles for the long-haul.
Help is on the way.
Don Williams , senior conservator at the Smithsonian Institution, and co-author Louisa Jaggar was online Thursday, July 28, at Noon ET to discuss their book, "Saving Stuff," and easy methods of preserving heirlooms and collectibles at home.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Hi. This is Don Williams, the saving expert from the Smithsonian, and Louisa Jaggar, the expert saver from the real world. We're here to answer as many of your questions as possible and if we don't get to you, we can promise you that almost everything you need is in our book Saving Stuff, available at booksellers everywhere for $16. Or at www.amazon.com. Read today's HOME section story in the Washington Post.
Falls Church, Va.: I inherited a 1930's pillow made and mailed by my great-grandmother (crochet and sewn) just before their village fell victim to the pograms in Eastern Europe. It was stored for years in plastic, resulting in some damage. What is the best way to restore and store this item?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Dear Falls Church. We can't tell you how to restore it. Get in touch with Don's unit at the Smithsonian at webatscmre.si.edu. for referrals. If you want to store this, very carefully vacuum it through a fiberglass window screen. Wrap the pillow in tissue paper and place it in an acid free cardboard box. The other thing that is important - this is an object that will lose all this value once the story is lost. Please write the story down in India ink on rag paper and place it in an archival ziplock bag. This is part of your heritage - and the only way to pass it on is to make sure you write it down.
Alexandria, Va.: I have 2 pieces of fabric that my grandmother embroidered on (very sentimental to me), but part of them are ripped. Who can help me restore these? I tried to sew it myself, but I just managed to pull more of the fabric threads apart. Also, there is a white pillow sham she embroidered and it has a rust stain on it. Is there anything I can do to try to remove the stain?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: We are not able to give restoration advice which is what you are really asking for. A repair of a tear or removal of a rust stain, for that you need a specialist or textile conservator. Get a referral at webatscmre.si.edu or the American Institute for Conservation which is in D.C.
Washington, D.C.: I have some plastic toys from when I was a baby (not hard plastic, but the kind where if you squeeze it, it has a mechanism inside that makes a horn sound). Unfortunately they were stored in the basement and smell musty, even though it doesn't appear that they have any mildew on them. What can I use to clean these to display in my new baby's room or so my baby can play with them?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Wash those with distilled water and cotton swabs and very gently test in a place that it isn't visible to make sure it doesn't damage it. For the smelly part, take charcoal briquets - the kind you would have to light with a blow torch as opposed to a Matchlite - put the charcoal in a cotton bag, wrap plastic objects in acid-free tissue paper and then place everything in a plastic tub, preferably Rubbermaid or Tupperware, seal it and wait. It might take up to six weeks - it will suck the pollutants out of the air.
Takoma Park, Md.: Speaking of photos, what to do about photo albums with those plastic pages that lose their adhesion with age, and are probably damaging the photos they cover. A return to stick-on corners and fine paper inserts?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Good news. The photo album in question is deteriorating faster than the photos. So the photo album is irrelevant. Simply remount the photos in an acid-free archival photo album using stick on corners just like Grandma used to do. Make sure its acid-free- archival doesn't always mean acid-free. Identify the picture on the back in graphite pencil (regular #2s). Pencil won't leech through in the front.
Short Hill, N.J.: I have about 25 letters written by a relative who was fighting on the side of the Union during the Civil War. They are folded, many in their original envelopes. I am curious about how best to go about caring for them.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: How great! The trick here is that the have been folded and there might be damage on the folds. If these are on rag paper, they are still in great shape. If not, it's a problem and you will see browning. They should be stored flat in its own sleeve - either glassine, Mylar or polyethylene. Store in the dark away from bugs and moisture. If you want to view them, make a copy of them so you can handle that and share it with the family.
Orange, Va.: Congrats on the book. Do you have any advice on getting grown kids to take their keepsakes (junk) with them when they move.
Louisa, Did Courdary survive the flood?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: No. Corduroy got lost to a mad girlfriend.
Meanwhile, the only way to make sure to get kids to take their stuff is to tell them, its take it or the trash bin. But Louisa says, her bark has no bite so she hasn't thrown anything out yet, only threatened to.
Falls Church, Va.: Hello, my grandmother handmade a beautiful quilt for our wedding 7 years ago. It is lovely, but I don't want it to get ruined by our young children or worn out by everyday use. What is the best way to store it and care for it? Thank you.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: If you have a guest bedroom, it is a great place to have it on display. Lay it flat so creases don't damage the fabric.
In the book, we give you a way to hang it on the wall where children can't get their hands on it. If you really want to preserve it, wrap it around an acid-free cardboard tube interlaced with acid-free paper and store properly.
Wheaton, Md.: I have several WWII era vintage newspapers that I'd like to prevent from crumbling into dust. How can I preserve such acidic paper?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Ah life is sad. Newspapers should generally be stored fully open for preservation. Unfortunately, newspapers are on wood pulp paper and are at great risk generally. What works best is that they are put in acid free or Mylar folders the same size as the newspaper and stored flat in a dark cool place.
Washington, D.C.: Can one live with foxing in prints or should it be removed at once?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Don says he can live with foxing but it is a sign of active deterioration.
Central Virginia: I'd just like to say that having a bunch of "family" stuff is nice -- it's touching -- it's important -- it establishes a physical connection between the generations -- and it can be a real pain in the patootie. I am the current custodian of items from both my and my husband's families, and sometimes they're a dragging weight shackled around my neck. Yes, it's touching that I have the baby sweaters that my mother knitted fifty years ago -- but what can I do with them? Treasure them? Oh, I do. And they take up room. At least I can use Betty's iron skillets for cooking -- but I can't throw away Grandma's fragile, disintegrating hand sewn quilt, and I can't afford to have it framed in an argon atmosphere for preservation. (And where would I PUT a framed quilt??) Vases and dishes can be used, but what about the suit my mom got married in? Doesn't fit, can't be altered -- takes up space in the closet.
These things can be a really mixed blessing, folks. . .
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: This shows the importance of making a list of priorities. You can't save everything. It will drive you crazy. So choose the ten most important things to you. And save those. Then choose the next ten.
RE: Textile conservation: There is a company in upper Northwest D.C., called Textile Conservation Services that is cleaning and mounting two small heirloom textiles for me. The Web site is Caring for Textiles. . I'm not affiliated with the company, just a customer. They are very knowledgeable and helpful.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Thanks. It is good to know that.
Chevy Chase, Md.: I have a full set of Japanese dolls with porcelain faces, real hair, silk and brocade clothing. How should the set be stored?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Dear Chevy Chase. Clean them with distilled water on the porcelain. Very gently. Wrap in acid-free tissue and put in an acid-free box. All of these products are available locally at the Container Store. If you want to display them, put them in glass-front breakfronts or vitrines or curio cabinets out of the light.
Washington, D.C.: How can I find out how much my Barbie are worth? Are there any ways to sell them other than e-bay?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: We don't address Barbie or her friends.
Autograph Collector: I collect autographs and I was wondering what was the best way to display them? Fluorescent lights and sunlight seem to fade them so to keep from damaging the autographs anymore, I keep them in dark places out of sight. I would like to be able to view and display my collection. Any ideas?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: You are doing the right thing. Cover them unless you are looking at them.
Boston, Mass.: What's the best way to preserve posters that aren't framed?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Either put them in a giant acid-free folder or wrap around an acid-free tube.
Chevy Chase, Md.: How safe is a hot attic for things like jewelry and gold coins?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Good question. It's not safe for costume jewelry, pearls, opals or turquoise. Or any costume jewelry in which the stone is glued rather than set in prongs. The gold coins are perfectly safe. Where exactly do you live?
Fairfax, Va.: Where can you buy supplies like acid free cardboard boxes, India ink, rag paper and archival ziplock bags?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: India ink is sold at any art store. Rag paper is at any good stationery store such as Paper Source in Georgetown. Everything else is at the Container Store or online archival suppliers. We give an extensive list of resources in the back of our book.
Arlington, Va.: Is it safe to keep everything of value in a safe deposit box?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Yes, but do wrap delicate items in acid-free tissue so they don't touch the metal. If you store coins in there, put them in flips available at any numismatic store.
Maryland: Don't storage sites eventually become filled up with our past? Who decides what is worth preserving and what is really junk? How does the cost issue come into play for museums?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: We personally decide what we want to keep in the Museum of Us. And it defines who we are. We are defined by what we save, to some extent. (Like having 800 cats.) Museums can't save everything because they don't have enough time, space and money for everything. The people who make those decisions are the people who work in the museums - they are influenced by what the public thinks is important like Judy Garland's slippers, Kermit the Frog and Archie Bunker's chair.
Washington, D.C.: My 83 year-old mother has a ground level closet full of cans of home movie films taken in the 1960's. How should we begin to assess whether there are images left to preserve? Should we put all the reels in her large freezer? Assuming images are still good, what medium should they be transferred to, and how should that medium be preserved? What is the per reel cost of transferring old films to a new medium?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: We don't know costs. But in terms of preserving them, they should go first into archival movie reel boxes. Then double bagged in zipper bags and then into the freezer. In terms of duplication, use the latest available technology, remembering that that technology will change in the future.
Orange, Va.: Why do you suggest using Indian Ink over any regular ink?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: India ink doesn't fade.
Herndon, Va.: Where do you purchase these acid free tubes/rolls and paper for the posters? Where do you purchase the mylar bags for newspapers?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: We give a list in our book Saving Stuff. Some is at the Container Store. Google archival supplies.
Mountain View, Calif.: What is the best way to store an oriental rug? I have rolled them around mothballs, but I wonder if I should attempt to encase them in plastic or do something else to prevent pests from getting at the fibers.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Make sure you never have moth balls directly in contact with the textile. The best approach Don suggests is to roll the carpet around an acid-free carpet tube and then interlace with acid-free tissue paper. You can put the moth balls inside the tube and wrap the whole thing in a clean sheet.
San Salvador, El Salvador: I have been collecting postage stamps (mostly used) for many years. Some of them are showing signs of aging, such as yellowing and discoloring. Stamp hinges also stain the stamps and sometimes come off reducing the stamp}4hickness. Gum cracks and make the stamp stick to other stamps and to the album sheets. What can be done to reduce the effects of time and storage on these little pieces of paper? Thanks for your advice.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Check out the book Saving Stuff. You ask a lot of good questions and it's all in there but too long to go into here.
Reston, Va.: What is the best way to repair a book's leather bindings where they have split or the leather has separated from the non-leather part of the binding?
Also, what is the best way to repair a small dent in a leather binding where the leather surface has split around the perimeter of the dent?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Take to a leather conservator. Contact a vintage book store or the American Institute for Conservation, located in D.C.
Ernie: One of my most precious items is a 30 year old beat up Ernie doll. Short of the easy life on Sesame Street should I be doing something other then keeping him in my bedroom closet? Should I clean him? This is only about sentiment not actual value as he has had major reconstructive surgery over my childhood.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Louisa is smiling at your question. You want to vacuum him gently through a fiberglass window screen, available at the local hardware store. Make sure you seal the edges with duct tape. Place the screen on Ernie and then when you are done, wrap him in acid-free tissue, place in an acid-free box and don't forget to write the story of Ernie in your life down on good stationery with India ink and store it with Ernie.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: This is a question from Jura. Is the giant Rubbermaid tub of Beanie Babies belonging to her son Nico safe? It is in her attic. The answer: Take them out of the attic if you can. If you really care about them, wrap each one in acid-free tissue (Jura says you must be kidding - there are 150 of the little creeps in there.) The Rubbermaid container keeps bugs and water out.
Fullerton, Md.: We have alot of old 78's that are of sentimental value. The Victrola will play them but we don't really need to play them. What is the best way to store, not necessarily for display, the old records? Some are in the storage area of the Victrola laying flat, but I thought this might cause the lower ones to crack because of the weight of the upper records.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: First, you want to clean them with hypoallergenic face peel. You want to apply it and peel it off and that will make sure they are clean. After that, wipe them off with rubbing alcohol gently to remove any residue. Then the records should go into an acid-free glassine record sleeve available in places listed in Saving Stuff.
The records should be stored flat in a cool dry place.
Washington, D.C.: If you have no choice but to store a lot of things in either the attic or basement, which is worse?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: The attic is worse. It's harder to stabilize the environment. Put it in the basement. Put a dehumidifier in there to draw the moisture and store everything on shelves in case of flooding. It's a great idea to put things in plastic containers.
Falls Church, Va.: Outstanding article/topic for interactive discussion. I have a 1960's baseball signed by LA Dodgers and personalized to my dad. The ink autographs are fading badly, despite reasonably careful bedroom closet storage over the decades. I guess there is no way to restore the autographs? Also, recently acquired a lot of 40-60 year old personal items from sale of my folks longtime residence. Any common or weird old items come to your mind that are surprisingly valuable on the collectibles market? I'm thinking 1950's cocktail dresses, 1960's grocery store purchases, 1970's ski gear, etc, etc. Thanks.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Sorry there is no way to restore the autographs. Keep it in a acrylic vitrine and don't handle it and keep it out of the light. Vintage clothing is a big deal right now, says Louisa because Don isn't prone to wearing it. People are actively seeking old beautiful dresses, particularly Louisa.
Washington, D.C.: I love to collect and display sterling silver decorative articles. What is best to use to polish these items without ruining them? I have a compote which when I bought it was already so black that I have not been able to get all the tarnish off. Most of my other items are in good condition and just need an occasional polishing. Thanks!
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Good question. Rule Number One. Avoid commercial polishes. The polishing should be done by first cleaning the surface with acetone/grain alcohol and swabs. Second, using a soft lint free flannel, polish the surface with a slurry (not Slurpie) of grain alcohol and whiting (not a fish, but pulverized limestone from the hardware store.)
When you are done, clean the surface with clean rags and alcohol. Then you are done. You can spray them with Krylon and that will keep them safe for tarnish for years - this is for display objects only. For food service items, wrap in silver cloth and never spray.
Washington, D.C.: I just bought a few old (1948) copies of the New Yorker with stories I like in them - what is the best way to keep them? I currently have them in simple plastic sheeting in a dry place. Also, is it possible to somehow frame them, without any damage? Thanks so much!
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Good fine. Store individually in an acid-free or Mylar folder. Never let them get wet.
Fairfax, Va.: I need to store a christening gown my two children, my sister and I all wore. My mother had it stored wrapped in blue tissue paper and in a cardboard box. She swears by blue tissue paper and claims that is what preserved the dress all these years.
Since it's held up for over 40 years, should I continue this practice? Also, I have a cedar chest - can I store it in there without a problem?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Excellent question. We are here to debunk a very important myth. Cedar chests are not so good. The oils in the cedar can get on the fabrics of your textiles and permanently stain them. If you want to keep your cedar chest, line it with acid-free cardboard. Also, blue tissue paper has no magical qualities. And it may do some damage. You need acid-free white tissue.
The most important thing - get out the creases. This is where you find damage in a fabric. Stuff it with polyester batting or acid-free tissue, laid as flat as possible. Wrap in acid-free tissue and put in an acid-free box. If you decide you must hang it, use a padded hanger.
Cover with a cloth - not plastic - clothing bag.
Now your great great great grandchildren will be able to enjoy that christening gown as well.
Well said. (Meanwhile, this is Jura - the title of their next book should be Acid-free Living or How to Live Without Oxygen.)
Anonymous: I have always thought about being a conservator. I think it has something to do with the allure of being able to view and hold object art up close and personal. I have a fine art degree, but what is the proper educational path to this occupation? Or at least a class or two to see if this is my true calling?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Don't forget you wear gloves all the time! Don has a degree in fine arts, history and chemistry. Science is crucial and on the AIC Web site there is a downloadable brochure about a career in conservation.
Mountain View, Calif.: I have a small (5 inch high) bluish-green glazed ceramic vase of Arabian origin that probably dates back hundreds of years. What can I do to preserve it? It's essentially clean although it probably has a high salt content, since it was buried in the desert. Thanks very much for any suggestions you might have!
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: How did you get this? Sounds fascinating. Rule Number One. Don't drop it. Rule Number Two. Dust it using a can of compressed air. Never put it near a pool or hot tub - the chlorine attacks everything. If you have salt crystal problems, take it to a professional conservator. To store, put in either a padded acid-free box. But you can display it behind glass. Attach to the table using earthquake gel since you happen to be in California. Keep it out of direct sunlight - the heat can cause thermal fractures to the surface.
Maryland: What about conservation of digital images in electronic media? What is the greater concern, physical decay of media -floppy disks, CDs or obsolete storage formats?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Obsolete storage formats. Where can you find a place to play your eight-tracks anymore?
Silver Spring, Md.: Hi! Just a quick comment on preserving your vinyl. I have been a record collector/dealer for 15 years and have to inform you that the shrink wrap on an album may continue to shrink slightly; however, I have never seen it cause a distortion of a record or jacket. Furthermore the shrink wrap and earlier baggy wraps are an integral part of the record album itself. To remove it is like removing a dust jacket from a collectible book. It not only protects the jacket from ring/cover/shelf wear but can add considerable value to the record itself. Thank you for your time.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Yes, the shrink wrap may be considered a valuable part of the record. But you may pay for it in the long run. But thanks for your expertise.
Orange, Va.: The Post article mentioned you are going on a book tour. What is your schedule? Is it posted online somewhere?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Thanks for asking. You can go to our Web site www.savingstuff.com to find out where we will be. We hope to have something posted soon.
Washington, D.C.: I have inherited a cane my great grandfather picked up (supposedly in Egypt) that is made from the vertebrae of some sort of animal interlayered with some sort of dark wood. It is beautiful but years of poor storage and humidity variation have made it dry and crack. Is there anything simple I can do to stop this?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Keep it in a stable environment. Changes in moisture, humidity and temperature are the biggest dangers.
Manassas, Va.: I submitted this question before the discussion started. I know you can't include everything but I thought I'd ask again.
I have an old World War 1 booklet that advertises war bonds or stamps for warbonds. It's illustrated and written in a way that a child would read it. It's yellowing now and practically falls apart when you turn the pages. How can I keep this so it doesn't deteriorate further?
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: A fitted acid-free book box. Available at The Container Store and others. Duplicate it at Kinkod's on rag stationery so you can enjoy that while keeping the original safe.
Alexandria, Va.: Hi! I inherited a couple of beautiful wool Navajo blankets (rugs?) that have been in my family for at least 75 years now. My uncle was a reservation doctor in Gallup and oftentimes the Navajo would not have the ability to pay for his medical services, so they paid him in jewelry and rugs. I actually have a shoebox filled with all sorts of turquoise and coral squashblossom necklaces and other artifacts, all set in silver. Again, this is really old stuff.
Do you know of anyone who can help me care for these blankets? I don't know how to display them and have probably abused them by hanging them on nails on the wall. They're now simply rolled up and put away.
Also, the jewelry only has sentimental value since I can't see anyone in my family ever wearing these huge necklaces ~ they look like Medieval breastplates that the knights would wear while jousting...
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Really important. Never do anything to a textile that you would not do to grandma. Never put a nail in grandma. Never stuff her in a trunk or stick her with pins and needles. Never spill food on her. I do not know how fragile your rug is, but check out an expert at American Institute for Conservation in D.C. And check out Saving Stuff for more info.
Anonymous: I have a rather large truck made from, what appears to be, tobacco cans and water hose for tires made for an uncle around 1940. This truck was found in a barn several years ago. How do I keep this toy from deteriorating and are there any places in the Baltimore area that does restoration? Thanks, Dwight
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: Contact a local Baltimore museum for names of conservators. There is a train museum in Baltimore - they would know exactly who to contact.
Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar: We have run out of time unfortunately. This was a lot fun. Good questions and interesting exchanges. Nobody had a weasel head purse though. Kansas is still in the lead for the spookiest object.
There are lots more interesting stories and tips in our book. We hope we can be with you again sometime.
Meanwhile keep up to date on our activities at www.savingstuff.com. Keep an acid-free lifestyle 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.
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Don Williams, senior conservator at the Smithsonian Institution, discusses his new book "Saving Stuff," and how to care for and preserve heirlooms and collectibles.
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Home Front
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Every week, the Washington Post Home staff talks about various ways to improve your home. Find out about new trends, upcoming antiques shows and a variety of how-to help.
Ask Post staff writers Annie Groer and Jura Koncius about all things home related.
Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Good morning to all on this beautiful cool morning in Washington. Annie is on her way here to help me answer questions as we roll into the last month of the summer, when we may all begin planning our fall projects for the house. And as a special added attraction, at noon to 1 pm, just after our chat, we have as guests today Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar authors of Saving Stuff (see today's HOME section) who can answer questions about preservation and caring for your most beloved items.
Fairfax, Va.: Hi, Ladies! In a previous chat someone asked about the quality, reliability, service, etc. of Empire Today, the company that advertises relentlessly about next-day carpet and floor installs. But I never read any reviews? Do you know anything about them? Thank you very much!!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: We do not know anything about them personally. But we also have heard their ads many times. So, let's get some answers from all of you out there who have used Empire.
Crazy problem. The porcelain soap dish fell out of my shower. I got some adhesive from Home Depot, and they said that the adhesive would keep the dish attached, even while it is drying. I tried it, and it did not keep the soap dish plum against the wall while it was drying. How do I keep the soap dish firmly attached to the vertical wall while the adhesive is drying?
Thanks for taking my question.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: We have asked Don Williams to answer your question. Don says, for re-adhering fractured porcelain, you generally want to use a non-yellowing epoxy such as HXTAL, available through the web. As far as holding a porcelain dish against the wall, take something and place the dish in its place, lean something against it like a chair or a broom or a book. Depending on the configuration of the space, lean something against it holding it in place until the epoxy sets - probably overnight.
Alexandria, Va.: The cats have destroyed our couch and we have a baby on the way next year so money is tight. I think we need something with a wood frame that the precious fur balls can't dig their claws into. Any suggestions on affordable, yet quality, wood framed couches? And what are your thoughts on LL Bean furniture in terms of quality and price? They have a nice looking mission style futon. Is a 30-year old crazy to even consider a futon?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Cats are lovable but they do destroy furniture. My cat Gus has clawed his way through several slipper chairs and sofas. But we haven't tossed him out yet. We understand that leather is something most cats do not like to sink their claws into. I now have a velvet sofa which is also not as appealing. We started putting these clear vinyl band-aid like things on the arms when we first got the sofa - so he knew right from the start that he was not going to get satisfaction from clawing this piece of furniture. Forget futons as you age. They are for twentysomethings. Meanwhile, LLBean has always been tough on its quality standards so they do stand by their furniture.
Washington, DC: We used Empire to carpet our basement. It was far from next day -- the carpet we wanted was out of stock (which was surprising, because the selection they offer is not huge). In addition, when the carpet did show up, it turned out they had mismeasured, and had to come back later with more carpet.
However, despite the errors, they were responsive and helped work with us concerning a resulting scheduling problem (we needed the basement for a party). They also gave us a discount and based the price on the erroneously small measurements originally taken.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Thanks! Great to get an opinion from a customer.
Washington, DC: What's up the with the Ikea Web site? It's been down for weeks!!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: We just went on www.ikea.com. It seems to be working .We just called the central IKEA office and they say it has been working fine.
The new Ikea catalogue is just coming out. You can pick one up in the stores next week.
Falls Church, Va.: Eh, I'd nix the leather. My cats have torn up the arms of my leather chair! Too much money to risk, I'd say, as some cats may like it.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Oi. Meow.
Richmond, Va.: Do I need to put primer on the walls and the ceiling every time I paint? I am repainting a room that has only 1 coat - the one that the contractor put on there when he built the house. It is a yucky off white. Is primer required? Thanks.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: No, in this case you can slap on another coat of white unless it is really dirty or stained.
re: Empire: We called Empire once. They come to your house (which is very nice), but they insist that if you want the "deal" you must buy today and there is no other option. We found that their "deal" wasn't very good anyway.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Hmmmm.
Rockville, Md.: My husband bought me a huge cedar chest at an estate sale. The problem is, it had been filled with moth balls. How do I get rid of that stench?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Don Williams says take a bag of the cheapest plain charcoal you can find (make sure it's not the Matchlite brand or any stuff that has lighter fluid already in it)and just toss the charcoal bag in there in a month of so. The bag will absorb most of the odors. Don't take the charcoal out of the bag.
Washington, DC: Do you know if wool sisal rugs can be cleaned? We would like the look of sisal, but are concerned that pet accidents could ruin yet another rug. We're hoping that wool sisal is a feasible option!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Yes wool sisal can definitely be cleaned. And yes, it's a better choice than natural sisal. If pets stain that, it's very hard to clean and get the smell out. Wool sisal will also last longer, and of course it will be more expensive.
Gaithersburg, Md.: I have an old brass bed that I polished up last month, however, it is already showing tarnish! Some mentioned something about need to put a lacquer on it to prevent tarnish. Do you know anything about this and where I can get some?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Don to the rescue again. He suggests polishing your bed with a slurry of grain alcohol and whiting (pulverized limestone). You can get these at garden or hardware stores. Then, make sure you get all the polishing residue off by wiping with clean rags and grain alcohol. Then, spray all the surfaces with an acrylic spray lacquer that you can get at the hardware or paint store. Krylon is probably the best known brand that Don uses. That technique should last 10-20 years - if the surface does not get nicked or chipped.
Washington, DC: We have a beautiful antique four-poster bed that we love. The mattress is in bad shape and we need to have one custom made. (I thing the current mattress is full size but notched at each corner to make room for the posts.) How can I find someone to make or modify a mattress?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: www.thomasregister.com is a good place to look for such a service, says Don. Has anyone out there had a mattress made recently locally?
Rockville, Md.: What's the best cleaner for granite counters?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: What are you cleaning off? If we talk about cleaning off food stuffs, anything for cleaning the rest of your kitchen will be fine. If you are worried about stains in the stone, mix out a poultice depending on the stain. What is the stain? Google stain conservation says Don. But if you can identify the stain, it helps.
Fairfax, Va.: Empire Today: My son, a neighbor and a co-worker used this company and were extremely pleased about the service, quality, cost and speed. Very professional salespersons. The best part was that you see the samples in your own home and lighting. You tell them what you are interested in, brands, colors, quality, etc. I believe they sometimes offer 1 year no interest to pay.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Well, isn't that interesting.
Not exactly a paint question: Hello! We recently painted our living room Silver Sage by Restoration Hardware. We love the color, but have found it is very difficult to match with fabrics for window treatments. Our sofa is chocolate brown. I am thinking about ordering drapes from Restoration Hardware in the Silver Sage tonal stripe. Do you think this will be too much Silver Sage? Thanks!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: No . Sounds lovely.
Annapolis, Md.: For the person with the cat who needs a new couch, it is my understanding that microfiber is a good pet-resistant fabric. I have four cats and the cat hair is a big problem, so I am planning on microfiber the next time I buy a couch. I am fortunate because none of my cats claw the furniture. I have scratching posts and boxes in almost every room.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: That's good advice.
Falls Church, Va.: Thank you so much for these chats - they really are a wealth of information. We have an old, wonderful rocking chair that just needs to be recaned so it can be put back to good use, but we don't know where we can take it. Any thoughts for places that provide this service?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Dear Falls Church:
Laurie Hartwell has been in business 20 years at All Done Caning and Upholstery in Kensington. Cal for an appointment at 301 -933 0633. She picks up and delivers and charges $1.10 per drilled hole in chair frame.
Also Morrison Chaircaning in Gaithersburg at 18740 Blue Violet Lane , 301 948-5130. Any other suggestions welcome.
Washington, D.C.: Cats and leather: I have a leather recliner that is a rather tough leather, not the fine-grained leather that is more expensive. It wears very well and the cats have not scratched it noticeably. Leather is my covering of choice with cats - I've always had both.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Another vote for leather.
Washington, D.C.: My two cats love to claw the screen door. I'm having some success yelling at them to stop; but long term the door is curtains.
I understand that there is a screen material that is plastic like and so strong that it will not tear under cat claws. I think it's similar to, if not the same as, the material in my lawn chair, which the cats have not been able to tear although they scratch it. Have you heard of it?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: You can shake a coffee can with 10 pennies in it the minute they go hear the screen. The noise, says Louisa Jaggar, annoys them. Put the coffee can anywhere they go to scratch and if the can falls down and makes a noise it will scare them. Another possibility is screening possibility made of Kevlar.
Clarksburg, Md.: I love the idea of built-ins, and I would like to install some to store my books. Do you have any recommendations for carpenters who would do that? Thanks.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: We do not know of carpenters in Clarksburg. Do we have any other people online right now who do? Ask your neighbors, look in your neighborhood paper and ask at your local Home Depot or Lowe's.
Fairfax Station, Va.: The smelly chest: I saw a show on HGTV where an antique's dealer in ritzy LA used vodka to rub down the insides of wood furniture to get rid of that "old" smell. Her prices were out of this world so it must have worked!!!!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Your chest will smell like vodka if you do that. Hiccup.
Brass bed: Hi- several years ago my dad took a brass bed over to a shop in Silver Spring and they put something on it so that it never has to be polished again- worked great! Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the shop...it was near some railroad tracks (clear huh).
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: We bet then used Krylon or Agateen, says Don. If they polished and cleaned it right and sprayed it right, then it was a good job.
Nail pops....: Annie and Jura...many, many thanks for all your assistance.
How do you fix nail pops? My house is 6 years old and is riddled with them. I've been told that if you use a hammer and pound them back into the ceiling, they'll just eventually pop out again. Do you just paint over them, and hope no one notices? Is there a tool that clips off the ends?
The house has settled and it's ready to be painted. Thanks!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: The problem with nail pops - hmmmm - there are many problems. Professionals use a cats paw nail puller to pull these nails out, and replace them with sheet rock screws.
Re: Keeping Soap Dish in Place Overnight: How about the answer to everything? DUCT TAPE!!!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Amen.
Chevy Chase, Md.: We have leather with cats and dogs (the hair wipes right off-its great) but when we bought the sofa set we also bought the insurance for the leather-that way, when they get too scratched up they will come replace it. If the place you buy from offers that kind of protection-get it!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Wow!!! What store offers insurance for leather. We want more info on this...
Cats and furniture....: Petsmart sells corrugated cardboard cat scratchers that you can place next to any piece of furniture that the cats are preying on. If you spread catnip on them, they'll focus on the cardboard and not the furniture. Not all cats respond, but my wife has 3 and all of them focus on the cardboard. If the cardboard isn't there, they'll scratch the couch, but as long as they have options, they always choose cardboard.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Aren't cats wonderful?
Rockville, Md.: Last week I wrote in asking about a good source for teak outdoor furniture. Just wanted to report back that we found great prices and selection at Park Place (in DC on Wisconsin Ave.) Their store is being remodeled right now, but we made an appointment to see what's in their warehouse in Silver Spring. They carry the complete Kingsley-Bate line. (www.kingsleybate.com) Compared to Country Casual in Gaithersburg, the quality was much better and the prices were better too. The quality and style was on par with Smith and Hawken, but prices were comparatively MUCH cheaper at Park Place.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: What a great tip. Thanks. Park Place is a wonderful resource.
Raleigh NC: Love the chats! My question is about bedroom bureaus. My husband needs more storage than a tall chest affords, and wants us to purchase TWO triple dressers, one for each of us. Is this kosher? The other alternative is to construct a 12-foot wide wall of floor-to- ceiling cabinetry instead, but is this unwise for re-sale purposes? It will narrow the room to 10x16 feet.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: We'd go with the two triple dressers, unless you really plan to stay in the house a long time. If you do, a carpenter can come up with nifty storage solutions to really fit your storage needs. Or a closet organizing company can refit your closets so you won't need so many drawers outside of them.
Rockville, Md.: I have a rather unusual question - I am trying to do an Asian-Zen-Buddhist theme in my living room - essentially, simple, serene and calm.
I've got a couple of Buddha sculptures that I'd like to display in the room - is there a "proper" way to display them?
I have a condo so the living room area isn't all that big. The only areas I can spare to display them are either on a console table by the window, or perhaps on a built-in shelf. I thought about displaying them side-by-side on the console table but wouldn't that look strange?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Dear Rockville: This is the first time we have been asked this question. And we are happy to have an answer from our friends at the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler museums. You have to display a Buddha with reverence either higher than your own head or somewhat elevated to show respect. The Buddha should always face the viewer and not be in profile. And it should be in a room conveying respect and dignity. Buddhas typically come looking golden which means if it is not a fine work of art but something that has been mass produced, it can be painted gold or gilded with gold leaf. Make sure it is not a very valuable antique before you do this.
You answered my question last week about painting over basement "wood" panels. I have one question- do I need a special primer or something first, or can I just paint away?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: It's always good to prime, just like it's always good to floss.
Washington, DC: Hi--need some bathroom advice...what can we do with yellow tiles? The tub and toilet are both yellow in color (not dirty- the tile is a sort-of sun yellow) without replacing everything? Bright paint and white towels? White paint and bright towels? It's not a large bathroom...
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: How about yellow and white wide vertical stripes. Or how about pale green walls and towels in white and green.
Trying to decide on a color for the kitchen... The kitchen opens on to the dining room, which is a chocolate brown, and the living room, which is a concrete gray. What color would blend well? Perhaps a green? Or a light gray? Or a green, yellow, gray combination? Thanks!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: What about a cafe au lait color. Pratt & Lambert's Almost Toast or the slightly darker Creme Liqueur.
Washington, DC: Can you suggest any DC-area stores with a great selection of affordable patio furniture? We have a big blank slate (literally made of slate) we want furniture for, but we don't have a lot of money. We prefer wood over metal. Thanks!!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Park Place has just been suggested. What about Offenbacher Pool and Patio, Schirmer's. It's getting late in the season though, so there is likely to be a sale of what is left.
Crystal City, Va.: Hi Annie and Jura! Thanks for giving us your time today.
I'm having a window covering problem. My boyfriend decided to paint his bedroom red. Really red. (Cherry Cobbler by Behr). 4 coats of paint and primer later, it's beautiful, but I'm not sure what to do for curtains or window covering. I'd rather not wake up to white mini-blinds forever!
He wants something that will block as much light as possible in the morning, so I think fairly heavy drapes are necessary. I love silk dupioni, so I'm leaning toward that fabric, or some other rustic looking fabric. The biggest problem is choosing a color. The carpet is cream (like any other townhouse), so I'm not sure if I should choose a beige or tan or something gold? I kind of like some of the charcoal or dark silvery fabrics that I've seen, but really don't want to wake up in a cave every morning. It's soon to be my bedroom too, so I have to like this choice.
He has no interest in helping other than saying he wants the room to be cozy, and he would probably cover the windows in heavy black garbage bags if I gave him the chance!
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Whoa! That is a strong red that Cherry Cobbler. We would suggest white room darkening blinds or shades before you do your window treatments. If the carpet is cream, I think charcoal gray would be nice for draperies.
Vodka Doesn't Smell: Only really cheap vodka has a distinct smell.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: We will take your word for it.
Arlington, Va: Re: cats and furniture: I'm always amazed at cat owners who yell at and discipline animals without giving a thought as to why the cats are using the furniture! As for cats, give them good scratching posts (covered with rope not fabric) and trim their nails, and you'll never have problems. Yelling at them without providing alternatives never works.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: We promise not to yell.
Washington, D.C.: Galley Kitchen: rose marble countertops, brown marble floors, creme marble backsplash, white cabinets. Paint possibilities: C2 rice paper for the walls with possibly an espresso accent wall - the light is excellent.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Lots of marble in there. C2's Rice Paper is a nice neutral. We say hold the accent wall, there is already too much going on in there. Stop while you are ahead.
Overwhelmed: How do I even get started decorating? I have been to some open houses and friends' houses lately and have been so impressed with their efforts. The painting, furniture, pictures, floors, and lights have all come together. I don't have an artistic eye and don't know where to begin.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: It is overwhelming. But you have to start somewhere. Make a file of photos of rooms you like. Then, choose one room to begin your decorating adventure. A bedroom is a good place to start. Pick your colors and then do your paint choices and floor. Decide whether you need window treatments for privacy or just for show. Coordinate your bed linens which is a lot of fun and you can mix and match. Check out catalogues like Anthropolie, West Elm and Urban Outfitters for the look. Look at Met Home, Elle Decor and Domino.
Kensington, Md.: Don't go to Schirmers.....they are closed due to Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Oh no!! Nobody told us.
Arlington, Va.: What's your suggestion for the natural wood trim in an older home? Leave it natural or paint it? Do we need to sand and/or prime first?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Leave it natural if you can. After you paint it, it's hard to go back.
Washington, DC: Any thoughts for how to decorate a floor-to-ceiling bay window. The bay window area is rather deep. Considered putting in a window seat, but not sure it would look right since the windows are floor-to-ceiling.
Ideas? I'd like to keep as much light as possible with the option of darkening it when I want to. I don't want mini-blinds.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: It sounds beautiful. Don't cover it up. You might consider putting in two comfy chairs and a small table in front of it to make it a reading and conversation niche.
Silver Spring, Md.: Hello Ladies! Thank you for taking my question, this chat is always so helpful to me! My husband and I recently moved into a new home with a fireplace in the living room. It currently only has a small shelf above the fireplace that serves as a mantle. It looks really out of place, and we would like to purchase a full mantlepiece. Any ideas on where to go to buy something like that?
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: Brass Knob in Adams Morgan, 2311 18th St. NW 202 332-3370. And stay tuned for Annie's piece next week on a New York salvage company that is selling off gorgeous old mantels from the legendary Plaza Hotel.
Annie Groer and Jura Koncius: That's all for today. Stay tuned for the authors of Saving Stuff who are online 12-1 with great answers to your preservation questions.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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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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Embarrassing calls at work. Threats of jail and even violence. Improper withdrawals from bank accounts.
Washington Post reporter Caroline E. Mayer was online to discuss consumer complaints related to a new breed of debt collectors.
Read her story: As Debt Collectors Multiply, So Do Consumer Complaints . She also offers tips to understand what's allowed and what isn't: To Protect Their Rights, Consumers Should Understand the Rules of Debt Collection .
Caroline E. Mayer: Hello everybody. Glad to be here and chat about debt collectors. I see there are a lot of questions already--many from people who've had really unpleasant experiences. I'll try to get to as many questions as I can.
Before I get to the questions, I've got a couple other comments to add to my story.
Today, the Federal Trade Commission won a $10.2 million judgment against a debt-collection operation, National Check Control. It's the largest judgment in FTC's history for violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The company--which apparently bought the debt, in this case for bounced checks--sent threatening letters and falsely threatened consumers with civil or criminal charges if they didn't pay up. In many cases, the FTC said the consumers didn't owe the money--or owed far less than NCC claimed....Sounds just like what I wrote about this morning.
On another note, my first phone call this morning asked me about the statute of limitations and how people could find out if their old debt was past the time limit in which they could be sued. A good Website to check that out is: http://www.creditinfocenter.com/rebuild/statuteLimitations.shtml
Hope this answers some questions already....
Adams Morgan: This article was amazing. I have a friend who tells me about his problems (it actually IS a friend in this case) with creditors calling him at work, harassing him, threatening legal action, and telling him non-existent agencies are coming to seize his wages. What can someone do in this situation to get the harassment to stop?; I mean, if he had enough money to get an attorney, he could just pay the debt off. Thanks.
Caroline E. Mayer: How to get the harassment to stop seems to be the question being asked today. Unfortunately there's no easy solution--which is why you are all asking the question.
Here's the advice from the FTC: First, get the address of people who are calling and then WRITE them a letter insisting they stop (that's assuming of course that you have a valid reason such as you don't owe the debt or the statute of limitations has expired).
Then, write everyone you can think of about your problem. That includes the FTC, your state's attorney general's office, the Better Business Bureau--and send copies to the company as well.
Unfortunately these places can't solve individual complaints but do go after big offenders (as illustrated by CAMCO and the case the FTC just announced today). And unfortunately it takes them a while to bring cases. So you may want to see if you can find a lawyer who will also help, at reasonable fees...
Thanks for all the useful consumer protection info in today's paper!;
We receive collection calls for two people: a previous owner of our home who defaulted on some debts, and a man who had our phone number before it was assigned to us. Despite the fact that we are not affiliated with either debtor in any way, we continue to receive collection calls for both, some of them very rude.
We've called back the collectors who leave voicemails, told all of them that we don't know the debtors, and asked that they please stop calling. Yet some continue to do so. Any ideas on how to get them to stop calling, other than reciting the useful consumer protection rules you provided and calling the FTC when needed?; And why would debt collectors continue to call the wrong number for over a year when we have made it clear that we do not know the person they are trying to contact?; It seems like such a waste of their time and energy too.
Caroline E. Mayer: It is a waste of their time, but apparently they get lucky enough some of the time to persist in their calls. If you haven't done so already,I'd follow the steps I just outlined--putting your complaints in writing and contacting the agencies I mentioned. It doesn't seem fair that the burden falls to you, but right now that seems to be the best way to try to stop the calls.
Washington, DC: I think I've been a victim of a "zombie-debt" collection agency. I got a letter from an agency saying that I owed money for a credit card that I haven't had since college (10 years ago). I wrote them a letter saying I believed their claim was false, that I checked with the Better Business Bureau and found that their company had over 200 complaints, most unresolved and that if they could not provide me with proof of debt within 30 days of receiving my letter, the matter should be dropped.
This was two months ago. I never got any written proof, so I thought it was over. However, I came home the other night to find a message on my answering machine telling me to call a number about "a personal financial matter". It was the same 800 as that agency. How do I get them to stop?; As an aside, how do we tell the difference between actual legal documents and those that are just supposed to scare us?;
Caroline E. Mayer: I guess, and consider this is from a consumer, not a lawyer with expertise, I'd be inclined to ignore any message left for me asking to call about a personal financial matter.
You can try sending another round of letters. BTW, these letters should probably be sent by certified mail and you should keep copies of these all.
As for how to tell legal documents, if it's a real legal document it should have the name of a court on it--if it doesn't, it probably isn't (unless it's for arbitration and that's a whole different story--don't ignore those!). If it does have a court on it, call the court to make sure it's legit.
MD: ok, the examples you cited ARE over the top, but my first instinct is: HEY - you aren't paying your bills and you SHOULD be embarrassed about it. Part of me longs for the time when people used to feel shame for not paying their own way. The bills you don't pay means that someone out there might not be able to pay their own.
Caroline E. Mayer: You are right--and that's largely the arguments that the collectors give. However, what I've heard from plaintiff attorneys and regulators is that there are a growing number of collectors who are going over the top, trying among other things to get money from people who never had the debt in the first place.
My sister is a reporter for the Post and forwarded me your article. I have a question:
I was called yesterday by a law office claiming I owe them $4,000 on behalf of Citibank. I did have a Citibank card from 1998-2000 which had a limit on it of $300. This account was charged off as bad debt by Citibank with a balance of $287.
The man on the phone from the law office threatened, harassed, etc. I called Citibank and they said that I don't owe them a dime. What can I do to get the law firm to understand that I am in no way giving them $4,000 when Citibank themselves said I don't owe any money?; Do I have to pay these creeps?;
Caroline E. Mayer: Patrick, from the little I know about your situation, my guess is you don't owe Citibank because it wrote the debt off--and sold it to the person who's now collecting. Whether or not the debt is valid, it seems to me from your brief explanation that even if it is valid, the collector is seeking WAAAAAAAAAYYYYY too much money for the $287.
I'd check your statute of limitations in the state where you live and then figure out how to proceed. If the debt is past the time limit, then write the collector that--again in certified mail and keep the records.
20009: Obviously, a single complaint to the FTC isn't going to put an immediate stop to a company calling me at work (especially when I've already repeatedly ask this company to stop). What can I do that will have an impact right away?; I mean, I can't afford to sue the debt collector on my own. And no matter how much I attempt to make clear that I know my rights (demanding written information, stating that the statute of limitations has passed, etc), these guys won't give their threats a rest.
Caroline E. Mayer: That's a tough question--and like a lot that I haven't gotten to yet. If you've followed all the other steps I've listed above--including certified letters to the collectors--and gotten no redress and were desperate, I guess it would be time to seek a lawyer and see if he/she can give you any better advice.
Alexandria, VA: Scary that they're trying to get parents, relatives to pay old debts for other people. that's completely illegal right?; The only thing I can think of is that if that person is deceased their estate has to pay outstanding debts. Otherwise, lost.
Caroline E. Mayer: You are absolutely right. In the case I talked about this morning, the Lanham resident who was pressed to pay her mother's deceased debt for buying a home security system--the estate would have had to pay --assuming the estate had any money. But I gather it didn't. From the lawsuit, it looks like the daughter agreed to go ahead and pay the debt anyway, even though she wasn't responsible for it...so again, if you receive any requests for debts, yours or a relative, know your rights before you do anything.
DC: Hi -- I think you missed a point... with the new bankruptcy laws for consumers SO much tougher, most people are/will be forced to put up with the harassment by collectors, and collectors know this and feel freer to be even more aggressive.. their victims no longer have any defense... the bankruptcy bill was a total shaft of the working class for this reason alone, among many others!;!;!;
Caroline E. Mayer: That's what many people fear-but the incidents I wrote about and heard about took place long before the bankruptcy bill was even passed. I'd love to hear from you all in the future about your experiences (good and bad),from collectors and creditors, especially as we get close to October--and afterwards, when the new bankruptcy bill goes into effect.
Frederick, Maryland: Expanding on what one of the previous posted stated, when you receive calls that are intended for previous owners of a telephone number, would having you number on the DNC registry make any difference?;
Caroline E. Mayer: Good question. I'm not sure, but I suspect the collector would say he/she has a business relationship with you--or at least thought they did, so that they could still call you even if you're on the do-not-call list.
Baltimore, Maryland: Hi. I have a debt, which I dispute. Either the creditor keeps trying different debt collectors, or the debt keeps being resold. At least 5 times I have received notice of the claimed debt, and I have disputed it within the 30 days, providing my backup support and documentation. I never hear anything until a new company tries the same thing, and the process repeats. Recently, a new collection company contacted me and I didn't respond within the 30 days. Have I lost my rights?; Aren't they abusing the rules?; Thanks for your thoughts.
Caroline E. Mayer: Sounds like you are caught in the debt-buyer cycle. One expert told me that debts sometimes get sold seven times--and each time you get a new call. It may be too late, but it wouldn't hurt--if you have the documentation--to follow up with the original creditor to get these calls to stop now (and also file a complete detailed report to FTC, your state attorney, BBB, etc)...I don't know about the effect of missing your 30 day window. I'd be inclined to still send a certified letter--and also monitor your mail carefully in case they do follow up with any legal action.
Again, do not ignore notices requiring arbitration. Those are as valid as a lawsuit and have forced some consumers to pay debts they contested.
Washington D.C.: PLEASE HELP!;!; These agencies have unbelievable power that they abuse, leaving consumers feeling totally helpless. I recently pulled my credit report and saw that a $132 charge is listed as a "collection account" being handled by NCO collection agency, supposedly unpaid for the past few years. I have learned from NCO that it is for a medical bill from 1999 that was supposedly given to NCO in 2002, but NO ONE has ever tried to collect this from me -- not the doctor, and not NCO. NCO claims they did not know how to reach me. Obviously this is damaging my credit substantially!;!; And of course I would have paid this if I had known of it. What should I do?; NCO is totally unhelpful and could not be more rude if they tried. Thank you for any advice.
Caroline E. Mayer: This is a complaint I have heard from several plaintiff attorneys --that collectors ding a credit report and most consumers don't know it until they review their report...Which brings up another good point: Check your credit reports regularly--at least once a year for each of the three major credit bureaus. That's free now for Maryland residents and will be free to all East Coast residents in September.
As for the debt you found on your report, do you think you owe it? If it's totally bogus, again, do the steps I outlined above.
How do you find out the statute of limitations on a medical debt?; I called the Va Attorney General's office and they were no help. I went to the link at the top of the page and I'm not sure what category of debt medical bills fall into. Thanks.
Caroline E. Mayer: That's a good question and I'm sorry I don't know the answer. Another site that may is budhibbs.com Budd Hibbs, from Texas, has always been extremely critical of collectors (and vice versa), perhaps because the site has some useful consumer tips.
Two close friends who suffered credit problems have run into a new twist: after settling the debts (for less than the original amount) Citibank then reported the original debt as income to the IRS. This of course increased the tax liability they had to pay.
Have you ever heard of such things in other states?; Is this legal?;
Caroline E. Mayer: Yep. This is a big deal in the industry--and is legit as I understand it.
Indianapolis, IN: Just a comment/story:
As a potential victim of CAMCO -- they called me several
times last year trying to collect on a 17-year-old, non-
existent credit card debt -- it's amazing how persistent
they can be. I did get a bit of satisfaction however.
After CAMCO's initial call, I went to the FTC web site and
downloaded the Commission's news release about their
initial lawsuit against CAMCO. When their collector called
again, I allowed her to make her spiel, then began
reading the FTC news release to her. At the bottom of the
release, I told her, was the name and contact info for the
FTC enforcement officer. "I believe I'm going to be giving
him a call," I told her before hanging up.
I haven't heard back from CAMCO since, although I have
had some nice follow-up discussions with FTC staff.
I considered it a victory for the little people.
Caroline E. Mayer: Thanks for the input
Duluth, Georgia: I was receiving collection calls for a person who does not live at my residence. I asked to speak to the supervisor at the collection agency to inform them that this person cannot be reached at this telephone number.
The supervisor told that they spent a lot of money to find this telephone number and that they knew that the person was at this (my number) and that unless I faxed or mailed them a copy of my telephone bill showing that the telephone bill was in my name and not the name of the person that they were looking for that they were legally entitled to call once a day, each day.
I told him that he had to be crazy if I would share this much information with strangers and to please not waste their time or my time by continuing to make these calls.
I was told that I should expect to continue to receive the collection calls if I did not provide my telephone billing information as suggested by the supervisor.
I subsequently had my telephone number reassigned to another non-published telephone number.
Guess what?; I started receiving collection calls for a man that I did not know at the new number. But this collector has been more reasonable and terminated the calls once I told them that this was a newly assigned telephone number for me.
How often do non-involved persons like me get caught up in receiving collection calls at their home about strangers who may have once had the same address or telephone number?; My gut says that this is not a unique situation to me.
Caroline E. Mayer: Wow, too bad you had to change your own number to get rid of the calls, only to be harassed again! I just attended the annual convention of debt collectors in Washington and learned about all the sophisticated ways collectors have to track debtors. Apparently they used those ways to track your number even if you were the wrong person.
I'm with you--I wouldn't give any personal info the collector as well if I wasn't the person the collector was looking for. But again, I'd send certified letters to the collector and complaints to the FTC, state attorney general and BBB to tell them why collector should quit calling you.
Reston, VA - Please help me with these list callers: I have been receiving abusive phone calls from a 3rd party company that apparently buys some kind of old debt lists and calls looking for them. Unfortunately, we bought the house from a family that had been there 30 years, and this was not the person they were looking for, apparently our new phone # got recycled and used to be this debtors phone number. Instead, I get harassing calls at all hours of the day and night, telling me I'm lying, that I am really this person they are looking for, that they are coming for me etc. When I told them to stop calling, he said they will never stop calling because I'm a deadbeat and I have no rights.
What kind of company can get away with this?; Should I start recording these calls and get an attorney involved?;
Caroline E. Mayer: Please see the above answer. I hope that helps.
Bethesda, MD: Last October I started getting calls asking for "Frank Smith" -- my condo neighbor. I could see from my caller ID it was a debt collection company. I told the caller they had the wrong number. My neighbor only has a cell phone and they apparently were trying to track him down through his closest neighbor. I've had numerous calls (from the same company) over the past 6 months - each time I tell the caller they do not have the correct number for "Mr. Smith" and they say they will not call again -- but they do. What can I do to stop this?;
Caroline E. Mayer: Your question came in before I had a chance to answer the previous two but I think my answer would be the same..Good luck
Reston, VA: I've recently been swamped with hospital bills for a procedure that my insurance company admits should be paid 100% by the insurance company. They admit to having mis-processed the claim and would re-submit, however I continue to get calls from the hospital and others on the unpaid claim. They are threatening collection.
Question: Would it be better to pay them off and avoid collection agencies etc, then hope to collect from my insurance company?; Or should I hold fast and keep pressuring my insurance company to pay the claims?;
Caroline E. Mayer: I'd be inclined to hold fast and put pressure on your insurance company to pay right away--that's also assuming you don't need to refinance or get a mortgage anytime soon where your credit report may be checked
Phoenix, AZ: I have been involved for the past year with such a debt buyer. To date, the debt buyer has been unable to provide any "title" to the ownership of the debt. We held a trial before a justice of the peace judge and she refused to consider anything to verify the debt, such as a bill of sale. A judgment was issued stating that we owed this debt buyer the monies claimed. Our objection was this complaint was filed before the debt buyer even reviewed the account. They pulled a credit report on my husband and myself and determined, based on our credit report, that we would want to settle this account merely to save our credit rating.
I would have loved to have heard how this is being played out. This debt buyer has put a huge black mark on our credit report and we decided to fight it and see it through.
Caroline E. Mayer: Let me know how your case turns out.
Again, everyone, I'd like to hear your concerns, especially as we near the implementation of the new bankruptcy law. Write me at mayerc@washpost.com
You responded to my previous question with:
Caroline E. Mayer: Yep. This is a big deal in the industry--and is legit as I understand it.
Can you tell me more about why it's a big deal and whether it's controversial enough that it could be stopped?; I think it is incredibly unfair.
Caroline E. Mayer: I think the industry thinks it's a lot of paperwork and burdensome, but I gather they are responding to an IRS ruling which considers forgiven debt income--So it's up to you/your friend if I recall--to decide if you want to fight.
Caroline E. Mayer: Gotta run now. Thanks all for the questions. I hope I answered some of your concerns.
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.
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Washington Post staff writer Caroline E. Mayer will be online to discuss consumer complaints related to a new breed of debt collectors.
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So Many Cell Phones, So Little Web Searching
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As more mobile phones come equipped with Internet access, big companies are still figuring out how to provide wireless users convenient access to one of the most basic Web services: search.
Yesterday, Dulles-based America Online Inc. said it was testing a new technology from Israeli software maker InfoGin Ltd. that converts Internet pages into a format that's easier to read on small cell phone screens. It allows users to search the Web, shop for products and get local movie listings.
Current search functions are geared toward computers with full-size screens and are hard to use on small mobile devices, which often freeze the browser or require an inconvenient number of clicks.
"It's a really frustrating experience," said Himesh Bhise, vice president for AOL Mobile.
"Everybody's experimenting" with simplified mobile search tools, said Julie Ask, a research director at Jupiter Research, a market research firm. "It's still early. It's still free. It's not profitable," and there are not a lot of sponsorships yet, she said. "It's not clear who's leading the pack, because there's not lots of revenue. But there will be."
Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. offer a service that allows users to search by sending a text message to a five-digit phone number. The search tool then generates an answer and sends back weather, sports scores or restaurant information. In addition, Yahoo allows a scaled-down version of Web searching that pulls up links to relevant images or Web sites. AOL and Google offer search functions that generate maps or driving directions. Software providers such as Vindigo Inc. also sell online city guides for cell phones.
As the mobile Internet experience improves, companies hope searching will generate advertising dollars -- eating into services such as 411 information calls that generate $6 billion a year in the United States, according to the Pierz Group, a firm that tracks the directory business.
Most of the roughly 190 million cell phone users in the United States have the ability to send messages or get Internet access through their phones -- a huge base that businesses could target by pairing ads with a shopping or movie search. Mobile users are likely to search for localized information -- movie listings, store and restaurant locations, traffic reports -- and that may be of special interest to local advertisers, analysts say.
"Today we do not charge for our search function, [but] I think there's certainly potential in the mobile space" for ads and some revenue-sharing with wireless carriers, said Mihir Shah, director of product management of Yahoo Search.
Yahoo is trying to make searching easier by using shortcuts that display the likeliest answer to a query at the top of the cell phone screen, he said, so that if a user types in a W and the Zip code, the day's temperature appears on the screen.
Still, online searching is hard to format for the cell phone, said Greg Sterling, an analyst with the Kelsey Group, a market research firm. Different wireless devices run on different types of software, which makes it hard to deliver a uniform format. Search providers also must work out arrangements with the carriers, which are the gatekeepers of content on the network, he said. "It's a much more complicated proposition."
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Successful Losers
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Often lost amid the reports about the obesity epidemic are studies showing that 20 percent of overweight people not only manage to lose pounds but maintain a healthier weight long-term.
These so-called "successful losers" intrigue scientists, who see promise in their experience and lessons for others. In a new update from the National Weight Control Registry -- a database of 4,000 people who have shed an average of 73 pounds and kept it off for more than five years -- scientists reveal some of the habits that foster long-term success.
The biggest surprise from the study is that weight maintenance gets easier with time.
"It's a very positive message," said Suzanne Phelan, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University's Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center in Providence, R.I., and a co-author of the study. People who maintain their new weight for two years "have a greater likelihood of keeping it off for two more years. Those who maintain it for five years have even greater odds of maintaining their weight loss. With time, the odds of regaining weight go down and down and down," she said.
Not that maintaining weight loss is easy. As many of the Lean Plate Club's successful losers note below, achieving a healthier weight takes focus and commitment. The registry members report that, too.
"We know that they are working very hard to keep off the weight," Phelan said. "They're exercising very hard. They eat fewer calories. They're monitoring their weight. I think it may be kind of akin to brushing your teeth. Once you have the habit, you wouldn't think of not doing it." Successful losers, she said, "just do these things and have adopted them as part of their lifestyle. Maybe it doesn't take as much conscious effort over time."
We've asked some of the Lean Plate Club's successful losers to share their stories and compared them with the registry's findings.
No Quick Fixes . Nutrition fads come and go. Successful losers report reaching a healthier weight the old-fashioned way: They count calories, reduce calorie-dense food and move a lot more.
Nearly half of those in the national registry reported losing weight entirely on their own. The rest got assistance from commercial weight-loss programs, a physician or a nutritionist. "Over the years, I tried a lot of different things -- Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers a couple of times, different combinations of diets in magazines," said Melissa Glasssman, a lawyer who practices in Tysons Corner. "I could always lose 10 to 20 pounds, but would always gain back more than that."
It was only by changing her habits that Glassman shed 125 pounds -- half her body weight -- in the past couple of years. "It's the little things that you incorporate into your daily life that help keep you on track," she said. "It doesn't have to be entirely about deprivation or exercising two hours a day."
Be Active . While it's possible to lose weight by cutting back on calories alone, only 10 percent of registry participants used that approach. Most -- 87 percent -- ate fewer calories and boosted their physical activity.
Successful losers also remained active even after losing weight. They spent an average of at least an hour a day engaged in moderate physical activity -- equal to walking 3 to 4 miles per hour.
How successful losers stay active varies. The study found that about 20 percent of registry participants lift weights or ride a bike. Aerobic exercise, such as step aerobics classes or exercise tapes, is the choice of 18 percent of those in the registry. But brisk walking is the way that most stay active.
Walking helped Tarasia Remhof, 45, lose 156 pounds since 2001. "The only thing I do [for physical activity] is walk," said Remhof, a Coast Guard officer based in the District. "I adopted a 50-pound mutt from the shelter that is very active and high-energy. If we don't go for two walks a day, she's not destructive, but annoying. So we go for about two miles in the morning and about a mile at night."
Regular constitutionals have also helped Richard Morris, 45, of Woodbridge, lose more than 100 pounds during the past two years. Each morning, Morris and his wife leave their home by 4:30 a.m. and spend the next two hours walking before getting their children off to school.
"I realized that exercise had to be a huge part of this equation," said the 6-foot-tall Morris, who once weighed 400 pounds and now hovers at a far healthier 260 to 265. "I have to make a serious commitment to exercise," said Morris. "I have the same 24 hours in the day as everyone else. This is not a matter of time, but of priorities."
Track Your Weight . Nearly half of successful losers weigh themselves daily, according to the study, which appears in the July issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Thirty percent report climbing on the scale once a week.
"The scale is just a number to me now," said Arlene Rimer, 53, a Toronto lawyer and filmmaker who, since 2002, has lost 140 pounds from her peak weight of 315 pounds. Regular weigh-ins have taught Rimer that her weight naturally fluctuates by a couple of pounds either way. Getting on the scale "doesn't make or break my day," she said.
Enlist Support . Tarasia Remhof teamed with her twin sister who lives in Texas to lose weight. Both joined Weight Watchers groups, then used phone calls and e-mails to encourage each other's efforts. Deborah Kosnett of Gaithersburg found support from her husband, who bought her a "comfort" bike with a wider seat and extra shock absorption. Both Rimer and Morris lost weight with their spouses.
Glassman, who like many people spends most of her workday sitting, spent a year with an exercise group that focused on strengthening core muscles, weight training and provided plenty of support. "Part of my success is that I built a lot more muscle mass than I had before, and that made a big difference" in burning calories, she said.
Start Your Day With Breakfast . Almost 80 percent of diet registry participants ate breakfast every day. The typical breakfast was cereal with skim milk and fruit. Make it whole-grain, unsweetened cereal. That combination is more likely to provide staying power until lunch.
Set Small Goals. Most people "want to lose 30 percent of their body weight," said Phelan, who co-authored the study with Rena Wing, director of Brown University's Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center. Yet from a medical standpoint, losing just 10 percent of body weight -- 20 pounds for someone who weighs 200 pounds -- "is very beneficial," Phelan said. Rather than setting yourself up for failure, establish a more reasonable goal. Achieve that, then try for more.
Find Motivation to Get Started. Reaching their all-time highest weight prompted 21 percent of registry participants to become successful losers. But the most common trigger was a medical event -- for example, a doctor's advice to lose weight, diagnosis of a condition such as high blood pressure or a family member's heart attack.
"My health was going bad," noted Kosnett, 52, a certified public accountant who has lost 80 pounds since 2002. "I had pre-diabetes. My total blood cholesterol was not so great. It went as high as 260. My HDL (the 'good' cholesterol) was really lousy. But the straw that broke the camel's back was when I went out to sweep my front porch and I started panting. I thought, 'This is really stupid.' "
Set a Limit for Regaining Pounds. If you reach it, switch from weight maintenance back to weight loss. Successful losers still experience slips but appear to be better than others at identifying them and making quick course corrections. "We found that once you start to regain weight, if you put on more than 10 pounds, then your chances of recovery are slim," Phelan said. "Every day, I have to stay on top of this," said Glassman.
Plan Ahead . Glassman eats only at restaurants where she knows the menu and can find something healthy to order. Each Monday, Remhof stocks a week's worth of food in a freezer at her office to microwave for lunch each day.
When Kosnett needed back surgery last year, she took precautions to maintain her weight. Knowing that she wouldn't be able to work out and would require prednisone, a powerful steroid that often adds weight, Kosnett reduced her intake to 1,900 calories a day and carefully recorded what she ate. She also added more high-volume food -- especially fruit -- to combat hunger. Bottom line: She lost five pounds during her convalescence and achieved her Weight Watchers' goal weight.
Figure on Plateaus . Even when you do all the right things, it's not unusual for weight loss to stabilize for a while. Kosnett experienced a plateau that lasted a year and a half. Rimer had already lost 70 pounds when she hit her first plateau, which lasted four months. Although initially discouraged, Rimer said she felt better when she realized that "it was awesome to maintain this huge weight loss." Her second plateau occurred after she had lost 100 pounds. "I couldn't get upset by it," she said. "My body had to get used to . . . the new way of eating, the intensifying activity. . . . We are not robots."
Reward Yourself. Behavioral research shows that this is key for long-term success. Glassman gave herself plenty of rewards unrelated to food for sticking with her healthy habits. "I got a pedicure or a manicure," she said. She also treated herself to new clothes at a discount store while she transformed her body so that she didn't wind up with an expensive wardrobe that was unusable. "I didn't want to spend a lot of money, because I was still in the process of losing weight," Glassman said.
Stick With It for the Long Haul. The study found that successful losers continue their efforts for many years after they have trimmed their waistlines. That finding resonates with Glassman. "I know if I use the habits and the information that I've learned . . . it will be okay," she said. "I truly feel for the first time that my weight is under control." ·
For more on what Lean Plate Club successful losers do to achieve a healthier weight, log on to http://www.leanplateclub.com/ , where you can listen to audio clips from some of the members featured in this column. ·
Share your tips or ask questions about nutrition and activity when Sally Squires hosts the Lean Plate Club online chat, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. today, on www.washingtonpost.com. Can't join live? E-mailleanplateclub@washpost.comanytime. To learn more, and subscribe to our free e-newsletter, visithttp://www.leanplateclub.com.
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Often lost amid the reports about the obesity epidemic are studies showing that 20 percent of overweight people not only manage to lose pounds but maintain a healthier weight long-term. For more on what Lean Plate Club successful losers do to achieve a healthier weight, log on to...
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Wide-Ranging Study Aims to Boost Prospects for Minority Men
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The group of academics, community leaders and politicians had gathered at Howard University to dig through statistics, review public policy and hear from people about how best to improve the "life options" of young black, Hispanic and Native American men.
But when a professor from California said Prince George's County was tops in the nation at graduating black men, there were groans from the audience. In case their meaning wasn't clear, former member of Congress Ronald Dellums (D-Calif.) told the speaker, "They don't believe you."
The exchange was part of the first public meeting of a national commission investigating three decades of policies that Dellums said have landed young men of color at the top of all the wrong lists. They perform poorly in school even when their backgrounds are the same as their white counterparts and are overrepresented in jails and juvenile detention centers. And those in attendance weren't buying any statistics their experience belied.
Neither schools, churches, jails nor community groups have found an answer, which led the Joint Center Health Policy Institute to launch the study, said Dellums, who spent 27 years in Congress and has lent the commission his name. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is underwriting the effort.
"Every institution at one level or another is failing them," Dellums said. "We have to show people that these are living, breathing human beings who are living and dying on the streets."
The commission of judges, ministers, politicians, academics and community organizers plans a series of meetings across the country to gather information before producing recommendations next year. Its official charge is to analyze the impact of policies, particularly those on education and criminal justice, on the "physical, emotional and social health" of young men. Dellums, who was trained as a social worker, said he has no interest in perpetuating myths or advancing conspiracy theories.
George Flaggs Jr., a Mississippi legislator who attended a news conference yesterday at the National Press Club, said results should trump partisan politics. Flaggs, a Democrat and chairman of the Juvenile Justice Committee in the Mississippi House, said he worked with a Republican governor and Senate to move his state away from jailing drug abusers to treatment and rehabilitation by successfully arguing that the change would be cheaper.
"The children are not Republicans, Democrats or independents," he said yesterday. "They're children in need."
Monday's meeting involved discussions about personal responsibility versus the need for government intervention. Presentations covered drug use, school expulsion rates and images of blacks in the media.
One presenter was Adolphus G. Belk Jr., who teaches at Winthrop University in South Carolina. His expertise is in how private companies profit from the prison-industrial complex and the isolation that is endemic in minority communities.
"There are a lot of young people, male and female, who feel shut out," he said. "There are options that elders told many of us were there for the taking. But no one is telling [kids] that."
Estela Mara Bensimon, director of the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California, focused on graduation rates. One of her starkest statistics was that, on average, 60 percent of black male students do not graduate from high school, according to a study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education.
One of the commission's goals is to focus on best practices, and Bensimon said that, statistically, Prince George's graduated black males at roughly the same rate as whites. That was news to those who live in the Washington area and hear regularly about the county school system's troubles. Its test scores are near the bottom in Maryland, better only than Baltimore's.
"All it tells me is that Prince George's is doing a lot better job than other school districts of that size," Bensimon said of the graduation figures. "I don't know if they're graduating with the same grade-point average or if they took the same quality classes."
Mary D. Jackson, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in the District, came looking for information she could take away to help with her three grandsons. And she wanted to make sure that the commission's effort -- which she said sounded good -- would not just end up on a shelf.
And R. Kayeen Thomas, 21, of Washington's Hillcrest neighborhood, asked why there weren't more young people in attendance. "I was initially a little put off," he said. But Thomas, a senior at Carleton College in Minnesota, said that the commission's focus on the problems of young black men is important. Two friends of his were shot to death. His car was stolen. Too many of his friends from Banneker, his old high school, he said, are now statistics.
"Too often, the discussion has been that [young men] need to act right or that the system is messing us over," he said. "It's a combination of both. I'm glad this commission is not trying to sugarcoat things."
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The group of academics, community leaders and politicians had gathered at Howard University to dig through statistics, review public policy and hear from people about how best to improve the "life options" of young black, Hispanic and Native American men.
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FBI Faulted on Unreviewed Wiretap Recordings
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The FBI has failed to review more than 8,000 hours of audio wiretap recordings related to counterterrorism investigations, a backlog that has more than doubled in size since last year, according to a new report issued yesterday.
The audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also found that although the FBI has made progress in improving its translation program, the bureau is still struggling to analyze recordings quickly enough and to hire and retain qualified translators.
"The success of the FBI's foreign language translation efforts is critical to its national security mission," the report said. It added that "key deficiencies remain, including a continuing amount of unreviewed material, instances where 'high priority' material has not been reviewed within 24 hours and continued challenges in meeting linguist hiring goals."
The new findings were released on the same day that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III faced sharp questioning from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who complained at an oversight hearing that the FBI is not changing quickly enough to focus on terrorist threats and has bungled attempts to implement a $170 million computer upgrade.
"What happens if there's plans for an impending attack and we don't translate the audio until sometime after the attack?" asked Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the committee's ranking Democrat. ". . . I worry we're not moving fast enough to get those translated."
Mueller said the backlog in the review of audiotapes from counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations involves less than 2 percent of all recordings and includes many tapes of "white noise from microphone recordings." Others consist of "obscure languages and dialects" that are difficult to translate, including one Mueller did not identify that could not be translated by anyone in the U.S. intelligence community, he said.
Justice Department investigators also found that it took the FBI an average of 16 months to hire contract linguists. Mueller said the problems are due in part to the rigorous hiring standards and the limited supply of applicants, who do not meet FBI qualifications 90 percent of the time.
"We understand that we have to make more progress and believe we're on track to do so in those areas pointed out by" Fine, Mueller told the committee.
Fine's report is the latest in a long series of critical reviews of the FBI, which is still struggling to refocus its mission of preventing terrorism nearly four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In a shake-up last month, President Bush ordered the FBI to reorganize its intelligence program and to place much of it under the authority of the nation's new espionage chief, John D. Negroponte.
Senators from both parties focused much of their questioning yesterday on the continuing problems in the FBI's language and technology programs.
Mueller announced earlier this year that the FBI had to scrap a $170 million software upgrade because the program did not work. He said yesterday that it will be several years before a replacement can be ready. Mueller declined to provide the committee with a cost estimate for the new program, dubbed Sentinel, citing confidentiality rules governing the federal bidding process.
Mueller urged senators to give the FBI the power to issue administrative subpoenas -- a demand for documents that does not require a judge's approval -- in counterterrorism cases, arguing that it is already available in cases involving health care fraud, drugs, pornography and other crimes.
The Senate intelligence committee has endorsed such subpoena power in a bill renewing the USA Patriot Act counterterrorism law, but the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House have approved competing legislation that does not include the measure.
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The FBI has failed to review more than 8,000 hours of audio wiretap recordings related to counterterrorism investigations, a backlog that has more than doubled in size since last year, according to a new report issued yesterday.
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Ex-Miami Official Kills Self at Paper's Office
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MIAMI, July 27 -- A former Miami city commissioner shot himself to death Wednesday inside the lobby of the Miami Herald newspaper, one day before a rival publication was set to publish a lengthy report detailing allegations of corruption, drug use and liaisons with male prostitutes.
Arthur E. Teele Jr., 59, who was arraigned five days earlier on federal corruption charges and also was accused of taking kickbacks on government land deals, was pronounced dead Wednesday evening, shortly after firing a pistol into his head and collapsing at the Herald's waterfront headquarters in downtown Miami. The shooting jarred a newsroom that quickly shifted from a state of shock to the task of reporting a huge local news story unfolding right below it.
The Herald reported on its Web site that Teele shot himself after asking a security guard to tell Herald columnist Jim DeFede to relay a message to the commissioner's wife: "I love you." Seconds later, Teele, in a dark suit, was lying on the floor, a pistol at his side.
Teele chose the Herald lobby to end his life, but it was another publication, a weekly called the Miami New Times, that may have written his epitaph. The New Times cover, posted Wednesday on its Web site and due to hit news boxes on Thursday, featured a cartoon image of a leering Teele next to the headline "Tales of Teele: Sleaze Stories." The headline on the article, which the author said is primarily a reprinting of a police surveillance and investigative report, elaborates: "Male prostitutes and multiple mistresses, drug money in Gucci shopping bags, bribery and extortion conspiracies. And you thought you'd heard it all about Art Teele."
The police report is jaw-droppingly graphic, describing in detail the sex acts that a male prostitute who is now in jail said Teele paid him to perform. It also paints Teele as a high-pressure extortionist who insisted that businessmen "pay to play" before getting deals with the city.
Teele collected money in shopping bags and in piles held together by thick rubber bands, the report said.
The police report lays out a sordid history: mistresses flying in for steamy weekends, motel meetings with male prostitutes, late-night pornography-viewing sessions and cocaine deliveries from dealers with names such as Peaches.
Richard Sharpstein, a Miami lawyer who represents one of Teele's co-defendants, said late Wednesday that he thinks Teele "got wind of" the New Times article before taking his life and that the shame of the public exposure was too much for him.
"This is the perfect example of the power of the press," Sharpstein said. "It's a little outrageous to go to press with allegations made in an unsubstantiated police report."
Teele, a buoyant public persona, was once one of the most powerful politicians in Miami and served on the city and county commissions. But he was despondent as his legal woes mounted, Sharpstein said.
Teele was under investigation by state and federal officials. In the federal case, he was accused of facilitating a $20 million airport contract for an associate; in the state case, he allegedly got kickbacks on the sale of parking lots that were not needed and never used, and got paid in his role as chairman of the city's redevelopment agency.
DeFede, whose sharply written columns often expose dirty dealings in Miami's colorful political world, took several calls from Teele in the minutes before the shooting, the Herald said. Teele said he had a package for the columnist but hung up after saying it was not urgent that he come down to the lobby to get it.
Sharpstein says Teele may have hoped that DeFede, a former New Times columnist, might intercede with the publication to stop disclosure of the police report. Teele, though deeply depressed, had planned to meet soon with Sharpstein, who predicted prosecutors would be unable to prove that Teele broke the law: "Now he'll never live to see it."
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On Question of Nominee Questions, No Clear Answer
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Senators have discussed abortion, civil rights and other issues in the opening days of debate over John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination to the Supreme Court. But the hottest topic is the question about questions, as senators wrangle over what should be asked and answered -- or not answered -- in confirmation hearings later this summer.
Democrats say Roberts is obligated to describe his views on major political and social issues, including whether the landmark ruling on abortion rights was "correctly decided." Republicans are counseling him to rebuff such queries and to reveal no more of his thinking than necessary.
The debate is pivotal because senators have only one chance to grant or deny a lifetime appointment to the high court, and insight into how a nominee might rule on major issues depends largely on his willingness to volunteer his thoughts and beliefs. A review of decades of Supreme Court confirmation battles, however, finds the dispute unresolved.
Answers offered or withheld by successful nominees in the past have varied widely. And minority-party senators have repeatedly learned that, with few exceptions, there is nothing they can do about a stonewalling nominee but complain, hold news conferences and vote nay, only to see the majority put the nominee on the court.
The ground rules for asking and answering questions "are kind of ad hoc," said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who monitors the court. Republicans and Democrats have alternately argued for and against expansive questioning over the years, he said, and "they invoke the history they need for the particular occasion."
The abortion issue illustrates the erratic pattern. John Paul Stevens, the first Supreme Court nominee tapped after the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, received not one question about abortion. The next nominee, Sandra Day O'Connor, told senators she had made a mistake 11 years earlier by voting in the Arizona legislature to decriminalize abortion, but she otherwise declined to say how she might rule.
The next three successful nominees -- Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and David H. Souter -- refused to discuss their abortion views despite pressure from committee Democrats. Following them in 1991 was Clarence Thomas, who testified that he had never expressed a view, even in a private conversation, about Roe v. Wade , leaving many Democrats incredulous and angry.
Once on the court, Scalia and Thomas signaled opposition to Roe , while the others backed it. Partly because liberals felt deceived by Thomas, the ground had shifted by the time Ruth Bader Ginsburg, nominated by a Democrat, went before the Judiciary Committee in 1993. She strongly endorsed the right to abortion, calling it "central to a woman's life, to her dignity." The Senate confirmed her 96 to 3.
The most recent justice confirmed, Stephen G. Breyer, in 1994, was a bit dodgier. He told the committee that Roe "has been the law for 21 years" and signaled no wish to change it.
That is essentially the answer Roberts gave in 2003, when he was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He called Roe "the settled law of the land," a response that many senators expect to hear at his Supreme Court hearings.
Three liberal Democrats on the committee voted against Roberts in 2003, saying he sidestepped too many questions. One of them, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), recently met with Roberts and urged him to be more forthcoming this time.
But Republicans point to telling facts: The Senate unanimously confirmed Scalia and Kennedy despite their non-answers on Roe . And despite the three committee Democrats' pique two years ago, the full Senate confirmed Roberts to the appellate court without opposition, by voice vote.
The lesson, some Republicans say, is that reticence is safer than trying to explain one's views. Senior Judiciary Committee member Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said he told Roberts last week that he had studied nominees who won confirmation easily and "it seems like the less they say to the committee, the better off they are."
Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) says senators are free to ask any question they like, and the nominee is free to answer fully, partially or not at all. "Nominees," Specter said, "tend to answer just as many questions as they have to in order to be confirmed."
Democrats hope to push Roberts to illuminate his views on civil rights, the environment, disabled people, abortion and other subjects. Judiciary Committee member Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) says the public's desire for meaningful answers from nominees ebbs and flows. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a solid majority of Americans want Roberts to explain his views on abortion.
"The time in history, and Sandra Day O'Connor's removal, means the focus on real questions will be greater than it has ever been, because she was a swing nominee at a time of a divided court and a divided country," Schumer said.
All senators agree that nominees should not signal how they might rule on a case that could come before them on the court. Beyond that, opinions vary dramatically. Some senators say a nominee may comment on decided cases, and Schumer has told Roberts he will ask him if Roe v. Wade "was correctly decided."
But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said in a Senate speech yesterday that insisting on such questions "will undoubtedly force [Roberts] to prejudge a case that is currently pending on the court's docket," a reference to a New Hampshire case on parental notification when minors seek abortions. Senators note that even long-established cases -- such as the one that allowed "separate but equal" public facilities for blacks and whites -- can be overturned by subsequent rulings.
Democrats warn that nominees can imperil themselves by rebuffing too many questions. They point to appellate court nominee Miguel Estrada, who was blocked by a Democratic filibuster on those grounds in 2003. Democrats pushing back include Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), the committee's elder statesman. "The only way to know whether nominees have an activist judicial philosophy," he said in a recent speech, "is to find out what their judicial philosophy is. . . . A résumé is no substitute for answering questions about whether the nominee respects the basic rights and freedoms on which the nation was founded."
Specter, a GOP moderate, seems to seek a middle ground. "I wouldn't say, 'Are you going to uphold Roe ?' " he recently told NBC News. "But I would ask a nominee, 'What is your view of stare decisis? ' " -- Latin for "to stand by that which is decided."
"When you have a decision which has been in effect for decades and people have come to rely upon it," Specter said, "what kind of circumstances, how extraordinary must they be" to overturn it? In his 2000 book, "Passion for Truth," Specter wrote: "The Senate should resist if not refuse to confirm Supreme Court nominees who refuse to answer questions on fundamental issues."
While conservatives are leading the effort to limit questions for Roberts, they have been the victims of circumscribed hearings in the past . Souter's noncommittal replies, for example, prompted major abortion rights groups to urge his rejection on the assumption that he would seek to overturn Roe . Instead, Souter became a reliable defender of abortion rights.
In fact, seven of the current nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents, but conservatives note that some -- especially Stevens -- proved to be much more liberal than expected. The seven GOP nominees could have given the court a solid conservative majority, Grassley said in an interview, but "we ended up with two liberals, two moderates and three conservatives."
Research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
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Senators have discussed abortion, civil rights and other issues in the opening days of debate over John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination to the Supreme Court. But the hottest topic is the question about questions, as senators wrangle over what should be asked and answered -- or not answered.
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The Bittersweet Taste of Coffee Beyond Reach
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When Starbucks is everywhere, it gets on people's nerves, and the coolest among us talk about the coffee giant in terms of derision usually reserved for such behemoths as McDonald's and Wal-Mart.
But put those same people in a place Starbucks has not yet blessed with its presence, and they wonder why they've been left out of a cultural phenomenon, why they are not worthy.
With mapping being the Internet's toy of the moment, it was inevitable that someone would plot out the world according to Starbucks, and the results for this part of the planet are as eye-opening as a doppio espresso.
The map created by MapMuse.com shows 177 Starbucks outlets in the D.C. area, with thick clusters in downtown Washington, along the Red Line up Wisconsin Avenue and Rockville Pike, around Arlington's Metro stations and out Route 7 in Fairfax, in Old Town Alexandria and along the Dulles corridor. What's missing: Prince George's County, where the map looks like a decaffeinated desert.
In the blogging world, where people have boundles time, a new game uses the company's online store locator to determine how many shops lie near you. Your Starbucks Density Score measures the vibrancy of your location.
For example, there are 169 Starbucks outlets within five miles of 45th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan, and 72 that close to my office at The Washington Post. There are 81 Starbucks close to Rep. Jim Moran's home in Arlington and 33 near Supreme Court nominee John Roberts's place in Chevy Chase.
But Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson can count only three Starbucks within five miles of his Mitchellville abode, and Police Chief Melvin High has just three near his Bowie home.
The District became Starbucks' first East Coast market in 1993 because the city had the highest concentration of customers who ordered the coffee from Seattle. Now the stores are ubiquitous. The Onion, the satire paper, used this headline: "New Starbucks opens in restroom of existing Starbucks."
But in Prince George's, only 11 Starbucks, including two in affluent Bowie and two near the University of Maryland in College Park, serve 850,000 people. Montgomery has 32 shops.
"There's no reason Prince George's shouldn't have more," says Kwasi Holman, president of the county Economic Development Corp., which recruits retailers.
As Prince George's became the nation's most affluent majority-black county, residents still had to travel beyond the county to shop. Although Prince George's has more households with incomes over $100,000 than Anne Arundel or Howard, those suburbs each have two fashion department stores (Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor), while Prince George's has none.
On paper, Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties are similar. About a third of adults in each has a college degree, far less than Montgomery's 59 percent, but that hasn't kept retailers out of Anne Arundel. Many Prince George's residents say the only remaining explanation is race: The county is 65 percent black, while Anne Arundel is 14 percent black.
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When Starbucks is everywhere, it gets on people's nerves, and the coolest among us talk about the coffee giant in terms of derision usually reserved for such behemoths as McDonald's and Wal-Mart.
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Redskins, Panthers Deal for Gardner
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The Washington Redskins agreed to trade wide receiver Rod Gardner to the Carolina Panthers yesterday for a conditional draft pick -- expected to be a sixth-round pick -- ending a six-month saga, and the team signed fullback Manuel White to a four-year contract, leaving only first-round picks Carlos Rogers and Jason Campbell unsigned.
Gardner, the 15th overall pick in the 2001 draft, had been granted permission to seek a trade shortly after last season, but the Redskins were unable to land the third-round draft pick they originally sought for him and the matter dragged through the spring and summer. Vinny Cerrato, Washington's vice president of football operations, said that Gardner was granted permission to take a physical with the Panthers in Carolina today, and, should he pass it as expected, the details of the trade would then be announced.
Gardner and fellow starting wide receiver Laveranues Coles expressed displeasure with Washington's woeful offense last season. After the season, the Redskins traded Coles to the New York Jets for wideout Santana Moss. Gardner did not participate in any of the Redskins' offseason workouts, and by trading him Washington saves $2.1 million on its salary cap, money that it will need to sign Rogers and Campbell. The Gardner trade would put the Redskins about $3.75 million under the cap.
Gardner posted a career-best 71 catches for 1,006 yards in 2002, but has failed to return to that standard and caught just 25 balls in his final nine games last season.
"Rod's excited about the deal, and he's ready to go to camp," said agent Joel Segal, who added that he had no reason to believe the receiver would have any difficulty passing his physical.
White, who can be used as a fullback and H-back, agreed to a deal worth about $1.8 million, including a $425,000 signing bonus, league sources said. White's agents, Bruce Tollner and Leigh Steinberg, declined to confirm the details of the deal but said White is eager to play in Washington under Coach Joe Gibbs. Steinberg described White's role with the team as "robo-back, multi-dimensional running back for the new millennium."
White is also in the process of setting up a donation to his high school in California and UCLA, where he played college football, and will establish a foundation for underprivileged children in the Washington area as well, Steinberg said. "He plans to be very active in the community," Steinberg said.
The Redskins, who report to training camp Sunday, will spend the duration of this week trying to get Rogers and Campbell signed, and there is ample time to do so.
"I don't think we're close on either one right now," Cerrato said. "But I think both agents want to see what kind of deals the guys picked around them get first."
Campbell, a native of Taylorsville, Miss., who played at Auburn, said he had no indication that a deal was close, but he has moved back to his apartment in Virginia and wants to get on the field as soon as possible.
"I'm just going to let everything work itself out," Campbell said during a phone interview yesterday. "That's what I hired an agent to do, to get the best deal he can get for me. So right now I'm just working out, working really hard to stay in shape and I hope it gets done soon."
Segal, who represents Campbell as well, said he and the Redskins have not scheduled any face-to-face negotiations, but held preliminary contract talks recently. "We've had a few conversations and we're trying to move towards an agreement," Segal said.
Redskins Notes: The Redskins were fined $45,000 for violating NFL practice squad regulations in the 2004 season, the team announced yesterday. The team at one point used one additional practice squad player than permitted. . . . Linebacker Mike Barrow still has permission to seek a trade, Cerrato said, after being approached by the team about restructuring his salary, which includes a hefty $1.74 million base salary this season. "It's been discussed," Cerrato said, "but there's been no resolution yet." . . . Arena league wide receiver Damien Harrell worked out with the Redskins this week, league sources said, but will not be offered a contract.
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Info on Washington Redskins including the 2004 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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Tell Me About It
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Appearing every Wednesday and Friday in The Washington Post Style section and in Sunday Source, Tell Me About It Bæfers readers advice based on the experiences of someone who's been there -- really recently. Carolyn Hax is a 30-something repatriated New Englander with a liberal arts degree and a lot of opinions and that's about it, really, when you get right down to it. Oh, and the shoes. A lot of shoes.
Submit your questions and comments any time before or during today's discussion. Other mail can be directed to Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com .
Rockville, Md.: I'm sure you've gotten about 19 billion questions on this, but: in Gene's chat on Tuesday, your name came up as someone who thinks having a mom (parent?) stay home is best (your column from July 4, 1999). Would you say your opinion has changed since having kids, or your reasons why people work versus stay home?
Carolyn Hax: Yeah, some of you guys tipped me off about that, thanks. Jean misrepresented my position when he used stay-at-home mom instead of stay-at-home parent, but he got the rest of it right--for 1999. My opinion has definitely evolved since then, but not necessarily since having kids. I'd get into exactly what has changed and why, buuuuut ... I already did so for an anthology of essays that's not due out till spring, and if I scoop it here, that wouldn't be a great way to score points with the editor, Leslie Morgan Steiner, or the publisher.
Carolyn Hax: Sorry for the stalling--I was trying to find the anthology title on some of the paperwork, because I've drawn a complete blank.
Ann Arbor, Mich.: This is a follow-up to an issue in last week's chat, about how parents' marital problems can affect their children's subsequent relationships and marriages. One poster wrote that her boyfriend's parents had a terrible relationship and ugly divorce. She said that, as a result, her boyfriend "responds to every little disagreement or difference of opinion as though it signals the beginning of the end." She also noted that since her own parents had a good relationship, she was better able to ride out the bad times.
This made me chuckle, because that phrase - "responds to every little disagreement or difference of opinion as though it signals the beginning of the end" - fits me to a T. When trouble rears its head in my own relationships, I am notoriously bad at maintaining my perspective and reminding myself of the good things, and find myself in a panic and ready to bail out at the slightest disappointment. What made me laugh is the fact that I've often suspected that this was because my own parents had (and still have, after nearly 60 years) such a wonderful and loving relationship that it created wildly unrealistic expectations on my part, and made me unwilling to "settle" for less than the perfect union I thought they had. Thankfully, my wonderful therapist has been able to help me see, understand and begin to conquer this way of thinking.
Anyway, I guess my point is that people find their "gestalt moments" in very different places, don't they?
Carolyn Hax: Indeed. Thanks for the reminder. I think watching any relationship, good or bad, and learning from it accounts for only about half an education. The rest of it comes when you learn not just to apply what you've seen and learned to your own life, but actually to adapt it. You are different from your parents, and anyone you're with will be different too, and the trick is to make sure your desires and expectations are rooted in the actual people involved and not some perceived or imagined standard.
If that makes any sense. Not something I should be formulating on the fly.
Saying Goodbye in Boston: Okay I'm not sure if I need advice or I just want to vent, but I don't know what to do so I guess I want advice. I have to go to a going-away party for a guy I used to date this weekend. Our courtship was sweet but brief and ended awkwardly when he lost someone close to him. Long story short, I wanted to be there for him and he didn't want me there anymore, so eventually I backed off. So while there was never any animosity between us, there was never any closure either. Despite my attempts to reach out and stay friends, since then he avoids me as much as possible, its like we've become strangers. Which would be ok except for the fact that we are in the same grad program and have a lot of the same friends, so seeing him at social functions is always hard. And even though I've spent the past year trying hard NOT to think about him, this week all of the lingering feelings I had suppressed are resurfacing. On one hand I'm relieved that he's leaving because that means that I'll no longer have to avoid him avoiding me, and I'll no longer have to pretend that I don't care. But there's also a part of me that's sad, because any chance of reconciliation will be gone once and for all. So on one hand, there is so much that was left unsaid, but I know that getting this stuff off of my chest will probably serve no purpose. But a simple, "bye, good luck!" seems inadequate given our history. Any advice on how to handle this gracefully? I'm torn between drowning my sorrows in the rum punch or staying stone cold sober and leaving early so I don't do anything stupid...
Carolyn Hax: No need for extremes, of rum or anything else. "I'll always be sad and a little perplexed that we became strangers." It's kind, it's true, it's not a question that he's forced to answer.
Langley, Va.: Hi Carolyn, I really enjoy reading your advice. You were very fair to Wednesday's high schooler who wanted to switch schools, but I still felt badly for him/her. I was lucky enough to have parents who allowed me to leave home early to attend one of North Carolina's specialized boarding high schools.
The parents' reasoning of wanting to have him/her at home for two years fell a little short for me. My dad said the same thing almost 15 years ago when I was a high school sophomore, that he wasn't done raising me, and my mother told him that if I hadn't taken in their values and training by age 16, I never would, and two years wouldn't have made a difference.
I'd advise Raleigh to ask her parents to clarify their reasoning, and maybe start a productive discussion on their fears about having their child attend. Have they visited the school? That made all the difference in the world to my parents. They were impressed with the facility and the faculty they met. The school made all the difference in the world as to my later schooling, and even later career, something I could have held off on until college, but it sure was nice to have the edge when I got there.
Carolyn Hax: Thank you. I know I could have advised the student to ask one of the school's guidance counselors to talk to the parents, or to try your good suggestion, or to reopen the issue with the parents to see if it was a money thing or a fear-of-the-new thing or a bias-against-the-arts thing or whatever. But I had three (I think) reasons for not going that route. 1. There was a lot we weren't told. Did the parents know and approve of the audition, or was it a stealth undertaking? Had the issue been opened and reopened, or did the parents rule and close the subject? 2. If I took the letter at face value, the parents' objection was to the idea of a boarding school. That is certainly something to which a reasonable, fair, loving parent could object. I wasn't going to send a distressed kid back to fight what could very well have been a sound decision. 3. As you may have noticed over the years, I do not send teenagers back to argue calls with the ump, unless it's clear there's room for negotiation. That is not my place, for one. It's also not good for the kids. Best to accept when the decision isn't theirs to make, and find a constructive way to cope.
I felt bad for the student, too, which to me seemed all the more reason not to stir up any false hopes.
Baltimore, Md.: In your response to the student who wished to attend a state boarding school for the arts, I believe you minimized the impact on his life losing this opportunity could have, and dismissed his parents' responsibilities to assist him in achieving all he can in his life. Who knows, maybe his parents want him to stay home for selfish reasons - keeping the marriage intact, babysitting siblings, they will miss him, etc. It wasn't clear from the letter why the parents were saying no. Also, he obviously showed initiative in applying and getting accepted to what is a very competitive environment. Why shouldn't someone be allowed to succeed.
Twice in my educational life my parents thwarted my advancement - once by refusing to allow me to skip a grade and once by refusing to allow me to attend a boarding school. These things changed my life. Am I still a very successful, happy woman with a long list of achievements? Yes, but maybe it would have been easier, and I would have achieved more, earlier, had these decisions not been made the way they were, and my best interests were given more weight than my parents' convenience.
Carolyn Hoax: You are a very successful, happy woman with a long list of achievements who is still PO'd at her parents. Let it go already. You could have flamed out at boarding school and still be struggling back to your feet. Your whole argument is based on a "maybe": MAYBE it would have been easier, and I would have achieved more, earlier, had these decisions not been made the way they were." Yeah, and maybe not. And maybe, when you were an adolescent, your parents really did know you better than you knew yourself and were trying to look after your best interests. Maybe they blew it. Whatever. Next.
Richmond, Va.: After 2 and a half years, the honeymoon period between my girlfriend and I has ended.
We have not been getting along at all for the past couple months. We live together and pretty much share everything. We argue over the most petty things. She has been pressuring me about marriage but I'm not even sure if I want to be with her anymore let alone marry her. I feel trapped.
Carolyn Hax: "We argue over the most petty things. You have been pressuring me about marriage but I'm not even sure if I want to be with you anymore given how much we fight. I feel trapped."
Then you will probably fight some more, but this time it'll be about what's really going on instead of the way you wash the cast iron frying pan. It'll be worth it. Good luck.
My fiance, who I adore beyond words, is constantly putting down my male friends, the idea of bachelor parties, and so on... This really hurts me yet I have a hard to expressing that in a way that has made any difference. She had an abusive Dad who is now out of the picture, and I can't help but this has something to do with her mistrust of men. We've dated for almost 3 years though, and now we are 3 months before our wedding and these issues are becoming more and more prevalent. Part of the problem I think is one two many boys nights recently, and a couple of bachelor parties back to back. I can understand that. But how can I get her to understand how much it hurts me when she puts down the people I care about the most, with the exception of her and family?
Carolyn Hax: Same issue, deeper into the relationship:
"I adore you beyond words, but you are constantly putting down my male friends, the idea of bachelor parties, and so on ... This really hurts me. I think the problem may be that I've gone on one too many boys nights recently, and a couple of bachelor parties back-to-back. I can understand that. But how can I get you to understand how much it hurts me when you put down the people I care about the most?" (You guys are saving me time today, I can just cut and paste.)
Meaning, you feel these things, so SAY them. Adoring beyond words should not be literal. You don't want to be in a marriage without trusting that you can say how you feel without having the whole roof cave in.
What you don't feel, per se, is that this comes from her abusive-male issues. That's your speculation about what she's feeling, and that's not constructive at all. Your job is to 1. let her know how you feel and then 2. let her speak for herself and then 3. LISTEN.
It takes one to know one: OK everybody knows that those of us involved in the performing arts come from very dysfunctional families. Couple of more years in that environment could win the kid an Oscar down the road. I'm just sayin.
Carolyn Hax: See, now that I should have said. Thanks!
Confused, Md.: Carolyn, I don't have anyone to talk to so I need to ask you.
My wife of almost 3 years told me a few days ago that she is not happy. Part of it has to do with her feeling that she was put on this earth to raise a family, something we have not been successful at. We have tried fertility treatments with no luck. She said she basically wants to "be alone."
Last night she told me she wants to try marriage counseling. At the same time she told me that she doesn't want me to call her at work, she doesn't want to know where I am when I'm not at work. Basically, she wants to see if she will be able to "live" without me in her life, a trial separation.
I agreed to abide by her requests but it left me thinking. By doing so, I feel it will cause us to drift apart, making things worse than they are. I also feel that by not abiding by her requests, that will push her further away from me.
I love my wife. She is the reason I wake up in the morning. I don't want to lose her but I don't want to push her away. What should I do?
Carolyn Hax: I'm sorry. I suggest first that you follow through on the marriage counseling, even if you end up keeping the appointment alone. And, ask if she'd please talk to a counselor herself, or her regular doctor, to get screened for depression. There's no string attached to a visit like that. She won't have to undertake any treatment she doesn't want; you're asking only that she run her current state of mind by a trained professional.
I think you're going to have to respect her request for the "separation," but you can let her know that you're doing so because you love her and you'll do whatever it takes to help her through this.
That said, keep an eye on her. Get informed about depression, specifically as it relates to infertility (the infertility specialists you were seeing should be able to direct you to good resources). To the extent that you can, try to see that she doesn't isolate herself to the point where no one will notice if she's in real trouble.
Wish there were more I could do.
Sweltering, Fla.: You said in an earlier response:
"...the trick is to make sure your desires and expectations are rooted in the actual people involved and not some perceived or imagined standard."
I agree with this, and this has been my philosophy for awhile, and to go a bit further, this means that as we go through life and meet/date/marry someone our expectations will need to be tweaked. My friends disagree with this, saying nobody should settle. I'm not saying one should settle, or majorly change their desires/expectations to fit their current partner, but it is unrealistic to think that anyone could meet all my preset desires/expectations. Do you agree?
Carolyn Hax: I agree, and to make the argument to your friends, I would say only that they need to leave room to be surprised by someone, and especially to surprise themselves. People are too complicated to satisfy perfectly some pre-determined list of requirements, unless those requirements are as broad as, say, treating themselves and others with respect, handling pressure well, having an open mind.
Arlington, Va.: Hi Carolyn -- submitting early; I hope you can help. My younger brother is in a funk over a failed relationship (believe me, it is for the best) and I am at a loss on how to help him. He's feeling lonely although he's got lots of friends. I think he misses the companionship of having a girlfriend. Work is also running him ragged. Can you give me some great words of wisdom or pieces of advice? Thanks.
Carolyn Hax: Relationships fail, jobs suck, stuff happens, people get in funks. Unless he's in danger of harming himself, the process of getting back out of the funk is usually better than never having gotten into one in the first place.
That said, there is a place for people who care about a funk-ee, and that is to let him know that you hate watching him struggle and that if you could assume even a small part of his burden for him you would. Whether you use words to say this, or warm cookies, or a well-timed offer to take him to a movie, that's up to him and to you and to your relationship. But the rest is really up to him.
Confused: My husband was recently diagnosed with an STD. I don't understand how this can come up now when we've been together eight years and I'm very confident that he's been faithful to me, and I have never had an STD myself. Is there a good resource to get information on this?
Carolyn Hax: Two Web sites, from the American Social Health Association (www.ashastd.org) and the CDC (www.cdc.gov/std/default.htm), are excellent sources of information, as is the CDC's hot line, 1-800-342-2437. Short answer, many of these infections can present themselves well after the fact.
Toronto, Ontario: I'm so sorry to hear about what Confused, MD and his wife are going through. We've had infertility issues for five years now, no pregnancy yet. It has been so rough emotionally and even physically what with all those hormones wreaking havoc with my body. I've found infertility support groups to be a help. I think most cities have them, and there are some on-line as well. I hope they can both find some peace in this really difficult and emotionally draining situation.
Carolyn Hax: Great suggestion, thank you.
Lost: Carolyn, how do you build back someone's trust, when the deservingly took it from you?; After years of being a dog and cheating on my girlfriend, she found out and broke up with me. Eventually she was willing to try to work on things, slowly. I feel like I've grown so much that I don't recognize the dog (also a--) I used to be. She sees it too, but has told me she questions whether this is a temporary or permanent improvement. I hate myself for how bad I hurt her, but I have no clue how to show her that. I've told her such, but I can see in her eyes that she doesn't know how to react
Carolyn Hax: There's no way to show it other than to be true to yourself, and then to her, and then to be patient. For her to believe you she's either going to have to see something in you that makes your conversion make sense to her, or observe you over more time than you could conceivably fake a new leaf.
She has a part in this, too, albeit secondary. If it starts to emerge that no amount of time will suffice, and that she will always be holding back a part of herself or punishing you in some way, then she needs to be admit that and free you to start over with someone else.
re: Confused Md.: Confused said that they have tried infertility treatments to have kids, but why is this the only option? Have they thought about adoption? There are lots of kids out there who need homes.
Carolyn Hax: You're right, but that's something she already knows, that every infertile couple already knows, and therefore doesn't need to hear from even the best-intentioned outsider. She will need to come around to it on her own.
Washington, D.C. : (online only, please!)
Carolyn, you're always urging us to talk to the significant other about what is bothering us. What do I do with a spouse who just won't talk? When I bring up issues, either he gives me a cold stare until I give up and walk away, or he says "I can't talk about this right now, let me think about it and we'll talk later." (Repeated ad infinitum) He agreed to try counseling, but this normally obsessively punctual guy was 30 minutes late for the 45-minute session and refused to go back. What can I do? The cold stare is the worst. I go off by myself and cry. I think he knows I do that, but he never mentions it, natch.
Carolyn Hax: There's an upcoming column in which the questioner calls something "textbook passive-aggressive"--and your husband is SO much better than the alternate example I provide of textbook passive-aggressive. Wow.
Which is why I strongly recommend that you either go back to that therapist, or choose another if you weren't happy (like you could tell in those 45 anxious minutes), and talk over strategies for dealing with a noncommunicative, passive-aggressive spouse. That's the one advantage to having a clear problem; there's clear precedent from which to draw some suggestions.
Twin Cities, Minn.: I know this is totally out of context but one of my fiancee's explanations for cheating on me while I was in grad school was "I thought I could get away with it." We're trying to work it out since we have 3 years and a lot invested, but that total disregard of me and even just my health and safety really burns. Am I missing a big sign here that I'm investing a lot more into this than he is? Or can someone really be sorry and start treating the relationship as it should?
Carolyn Hax: Of course "people" can be sorry, but I'm not sure this guy is. Apparently he's honest, which I guess is something, but honesty about being dishonest probably isn't what you had in mind when you were setting up your list of heartfelt-but-not-too-specific list of expectations from a mate.
Or: Years, shmears. Save it if you want to save it, period. No other incentive means squat.
Dallas, Tex.: I love your column!
I told my boyfriend when we first started dating that I hated guns. I grudgingly accepted the fact that he has 2 (army issued, he's a reservist recently back from Iraq), and that he safely keeps them and safely trains and practices with them, even though I still hate the idea. But now he's planning to get his concealed handgun license.
I know it's most likely a difference in cultures (TX is pretty much its own country, if you've never been here before) but I cannot understand the apparent need for him to roam around the city with a loaded handgun in his glove box. I told him that I really think that might be a deal-breaker for me; he thinks I'm being irrational.
Am I? Do I just need to trust that he's smart and safety conscious and start believing that whole "guns don't kill people" stuff? Or do I have a point that I've been open-minded up to this point and that he needs to respect my strong feelings about this? Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Carolyn Hax: You need to respect -your- strong feelings on this. Everything else is optional.
Ivory Tower: Carolyn: I have slowly come to the horrifying realization that I'm a snob. I tend to think lesser of those who have not achieved as high a professional situation as I have (administrative staff, as opposed to management staff). I don't treat administrative people in any kind of haughty way, it's more insidious--kind of like they're not as smart. I honestly didn't realize I was like this until someone called me on it recently. I denied it, but have been thinking about it for some time, and now realize it's true. I'm disgusted with myself, but how do I end this habit of feeling/thinking about and treating people this way?
Carolyn Hax: I'd be very surprised, after a genuine session of self-loathing, if you ever thought this way again. Write back if you do, I'm very curious now.
I promise I'm not just repeating the plot of a Meg Ryan movie, but I just accidentally answered a friend's personal ad online because I didn't know it was he. I figured it out later and fessed up, but now I'm interested for real. Anything to be done aside from waiting to see how it turns out? Thanks!
Carolyn Hax: Saying, "Let's go out anyway"?
St. Mary's City, Md.: Short but complicated question: How can I stop feeling afraid and unworthy when anyone gets angry at me?
Carolyn Hax: Does it work if you think about times you've been angry at others, while also never questioning their worth? Simplistic exercise but sometimes a little perspective-flip is all it takes.
The longer fix is one you might want to try with a pro, and that is to figure out when, how and why you were taught to believe that relationships were so fragile that they couldn't withstand the pressure even of routine conflict.
Arlington, Va.: Hey there - If a past friend (you occasionally see - kind of like going to church only on holidays) has a roommate you see often, but don't like, do you treat that person like anyone else you don't like, or do you give that person a "pass" because of her roommate?
Carolyn Hax: How do you treat people you don't like? Courtesy from arm's length seems to suffice for all.
For Ivory Tower: How to end the habit: start a new habit of treating every person you encounter with dignity and respect. It's not hard. Say good morning. Look people in the eye. Listen to what they have to say. Return their greetings and pleasantries. If context permits, engage in conversation, and be interested in them (if at first you can't BE interested, ACT interested and eventually you will find yourself meaning it). Realize that every human being in the world sleeps, wakes, eats, dresses, makes a living, returns home, and repeats the cycle - you're not any more special than anyone else, and a lot of people work harder than you do.
Carolyn Hax: They should teach this in school. Thanks.
New York, N.Y.: Carolyn: Online only, please. Ten months ago, I confided some highly personal information to one of my best friends. She told someone who told someone... you get the idea. I said to her, "Remember that bit of info I confided in you last September? Well, it got back to So-and-So. How did that happen?" She attempted to blame a third party. I pointed out that I didn't confide in that third party, I had confided in HER. Then she got really angry, and said, "Well, then don't tell me anything!" We had not spoken since. Last week, she called me up, saying she missed me and wants to get together for lunch sometime. I told her I was cool with that, but now I'm not so sure. I've missed her, too, but don't think I could ever confide anything in her again. She never apologized for betraying my confidence, and told me not to tell her anything. So what the heck do we talk about when we get together for lunch?
Carolyn Hax: The weather, until she's had sufficient opportunity to apologize for her indiscretion. And if she hasn't apologized by then, you say, "I've missed you, too, but it really bothers me that you never apologized for betraying my confidence."
It's Cut and Paste Day.
I'm in the National Guard. The Army doesn't issue weapons that soldiers are permitted to keep at home, even if they just came back from the war. The Texan's guns are his, not the military's, and I think there's more to the story...
Carolyn Hax: Way beyond my ken, so I'll just post this and duck. Thanks.
Sunken cost: A lot of people do it the justification of -- I have invested X number of years, so we should save the relationship. But it really makes sense because the time frame ahead of you is much longer. Yes, the writer went out for her fiance for 3 years but is it worth the next 50 years of headache?;
Of course it's easy for me to type on the outside, but is it so tough to see when its me/you,etc/
Carolyn Hax: Yeah, but so easy to see when you spell it out that way. Works for jobs and family conflicts and ill-advised grad schooling and debt and any other items that chafe. Thanks.
Help: How do you handle someone that threatens suicide? My younger brother lives across the country and is struggling. He has no job to speak of, although he has a degree, has no money and claims to be severely depressed. He has a therapist he sees several times a week. I seem to be the only person in our family that he will talk to and calls me and cries and says he thinks about killing himself several times a week. The other side of this is that these calls usually come when he is in dire financial straits and in the past I have responded by bailing him out because I fear for his life. I am unable to support him financially (I am raising two kids) and my mother, who has a very limited fixed income has taken on this task. He feels entitled to taking what little money she has because of his 'rough childhood' that he feels owed for and I seem to be unable to call him on his incredible selfishness because I live in fear that if I do, he will do something drastic (i.e. suicide) and I will feel responsible.
FWIW, it is impossible to have a rational conversation with him. He is extremely defensive and hostile to any question of his motives...
Carolyn Hax: Please talk to a professional about how to handle this kind of manipulation. www.psych.org is a good place to start. You do not need to bear this burden alone and untrained, not should you.
Washington, D.C.: So Baltimore could have achieved more, quicker, faster, easier if her parents had sent her to boarding school? When did life become a race? If you're feeling like you can never catch up because of something that happened when you were 16, then, yeah, you lost the race. Sorry.
Carolyn Hax: Probably b/c shoulder-chips aren't aerodynamic. Thanks.
I was in a short relationship with a man who fell fast and hard for me. He treated me well, but when I realized that he was unstable, dishonest, couldn't set boundaries, and "couldn't live without me", I got out.
I was a little scared of him, and I made the mistake of the "it's me, not you" excuse to break up. It seemed easier then telling him, "you're crazy and I can't be with you".
I tried to be friendly with him, but finally I had to tell him to stop contacting me because he wouldn't let go. He didn't take that well, and started showing up in places that he knew I would be, emailing, and calling me constantly. I responded only twice, only to tell him to leave me alone. I have not responded to him since.
That was at the beginning of May, and he's started contacting me again. I have ignored all of his efforts, but he doesn't seem to get the message. And I don't want to respond to tell him AGAIN to go away.
Normally you tell us not to send mixed messages, which I'm not doing. Am I doing the right thing by ignoring him? And should I be concerned that this will escalate into something else?
Carolyn Hax: Please read "The Gift of Fear." If you get to a library or bookstore today, you can be well through it by the next unsettling contact.
And, yes, ignoring him is considered the safest thing to do.
And keep notes of his actions.
And call the local police if you feel threatened.
Old Town Alexandria, Va.: I've been dating this girl for a few weeks and we get along great. We're both recently out of college and working in the city. We talk a lot and go out a lot. However, when it comes to being physical she seems distant. Whether my arm around her or in holding hands, it's as if she feels uncomfortable being at all physical. Should I discuss the issue with her, or just let the relationship progress naturally and hope things resolve themselves?
Carolyn Hax: A few weeks is pretty early for a big-D discussion, given the subject, since physical hesitation can have roots in things that people don't like to talk about unless/until there's a sense of safety and trust. But it would be very appropriate, when you sense she's uncomfortable, for you to say, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." If she wants, she can treat that as an easy opening to say something. And if she doesn't, then yes to letting the relationship progress naturally, albeit at a slightly slower pace physically.
State of Confusion: I'm a (female) contractor working at a very male-intensive company.
I am beginning to wonder if a couple of men at my work are leading up to asking me out. They tend to ask about my weekends and one has asked what I like to do for fun. I like them. Fine, except for a whole host of reasons that really aren't important, I'm not available for dating but not in any obvious way such as a wedding band. I'd be happy to spend time with them outside work because I enjoy our chats, and I'm not SURE that they're proposing to ask me out, just wondering, and I've been right before when I've wondered. I'd make an overture myself if I were sure that it would not be taken as a date.
Short version: is there any way to express that I'd be happy to do something with either or both outside work, but it's not a date? Without having to spell that out?
Carolyn Hax: I can't believe I'm going to type this, but I think you should stay away from outside stuff with these guys. Not unless it's way blazing 20-20 clear that they find you completely without merit as a romantic interest.
I don't think I have unreal expectations about what I want in a romantic partner - nor more so than with friends (I have lots of casual friends but only a few very close ones that have developed over lots of time). That being said, I rarely meet guys I want to date but meet a couple of people every year that I want to become closer friends with. Is it normal to meet less people with romantic potential as you get older (early 30's, for example)? Or might I be fooling myself about the expectations? (I'll add - intelligence, humor, willingness to try new things are things I'm a fan of in anyone).
Carolyn Hax: I'd be stunned if you found you were meeting more romantic prospects as you got older, assuming you didn't have a dramatic change of life circumstances along the way somewhere, like taking an ill-fated three-hour tour and getting washed up on the Island of Mature Unmarried Men.
Most people meet fewer people overall, of all kinds, as they get older--again, barring changes of circumstance, like joining a club or something. Part of it is the natural settling-down of people's social lives, but also it's a natural settling-down of one's tastes. Are you really going to work to find romantic potential in someone humorless and closed-minded? You might have given it a shot when you were 22, thinking you didn't want to be closed-minded yourself, but age gives you permission to say "ugh" and never look back.
Blazingly clear?: Usually when you give advice, you also give your rationale behind it, which is how I learn the most from you and am able to apply it to my life.
So...that said...why did you suggest to this particular woman that she stay away from these guys?
Carolyn Hax: Thank you. Here's the rationale: She has to work there, and it's a predominantly male environment, and there's an excellent chance she's getting hit on (especially since these men are, flip side, not meeting a lot of women at work). So there seems to be much to lose (in exchange for little gain) in exploring the possibility of platonic "dates" with her co-workers. This is a job, be professional and then go home. Again, unless she's given the safest of alternatives, like, the boss invites the whole department to dinner or a colleague invites her to join him and his wife/girlfriend and a few other people on a hike this weekend.
Realistic Expectations?: So I'm a thirty-something single guy -- and I keep meeting more people I'm interested in. (Although to date, none appear to have been particularly interested in me.) Getting older not only gives you the right to say "ugh", but also to realize that someone you might have said "ugh" to at 22 is now just what you're looking for.
Carolyn Hax: Great and true, thanks. Unless you're panicking, in which case, scary and true, thanks.
San Francisco, Calif.: I know there's no answer for this but it's still an irresistible question: I'm dating someone who is 5 months out of a 20 year marriage. Everyone tells me that I am the transition woman so I'd better not expect too much. We see each other often, real dates, great conversations, great sex, things seem right where they should be. I know that relationships need time to evolve and neither one of us is pushing anything so why is the conventional wisdom so negative about the long-term success rate of us "re-bounders".
Carolyn Hax: Conventionally, the first relationship out of a breakup is an emotional blammo that burns out fast. But that doesn't mean this is one of those, just that there's more of a chance than usual that it might be.
I do wish Everyone would learn to butt out, and I don't just mean your Everyones.
But then what would we talk about.
Till 2:31! Eek. Bye. Thanks, and type to you all next week. And let me know if Ghene talks shneesh about me again. Thanks.
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Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net
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The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.
Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.
In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.
Most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took place in 2004, the sources said.
It remains unclear whether Fitzgerald uncovered any wrongdoing in this or any other portion of his nearly 18-month investigation. All that is known at this point are the names of some people he has interviewed, what questions he has asked and whom he has focused on.
Fitzgerald began his probe in December 2003 to determine whether any government official knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a CIA employee to the media. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has said his wife's career was ruined in retaliation for his public criticism of Bush. In a 2002 trip to Niger at the request of the CIA, Wilson found no evidence to support allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from that African country and reported back to the agency in February 2002. But nearly a year later, Bush asserted in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, attributing it to British, not U.S., intelligence.
Fitzgerald has said in court that he had completed most of his investigation at a time when he was pressing for New York Times reporter Judith Miller to testify about any conversations she had with a specific administration official about Plame during the week before Plame's identity was revealed.
Miller, who never wrote a story about the matter, is in jail for refusing to comply with a court order to testify. Court records show Fitzgerald is seeking information about communications she had with the Bush official between July 6 and July 13, 2003, when the White House was attempting to discredit Wilson and his allegations.
Fitzgerald appears to believe that Miller's conversations may help him get to the bottom of the leak and the damage-control campaign undertaken by senior Bush officials that week.
Using background conversations with at least three journalists and other means, Bush officials attacked Wilson's credibility. They said that his 2002 trip to Niger was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, but CIA officials say that is incorrect. One reason for the confusion about Plame's role is that she had arranged a trip for him to Niger three years earlier on an unrelated matter, CIA officials told The Washington Post.
Miller's role remains one of many mysteries in the leak probe. It is unclear whom, if anyone, she spoke to about Plame, and why she emerged as a central figure in the probe despite never having written a story about the case. Also murky is the role of Novak, who first publicly identified Plame in a syndicated column published July 14, 2003.
Lawyers have confirmed that Novak discussed Plame with White House senior adviser Karl Rove four or more days before the column identifying her ran. But the identity of another "administration" source cited in the column is still unknown. Rove's attorney has said Rove did not identify Plame to Novak.
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The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known.
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Documents Show Roberts Influence In Reagan Era
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Newly released documents show that John G. Roberts Jr. was a significant backstage player in the legal policy debates of the early Reagan administration, confidently debating older Justice Department officials and supplying them with arguments and information that they used to wage a bureaucratic struggle for the president's agenda.
Roberts presented a defense of bills in Congress that would have stripped the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over abortion, busing and school prayer cases; he argued for a narrow interpretation of Title IX, the landmark law that bars sex discrimination in intercollegiate athletic programs; and he even counseled his boss on how to tell the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow that the administration was cutting off federal funding for the Atlanta center that bears his name.
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The documents are from Roberts's 1981-1982 tenure as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith. Like previously reported memos from Roberts's stint in President Ronald Reagan's White House in the mid-1980s, the documents made available from the National Archives yesterday show a man in his mid-twenties deeply engaged in the conservative restructuring of government that the new president had promised.
To a greater extent than the White House documents previously released, the more than 15,000 pages of Justice Department memos show Roberts speaking at times in his own voice. In memos to the attorney general or senior officials of the Justice Department, Roberts argued for restrictions on the rights of prisoners to litigate their grievances; depicted as "judicial activism" a lower court's order requiring a sign-language interpreter for a hearing-impaired public school student who had already been given a hearing aid and tutors; and argued for wider latitude for prosecutors and police to question suspects out of the presence of their attorneys.
In the rare instances revealed in the documents in which Roberts disagreed with his superiors on the proper legal course to take on major social issues of the day, he advocated a more conservative tack.
In one instance, he wrote a memo to the attorney general urging Smith to disregard the recommendation of William Bradford Reynolds, the head of the agency's civil rights division, that the administration should intervene on behalf of female inmates in a sex discrimination case involving job training for prisoners.
"I recommend that you do not approve intervention in this case," Roberts wrote. He said that such a step would be inconsistent with the administration's belief in judicial restraint and that, if equal treatment for male and female prisoners was required, "the end result in this time of state prison budgets may be no programs for anyone." Besides, he said, private plaintiffs were already bringing suit.
On June 15, 1982, Roberts faulted the Justice Department for the outcome in Plyler v. Doe , in which the Supreme Court overturned a Texas law that had allowed school districts to deny enrollment to children who had entered the country illegally.
Roberts argued that if the solicitor general's office had taken a position in the case supporting the state of Texas "and the values of judicial restraint," it could have "altered the outcome of the case."
"In sum, this is a case in which our supposed litigation program to encourage judicial restraint did not get off the ground, and should have," Roberts wrote.
Much of Roberts's time at the Justice Department was taken up by the debate over GOP-sponsored bills in Congress that would have stripped the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over abortion, busing and school prayer cases. He wrote repeatedly in opposition to the view, advanced by then-Assistant Attorney General Theodore B. Olson, that the bills were unconstitutional. He scrawled "NO!" in the margins of an April 12, 1982, note Olson sent to Smith. In the memo, Olson observed that opposing the bills would "be perceived as a courageous and highly principled position, especially in the press."
Roberts drew a bracket around the paragraph, underlined the words "especially in the press," and wrote in the margin: "Real courage would be to read the Constitution as it should be read and not kowtow to the Tribes, Lewises and Brinks!"
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Newly released documents show that John G. Roberts Jr. was a significant backstage player in the legal policy debates of the early Reagan administration.
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White House To Withhold Nominee's Tax Returns
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The Bush administration will not give Senate investigators access to the federal tax returns of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., White House and congressional officials said yesterday, a break with precedent that could exacerbate a growing conflict over document disclosure in the confirmation process.
Although nominees to the high court in recent decades were required to provide their three most recent annual tax forms, the administration will neither collect such documents from Roberts nor share them with the Senate Judiciary Committee, the officials said. Instead, the Internal Revenue Service will produce a one-page summary.
The White House yesterday began releasing the first of 75,000 pages of documents stemming from Roberts's service as a lawyer in President Ronald Reagan's administration two decades ago but refused to release papers from his time as deputy solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993. These papers, Bush aides said, concern internal executive branch deliberations that remain privileged.
Senate Democrats and liberal interest groups immediately assailed the decision to withhold the more recent files, sharpening a dispute over the nominee's record.
"A blanket statement that entire groups of documents are off limits is both premature and ill advised," eight Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee, led by ranking minority member Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), wrote in a letter to President Bush. The senators attached a list of 35 topics they want to see documents related to, including abortion, civil rights, Bob Jones University, death-squad investigations and school prayer.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan dismissed the requests as part of a political strategy outlined in media reports even before Roberts was nominated. "I hope Senator Leahy is not trying to demand documents that the president has not even seen as part of their lines of attack against the president," McClellan said.
The mushrooming fight over documents represents the first battleground in the confirmation struggle since Bush chose Roberts, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, last week to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. With Roberts's legal credentials not disputed and his views on the most sensitive issues facing the court hard to pin down, Democrats have chosen for now to make the issue of document disclosure their focus -- hoping to find ammunition to derail the nomination or to wage a public battle over the administration's refusal to turn over files.
"This is really part of the phenomenon of interest-group politics and the idea that part of the role of the confirmation process is to vet the ideology of the nominee," said John Anthony Maltese, author of "The Selling of Supreme Court Nominees" and a University of Georgia professor.
"The only reason I can assume some members would be trying to seek these kinds of documents would be to get something embarrassing or awkward, or that would allow them to paint Roberts as extreme on some issue."
Documents proved crucial to earlier debates. "Documents have played a role in scuttling nominations and causing problems," said University of Connecticut professor David Alistair Yalof, author of "Pursuit of Justices," another book on the confirmation process.
William H. Rehnquist had to explain a controversial memo at his first confirmation hearings as associate justice in 1971 and again when he was appointed chief justice in 1986. The memo, written when Rehnquist was a clerk to Justice Robert H. Jackson, argued against school desegregation during the 1950s. Rehnquist explained at his hearings that it represented Jackson's opinion, not his own.
During hearings on the nomination of Robert H. Bork in 1987, the Judiciary Committee was given documents relating to his service as solicitor general under President Richard M. Nixon, particularly his participation in the "Saturday Night Massacre" dismissing Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox.
"The precedents are that you can't go on a fishing expedition, but you can [seek], and many administrations have released specific documents related to specific requests," said Ralph G. Neas, president of the People for the American Way. He was a leading opponent of Bork and is a critic of the Roberts nomination.
Bush advisers yesterday were pressed to explain why documents generated when Roberts was a lawyer in the White House counsel's office are being disclosed but those from his work as a lawyer in the Justice Department's office of the solicitor general are not. McClellan said the difference is that documents from the counsel's office are covered by the Presidential Records Act, which calls for a presumption of disclosure, and those from the solicitor general's office are not.
To protect their deliberations, solicitors general from both Republican and Democratic administrations have opposed the release of internal memos. "If you want to chill robust debate over what government should do, the way to chill it is to disclose it," said C. Boyden Gray, a former White House counsel advising the Bush team on court strategy.
Not all Republicans sounded so sure. Asked why some legal memos could be disclosed and others could not, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said, "That's a weighty question which I would want to research before I answered."
The change in policy on tax returns could fuel the debate. The Bush administration changed the policy in 2001, no longer requiring judicial nominees at any level to provide tax returns. Instead, the IRS performs a "tax check" of the past three years to detect any problems or disclose if investigations were conducted during that period. "The reason we changed it was an effort to reduce the duplicative paperwork and streamline the process," White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino said yesterday.
The White House did not announce the policy change, and some senior Republicans and Democrats on the Judiciary Committee said yesterday that they were unaware of it. When Democratic staffers learned of the change after queries by The Washington Post, they expressed surprise that the White House would not seek Roberts's tax returns, even if it did not plan to share them with the Senate.
Senate Democrats have suggested to Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who is authorized to obtain individual tax returns under prescribed circumstances, that he try to obtain Roberts's. Grassley said yesterday that Democratic staffers approached his aides with the idea, but he signaled he was inclined to rebuff them. "From the standpoint of taxes for justices, I don't know that that has ever been done before," Grassley said.
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The Bush administration will not give Senate investigators access to the federal tax returns of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., White House and congressional officials said yesterday, a break with precedent that could exacerbate a growing conflict over document disclosure in the...
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In Britain, a Divide Over Racial Profiling
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LONDON, July 26 -- Seven bullets fired into a young Brazilian man's head by an undercover policeman who mistook him for a suicide bomber have set off an impassioned debate over the rights and wrongs of anti-terrorism tactics and racial profiling in one of the world's most ethnically diverse cities.
Ajmal Masroor, the 33-year-old director of a community relations group here, is a highly educated and articulate Muslim of Bangladeshi origin who is welcomed as a consultant and adviser in the corridors of power. Yet when he walks the highly patrolled streets of the Whitehall government sector these days, he said, he thinks twice because police have adopted a shoot-to-kill policy against people they deem to be active terrorists.
"I am a young Asian man with a beard and a rucksack on my back and I'm thinking, am I going to be the next target?" he said, addressing a terrorism conference Tuesday at the Royal United Services Institute. The men who struck the London transit system this month all hid their bombs in such bags.
At the same session, a senior police official of South Asian ethnic origin who would not allow his name to be used said he felt queasy when "two colleagues of the firearms branch saw me running up the road with my rucksack on."
Yet after facing two coordinated bombing attacks on the city's transit system -- one of which killed 56 people, including the bombers, and injured 700 -- many people say they understand the reasons for the policy. "Shoot-to-kill keeps us secure, and I feel protected, but at the same time I'm scared," said Angel Henry, 22, an airline employee who is part Jamaican and says that at times she feels singled out for having black features. "It's a Catch-22 situation. We've got to just ride it out."
Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician who had lived in London for three years, was gunned down execution-style -- seven bullets to the head, one to the shoulder -- in front of horrified passengers in a subway car standing Friday morning in London's Stockwell station. The officer firing at him presumed he was about to detonate a bomb after he ran from pursuing police. But as it turned out, Menezes had nothing to do with terrorism, as police conceded over the weekend.
Beyond the killing itself, what shocked many Londoners was the discovery that Menezes had been killed under instructions that had never been publicly articulated, which allow officers to shoot in the head someone they believe is about to commit a suicide bombing. Code-named Operation Kratos, the policy was put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
"Shoot first and ask questions later is what we've heard happening in Iraq," Masroor said. "It's not what we expected to happen here."
Former police commissioner John Stevens stunned many over the weekend when he wrote in a newspaper column that the policy had been imported from Israel, where the authorities had drawn a stark conclusion: "There is only one sure way to stop a suicide bomber determined to fulfill his mission: destroy his brain instantly, utterly."
Ian Blair, Stevens's successor as police commissioner, further fueled the debate when he told a Sky television interviewer that, despite his deep regrets over Menezes's death, the same thing could happen again.
The ensuing debate has not followed the usual political divide here. London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who usually is far to the left of Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, has urged understanding for the police. "Consider the choice that faced police officers at Stockwell last Friday -- and be glad you did not have to take it," he wrote in Monday's Evening Standard.
But Tim Hames, a conservative columnist for the Times newspaper, urged a reexamination. "There is a world of difference between a plainclothes policeman finding himself riding on the Tube and spotting a man with a large bag behaving in a manner that makes him a potential suicide bomber and shooting him, and chasing a person onto a train carriage and firing at him," Hames wrote.
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World news headlines from the Washington Post, including international news and opinion from Africa, North/South America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Features include world weather, news in Spanish, interactive maps, daily Yomiuri and Iraq coverage.
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2 British Suspects Came From Africa
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LONDON, July 26 -- One of the suspects in last week's botched bombings here is a native of Eritrea who became a British citizen about two years ago, while a second suspect, also from East Africa, had been collecting welfare payments of about $500 a month, British officials said Tuesday.
Both men immigrated to Britain in 1992 as refugee children fleeing war-torn countries with their parents, but apparently developed such hostility toward their adopted homeland that each tried to kill large numbers of people by detonating homemade bombs in London's public transit system, police said.
As Prime Minister Tony Blair, Muslim leaders and ordinary Britons argued and puzzled over what could have driven longtime British residents to commit such acts, family members of one of the suspects, identified by police as Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, of north London, said they were likewise at a loss.
"We were shocked when we saw Muktar's picture on the national news," his parents said in a statement released Tuesday by police outside their home in the northwestern London suburb of Stanmore. "We are a peaceful family," they added, "and in no way condone any acts of terrorism." They are natives of Eritrea.
Ibrahim, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said, is accused by police of attempting to set off a bomb he was carrying in a backpack on a bus in east London about midday Thursday. He and three other men suspected of trying to detonate similar explosives on the London subway around the same time all managed to escape. They remain on the loose, though their photographs are constantly broadcast on television.
Police have identified a second suspect as Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, who came to Britain as an 11-year-old from Somalia. British news media reported that police who raided his north London apartment Monday found materials that could be used to build bombs.
Neighbors said Ibrahim was often seen at the apartment with Omar, who according to municipal officials received about $130 a week in government housing subsidies.
Police have not identified the other two bombers from last week's failed plot but have released photographs that surveillance cameras captured of them fleeing the scenes.
Ibrahim's family members said they went to police to confirm his identity immediately after they saw his photo on the news. They described him as an estranged relative who had moved out of his parents' home as a teenager. "He is not a close family member," they said in the statement. "He lives alone elsewhere."
A woman who lives near Ibrahim's parents said she saw him in the neighborhood two weeks ago. Sarah Scott, 23, said she had known Ibrahim casually for more than a decade and described how he had tried to convert her to Islam.
In November, she recalled, she was outside smoking and chatting with Ibrahim when he gave her a pamphlet titled "Understanding Islam" and talked about his dedication to his faith. "He asked me if I was Catholic because I have an Irish family," she said. "I said I didn't believe in anything, and he said I should."
"He told me he was going to have all these virgins when he got to heaven if he praises Allah," Scott added. "He said people were afraid of religion, but people shouldn't be afraid."
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World news headlines from the Washington Post, including international news and opinion from Africa, North/South America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Features include world weather, news in Spanish, interactive maps, daily Yomiuri and Iraq coverage.
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A Successful Launch for Discovery
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CAPE CANAVERAL, July 26 -- With a blinding flash of light and a deep, rumbling growl, the space shuttle Discovery arced into the heavens Tuesday, hoping to usher in a new era in human spaceflight and move NASA beyond the tragedy of the doomed Columbia.
After a virtually trouble-free countdown, Discovery roared off Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39B at 10:39 a.m. Eastern time, punched through a tiny cotton-candy cloud and soared into crystal-blue skies on its way into orbit 140 miles above Earth.
The only shadow over the long-postponed launch came with reports that the unprecedented array of cameras trained on the shuttle had seen what may have been a 1 1/2 -inch piece of thermal tile break off from an area near the forward landing-gear door. A larger object, perhaps a chunk of foam insulation, was seen falling from the external tank, apparently without striking the orbiter. Late in the day, shuttle managers said they will go ahead with scheduled inspections of the shuttle's exterior over the next three days, along with detailed analysis of the launch images, to assess whether any of the debris posed a "safety-of-flight issue."
"This was an extremely clean flight" despite the debris incidents, the flight operations manager, John Shannon, told reporters.
Two minutes into the flight, Discovery's two solid rocket boosters dropped away, and 6 1/2 minutes later the orbiter separated from the gigantic external fuel tank, an event captured for the first time in a spectacular color video made by a camera mounted on the tank as it began its plunge earthward.
Discovery, carrying mission commander Eileen Collins and six other astronauts, tucked into Earth orbit over the Indian Ocean, below and behind the international space station, beginning a two-day rundown to catch up with the station and dock with it.
The launch was the first shuttle mission since Columbia disintegrated during reentry on Feb. 1, 2003. The disaster marked a technical and emotional watershed for the U.S. space program and for NASA, which was obliged to spend 2 1/2 years redesigning much of its hardware and reevaluating its approach to shuttle safety.
"Take note of what you saw here today," NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin told reporters. "There was the power and majesty of the launch, of course, but also the confidence, professionalism, and the sheer gall and grittiness of the team that pulled this program out of the depths of despair."
More than 2,500 dignitaries, led by first lady Laura Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), her brother-in-law, attended the launch. Later, the first lady visited the launch control center to thank the team for "your hard work," saying, "You're inspiring everybody."
The launch team downed its traditional post-launch meal of beans and cornbread, reflecting on the long wait: "It was like the birth of a baby," engineer Arthur Graine said with a grin. "Instead of nine months, it's been 2 1/2 years."
Three hours after liftoff, Collins paid the team the ultimate compliment, telling Mission Control that her fourth spaceflight had "by far the smoothest ascent yet" and saying, "I know the folks back on Earth must feel pretty good right now."
Worried for weeks about having to scrub the launch because of bad weather, engineers were rewarded with a gorgeous, thunderstorm-free day. Also a no-show was the peculiar fuel-sensor malfunction that caused engineers to scrub Discovery's launch two weeks ago.
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Discovery and seven astronauts blasted off today on America's first manned space shot since the 2003 Columbia disaster, ending a painful shutdown of more than two years devoted to making the shuttle less risky and NASA more safety-conscious.
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Don't Expect Yuan To Rise Much, China Tells World
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SHANGHAI, July 26 -- China's central bank declared Tuesday that last week's slight increase in the value of the country's currency, the yuan, was a one-time event and not the beginning of a gradual climb, as officials sought to diminish speculative pressures for a substantial revaluation.
In a "solemn statement," the People's Bank of China said the policy shift last Thursday was primarily aimed at changing how China sets the exchange rate for the yuan -- also known as the renminbi, or RMB -- by severing its direct link to the U.S. dollar, and not a signal of any willingness to allow its value to float upward.
"Certain foreign media have misled the public and even wrongly speculated that the revaluation of the RMB by two percent was only the first step in a series of adjustments," the bank said. Its action last week "does not in the least imply an initial move which warrants further actions in the future."
Analysts said China's central bank was sending a direct message to currency speculators, seeking to preempt capital from flooding into the country to bet on another increase in the value of the yuan. As China's leaders are well aware, speculators played a key role in overwhelming Thailand's fixed currency regime in 1997, forcing the central bank to devalue and triggering a broader Asian financial crisis.
Given such concerns, China's leaders could be bluffing, seeking to keep speculators off balance while it prepares another revaluation -- which some analysts and traders still expect. But economists close to China's central government said the warning from bank officials probably reflects genuine intentions: China chose not to increase the value of the yuan significantly, but has simply introduced a little extra flexibility in its day-to-day movements -- the first step in a process that could take as long as a decade before Beijing fully frees its currency to rise and fall according to global markets.
"We are not going to expect any one single great leap in [currency] appreciation in the future," said Ha Jiming, chief economist at China International Capital Corp., an investment bank partially owned by one of the country's major state-owned lenders, Construction Bank of China. "As the central bank has repeatedly emphasized, the currency revaluation move is more about reforming the exchange-rate mechanism than changing the exchange rate itself."
If the central bank's latest pronouncement does reflect policy, it could reinvigorate trade friction with the United States and other trading partners. The Bush administration has for more than two years pressured China to allow the value of its currency to float upward, arguing that a low-priced yuan makes Chinese-made goods unfairly cheap on world markets.
The White House commended China's slight revaluation. It was also praised by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y), who has been pressing a bill that would impose 27.5 percent punitive tariffs on Chinese goods if Beijing does not substantially increase the value of its currency.
Schumer was less effusive Tuesday. "While the Chinese Central Bank has said that they will not do another fixed valuation in the near future, we trust that the Chinese will allow market forces to work," he said in a written statement. "We will be carefully monitoring this process over the next few months."
Chinese analysts on Tuesday said anyone expecting another increase soon would be frustrated.
"China will not revalue the renminbi again in coming months," said Song Guoqing, an economist at the China Center for Economic Research at Beijing University.
As the central bank outlined its policy shift last week, some commentators and U.S. officials indicated that it could be the beginning of a gradual but significant series of increases in the yuan's value. Some suggested that it might increase the prices of goods made here, diminishing the U.S. appetite for Chinese products and cutting into the $162 billion U.S. trade deficit with China. Others said a stronger yuan might curb China's voracious buying of dollars in support of its exchange rate. That could limit China's purchases of U.S. Treasury bills, perhaps resulting in higher interest rates that could pop the U.S. real estate market.
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China's central bank declared Tuesday that last week's slight increase in the value of the country's currency, the yuan, was a one-time event and not the beginning of a gradual climb.
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Abu Ghraib Dog Tactics Came From Guantanamo
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Military interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq learned about the use of military working dogs to intimidate detainees from a team of interrogators dispatched from the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court testimony yesterday.
One interrogation analyst also testified that sleep deprivation and forced nudity -- which were used in Cuba on high-value detainees -- later were approved tactics at Abu Ghraib. Another soldier said that interrogators would regularly pass instructions to have dog handlers and military police "scare up" detainees as part of interrogation plans, part of an approved approach that relied on exploiting the fear of dogs.
The preliminary hearing at Fort Meade, Md., for two Army dog handlers accused of mistreating detainees provided more evidence that severe tactics approved for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo migrated to Iraq and spiraled into the notorious abuse at Abu Ghraib in the late summer and early fall of 2003. The testimony came days after an internal military investigation showed the similarity between techniques used on the suspected "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and tactics seen in photographs at the prison that shocked the world.
Several Republican senators are pushing legislation -- opposed by the White House -- that would regulate the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and other military prisons. One of them, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), released recently declassified internal memos written in 2003 by the military's top lawyers in which they warned the Pentagon about developing severe tactics, arguing that they would heighten danger for U.S. troops caught by the enemy, among other problems.
"We have taken the legal and moral 'high-road' in the conduct of our military operations regardless of how others may operate," Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives wrote in a Feb. 5, 2003, memo. "We need to consider the overall impact of approving extreme interrogation techniques as giving official approval and legal sanction to the application of interrogation techniques that U.S. forces have consistently been trained are unlawful."
At Fort Meade yesterday, soldiers testified that the top military intelligence officer at the prison, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, approved the use of dogs for interrogations. Maj. Matthew Miller, a prosecutor, also revealed that Pappas, faced with a request from interrogators to use dogs on three stubborn detainees captured at the same time as then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, "admitted he failed to ask" Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top general in Iraq, for approval as he was supposed to have done.
Pvt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick, one of the ringleaders of abuse by military police who is serving an eight-year prison term, testified by phone from Fort Leavenworth, Kan., that interrogators were authorized to use dogs and that a civilian contract interrogator left him lists of the cells he wanted dog handlers to visit. "They were allowed to use them to . . . intimidate inmates," Frederick said.
Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, 31, of California, and Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, of Florida, are charged with maltreatment of detainees, largely for allegedly encouraging and permitting unmuzzled working dogs to threaten and attack them. Prosecutors have focused on an incident caught in published photographs, when the two men allegedly cornered a naked detainee and allowed the dogs to bite him on each thigh as he cowered in fear.
The dog handlers also allegedly participated in a "contest" to see who could make more detainees urinate or defecate on themselves, but defense attorneys contended that there is no actual witness to such a game and that the claims were merely rumors that spread throughout the prison.
This week's hearing is the military's equivalent of a civilian preliminary court hearing or grand jury investigation. Maj. Glenn Simpkins, as investigating officer, will recommend whether authorities should send charges to a court-martial, whether the soldiers should face administrative punishment or whether no charges should be pursued.
Cardona faces nine separate counts and a possible maximum sentence of 16 1/2 years in prison; Smith faces 14 separate counts and a possible maximum sentence of 29 1/2 years in prison.
Smith's lawyer, Capt. Jason Duncan, questioned a military interrogator, Spec. John Harold Ketzer, who acknowledged that a staff sergeant from Guantanamo had trained him on how to use dogs during questioning of detainees.
That staff sergeant, James Vincent Lucas, told Army investigators that he traveled from Cuba to Iraq from October to December 2003 as part of a six-person team to bring his "lessons learned" and to "provide guidelines" to interrogators at Abu Ghraib who were setting up their operation, according to investigative documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Lucas said in a statement that he saw no abuse but was aware that "short chaining" was used on some detainees "and clothing removal could be employed." "It would be part of the interrogation plan and approved by 'higher,' " Lucas told investigators, adding that there was a lot of nakedness at Abu Ghraib and a fair amount of brainstorming about innovative and aggressive techniques.
"Removal of clothing for interrogation purposes was a 'questionable technique' that needed approval and was allowed in [Guantanamo], but rarely occurred."
Harvey Volzer, Cardona's civilian attorney, said he plans to call at least one witness today to talk about a September 2003 visit to Abu Ghraib by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then in charge of the Guantanamo prison. "There's a direct link between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib," Volzer said.
Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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Military interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq learned about the use of military working dogs to intimidate detainees from a team of interrogators dispatched from the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court testimony yesterday.
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Chicago Developer Wants to Erect Tower With a Twist
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CHICAGO, July 26 -- Like a carefully twisted ribbon or a burnished birthday candle, the new skyscraper would soar into the Chicago skyline, surpassing the nearby Sears Tower as the nation's tallest building -- and leapfrogging a tower backed by Donald Trump as the city's snazziest.
Trump, for one, is not pleased.
Developer Christopher T. Carley will formally unveil the drawings Wednesday for a 115-story spiral designed by Spanish-born architect Santiago Calatrava. From the chiseled plaza to the top of its spire, the hotel and residence would measure 1,458 feet at its rooftop and, with its spire, reach about 2,000 feet. The 1,450-foot Sears Tower extends to just over 1,700 feet when its tallest antenna is included.
What is surely most distinctive about the prospective $500 million building is its twist, achieved by rotating each floor slightly more than 2 degrees from the one below, or 270 degrees in all.
Where some see an architectural signature in the city where Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Daniel Hudson Burham and Frank Lloyd Wright toiled, Trump said he sees the work of addled minds.
"In this climate, I would not want to build that building. Nor would I want to live in that building," Trump told the Chicago Tribune. "Any bank that would put up money to build a building like that would be insane."
Carley fired back, telling the newspaper, "I wonder where the insanity limit is. It must be just over 1,360 feet."
The figure on Carley's lips happens to be the height of a tower Trump is building along the Chicago River, the project for which he hired Bill Rancic on the first season of "The Apprentice." During the design phase, Trump opted out of the nation's-tallest-building race, saying he was deferring to buyers who feared becoming a terrorist trophy.
It remains uncertain whether Carley can put together the financing and win city approval. Carley is the founder of Fordham Co., a firm based in Chicago that has developed such residential properties as the Pinnacle and the Fordham.
The design is an eye-opener, if only he can get it built, said skyscraper aficionado Ron Klemencic.
"They certainly have something unique to market. I have been very eagerly awaiting the unveiling of the design. I wasn't disappointed," said Klemencic, chairman of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
As for the threat of terrorism, in the weeks after the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, workers at the Sears Tower worried they might be next after inheriting the title of nation's tallest. Klemencic now wonders if height was less important to the Sept. 11 hijackers than the iconic stature of the twin towers.
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Get Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland and national news. Get the latest/breaking news, featuring national security, science and courts. Read news headlines from the nation and from The Washington Post. Visit www.washingtonpost.com/nation today.
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Steele Fundraiser Draws Rove, Democratic Attacks
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Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele hosted the first major fundraiser in his as-yet-undeclared bid for U.S. Senate last night, attracting presidential adviser Karl Rove to headline a $1,000-a-person cocktail party in Washington.
The private affair was an attempt to introduce Steele to the ranks of national GOP donors who might not have encountered a man whose candidacy has become a top priority of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the arm of the party that recruits candidates.
Steele said he was "very excited" to have captured the interest and backing of such national Republican luminaries as Rove. So too, it seemed yesterday, were his opponents.
Democrats dispatched about 35 protesters to the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill to heckle Steele. They blasted him for appearing with Rove, who has emerged as a central figure in the probe into the disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
"No one who would use Karl Rove for a fundraiser is fit to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate," said Tom Hucker, executive director of the advocacy group Progressive Maryland.
Democratic leaders said the event was evidence that Steele's run -- if it happens -- will be fueled not by a fire in the belly, or by a groundswell from the grass roots, but by the inside-the-Beltway GOP elite.
"There's no doubt the national Republican Party is orchestrating his campaign," U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) said yesterday. "The event with Karl Rove demonstrates that better than anything else."
During an interview earlier in the day, Steele said he would expect nothing less from Democrats interested in derailing his campaign before it even starts. "There's a lot of 'gotcha' politics going on right now, both in the state and on the national level. But you take it for what it is," he said.
He said that although news outlets have written about the national figures who are lending him support, they are not reporting on the people he encounters during public appearances, even while running routine errands.
"They focus on the big names that you read about in the papers every day," Steele said. "But I listen to mostly the folks in the neighborhood, the folks in the barbershop, at the cleaners, the folks I see when I walk to the Giant to pick up some milk."
Steele initially declined to give out any information about the Rove event, even its time and location, but yesterday evening the GOP committee shared that about 65 people attended, donating about $75,000.
Neither Steele nor Rove stopped to address the protesters -- Rove waved to a photographer as he left the 90-minute event at the wheel of a Jaguar, with former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie in the passenger seat. One guest at the event, Maryland GOP Chairman John Kane, said Rove had joked to the attendees that he'd much rather see protesters hounding the Steele event than see them in front of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s house.
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Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele hosted the first major fundraiser in his as-yet-undeclared bid for U.S. Senate last night, attracting presidential adviser Karl Rove to headline a $1,000-a-person cocktail party in Washington.
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Labor Split Centers on Failure to Organize
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Inside or outside the AFL-CIO, convincing workers that joining a union will make life better is a tough sell.
Increasingly hostile employers, a legal structure that is increasingly anti-union, globalization and fierce competition all threaten labor's organizing attempts.
"You put all that together, and it has threatened not just the survival of unions, but unions as a powerful and political force," said Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in labor issues.
One of the strongest forces keeping unions from organizing workers is employers who are willing to play hardball to keep unions out, as Wal-Mart proved when it eliminated a store department after a few of its employees voted to join a union, and closed a Canadian store in another case rather than negotiate.
And some of the problems stem from the labor movement itself, which critics say has been slow to adjust to the changing economy.
It also has been a long time since the labor movement produced any larger-than-life leaders who appeal to the popular imagination. The last labor leader with anything resembling a nationwide following was Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers, who died in 1993. And now, after this week's splintering, labor movement leaders are openly trashing one another.
"They've had a thousand excuses why they can't organize over the last 30 years. They have not put enough money into it, enough focus or muscle into it," said Patrick J. Cleary, a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers. He also said labor was having trouble organizing because there is not as great a divide between workers and management as in the past. "Where there is a polarized workplace, they have a lot more success," Cleary said.
The departure from the AFL-CIO of the Service Employees International Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters comes after a decline in union membership from 33 percent of the workforce 50 years ago when the labor federation was born, to 12.5 percent. The defecting unions, two of the movement's largest and most powerful, said they are leaving because of the federation's failure to halt the decline.
Labor's downward slide has been exacerbated by legal rulings that have gone against organized labor, and by public perception that unions are ineffective, according to several labor experts.
Last year, the National Labor Relations Board overturned three major decisions, ruling that temporary workers will no longer be able to bargain for job benefits as part of a unit with permanent employees; that graduate teaching assistants at universities are not employees and therefore cannot organize; and that employees of nonunion companies are no longer entitled to have co-workers present when they are interviewed in disciplinary investigations.
The board "is a very aggressive board that . . . interprets the law in a way that is tipped toward employers," said Kate L. Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University. "The board is clearly biased towards employers and is making decisions one after another that way."
But, Bronfenbrenner said, the tough climate for organizing goes beyond the NLRB. Employers are using the threat of plant closings to intimidate workers, she said. "Employers are emboldened under the current administration to break the law or act within the law to aggressively oppose unionization efforts through a combination of threats and intimidation."
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which is trying to unionize Wal-Mart's 1.2 million U.S. employees, has filed more than 370 unfair-labor complaints against the retailer since 1995 -- about 90 percent of the charges filed against the company, according to NLRB records.
"There are almost endless anecdotes of what has taken place on the job that has made it so difficult to join a union," Shaiken said. "It has become an abstract right that is usually and routinely violated on the ground. Certainly for most workers, fear makes their decision."
Workers poured into unions in the late 1930s after they won the right to organize under the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. In 1981, though, in a move that bolstered the willingness of companies to take on unions, President Ronald Reagan fired 12,000 unionized air-traffic controllers who were striking for higher pay. Today, just 8 percent of private-sector workers are union members.
Unions are attempting to figure out how to strengthen organizing efforts. The UFCW recently formed Wake Up Wal-Mart, a group that is holding rallies and conducting online campaigns against the company's labor practices, after the union found that attempting to organize the company store-by-store wasn't working.
The SEIU is trying to organize on a larger scale, rather than one company or one locality at a time. "You can't improve the lives of workers by just looking at one work site," said Stephen Lerner, director of SEIU's property services division, which represents, among others, janitors and building security guards. Last week, janitors throughout the country who work for cleaning services company ABM Industries Inc. decided to honor picket lines in other cities to support striking janitors who work for the company in Houston and Indianapolis. The janitors themselves adopted the decision to honor the picket line at the SEIU's convention almost two years ago.
But despite new efforts, traditional organizing drives are being met with more resistance than ever.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which has supported the current leadership of the AFL-CIO, is trying to organize about 9,000 employees of Resurrection Healthcare Corp., based in Illinois. Activist workers "are fired on trumped-up charges to send a signal that chills the organizing activity and chills people's willingness to step forward," said Jim Schmitz, AFSCME's director of organizing.
Wal-Mart has a handbook called the "Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free." Marked confidential, the books include a phone number for managers to call if they believe workers are talking about organizing. The handbook includes questions and answers such as, "Can we terminate a salt [union activist] who works in our facility?" The answer is no, not based on their activism alone, followed by another question. "If we hire an applicant who is unproductive and also happens to be a salt [a union activist], can we terminate him/her?" The answer: "Yes, as long as the reason for termination is based on job performance and not his/her union affiliation. Be sure you have documentation to support the termination."
When a store is under threat of a movement to unionize, Wal-Mart also sometimes flies in executives on a corporate jet to stunt the effort. So far, it has worked. Not one of Wal-Mart's 3,500 U.S. stores is unionized.
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Inside or outside the AFL-CIO, convincing workers that joining a union will make life better is a tough sell.
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Xybernaut Files For Bankruptcy Protection
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Xybernaut Corp., the troubled Fairfax company that makes wearable computers, has filed for bankruptcy protection.
The company has hired a team of investment bankers and reorganization specialists, and its executives say they will consider selling off Xybernaut's assets in parts or as a whole.
The company, which filed for Chapter 11 protection with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Virginia late Monday night, has assets worth $40 million and debt totaling $3.2 million, according to the filing.
Bad news has been pouring out of the 15-year-old Fairfax company since April, when Edward G. and Steven A. Newman, the brothers who served as chief executive and president, respectively, were forced to resign. An audit committee investigation determined that the brothers had improperly used company funds, hired family members despite an anti-nepotism policy and interfered with the investigation.
A lawyer for Steven Newman declined to comment. Calls to lawyers representing Edward Newman were not returned yesterday.
Xybernaut has since become the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation as well as a U.S. attorney's investigation. Its staff was cut in half in April, and its stock was delisted from the Nasdaq stock market in May. Seven members of the company's board of directors resigned.
Perry L. Nolen, who was named chief executive in April, said the company's finances were in disarray when he took the top spot.
"I tried to dig up a business plan, but there was no business plan. There was no cohesive strategy, no direction for the company," he said. "They had never made a profit in 33 quarters -- they weren't even close."
Nolen hired IP Innovations Financial Services Inc., a Charlotte investment bank, and Alfred Fasola, a reorganization specialist, to help devise a plan for the company. The group determined that bankruptcy protection was the only option for Xybernaut, Nolen said.
But the 45-person firm hit another roadblock this month when it was rejected for "debtor-in-possession" financing, which is often used to provide capital to companies operating in bankruptcy. The company filed for Chapter 11 without such financing.
"As a general rule, when a company is unable to get [debtor-in-possession] financing, that's a sign that the future may be bleak," said Harlan Platt, a professor of finance at Northeastern University who specializes in bankruptcy. He added that investors are unlikely to recoup big returns from Xybernaut stock, even if the assets are liquidated, because the intellectual property assets of technology companies can be difficult to sell at a high price.
"Generally speaking, in bankruptcy, shareholders make out pretty poorly, and in high tech, they make out even worse," Platt said.
Nolen said the company's major asset is its portfolio of 166 global patents and an additional 600 that are waiting for approval. A 20-person subsidiary that provides technology services could also be broken off and sold, he said.
"I'm considering anything that makes sense and that is valuable for the shareholder," Nolen said.
Shares of Xybernaut, which now trade on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board, closed at 9 cents yesterday, down 3 cents.
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Troubled Fairfax company that makes wearable computers considers selling off its $40M in assets in parts or as a whole.
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XM, Samsung and Napster Form Download Alliance
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XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. said yesterday that they will introduce a satellite radio receiver and digital music player that will let XM subscribers buy and download songs through an exclusive arrangement with online music store Napster.
The new device, which could go on sale this fall, is XM's first attempt to integrate its subscription radio service with the fast-growing market for portable MP3 players.
"Napster is excited to work with XM to create a cutting-edge product that merges the best of online and satellite music into one great, integrated experience," said Chris Gorog, Napster's chief executive, in a press release. The new service, called "XM+Napster," will be "nirvana for passionate music fans," Gorog said.
The deals with Samsung and Napster are part of a larger strategy to "enhance the ability to listen to XM in different environments," XM chief executive Hugh Panero said in an interview.
XM's more than 4.4 million subscribers pay $12.95 a month to receive more than 150 channels of news, entertainment, sports and music. XM also works with electronics manufacturers to develop receivers for automobiles and home stereo systems. Last year, Delphi Corp. introduced the first personal satellite radio receiver called the Delphi MyFi. The device XM is developing with Samsung will allow consumers to listen to live XM content when the device is plugged in to an XM-ready car stereo or to a home antenna. Consumers can mark songs they hear for purchase. When they return it to a docking station connected to a computer, the device will download the music from the XM+Napster service. Consumers also will be able to record live XM content, but they will not be able to transfer those songs to other devices or burn them onto compact discs. Currently, consumers can buy satellite radio receivers that also play content in the MP3 format, but don't offer the ability to download. Or they can buy satellite radio receivers that can record what they hear on XM but that can't be transferred to another device.
XM officials said they do not yet have detailed pricing for the device or for music purchased through the XM+Napster service.
Sean P. Butson, an analyst with Legg Mason Inc., called XM's deal with Samsung "groundbreaking," in a research note he published yesterday. Citing the fact that Samsung is also a leading manufacturer of cell phones, Butson said the deal "looks like an important first step towards a mobile phone/satellite radio."
When asked if XM and Samsung are working toward mobile phones with satellite radio receivers, Panero said, "We're looking forward to having the relationship evolve into other devices."
Financial terms of the agreement with Samsung and with Napster were not disclosed.
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XM and Samsung said yesterday that they will introduce a satellite radio receiver and digital music player that will let XM subscribers buy and download songs through an exclusive arrangement with Napster.
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Clinton Angers Left With Call for Unity
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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's call for an ideological cease-fire in the Democratic Party drew an angry reaction yesterday from liberal bloggers and others on the left, who accused her of siding with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in a long-running dispute over the future of the party.
Long a revered figure by many in the party's liberal wing, Clinton (D-N.Y.) unexpectedly found herself under attack after calling Monday for a cease-fire among the party's quarreling factions and for agreeing to assume the leadership of a DLC-sponsored initiative aimed at developing a more positive policy agenda for the party.
The reaction highlighted the dilemma Democratic politicians face trying to satisfy energized activists on the left -- many of whom are hungering for party leaders to advance a more full-throated agenda and more aggressively confront President Bush -- while also cultivating the moderate Democrats and independents whose support is crucial to winning elections. The challenge has become more acute because of the power and importance grass-roots activists, symbolized by groups such as MoveOn.org and liberal bloggers, have assumed since the 2004 election.
The most pointed critique of Clinton came in one of the most influential blogs on the left, Daily Kos out of Berkeley, Calif., which called Clinton's speech "truly disappointing" and said she should not provide cover for an organization that often has instigated conflict within the party.
"If she wanted to give a speech to a centrist organization truly interested in bringing the various factions of the party together, she could've worked with NDN," the blog said in a reference to the New Democrat Network, with which Daily Kos's Markos Moulitsas is associated. "Instead, she plans on working with the DLC to come up with some common party message yadda yadda yadda. Well, that effort is dead on arrival. The DLC is not a credible vehicle for such an effort. Period."
Other blogs noted that the day Clinton was calling for a truce, one DLC-sponsored blog was writing disparagingly of liberals. Marshall Wittman wrote from the DLC meeting in Columbus, "While someone from the daily kosy (misspelling intended) confines of Beserkely might utter ominous McCarthyite warnings about the 'enemy within,' here in Columbus constructive committed crusaders for progressivism are discussing ways to win back the hearts of the heartland."
Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, said Clinton had badly miscalculated the current politics inside the Democratic Party and argued that she could pay a price for her DLC association if she runs for president in 2008.
"There has been an activist resurgence in the Democratic Party in recent years, and Hillary risks ensuring that there's a candidate to her left appealing to those activists who don't much like the DLC," he said.
Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson tried to deflect the criticism. "Her point was simply to say that the goals and issues that divide us are less consequential than are the ones we share in common, and that unity is needed in the face of our shared challenge," Wolfson said.
John D. Podesta, who was White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said he interpreted Clinton's remarks as critical of those on both sides -- centrists as much as liberals -- who would devote more energy to internal party battles than to confronting the right . But he said Clinton may have underestimated the bad feelings within the party. "I think she was trying to push the DLC back a little bit, but she walked into a crossfire maybe she should have realized was out there," he said.
Meanwhile, Jesse L. Jackson reopened his decades-old battle with the DLC by accusing the group of fronting for corporate interests while ignoring labor and civil rights leaders. "The DLC embraces CAFTA and sells admission to its conference to corporate lobbyists," he said in a speech to the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago.
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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's call for an ideological cease-fire in the Democratic Party drew an angry reaction yesterday from liberal bloggers and others on the left, who accused her of siding with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in a long-running dispute over the future of the...
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Republicans See Opportunity in Labor Rift
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CHICAGO, July 26 -- The political consequences of the split within the AFL-CIO began to reverberate nationwide Tuesday, with Democrats fretting that it will dilute the importance of labor endorsements while Republicans looked for opportunities to make inroads.
Civil rights leader and two-time Democratic presidential candidate Jesse L. Jackson pleaded with the warring forces to end their fight. "We must turn to each other, not on each other," Jackson told 800 delegates to the AFL-CIO convention here. He warned against leaving "so much blood on the field that you cannot compete" against "anti-civil-rights, anti-labor-rights Republicans."
Democratic strategists and union operatives noted that the split will change the dynamics of presidential and state elections. Presidential candidates will now seek endorsements from two separate and competing labor groups, the AFL-CIO and the newly formed Change to Win Coalition, they noted.
"It's going to be like figuring out who to stay friends with after a divorce," one Democratic presidential operative said. In addition, he and others noted, there will be strong incentives for the two wings of labor to pick different candidates as each tries to outdo the other.
Republican operatives are watching the splintering of the AFL-CIO carefully to see if the divisions offer opportunities to gain a beachhead in labor. "This cuts the legs out from one of their main GOTV [get-out-the-vote] groups," a Republican Party official said with undisguised pleasure.
One of the unions leaving the federation, the 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union, broke ranks last year to give the Republican Governors Association $575,000, the RGA's single largest contribution. The other defecting union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters with 1.4 million members, has a long history of supporting Republican presidential candidates.
While the GOP is eagerly watching the internal labor battles, conservative groups are announcing plans to step in to try to further weaken the union movement. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced plans to raise $2 million for "free legal assistance" to workers seeking to end their union membership and to stop paying dues.
Details of the damage inflicted on the AFL-CIO by the pullout of Andrew L. Stern's SEIU and James P. Hoffa's Teamsters, with a combined 3.2 million members and $18 million in federation dues, were fleshed out at an occasionally testy briefing at midday Tuesday.
AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman said the federation will now be barred by law from mobilizing Teamster and SEIU members for elections and for lobbying to pass legislation.
In addition, the bitterness that has already begun to surface in the wake of the Teamster-SEIU defection is, according to many on both sides of the fight, almost sure to escalate into open warfare when such unions as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and SEIU compete to organize such prime union targets as home health-care workers without the AFL-CIO as a referee.
"It's not going to be pleasant to watch," said Gerald W. McEntee, president of AFSCME, noting that such battles will divert cash, energy and resources away from politics.
The 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law severely limits the amount unions can give to national political parties and federal candidates. Organized labor does, however, remain a key source of cash and manpower at the state and local level, especially in areas where contribution limits are high or absent altogether.
In 2004, labor remained a major financial player at the federal level by providing millions of dollars to the pro-Democratic but technically independent "527" organizations that sprang up to circumvent the McCain-Feingold law.
At the press briefing, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard L. Trumpka said the federation, which has a $120 million budget, is considering a dues increase to defray the losses in state federations and local central labor councils. These organizations play key roles in elections of all kinds, and they apply pressure on politicians when individual unions are seeking to organize local workers or to ensure that contractors pay union-level wages.
The Teamsters and the SEIU may soon be followed by the United Food and Commercial Workers and Unite Here, the union of hotel, restaurant and garment workers, which together have about 1.6 million members and pay more than $10 million in dues to the AFL-CIO.
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The political consequences of the split within the AFL-CIO began to reverberate nationwide Tuesday, with Democrats fretting that it will dilute the importance of labor endorsements while Republicans looked for opportunities to make inroads.
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Negotiators Agree on Tax Breaks in Energy Bill
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House and Senate negotiators raced yesterday to complete work on $14.5 billion in tax breaks, the final element of a major energy bill Congress wants to send to President Bush this week.
Negotiations took place behind closed doors, with lawmakers divvying up tax breaks to encourage domestic production of oil and natural gas, development of cleaner-burning sources of electricity, and conservation measures, among other things.
Members of the conference committee agreed to the non-tax provisions of the bill late Monday night and early yesterday as leaders took pains to jettison provisions that might prompt a Senate filibuster similar to one that killed an energy bill two years ago.
Negotiators omitted a provision that would have granted manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE protection from product-defect lawsuits -- a measure that was unpopular in the Senate.
They also dropped Senate provisions requiring that more electricity be produced from renewable sources and calling on the president to cut oil consumption by 1 million barrels a day by 2015.
After years of failed attempts to approve an energy bill -- a top priority of the Bush administration -- lawmakers said they expect final votes in the House and Senate this week.
The bill seeks to encourage more domestic energy production, improve the reliability of the electrical grid, spark development of nuclear power plants and cleaner-burning coal facilities, and encourage more imports of liquefied natural gas. But the legislation includes scores of other measures as diverse as extending daylight saving time, requiring an inventory of offshore U.S. oil and natural gas reserves, and government-funded research to help the oil industry drill in deep water.
"This is a darned good bill, and this is going to help this country," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), chairman of the conference committee. "The sooner we get it implemented, the better."
Some Democrats and environmentalists said the bill would shower subsidies on the energy industry, including many companies that have reaped record profits because of high oil prices.
"This is a huge giveaway for the oil and gas industry," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). "The bill just tips the American consumer and taxpayer upside down and shakes money out of their pockets. The bill is an historic failure."
Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman and other administration officials urged rapid passage of the legislation.
Lawmakers said leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee were working through differences between the House and Senate tax breaks. People familiar with the discussions said that negotiators were planning ways to generate $3 billion in revenue to partially offset the $14.5 billion in tax breaks. They said the cost of the package is expected to be $11.5 billion over 10 years -- more than the $6.7 billion favored by the Bush administration.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), a member of the Finance Committee and the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the tax package includes less than he wanted for efficiency and conservation
The negotiators agreed Monday night to a provision that calls for seismic work to be done on federal offshore lands to determine how much untapped oil and natural gas exist. Opponents saw it as a first step toward drilling in off-limits areas.
Although that measure upset Florida lawmakers and others, several said they would not seek to derail the bill. "It will pass," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). "But it won't pass with my vote."
The measure approved by conferees calls for a significant increase in the amount of ethanol and other agriculture-derived fuels. Supporters said the requirement would help decrease reliance on foreign oil, but opponents said it would raise gasoline prices in some parts of the country.
The conference agreement includes a measure designed to improve reliability of the electrical grid by creating mandatory rules for utilities. It would also give the federal government more authority to approve power-line siting.
The measure gives the federal government ultimate authority over approving new terminals that can receive imports of liquefied natural gas. Opponents said the provision could force terminals on communities that do not want them.
The bill also includes $500 million over 10 years for research into recovering oil and natural gas from ultra-deep water and from unconventional drilling.
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House and Senate negotiators raced yesterday to complete work on $14.5 billion in tax breaks, the final element of a major energy bill Congress wants to send to President Bush this week.
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Special Summit Set On Charter for Iraq
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BAGHDAD, July 26 -- Drafters of a new constitution have summoned leaders of Iraqi religious, ethnic and political blocs to an emergency national summit this week in an attempt to hash out the toughest, deadlocking issues in reshaping the country, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Tuesday.
U.S. officials in Washington said the gathering will take place Thursday and Friday, if enough leaders -- particularly members of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority -- agree.
Humam Hamoudi, chairman of the constitution-writing committee, has called for the forum, and U.S. officials said the aim is to bring in leaders from outside the committee, particularly Sunni Arabs. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Sunni Arab delegates returned to the committee meetings Tuesday after a week-long boycott. But it remained clear that the major divisive issue was federalism, which Sunni participants charge would break up the country.
In ongoing insurgent violence, meanwhile, attackers hurled grenades and fired automatic weapons at a bus carrying workers near Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, killing 18 of the laborers, police said.
The U.S. military said Tuesday that four U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday night when their vehicle ran over a roadside bomb in the southwest of the city. Jim Driscoll, a spokesman for the Georgia National Guard, said the victims were assigned to the 48th Infantry Brigade, the Associated Press reported. He said they were the Georgia Guard unit's first combat casualties since World War II.
Separately, a video posted on the Internet showed an Algerian diplomat who was kidnapped last week. The diplomat, wearing a blindfold, and another Algerian seized with him had been subjected to "the judgment of God" and would be killed, said an accompanying statement, attributed to an insurgent group led by Abu Musab Zarqawi.
Progress toward an Aug. 15 deadline for completing a constitutional draft is seen as essential by the interim government and its U.S. backers to demonstrate that political reform has momentum over the relentless insurgency.
A credible draft is considered equally vital to convince the Sunni Arab minority that there has been progress in a country also racked by common crime and chronic shortages. Many insurgent fighters are recruited among disaffected Sunnis.
The draft is expected to be delivered to the National Assembly shortly after the Aug. 15 deadline. A national referendum on the constitution is set for October.
The attempt to draw new participants was intended to give additional impetus to the process, officials said. "There is a notion that they can get it done by August 15, so there is a big push to have big leaders involved so there is no posturing inside the constitutional committee to make life difficult," said a senior Iraqi official familiar with the talks.
Leaders of "all groups and political parties and the groups which are represented in the National Assembly" should participate in the constitutional summit this week, said Kamran Qaradaghi, spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Talabani would likely be among the participants, Qaradaghi said.
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BAGHDAD, July 26 -- Drafters of a new constitution have summoned leaders of Iraqi religious, ethnic and political blocs to an emergency national summit this week in an attempt to hash out the toughest, deadlocking issues in reshaping the country, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Tuesday.
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Metro Bolsters Staff Training On Security
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Starting next month, Metro will give quarterly security training to more than 1,100 station managers, train operators and janitors, prompted by the bombings in London, transit officials said yesterday.
Currently, those employees undergo security training when they are hired. The subway's 469 station managers receive yearly refresher courses, and its 475 train operators must know security procedures in order to be recertified every two years.
But Steven A. Feil, Metro's chief operating officer for rail, said yesterday that the level of preparation is insufficient. "You can't have awareness training every two years if you're in Code Orange," Feil said. "It's not enough."
The decision comes after an episode on a Blue Line train last week in which transit officials allowed an unattended backpack to travel on a train through two stations before inspecting it. The incident sparked panic among riders, some of whom ran from the train, and raised questions about Metro's response to potential threats during times of elevated fear about terrorism.
Metrobus drivers get security training every two years when they are recertified, spokeswoman Candace Smith said. Since 2003, bus drivers have also been given "suicide bomber training," she said. Metro employs 2,538 bus drivers.
Metro's 204 janitors receive the least amount of formal security training. They are given information during orientation after their hiring. Feil said that must change. "Station managers, train operators, janitorial staff are all becoming part of our first response," he said.
Calls about suspicious packages have nearly quadrupled in the weeks since the London bombings. Between July 7 and 25, Metro received 131 reports about suspicious packages or people, Smith said. During the same period last year, the agency received 36 reports, she said.
Metro's investigation into last week's Blue Line incident continued yesterday, and officials said they had yet to take disciplinary action. In that case, passengers spotted an unattended backpack about 1:25 p.m. in the last car of a train at Federal Triangle Station. Some passengers fled the car and ran out of the station; others alerted the train operator.
The operator, who has been in her job for seven years, contacted Metro's central control and was ordered to inspect the backpack, Smith said. The operator walked to the last car to look at the backpack, which was on the floor in the aisle, and decided that it did not pose a threat, Smith said. She made that determination based on Metro's criteria, which includes checking for exposed wires, leaking fluid and vapors.
Satisfied that the bag was innocuous, the train operator returned to her cab and moved the train out of the station. Leaving the backpack untouched in the last car was mistake, Smith said. Two passengers who were interviewed said the operator announced that the train had been delayed at Federal Triangle because of a suspicious package and that police would "hopefully" board the train down the line.
Over the next several minutes, confusion ensued and concern grew among passengers. At Metro Center, at least one passenger got off the train and notified police officers on the platform of the backpack. Meanwhile, officials at Metro's operations control center received a report that a child had left a backpack on a train at Smithsonian Station and suspected it was the backpack on Train 401, Smith said. They directed the operator to continue down the line to the next station, McPherson Square, she said.
At McPherson Square, a rail supervisor held the train and ordered all passengers to disembark while the backpack was inspected and then removed.
"It appears the operator made an error in judgment after determining that the backpack was not suspicious," Smith said.
"Instead, she should have either taken it herself to the end of the line and returned it to lost and found, or handed it off to the station manager at Federal Triangle. She also apparently did not clearly communicate to customers on the train."
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WSSC Agrees To Pay Fines, Make Repairs
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The sewer and water agency serving Montgomery and Prince George's counties has agreed to pay a $1.1 million penalty and make $200 million worth of improvements to remedy widespread leaks of raw waste, officials announced yesterday.
The agreement is meant to settle lawsuits filed against the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice, the state of Maryland and assorted environmental groups.
These groups had complained that the commission's pipes, which serve about 1.6 million people, were allowed to deteriorate to the point that sewage could escape -- turning a system meant to quarantine waste into a hidden underground polluter.
The leaked waste "doesn't just disappear," said Rod J. Rosenstein, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, in a news conference yesterday morning. Instead, officials said, it creates a risk of disease in local rivers and worsens pollution problems downstream in the Chesapeake Bay.
The agreement was announced yesterday at the same time as a pact between regulators and Baltimore County. There, officials will have to spend more than $800 million improving the city's sewer system and pay a $750,000 penalty for not keeping pipes in better shape.
The pacts follow other agreements to improve sewage systems in the District and Baltimore -- all part of a general crackdown on aging, leaky sewage pipes. But the penalty imposed on the suburban sanitary commission was one of the stiffest anywhere, reflecting the scope of the problem in this area, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.
Sanitary commission officials said that as the system aged, it developed leaks that allowed groundwater to flow in to sewer pipes and sewer water to seep out. An even bigger problem was grease blockages -- discarded kitchen grease that congealed to cause blockages in sewer lines.
These problems caused sewage to leak out of pipes or burst out of manholes, officials said. According to a Washington Post report last year, more than 130 million gallons of raw waste -- about 26 times the volume of the Tidal Basin -- escaped the system over two years.
"This is a powerful example of the importance of maintaining sewers," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, an assistant administrator at the EPA.
Yesterday, officials from the suburban sanitary commission held their own news conference near the banks of the Anacostia River in Bladensburg, where they described plans to upgrade the system over the 12-year timetable set out in the agreement. They estimated that they would spend as much as $150 million more than the amount required in the agreement.
The promised improvements include the inspection of more than 3,000 miles of sewer pipes, many of them with the aid of closed-circuit TV cameras, plus new water-quality testing in area streams.
In addition, the commission promised to inspect "grease-abatement equipment" at 5,000 restaurants in five years.
The suburban system has started to show signs of improvement, said Robert Boone of the Anacostia Watershed Society. Two years ago, he said, it took the commission eight days to respond to a sewer pipe leaking waste into Sligo Creek. Recently, he said, the response time was within 12 hours in similar cases.
But yesterday's riverside news conference provided a sign of how much work remains. On a nearby flagpole, below the U.S. and Maryland flags, was a yellow banner that signaled that fecal coliform bacteria in the river was higher than acceptable levels.
U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he looked forward to the time when, "on a hot day like today, people can come down here in their bathing suits and not have any concern about jumping right in."
Staff writer Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.
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The sewer and water agency serving Montgomery and Prince George's counties has agreed to pay a $1.1 million penalty and make $200 million worth of improvements to remedy widespread leaks of raw waste, officials announced yesterday.
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Hokies Are Early Favorites In New ACC
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HOT SPRINGS, Va., July 25 -- Before leaving the Virginia Tech campus to attend this past weekend's ACC football preseason news conference at the Homestead resort, Hokies tight end Jeff King and defensive end Darryl Tapp took off their 2004 ACC championship rings and left them behind. When Tech Coach Frank Beamer learned what his players did, he removed his ring, as well.
"They knew we had to take those rings off and leave them at home," Beamer said Monday. "We can look at them, but we realize there's a lot of work to do. I think that says a lot about this football team."
Media members attending the two-day event also liked Beamer's team, as the Hokies were an overwhelming choice to win the Coastal Division in the new 12-team ACC. Virginia Tech received 62 of 92 first-place votes and 517 points overall, ahead of Miami (487) and Virginia (356). The Hurricanes, who received 29 first-place votes, lost to Virginia Tech, 16-10, in the final regular season game last season, a victory that gave the Hokies the ACC title in their first season in the conference.
Maryland, which slipped to 5-6 in 2004 after winning 10 games or more in each of Coach Ralph Friedgen's first three seasons at his alma mater, was picked to finish fifth in the Atlantic Division. Virginia, which finished 8-4 last season, was picked third in the Coastal Division and had one first-place vote.
Florida State, which has endured the losses of quarterback Wyatt Sexton and all-American cornerback Antonio Cromartie to illness and injury, was picked to win the Atlantic Division, receiving 65 first-place votes and 522 points. Boston College, playing in the ACC for the first time after leaving the Big East Conference, got 24 first-place votes and 458 points and was picked to finish second behind the Seminoles.
This upcoming season will be the first time the ACC has included 12 football teams in two divisions. The division winners will play in the ACC championship game at Jacksonville's Alltel Stadium on Dec. 3, with the winner receiving the league's automatic berth in the Bowl Championship Series.
"There's so much to play for now," Beamer said. "Right now, everything is different. We're going to different stadiums than we did last year. It's fresh and exciting."
Florida State won the ACC in 11 of its 13 seasons since joining the league in 1992, but finished second last season with a 6-2 league record.
"The last couple of years, we didn't get it done," Seminoles tailback Leon Washington said of Florida State's 28-11 record the past three seasons. "There's a lot of pressure on us to win this year."
The Hokies are expected to be a top-10 choice when the coaches' preseason poll is released next month. Virginia Tech, which finished 10-3 and lost to Auburn, 16-13, in the Sugar Bowl last season, returns 14 starters -- eight on offense and six on defense. Quarterback Marcus Vick, the younger brother of former Hokies all-American and Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, returns after sitting out last season because of a school-imposed suspension.
"I don't have concerns about Marcus Vick," Beamer said. "I think he's going to have a great year. He's prepared for it and he's worked hard. Trust me: This is a talented guy that can establish his own name."
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PBS Wide Angle: 'Border Jumpers'
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Along the border between an unstable and destitute Zimbabwe, and a relatively calm and prosperous Botswana, a 300-mile, eight-foot-high electric fence is being erected -- ostensibly to stop the spread of cattle disease. But the fence also blocks the human tide of illegal immigrants who are fleeing poverty and political repression in Zimbabwe. Every night, Botswana's armed soldiers try to stop the border jumpers from climbing over or cutting through the fence, in a desperate search for a better life. Last year alone, Botswana repatriated a total of 36,000 illegal immigrants back to Zimbabwe.
This story involves two dramatically different African nations - one a success story, the other virtually in economic collapse. Wide Angle observes the human drama behind the barbed wire, hearing the stories of those whose lives have become entangled in the fence: illegal immigrants threatened with repeated arrest and deportation, a cattle farmer who strongly favors the fence, and a journalist who reports daily on growing fears among Botswana's citizens that their 1.7 million people could be overrun by Zimbabwe's troubled 12 million.
Producers Peter Hutchens and Ryan Hill were online Wednesday, July 27, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the film, "Border Jumpers," which airs Tuesday, July 26, at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings).
PBS Wide Angle: Border Jumpers.
Laurel, Md.: Most African borders were drawn by colonialists without regard to the population patterns of the indigenous population.
Do the border jumpers have strong ethnic ties to the people of the neighboring area?
Peter Hutchens: That's a great observation. Some of the Zimbabwean border jumpers do indeed share a common ethnic heritage with their Botswanan neighbors. I believe that one of these groups is the Kalanga people. It's true that colonial borders were often drawn with strategic interests, rather than cultural ones.
Los Angeles, Calif.: Gentlemen, I had the opportunity to view the program last evening here in Los Angeles. It was a very interesting program and I commend you on bringing this plight of the people of Zimbabwe. My question is this: given the state of affairs in Africa with the transition of colonial powers giving control back to African people, do you think that continent will ever take advantage of the aid the Western powers are contributing and really use that to help themselves out of poverty? Or will the nations of Africa continue to fool the world that they truly are committed to helping themselves?
Peter Hutchens: I would say that overall I am hopeful about the future of Africa. It may take time for Africans and African leaders to really begin to work in the best interests of their people, but speaking with people in Botswana and with the Zimbabwean border jumpers gave Ryan and me hope about Africa's future. Many African nations are still young in terms of independence, and as the education system in Africa improves, I think that Africans will begin to take hold of their countries -- and in some instances, begin to hold their leaders accountable.
London, United Kingdom: Obviously, the answer to this problem is not for Botswana to take in Zimbabweans--it is, instead, for Zimbabwe to get rid of Mugabe and restore good governance. What are the prospects for doing so? What explains Mugabe's support when his people are dying? And how can Zimbabwe's neighbor states--Botswana, South Africa, and others--pressure Mugabe to step down? What can the U.S. or the U.N. do?
Ryan Hill: One of the border jumpers who we interviewed made the point that Zimbabweans are too tired to stage an uprising. It also seemed like the MDC has lost some of its support. Some of the Zimbabweans we spoke with told us that when Tsvangirai called for sanctions on Zimbabwe he disenfranchised a lot of the Zimbabweans who were supporting him. As far as the neighboring states, they refuse to criticize Mugabe, and it looks like now China will block the security council from censuring Mugabe.
Raleigh, N.C. Are there any NGOs currently helping the Zimbaweans?
Ryan Hill: There are several, but the lack of fuel, resources, and the government crackdown has made it difficult to work there.
Newton Falls, Ohio: How can I get a copy of the documentary?
Ryan Hill: You can contact Wide Angle directly, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/
Ottawa, Canada: In your opinion, can the Commonwealth be an effective force against Mugabe? If so, what can the Commonwealth do in order to help the people of Zimbabwe end the rule of this tyrant?
Peter Hutchens: The best thing the Commonwealth can do is to continue to call upon African nations, especially South Africa, to end their policy of "silent diplomacy" towards Zimbabwe. Unless Zimbabwe's neighbors speak out against the injustices in Zimbabwe, Mugabe will continue to take comfort in having silent "allies" on all sides.
Silver Spring, Md.: Hello producers of the show ...I happened to watch the program you aired last night on WETA. It was really a good one. However I, as an African immigrant here in the U.S., have a major thing to comment on. I know it is impossible to present a show that would satisfy all viewers. However, unless major issues pertinent to the matter at hand are discussed and emphasized your show would be one side show/or a one man show.
You have covered most of the problems with your guest, Prof. George from American University. But you failed to raise the issue of "GOOD GOVERNANCE" in relation to the U.S. and British appointed African leaders that are in power for years. To mention a few (Ugandan president Musevine, Ethiopian leader Zenawie, ..) these and other leaders are put and supported by U.S. and British governments. They are called African new democratic leaders ..! I don't know why every body shies away from this issue. The greatest problem in Africa is not poverty or lack of resource or disease; it is the leaders-leaders that are put by western governments, namely the U.S. and U.K., period!
You tell Africans that they have bad leaders and on the side you deal with these leaders, calling them democrats. This is the major problem. Look at the above African leaders I mentioned; they have been in power for the last 15 years. What kind of democratic leader stays in power for so long? How would we like to have Bush for 15 years or Clinton for 15 years? This is all hypocrisy. The western world has no earnest will for third world to get out of its problem. And this is a well founded statement if you are honestly willing to examine what they are actually doing.
There is one other thing that bothers me most too. Now, your show is directed towards understanding the world better- after September 11. You see, it took September 11 incident for even you people to launch such interest . And our biggest concern these days in the "civilized" world is that how can we fight terrorism- or eliminate terrorism ideology. I am afraid in the pattern we are handling the rest of the world I don't think that is possible. It is not a mystery that the western world is trying to change the rest of the world's ideology, values, etc. As long as people are forcefully given appointed leaders, their culture, values are degraded and disrespected they tend to seek every outlet possible to fight back..
I hope you will entertain these issues by probably presenting another concerned officials. Thanks.
Ryan Hill: Thanks for your remarks. As an African immigrant living in the U.S., you obviously have first hand experience with these issues. As far as the point you raise about the other African leaders, Musevine and Zenawie, I don't know their story or why they have stayed in power for so long. Our show was mainly dealing with Zimbabwe and Botswana and it is widely accepted that Mugabe has rigged elections, and he has vowed to stay in power until his death.
Arlington, Tex.: What explains Botswana's success? Did they just get lucky with good rulers or are there more solid foundations like civil or social institutions that promote stability or progress in the country?
Ryan Hill: Botswana has several things going for it. First, the government prides itself on the lack of corruption. Second, the guest on our show, George Ayattey raised an excellent point about how Botswana has taken tribal systems that were in place, and incorporated them into the modern-day democracy. Those factors in addition to the wealth from diamonds have all contributed to Botswana's success.
Los Angeles, Calif.: The interview with Bill Moyers talking to the author or "Africa Unchained" was very insightful. The author was well versed in African history and culture. I was very impressed by his knowledge. Can you discuss in brief you opinion about this author and his interview by Mr. Moyer?
Ryan Hill: Thanks for your comments. As the producers of the show, we thought Bill Moyers did an excellent job interviewing George Ayattey and that his responses were insightful and a great complement to the show.
Peter Hutchens: Our goal in making this film was to spark dialogue about the Zimbabwean situation, and the interview with George Ayattey accomplished just that. Whether one agrees with all of his arguments or not, it is hard to argue that the African people and the international community need to hold African leaders to a higher standard.
Boulder, Colo.: Having just returned from an area in South Africa that borders Zimbabwe, this is all so fresh in my heart. The program is really an eye-opener for those Americans who are not aware of these happenings. If the folks from Zimbabwe that cross the border do get employment in Botswana, how do they get money and things back to their families? In South Africa it seemed very difficult.
Peter Hutchens: It is difficult for the Zimbabwean border jumpers to bring money, food, and clothes back into their country. Many border jumpers cross through the electric fence, others find ways to go through legal checkpoints, and still others send money with Zimbabweans who have made a business out of transporting money back and forth across the border. The problem is that if Zimbabweans are caught and deported in Botswana, they must return home empty-handed.
Alabama: Great film on a tragic situation. Do you know what has happened to Mary or Solomon?
Ryan Hill: Three weeks ago I was in Botswana for some additional shooting on the film, and the day before I left got a call from Mary. She now has a work permit and is working in the home of a Botswanan- which at first seemed like good news, but she's working long hours seven days a week and told me she can't go on. She's not sure what the next step is, but I'm hoping she can find a job where her employers will treat her better. As far as Solomon, when we said goodbye to him after filming we knew we'd never see him again. One of the most difficult parts about making documentaries.
Silver Spring, Md.: Congratulations on a fantastic documentary! We were wondering what kind of challenges you had to overcome in the field while filming? Any funny stories?
Ryan Hill: Thanks for your comments. "Border Jumpers" was a challenging story to shoot because it's such a sensitive issue in Botswana. The government has been burned by journalists who don't care about telling a balanced story, rather- they see the fence, the army patrols, and the deportations, and write a sensational story about the xenophobia. Once we gained a filming permit, the shooting was both fun and challenging, but it was most rewarding to spend time with our characters, namely Solomon and Mary. For more information about the production you can check http://borderjumpers.net/
Albany, N.Y. : Your movie showed the reality of Zimbabwean life. I wish there were more programs that show what Zimbabweans are experiencing. One would think that the leaders of Botswana and South Africa would put pressure on the Zimbabwean government to help bring about change, instead they continue to handle the Zimbabwean government with kids gloves. They never blame the Zimbabwean president when it matters, when they are in International conferences, e.g the G-8. Mbeki never says a word against Mugabe. I think Botswana and South Africa need to bear the burden of not speaking up to pressure Mugabe to step down. But as you showed in your movie its the little man who bears the brunt of bad governance. Do you make other movies on the region?
Ryan Hill: We haven't yet, but it's a fascinating part of the world and we would both like to do more work there. Thanks for your comments.
Garden City, N.Y.: My family and I lived in Zimbabwe during what were maybe the 'golden years', from 1992-97, when there was so much progress, so much hope, and a growing confidence in the development of good relations between the races. We look with horror and immense sadness at what Mugabe is doing to his people, and feel so helpless. In your talks with the people you met, did you get any sense of what the outside world could do to help, anything?
Ryan Hill: Thanks for your comments. The first time I went to Zimbabwe was in 1998 and I saw what you were talking about. We left with the impression that the biggest thing the outside world could do would be to pressure SADC to put pressure on Mugabe.
Cincinnati, Ohio: I saw the program last night, and thought it was well done. One question that was left lingering in my mind - do you think that, in airing this film, you will inadvertently have endangered any of the Border Jumpers you interviewed?
Peter Hutchens: Coming from a country where journalists can be jailed for up to a year for speaking out against the government, many Zimbabweans were reluctant to be filmed. Others, like Mary and Solomon, welcomed the opportunity to tell their story -- a story that has been lost to the outside world.
Ryan Hill: This was a concern of ours while filming, which is why we changed the names of characters. The outspoken border jumpers at the Center for Illegal Immigrants are currently seeking asylum and have no intention of returning to Zimbabwe while Mugabe is in power.
New York, N.Y.: What is the racial and ethnic composition of the Botswana owning class that employs Zimbabwean workers?
Peter Hutchens: We found that the majority of Botswanans who employ Zimbabwean workers were black Africans. Botswana is quite a racially diverse country, though, and there are also many whites, Indians, Chinese, and other groups represented.
Denver, Colo.: I watched Border Jumpers last night and was very moved by it. Thank you for telling the story. I am a Zimbabwean now living in the U.S. and would like to find out how I can buy a copy of this documentary.
Ryan Hill: You can contact Wide Angle athttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/
Maryland: Who should be in charge of policing Africa in the event of another Rwanda? Can Africans do it themselves yet? It seems that there is always a genocide in Africa.
Peter Hutchens: Recent flashpoints like Sudan and Zimbabwe have given the African Union an opportunity to step up and take responsibility over the affairs of the continent. However, the fact that the African Union continues to ignore the problems in Zimbabwe suggests that the Africa still has a long way to go.
Ryan Hill: Thanks so much for watching WIDE ANGLE and for your interest in the plight of the Zimbabwean border jumpers.
Peter Hutchens: Thanks for watching the show, and for asking such great questions. I hope this dialogue is just one of many to come about the future of Zimbabwe and African leadership.
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.
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Co-Producers Peter Hutchens and Ryan Hill discuss the PBS film 'Border Jumpers.'
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Bad Practices Net Hospitals More Money
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As far back as 1999, federal and state regulators began to receive complaints that the heart surgery unit at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center in Florida was a breeding ground for germs.
Dust and dirt covered some surgical equipment. Trash cans and soiled linens were stored in hallways. IV pumps were spattered with dried blood. One patient's wife said she saw a medical assistant tear surgical tape with his teeth.
State inspectors in 2002 found "massive post operative infections" in the heart unit, requiring patients to undergo more surgery and lengthy hospital stays.
In a four-year period, 106 heart patients at Palm Beach Gardens developed infections after surgery, according to lawsuits and government records. More than two dozen were readmitted with fevers, pneumonia and serious blood infections. The lawsuits included 16 patients who died.
How did Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly, respond?
It paid Palm Beach Gardens more.
Under Medicare's rules, each time a patient comes back for another treatment, a hospital qualifies for an additional payment. In effect, Palm Beach Gardens was paid a bonus for its mistakes.
Medicare's handling of Palm Beach Gardens is an extreme example of a pervasive problem that costs the federal insurance program billions of dollars a year while rewarding doctors, hospitals and health plans for bad medicine. In Medicare's upside-down reimbursement system, hospitals and doctors who order unnecessary tests, provide poor care or even injure patients often receive higher payments than those who provide efficient, high-quality medicine.
"It's the exact opposite of what you would expect," said Mary Brainerd, chief executive officer of HealthPartners, a nonprofit health plan based in Bloomington, Minn. Her Medicare HMO ranked among the top 10 in the nation last year for quality but was paid thousands of dollars less per patient by Medicare than lower-performing plans.
"The way Medicare is set up," Brainerd said, "it actually punishes you for being good."
As Medicare approaches its 40th anniversary on Saturday, much of the debate about the nation's largest health insurance program revolves around whether it will remain solvent for aging baby boomers. Yet another critical question is often overlooked: whether taxpayers and patients get their money's worth from the $300 billion Medicare spends each year -- now about 15 percent of federal spending and projected to grow to nearly a quarter of the budget in a decade.
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In Medicare's upside-down reimbursement system, hospitals and doctors who order unnecessary tests, provide poor care or even injure patients often receive higher payments than those who provide efficient, high-quality medicine.
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When Geography Influences Treatment Options
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FORT MYERS, Fla. -- In the past decade, the rate of back surgery among Medicare patients has increased by more than half, driven by factors including new technology to fuse damaged vertebrae, more advanced imaging to diagnose injury, generous federal reimbursements and greater demand.
Yet even as the numbers swell, there is no clear-cut science for treating back pain. Some doctors favor surgery, while others recommend exercise, rehabilitation and other conservative approaches.
The result is a jigsaw pattern of medical care in which the patient's chance of having surgery often is decided by where he or she happens to live.
In Fort Myers, Medicare patients are twice as likely to have back surgery as those in Miami.
Had Fort Myers's surgeons operated at the more conservative Miami rate, there would have been 4,800 fewer back surgeries from 1992 to 2001 and Medicare would have saved millions of dollars, according to an estimate by James N. Weinstein, chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Dartmouth Medical School. Weinstein has tracked variations in the number of spine surgeries in South Florida for a decade.
Medicare patients in Fort Myers underwent spine surgery at a rate of 6.9 per 1,000 in 2001 -- the latest year for which figures were available. In Miami, the rate was 3.2. Nationally, it was 4.5.
Back surgery is a growing cost to Medicare. In 2003, the government paid about $1.6 billion to hospitals for more than 167,353 spine procedures, not including doctors' fees. The average charge per surgery was $40,000.
Dartmouth researchers estimate that as much as one in three dollars spent by Medicare goes to unnecessary care. In that sense, variations in back surgery in South Florida provide a glimpse of Medicare's inefficiencies.
"It's highly improbable that Medicare retirees living in Fort Myers prefer back surgery two times as often as residents of Miami," Weinstein said. "So if it's not the patients, what is it?"
Weinstein points to what he calls the "surgical signature" of doctors -- idiosyncratic patterns in the likelihood of a doctor choosing to operate. The greater the scientific uncertainty in treatment options, Weinstein said, the more variations appear.
Less clear is the role of hospitals. For hospitals that offer spine surgery, the financial rewards can be substantial. In 2001, spine surgery accounted for more than half of all profits from orthopedic procedures in hospitals but only 21 percent of the volume, according to a study done for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
"It can be very profitable, especially at centers with big volumes," said James H. Herndon, past president of the group and a Harvard Medical School professor. One new, aggressive surgeon can increase the rates in a community "if he comes into an area where surgeons are conservative," Herndon said.
In Fort Myers last year, surgeons at the three hospitals that are part of the Lee Memorial Health System performed 447 spine procedures on Medicare patients, generating nearly $2.8 million, according to data provided by the system. Medicare reimbursements to the three hospitals for spine operations have grown by nearly 50 percent in the past five years.
Chuck Krivenko, the system's chief medical officer, said he is hard-pressed to explain the high rates of back surgery. At first, he suggested it must be because of the annual winter influx of elderly visitors. But the Dartmouth researchers account for seasonal visitors by counting their surgeries as though they occurred at their place of year-round residence.
"I can't explain it," Krivenko said. The neurosurgeons who perform spine surgeries at Lee Memorial "are not what I'd call aggressive neurosurgeons. We have a very good group of what I consider conservative neurosurgeons . . . and we have some of the best outcomes," he said.
Nevertheless, Krivenko said, because treatment for back pain remains discretionary, many doctors are going to opt for surgery. "If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail," he said.
Not necessarily, Weinstein contends. At his hospital, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, patients with back pain are given educational materials and allowed to choose. They often opt not to have surgery.
"What we have found," Weinstein said, "is that patients tend to make good decisions when presented with good information."
Medicare data appear to back up Weinstein. In 2001, the rate of back surgery among Medicare patients in his area was 2.3 per 1,000, among the lowest in the nation.
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FORT MYERS, Fla. -- In the past decade, the rate of back surgery among Medicare patients has increased by more than half, driven by factors including new technology to fuse damaged vertebrae, more advanced imaging to diagnose injury, generous federal reimbursements and greater demand.
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Surpluses and Luck
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LIKE SOME OTHER immodest governors nationwide who are benefiting from a surge in state tax collections, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) is claiming credit for Maryland's revenue windfall, suggesting it is the product of his administration's shrewd fiscal stewardship. Maryland's $1 billion surplus for the fiscal year that ended June 30 reflects "some real talent running state government" and creating jobs, the governor said on Baltimore's WBAL radio.
In fact, the surplus reflects nothing of the kind; it is simply in line with national trends. Forty-two states collected revenue that exceeded their original budget projections for fiscal 2005, often by wide margins, according to a report by the National Governors Association. The stronger-than-expected collections nationwide stem from a spike in corporate profits, a heated housing market and rising sales and personal income, especially from capital gains. Certainly, Mr. Ehrlich has been lucky on the budget, thanks to a strong economy; it remains to be seen whether he will be shrewd.
The early signs are not encouraging. The governor's first reaction to news of Maryland's surplus was to make a vague commitment to cut taxes. But state officials are still projecting a $1 billion deficit by fiscal 2008, which starts in two years. Education spending, which represents more than one-third of the general fund budget, is expected to grow by 10 percent a year; Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor that accounts for around one-fifth of state spending, is expanding by 6 to 10 percent a year. Just to stay even with the anticipated increases in state spending, Maryland's revenue needs to grow by at least $900 million a year for the next three years, according to Warren G. Deschenaux, chief fiscal analyst of the state legislature's nonpartisan Office of Policy Analysis. And Mr. Ehrlich wants to cut taxes?
Contrast Mr. Ehrlich's risky approach with Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner's clear-headed response to his state's $544 million surplus for the year. Mr. Warner (D), mindful that Virginia faces major unpaid bills to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, raise education standards and meet rising Medicaid costs, is putting 80 percent of the surplus into the state's rainy-day fund. Since he's leaving office early next year, that money will be available to Mr. Warner's successor, who will need it.
Mr. Ehrlich faces a potentially tough reelection fight next year, and the prospect of a tax cut going into it may be tempting. But he knows better. Facing a swelling deficit and dire projections in 2003, his first year in office, he drove through a property tax increase that now produces $200 million a year in revenue. He has proposed and signed into law other increases in taxes and fees that amount to tens of millions of dollars more in annual revenue, in the full knowledge that Maryland will need that money, and then some, to keep abreast of skyrocketing education and health care costs. And though lately Mr. Ehrlich says that his ceaseless attempts to expand gambling in the state have nothing to do with the worrisome long-term financial outlook, he said just the opposite as a candidate for governor in 2002.
Just a few years ago, at the peak of the high-tech bubble, Maryland enjoyed a $1 billion surplus; when the bubble burst, the surplus rapidly dissolved. As with the tech bubble, no one should expect the current housing boom, which is already showing age, to last forever. When it ends, so will the current jubilation in state capitals and boasts by governors touting their fiscal "talent." Common sense and prudence suggest the current surplus should be husbanded for tighter times ahead, not squandered by Mr. Ehrlich for electoral advantage next year.
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LIKE SOME OTHER immodest governors nationwide who are benefiting from a surge in state tax collections, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) is claiming credit for Maryland's revenue windfall, suggesting it is the product of his administration's shrewd fiscal stewardship. Maryland's $1 billion surplus for...
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Man Shot Dead by British Police Was Innocent Brazilian Citizen
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LONDON, July 23 -- The man shot dead by police in front of terrified passengers inside a subway car Friday was an innocent Brazilian bystander mistaken for a suspect in the abortive bomb attacks the day before, police officials acknowledged Saturday.
The officials said the man emerged from the same South London apartment complex as a prime suspect in the failed bombings of three subway trains and a double-decker bus, and was followed by armed plainclothes officers to a nearby subway station.
They gave chase fearing the man was preparing to attack a train, police officials said. The officers pushed him to the floor of the car and shot him five times in the head at close range, according to witnesses, who gave searing accounts broadcast on television and radio. Under guidelines adopted in recent years, officers are advised to shoot suspected suicide bombers in the head to prevent them from setting off explosives.
Police identified the man as Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, a Brazilian citizen.
The mistaken shooting set off a new wave of alarm and criticism from leaders of Britain's minority Muslim community, who expressed concern that police are singling out men with certain physical characteristics or ethnic backgrounds in their pursuit of the would-be bombers, believed to be Muslims of South Asian or North African origin.
"We accept that police are under tremendous pressure to apprehend the criminals attempting to cause carnage, but we believe this incident makes it vital that the authorities explain and follow the rules of engagement to ensure innocent people are not caught up and killed due to overzealous policing," said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain.
A police statement expressed regrets for the killing and added: "For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy." Officials said the incident would receive a full investigation but declined to comment further.
In Brazil, the Foreign Ministry said it was "shocked and perplexed" by the death of Menezes, whom it did not name but described as "apparently the victim of a lamentable mistake," the Associated Press reported.
The ministry said it expected British authorities to explain the circumstances of the shooting, and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim would try to meet with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw during a visit to London.
Meanwhile, police questioned two men arrested Friday in south London under anti-terrorism laws, while investigators combed this anxious city for the four men suspected of carrying out the failed bomb attacks. The small explosions killed no one but were attempted carbon copies of the July 7 suicide bombings during morning rush hour here that killed at least 56 people -- including the four suspected bombers -- and injured 700.
The two men were held after raids late Friday in the Stockwell area, near the station where Friday's fatal shooting occurred. The site is one stop south of Oval station, which was the site of one of the failed attacks Thursday.
Bunglawala said the police force needed to convince anxious Muslims and other minority groups that it was concerned for their safety. At the same time, he said, Muslims must help the police catch the would-be bombers.
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World news headlines from the Washington Post, including international news and opinion from Africa, North/South America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Features include world weather, news in Spanish, interactive maps, daily Yomiuri and Iraq coverage.
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Few Have Felt Beat of Roberts's Political Heart
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E. Barrett Prettyman Jr. fondly recalls working with John G. Roberts Jr. at Hogan & Hartson, the blue-chip Washington law firm where Prettyman was a renowned Supreme Court advocate, and Roberts was quickly becoming one. The two lawyers ate lunch together almost every day, and Prettyman says they became close friends, even though he's a staunch liberal and Roberts is a staunch conservative.
At least he thinks Roberts is a staunch conservative.
He's always assumed Roberts is a staunch conservative.
Actually, now that he racks his brain, he's not so sure.
"You know, I must have had a thousand lunches with John, and I can't think of a single thing he's said that would specify his politics," says Prettyman, a World War II veteran who once served as an aide to Robert F. Kennedy. "We were all under the impression that he's a conservative, but he always talked generalities. He's not the type to lay it all out."
Now that President Bush has nominated Roberts to serve on the court, many Americans are under the impression he's a staunch conservative. He's got a conservative résumé and a conservative lifestyle; he was chosen by a conservative president. But his public record and personal history suggest that his conservatism may not resemble the conservatism of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, Bush's favorite justices.
Roberts is certainly conservative in some senses of the word. He's a strait-laced, buttoned-down midwesterner, a creature of the legal establishment, respectful of tradition and deferential to authority. He's a devout Roman Catholic and a loyal Republican who clerked for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, worked for then-Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr and served in the Reagan White House. He's a grammar snob; he once critiqued a Justice Department memo that sounded like "an awkward translation from Bulgarian."
But Roberts has always held his politics close to his vest. He said last week that his core values as a justice would be "modesty" and "stability." If his first 50 years on Earth were a prelude to an ideological crusade, he's done an excellent job of disguising it.
John Glover Roberts Jr. was born in Buffalo, but as a boy he moved to Long Beach, Ind., an all-white, predominantly Catholic, largely Republican town on Lake Michigan. His father, John Sr., was an electrical engineer at Bethlehem Steel's new mill in the area, and later an assistant general manager at the plant; his mother, Rosemary, was a homemaker. John and his three sisters all attended Notre Dame Catholic School, where he wore a uniform of navy pants, a white shirt and a navy tie. Every Sunday, the tight-knit family went to Mass.
"They were very sincere about their beliefs, and they practiced them," said Joan Langley, Notre Dame's church secretary. "They were absolutely toe the line and obey the rules."
By the time John was a teenager, the Roberts family had moved into a four-bedroom Tudor-style home and joined the Long Beach Country Club, where John and his parents spent many happy hours on the golf course. John had also blossomed into an intellectual prodigy. "He did not boast of his brilliance," says his eighth-grade math teacher, Dorothea Liddell. "He was just brilliant, and everyone accepted that."
In December 1968, John applied to La Lumiere, a rigorous all-boys Catholic prep school in the area, and his earnest letter to the school suggests his early drive. "I've always wanted to stay ahead of the crowd, and I feel that the competition at La Lumiere will force me to work as hard as I can," he wrote in neat cursive. "I won't be content to get a good job by getting a good education, I want to get the best job by getting the best education."
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The public record and personal history of the Bush administration's Supreme Court pick suggest he may not be quite the "staunch conservative" he is presumed to be.
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Few Have Felt Beat of Roberts's Political Heart
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E. Barrett Prettyman Jr. fondly recalls working with John G. Roberts Jr. at Hogan & Hartson, the blue-chip Washington law firm where Prettyman was a renowned Supreme Court advocate, and Roberts was quickly becoming one. The two lawyers ate lunch together almost every day, and Prettyman says they became close friends, even though he's a staunch liberal and Roberts is a staunch conservative.
At least he thinks Roberts is a staunch conservative.
He's always assumed Roberts is a staunch conservative.
Actually, now that he racks his brain, he's not so sure.
"You know, I must have had a thousand lunches with John, and I can't think of a single thing he's said that would specify his politics," says Prettyman, a World War II veteran who once served as an aide to Robert F. Kennedy. "We were all under the impression that he's a conservative, but he always talked generalities. He's not the type to lay it all out."
Now that President Bush has nominated Roberts to serve on the court, many Americans are under the impression he's a staunch conservative. He's got a conservative résumé and a conservative lifestyle; he was chosen by a conservative president. But his public record and personal history suggest that his conservatism may not resemble the conservatism of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, Bush's favorite justices.
Roberts is certainly conservative in some senses of the word. He's a strait-laced, buttoned-down midwesterner, a creature of the legal establishment, respectful of tradition and deferential to authority. He's a devout Roman Catholic and a loyal Republican who clerked for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, worked for then-Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr and served in the Reagan White House. He's a grammar snob; he once critiqued a Justice Department memo that sounded like "an awkward translation from Bulgarian."
But Roberts has always held his politics close to his vest. He said last week that his core values as a justice would be "modesty" and "stability." If his first 50 years on Earth were a prelude to an ideological crusade, he's done an excellent job of disguising it.
John Glover Roberts Jr. was born in Buffalo, but as a boy he moved to Long Beach, Ind., an all-white, predominantly Catholic, largely Republican town on Lake Michigan. His father, John Sr., was an electrical engineer at Bethlehem Steel's new mill in the area, and later an assistant general manager at the plant; his mother, Rosemary, was a homemaker. John and his three sisters all attended Notre Dame Catholic School, where he wore a uniform of navy pants, a white shirt and a navy tie. Every Sunday, the tight-knit family went to Mass.
"They were very sincere about their beliefs, and they practiced them," said Joan Langley, Notre Dame's church secretary. "They were absolutely toe the line and obey the rules."
By the time John was a teenager, the Roberts family had moved into a four-bedroom Tudor-style home and joined the Long Beach Country Club, where John and his parents spent many happy hours on the golf course. John had also blossomed into an intellectual prodigy. "He did not boast of his brilliance," says his eighth-grade math teacher, Dorothea Liddell. "He was just brilliant, and everyone accepted that."
In December 1968, John applied to La Lumiere, a rigorous all-boys Catholic prep school in the area, and his earnest letter to the school suggests his early drive. "I've always wanted to stay ahead of the crowd, and I feel that the competition at La Lumiere will force me to work as hard as I can," he wrote in neat cursive. "I won't be content to get a good job by getting a good education, I want to get the best job by getting the best education."
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The public record and personal history of the Bush administration's Supreme Court pick suggest he may not be quite the "staunch conservative" he is presumed to be.
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Nominee Excelled as an Advocate Before Court
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On a Friday in October 1990, the Justice Department got some bad news from the clerk of the Supreme Court: The justices had disqualified a young assistant solicitor general scheduled to argue a highly technical bankruptcy case the next Monday.
For a replacement, Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr tapped his 35-year-old principal deputy, John G. Roberts Jr. Roberts spent the weekend on the case, came to the court Monday morning and fielded questions from the justices for the government's allotted 10 minutes.
Then, in the afternoon, he went to the second-most-powerful court in town, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and argued another case -- a complicated financial dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency, which Roberts represented, and the water authority of Rochester, N.Y.
Roberts's side won both cases.
It is a story lawyers who practice before the Supreme Court tell with palpable awe. It illustrates why so many of them believe that Roberts is among the best in their profession -- and why they believe that his qualities would serve him well on the other side of the bench.
Although other justices in recent times have come from a career spent mostly in law practice, Roberts's nomination is the first in at least a century in which a former leader of the small, elite group of lawyers who regularly practice before the high court has been picked as a justice, according to Supreme Court historian Dennis J. Hutchinson of the University of Chicago.
To argue before the Supreme Court on only a couple of days' notice is rare. But to do so on the same day as appearing before another demanding federal appeals court is practically unheard of, lawyers say, a challenge that only the most confident and versatile of advocates would take on.
Carter G. Phillips, a leading Supreme Court lawyer, likened Roberts's performance to a race car driver's being thrown into the Indianapolis 500 in the morning, and winning, then earning a victory in a stock car race in the evening.
"The hardest part is the adrenaline," Phillips said. "You get this rush in the morning . . . and then it pours out at noon." To stand up before a second difficult tribunal while still riding this physical and mental roller coaster, he said, "would be very tough."
Although his experience as a Supreme Court lawyer has prepared Roberts to deal with the constitutional issues the court faces, it has offered relatively few opportunities to deal directly with ordinary citizens and mundane legal issues.
The vast majority -- 95 percent -- of his work has been in federal courts, not in the state courts where most U.S. legal proceedings take place, Roberts noted in a report to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his 2003 confirmation for the job he currently holds as a judge on the D.C. Circuit. Roberts added that he had worked on one jury trial in his career, and his involvement did not include appearing before the jury.
Also, the court under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is not known for a great deal of private discussion or debate about cases. Justices generally communicate with one another through short, typewritten notes. Roberts's persuasive talents may be less relevant in such a climate.
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On a Friday in October 1990, the Justice Department got some bad news from the clerk of the Supreme Court: The justices had disqualified a young assistant solicitor general scheduled to argue a highly technical bankruptcy case the next Monday.
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Armas, Nationals Ride Strong Start
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Washington Nationals pitcher Tony Armas Jr. made the slow walk off the field at RFK Stadium at the end of the seventh inning last night, soaking in the cheers from the 42,680 fans in the stands. His sterling effort -- he gave up just one hit in seven innings -- was the highlight of Washington's 4-2 win over the Houston Astros, and it was one piece of a larger picture that left the Nationals feeling good for the first time in a long while.
Armas's outing -- coupled with some timely hitting and an effective showing from the bullpen -- was exactly what the Nationals needed, particularly one night after an ugly 14-1 loss to the Astros, their worst of the season. Washington (55-43) snapped a three-game losing streak and won for just the fifth time in 17 games.
"It's hard to describe how badly we needed this, but we needed it bad," Manager Frank Robinson said.
"To play the way we did tonight -- we didn't make any mistakes, we got the big hit there in the first inning, we got great pitching and the bullpen did a great job -- that's the way we've been winning ballgames," first baseman Brad Wilkerson said. "To get back in our frame of mind is key, and tonight was hopefully an example that will get us back in that mind-set of winning baseball games."
Armas (5-4) has been especially good at home this season -- prior to last night, he was 3-0 with a 2.87 ERA in seven starts at RFK -- but his previous start, against Colorado on a hot and muggy Monday night, was eminently forgettable. He left the game after throwing two pitches in the third inning because of dizziness and dehydration.
The right-hander said that he didn't change his routine between games, except for "drinking so much water and Gatorade." The temperature at game time was 83 degrees, but Armas said that the humidity was down and that helped.
It also helped that Washington's offense came alive early. The Nationals scored four runs in the first inning -- their most productive opening inning of the season -- and that was more than enough for Armas, who said that he felt "awesome."
Only three Astros reached base in the first five innings (two walks and one hit batter), and none advanced past first. In the sixth, Armas walked Craig Biggio, and then Lance Berkman followed with a home run to right field to break up Armas's no-hitter. But that was the only blip on an otherwise outstanding performance, in which he struck out five and walked three.
"It's the pitching that sets the tone," Robinson said. "We just looked sharper tonight, more alert, and I think that was because Tony was putting the ball over the plate and getting ahead of the hitters, and making them hit the ball. The defense was on their toes."
Washington's bullpen held down the Astros in the final two innings. Closer Chad Cordero, who hadn't pitched since Tuesday, gave up two hits in the ninth, but struck out two en route to his 34th save.
Prior to last night's game, the Nationals were batting just .211 (32 for 152) with runners in scoring position in July. Robinson said before the game that he had tried everything he could think of to help Washington snap out of its funk, but that what the team really needed was for someone to get that one big hit with a runner on second or with the bases loaded. Washington got just that last night, from a most unlikely source -- 36-year old Carlos Baerga, who was filling in at third base for Vinny Castilla (knee tendinitis) -- and with a little help from the Astros (50-47).
Baerga, who entered the game with just 10 RBI in 55 games, came to the plate with the bases loaded in the first inning. He lofted a ball to center field for what appeared to be the final out of the inning, but the Astros' Willy Taveras took a couple of steps in and then realized that it was sailing over his head. The ball dropped in, Baerga wound up on second with a double, and three runs scored. Brian Schneider then followed with a single up the middle, and Baerga chugged home and slid under Houston catcher Humberto Quintero's attempted tag for the fourth run.
"That first inning was huge for us, to get off to a great start and give our pitcher a little breathing room to relax and throw a good game and not have so much pressure on him," Wilkerson said. "It's the first time we've played with a lead for a while."
The Nationals didn't seem to mind that, after the first inning, their offense reverted to its previous ways; they managed only four more hits the rest of the game and stranded four runners in scoring position.
Now the trick is to build upon last night's success. The Nationals have not won back-to-back games since July 3, and on Tuesday they begin an important road trip against division rivals Atlanta and Florida.
"Wins turn you around," Baerga said. "The biggest win is going to be tomorrow. To come back and win two games in a row, we haven't do that in a long time so we have to win two games in a row. That's the biggest game, tomorrow."
Note: Right fielder Jose Guillen ran into the tarp while chasing down a fly ball in the sixth inning and bruised his left knee. He left the game in the ninth but said that he felt "all right" and would probably be available to play today.
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The Nationals use a one-hit, seven-inning performance from Tony Armas and a four-run first inning to defeat the Houston Astros, 4-2, Saturday night.
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The Awakening
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Up Highway 96, sometimes called the State Fair Freeway, past the cliche of wheat fields, the thicket of signs proclaiming a right to life, take a left on 23rd Avenue and you will find a very plain nursing home, where something happened that wasn't supposed to happen.
Couldn't be explained by some of the smartest brains in the world.
Sarah, lying in this bed nearly 20 years, brain-damaged, blank, speechless, immobile, staring out the same window. Couldn't talk to the people who came to talk to her. Couldn't say change the channel. Couldn't say shut up. Couldn't say scratch that itch . . .
Sarah, who 20 years ago was run down by a drunk driver, the impact throwing her into the path of a second car that slammed her forehead and left her so damaged nobody understood how her body survived, let alone her mind.
Sarah. They didn't know that as she lay in that bed, with her mouth gaping, face wretched in a silent agony, body atrophying, feet gnarling, fists clenched across her chest, tight, as if she were afraid, big, blue eyes staring out like she was trapped . . . They didn't know that as she lay there, something in her brain was mending.
People came and people went. Some grew up and some grew old. Some gave up and went away, guiltily diving into their own lives as Sarah Scantlin lay in that bed. Never believing she would do anything more than lie there and stare into oblivion, or wherever it is that brain-damaged people go, hovering between now and then, nowhere and somewhere, just out of reach.
Then six months ago, Sarah came back.
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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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The Style Invitational
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Except for maybe slide rule manufacturers, there's hardly an industry whose doom is prophesied with more certainty than that of the daily newspaper. Although these predictions may be considerably overblown -- look, there are dozens of you reading this column in the print edition right now -- there's no arguing that The Post's circulation, like that of many of its counterparts, has been falling off since its peak in the mid-1980s. This week's contest was suggested, pretty much on a dare, independently by Losers Russell Beland of Springfield and Mark Eckenwiler of Washington: Suggest some original, creative ways that The Post could increase its circulation. (Note: Despite the decline, The Post still does sell more than 1 million copies of the paper every Sunday, so don't worry that no one will see your fine work. Unless, of course, the Empress deems it insufficiently interesting.) With the cartoon above, we hope to preempt 24,342 suck-up entries along this line.
Winner receives the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. First runner-up receives, courtesy of the aforementioned Dr. Beland, a genuine, highly detailed Lenox porcelain figurine of a bald eagle, its talons gripping a stars-and-stripes shield, that would be truly patriotically inspiring except that (a) the eagle possesses roughly the same facial expression as Big Bird, and (b) it is sitting on a big ball of brownish something between its legs, perhaps an ostrich egg, or a very old grapefruit.
Other runners-up win a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt. Honorable mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational magnets. One prize per entrant per week. Send your entries by e-mail to losers@washpost.com or, if you really have to, by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Aug. 1. Put "Week 620" in the subject line of your e-mail, or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone number with your entry. Entries are judged on the basis of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results will be published Aug. 21. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The revised title for next week's contest is by Tom Witte of Montgomery Village.
Report from Week 616, a contest that turned out to be well nigh impossible. But only well nigh. Okay, extremely well nigh. One Loser who shall go nameless except for "Brendan Beary (Great Mills, Md.)" submitted this entry: "The Most Excellent Royal Holiday": When the Empress of Invitania plans a vacation over the July 4 weekend, her kooky yet adoring subjects stage an impossibly nonsensical contest to make sure she's not bothered with tons of pesky e-mails." Tsk-tsk, so, so cynical. The fireworks were especially satisfying this year, particularly after that all-day pool party.
Anyway, the contest was to look at the accompanying "sketchbook page" containing five cartoons, allegedly all planned for a children's book that Style Invitational artist Bob Staake was working on. Your mission -- and indeed, not many of you chose to accept it -- was to describe in a sentence what the book was about, name the title and, if you liked, include sample text for the cartoons. A number of Losers made a truly valiant effort to unite all these cartoons that clearly have nothing to do with one another. Valor can earn you a medal but not necessarily a T-shirt.
"The Energy Crisis That Never Was": Congressman Pork Barrel and his guide dog, Big Energy, are able to secure funding to produce gas-guzzling, roll-prone SUVs by buying energy credits from dwarf Antarcticans; meanwhile, President Bush plays with his dog. (Eric Murphy, Chicago)
First runner-up, winner of the mustachioed coffee mug and 1982 World's Fair mini-mug: "Can You Pick Out the Upside-Down Picture?" Another in the best-selling Low Threshold series for underachievers. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
And the winner of the Inker:
"Stay Inside!" A book for children whose parents are just concerned, that's all.
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Except for maybe slide rule manufacturers, there's hardly an industry whose doom is prophesied with more certainty than that of the daily newspaper. Although these predictions may be considerably overblown -- look, there are dozens of you reading this column in the print edition right now --......
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Talk About Travel
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The Post's Travel Section Flight Crew will take your comments, questions, suspicions, warnings, gripes, sad tales and happy endings springing from the world of... the world. Of course, the Flight Crew will be happy to answer your travel questions. About the best thing about this forum, we insist, is that it lets travelers exchange information with other travelers who've been there, done that or otherwise have insights, ideas and information to share. Different members of the Crew will rotate through the captain's chair every week, but the one constant is you, our valued passengers.
We know you have a choice in online travel forums, and speaking for the entire Flight Crew, we want to thank you for flying with us.
You may also browse an archive of previous live travel discussions.
Cindy Loose: Welcome to Travel Chat.
Our goal is to answer as many questions as we can, with your help. During the chat, I'll tell someone who's been particularly helpful that they've won a writing desk you prop on your lap while in bed or lounging in a big comfy chair. To claim it, you have to send your name and address to loosec@washpost.com.
In addition to answering reader travel queries, we're also soliciting your feelings on traveling in the wake of terrorist bombings in London, Turkey and Egypt over the past couple weeks. If the chance for a big trip came up, would you choose to avoid these three locations? Does it make you wary about traveling anywhere else?
Joining us today from our end: your host, me, Cindy Loose, along with John Deiner, K.C. Summers, Carol Sottili, Andrea Sachs and Anne McDonough. Let's roll.
Fairfax, Va.: There is probably not a simple answer to this question, but any guidance is appreciated as we contemplate a cruise before Christmas. We have gone over the Post Travel articles and reviewed the websites and think that we have a plan, but want to make sure that this is a decent ship and destination before putting down $$$.
This is an early graduation gift for one of our daughters and we are down to two 4 night cruises leaving on December 19th. One is on Carnival Fascination to Key West and Cozumel and the other is on the RCCL Majesty of the Seas to Nassau and Key West. The Fascination gets good reviews for teenagers, but Royal Caribbean sees pretty decent, too. Is one destination better than the other that time of year?
We can get a 'superior' oceanview cabin for $525-540 per person which should keep the entire trip with shore excursions within our $3500 budget.
Cindy Loose: If all else were equal, and assuming you and the kids like to swim, I'd choose Key West and Cozumel as destinations. Nassau is a little cold for swimming that time of year--you can do it, and the sun is warm, and it's great beach walking, tanning, golfing weather, but the water is cold to my taste. But also rememember--ports can change without warning, but most likely, they'll take you where they were planning to go.
Washington, DC: My credit card (an MBNA Mastercard) used to be great for foreign-currency transactions, but a few months ago they decided to start charging a few percent surcharge. Do you or other chatters know which credit card companies still have reasonable foreign currency rates?
Cindy Loose: I wrote about the trend for credit cards to gouge clients overseas back in March. At that time, MBNA, Capital One and a number of smaller banks and credit unions were declining to add any charge beyond the 1 percent assessed by Visa and Mastercard. Since then, I was aware that MBNA tagged on a couple more percentage points. As far as I know, Capital One has not, but you'd have to check---they might have changed since March and I missed it. If they have joined the trend, I'm afraid you'll have to shop around smaller banks and credit unions. By the way, American Express charges a 2 percent foreign currency exchange fee.
Baltimore, Md.: We're going to D.C. on our wedding night and the night after, a sort of mini-honeymoon -- Nationals tickets and the rest of the time lounging about the hotel. We made reservations at Mandarin Oriental and since have read many negative reviews, and few positive ones, on Trip Advisor.
Do any of you know much about DC hotels, or can you point me to resources that do?; What can you tell me about the Mandarin, or can you recommend another luxe hotel in the city?; (The Four Seasons is booked.) Mainly we want a comfy room, big tub, access to a spa, yummy room service. Location isn't that important.
Anne McDonough: How about the Westin Grand or Embassy Row? Cindy suggests the Monaco for a boutique hotel (www.monaco-dc.com). Steve-o says a lot of the Nationals stayed at the Mandarin when they first came to town, if that ups it in your estimation. Check out www.washington.org (that's the Washington, DC Convention and Tourism Corporation) for some other ideas as well.
Fortaleza, Brazil: If we take Amtrak from New York City to Toronto on Oct. 6, how likely are we to see many Fall colors along the way? What about once we arrive? Thanks!
Cindy Loose: I'd think chances are very good, although you might be a tad early for absolute peak, judging from last year. Of course these things vary from year to year, depending on weather. But I just did a google search, typing in "fall leaves" and among other sites, up came at site for Ontario. The site hasn't be updated since Oct. 28, 2004, but last year's reports should provide some insight into what might happen this fall. The report from last fall on Oct. 28 was reporting that some areas at that date had peaked, 90 percent of leaves down, but Niagara Falls and Toronto were great at that time. No one will know for sure exactly what's up with leaves until you get closer to the date, at which point you should do a web search.
Arlington, VA: Our family is going to Disneyworld Christmas week. For the past two weeks, I have been checking airafres. Initially, I saw airfares in the mid-200s. Now a nonstop flight out of National is over$400 per person.
There look to be a lot of empty seats on the flights. Should I not worry and assume that the price will come down again in the next few months?; What is a good fare to Orlando that week (I know it's the busiest week of the year at Walt Disney World.)?; Also, I tried looking at Independence's website, but it looks like they aren't takin reservations for December yet. What is their policy on reservations?;
Carol Sottili: $400 is too much. But anywhere in the $200s is good for Christmas week. If you want to save money, you have to be flexible. Look at Dulles and BWI. Consider connecting flights. Travel on Christmas Day and New Years Day. That type of thinking can save you money. As for Independence Air, I think they release their flight schedules for booking about three months in advance only, so I'd keep trying that.
Headed to Maui: Hi guys, I'm headed to Maui in about two weeks. What are the spots you all recommend for snorkeling?; I've seen the expensive tours advertised, but in the hopes of saving some money, am looking at just doing it from beaches. Any other recommendations for things I shouldn't miss?; Thanks!;
John Deiner: You lucky dog. I'm pretty sure Maui is ringed by good snorkeling--many resorts offer it right off their beaches. All you have to do is rent the equipment. Also just found a Web site called Snorkel Maui that seems to offer tons of good info; it's at www.adigital dreamer.com/snorkel. If you can find the money, snorkeling off of Molokini, a big ol' volcanic crater off Lahaina, is amazing and fun and real memorable.
As far as other stuff, there's the road to Hana (give yourself a day), either biking or hiking or just visiting Haleakala National Park, killing time shopping and eating in Lahaina . . . and lots of other things. Check out www.visitmaui.com.
Any other help out there?
Washington, DC: My sister will be traveling to Cameroon next month to volunteer with an NGO for a few weeks. While she is quite excited my mother is seriously concerned. Leaving the family dynamics to Ms. Hax, I have found myself in the position to be listening to both sides with increasing frequency. Are there any resources you can point me to where I can gain some knowledge of the country and if any of you have traveled to that region can you give your thoughts on solo female travel. From what I have found it seems that August is certainly not prime travel season but I really do not know too much else. Thanks.
Cindy Loose: You can get country reports from both the FBI and the CIA at www.travel.state.gov, and www.cia.gov. I should think the NGO should provide some info, too. And how about you Cameroon-connected chatsters?
Fredericksburg, Va.: We are thinking about taking a long bus trip (19 days) with Sunshine Tours out of Dublin, Virginia.It's cross country with basically a new hotel every night. Has anyone ever traveled with this outfit which specializes in bus trips? Thanks! Kathy
Cindy Loose: No one here knows there---how about you guys out there?
Central Valley Calif.: I'd jump at the chance for a trip. I had a trip to London and Paris booked and the Iraq war started at the same time. I cancelled, not for safety, but a hand a vision of large numbers of travels slumped for days against their luggage and Heathrow, after some unfortunate event shut down the airlines. Some friends went, undaunted, and had the time of their lives. Moral: when you get the chance to go......Go!
Washington, DC: Happy Monday to the Flight Crew. My wife and I are traveling to Greece next month and we have a few questions regarding customs and currency. First, we have a layover in Amsterdam on both legs of the trip. Since we have connecting flights, do we have to go through customs in Amsterdam?; Also, we don't plan on checking our luggage. Would this make a difference in terms of customs?; Lastly, what would be the best way to pay for items while in Greece (mainly the Greek Isles), credit card or the Euro. If the Euro, should we exchange for the currency here in the U.S. before we leave for the trip?; Thanks for your help.
Andrea Sachs: You will not go through customs/immigration until your final destination--Greece. Just don't leave the Amsterdam airport and you will be fine (in other words, stay in your security gate area). As for luggage, it does not make a difference whether you have check your luggage or not; officials will inspect all of your bags, whether they flew under or "over" the plane. Credit card is usually the best way to pay, but you might be in some small towns that don't accept plastic. For euros, exchange in Greece, at exchange bureaus; avoid airports, they have weak rates. Or use an ATM--just be aware of usage fees.
Washington, D.C.: I'm going to be in San Francisco in early Sept. and would like to take a trip to Yosemite Nat. Park for a couple of days. I don't want to drive out there, so are there package tours or excursions available from San Francisco? Thanks! H.B.
Steve Hendrix: Lots and lots of them, WDC, judging by the hits I just got by Googling "San Francisco" and "Yosemite Tour." For example: two or three day tours beginning at $292 a person with California Parlor Car Tours. I'd look at Sierra Club trips, too.
Washington, DC: "Bridesmaid Revisted" told the tale of my summer!; I have 9 weddings this summer, and every weekend is either a shower, a bachelorette party or a wedding. Next summer proves to be more of the same. Its good to know that I'm not the only wedding warrior out there with a ton of frequent flier miles. Thanks for the article!;
Anne McDonough: Thanks for the thanks, DC! And good luck with your marathon summer-I have just one left this summer (so far!) and am rather sad about the season slowing down. I'm going to milk this one for all it's worth. What's been truly great about all of these was how different each and every ceremony/reception was the next. I hope you've had the same experience!
Annapolis, Md.: Answering your question. I definitely resist the temptation to cancel a trip because of terrorist actions. It seems like we all should GO ANYWAY. (Mother-daughter and sister-niece trip is ON for Southern France). It is like when your kid is ready to drive without you - you know you've taught them and watched them and then you have to let go each time and say a prayer and go on with your day.
Cindy Loose: An interpid traveler.....
Travel to London: I just booked a trip to London for the Christmas holidays. I plan to ride the tube, and the double decker buses - those are two of my favorite ways to get around (the black cabs being my other favored means of transport)!; I am sure I'll be more aware of the people around me, but I am going to go about my holiday as usual, albeit more aware of the people around me.
Cindy Loose: I'm sure Londoners will be glad to see you.
Booking online fares: I have a question/gripe about booking some cheaper fares on line and was wondering if you could shed some insight into the matter.
To start the process, the system asks me to pick a departure date, with a calendar for the next few months and only certain dates highlighted as "available" dates for the fare requested. Fair enough, I guess...
But then I click on a date, and I get a second screen that says "pick another departure date" -- the date I originally picked, along with two or three dates before it, have been replaced with X's. I pick alternative dates, and again, those dates get X'd out. This continues until I lose my patience and give up on the fare.
Once, when I book a flight to Spain, I literally had to click on every single date that was originally offered, only to find that, in fact, none of them were truly "available." Why advertise it if none of the "available" seats are actually available?;
Thanks for letting me vent. If you have any explanations for this, that would be great too!;
Carol Sottili: When an airline has a sale, it usually means that it has released only a limited number of seats at that fare on any particular flight. The airlines don't tell us how many seats they have on the flight at the cheapest level. My feeling is that they fluctuate the number of seats based on how the sale is going. The key is to book as soon as the sale is announced. If you wait even a few days, the cheap seats are gone. And if you're talking about the least expensive regular fares (no sale involved), you need to book as far in advance as possible, especially on an discount airline such as Southwest.
Lancaster, Pa.: We will be going to Bonaire next week for vacation outside the hurricane belt. Do you have any thoughts on side trips to South America as Venezuela is 50 miles away?
Cindy Loose: We haven't done sidetrips from Bonaire--can anyone help?
Fairfax cruises: In addition to differences between ports for the Carnival and RCCL cruises, you should think about the differences in the cruise lines, particularly regarding who it appeals to. The impression I have of Carnival is that it tends to attract a younger crowd, college kids and the like. That could be good if you like more of a party atmosphere, but perhaps not what you're looking for.
Cindy Loose: Our impression is that RCCL is not quite as much as a party atmosphere, and has more stuff for smaller kids. In that respect, Carnival has a more party-like atmosphere. Thanks for reminding us of those differences. If you're taking teens, check drinking ages--I think most of them are 18.
Washington, D.C: Hi Crew!; Do you all (or other chatters) have any suggestions for a spot in Arizona or elswehere in the Southwest to have a relaxing ladies weekend retreat?; Canyon Ranch is, alas, too rich for our blood, but anything along those lines would be perfect!; We're thinking Jan/Feb 2006, if that matters. Thanks!;
Cindy Loose: Try looking at www.spafinders.com. By the way, any readers know a specific spot that sounds perfect for a ladies weekend?
About Cameroon: A friend in grad school did her internship in Cameroon for the summer with an NGO. As a single female she had a great experience, and really said there were NO problems, even out in the rural areas she would go to for work. This was 2 years ago, but should still hold true.
Springfield, Va.: I know it's too late for this summer, but a rustic cabin on the lake somewhere in Vermont, Maine or New Hampshire is something I would love to plan for next year. Have any of you done this before?
John Deiner: Hey, Spring. Is it really too late for this summer? You could always hop on a cheapo flight to New Hampshire (Manchester) and go from there. I've been to cabins on two lakes in the states you mention, Moosehead Lake in Maine and Squam Lake in New Hampshire (actually an inn, but, ya know, a real lake!). I know Moosehead has tons of cabins to choose from; we stayed at an icky fishing cabin in early May that I can't recommend, but maybe the e-crowd have something up their collective sleeves.
Washington, D.C.: On a recent flight from Beijing to Newark on Continental Airlines, my connecting flight to Washington National airport was cancelled. My flight had arrived in Newark around 3:30 PM after a grueling 13 hour flight. When I arrived, I was told that a few flights to DC had already been canceled, yet my flight was not terminated until 9 PM, and I was not given a hotel and new flight reservation until 10:30 PM. By the time I ate some food at the hotel, I had merely 3 hours before I had to be back at the airport for my 6 AM flight to DC. Shouldn't I be in line for something in return?; I don't want to fly Continental again....
Andrea Sachs: You should, but you probably won't. The airline followed protocol and did everything required on its end. You can try to contact customer relations, but since they did give you the hotel room and a new flight, they are no longer responsible.
Silver Spring, Md.: Is Belize good for all ages- are there nice places to stay (meaning somewhat luxurious). Your previous comments have been that it has ruins to visit and good day trips. Nice beach? Decent food. How long will it take to get there from DC. Also can you name a good chat travel web site-where people talk about these things daily- Thanks.
KC Summers: Hi SS. Yes, Belize is good for all ages (who doesn't like warm, crystal-clear water to splash around in?) and there are definitely luxurious places to stay. Francis Ford Coppola's resort, Blancaneaux Lodge, is probably the most famous of these; it's set in a pristine jungle in the Cayo District (inland) and you stay in fancy individual cabanas. There's a spa. Coppola recently opened another luxury resort in the country, the Turtle Inn, in Placencia, farther south, that's supposed to be incredible. Other luxury places with good reputations are the Mopan River REsort (probably the most affordable all-inclusive in Belize),also in the Cayo district; Jaguar Paw; Chaa Creek; and, on Ambergris Caye, Victoria House.
As for nice beaches, some of these places have decent stretches of sand, but you don't really go to Belize just to go to the beach; it's more about snorkeling, diving and exploring the jungle and Mayan ruins.
Other chats: Try Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, or Tripadvisor.com.
Getting there: There are nonstop flights from Charlotte, N.C., and (I think) Newark, so figure about an hour getting to one of those cities from DC, then about three hours to get to Belize City, then a couple hours' drive if you're heading inland (your resort will pick you up at the airport), or a short (20-min) hop by air to one of the cayes.
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: I have heard that you can choose to give up your checked luggage allowance on an overseas flight in exchange for a greatly reduced fare. I have tried to do some research on this on the internet, and have found a few organizations where you pay a yearly fee to be alerted of these flights. Have you heard of any reputable organizations like these?
Carol Sottili: I think this is related to being an air courier, which used to be a very common way to travel cheap, but has become increasingly rare in the post 9/11 world. There are membership groups you can join that will give you a list of air couriers - www.courier.com, www.aircourier.com - but they are middlemen. Actual courier companies come and go with great frequency, so I don't feel comfortable recommending any.
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: To answer your question, I think it depends on who is paying. If I won a free trip to London, Turkey or Egypt, I would go. But in choosing how to spend my own dollars, I would pick someplace else.
Cindy Loose: I guess that comes closest to my personal feelings. Also, I'd go for business, but have a higher threshold for hassles and worries for vacations.
Fredericksburg, Va.: Not a question, this time, but I wanted to point out an error in yesterday's edition, letter section, re: trips to Outer Banks. The Falmouth exit cited is Exit 133, not 130 which is the next exit south off 95 at Rt. 3, Fredericksburg. Kathy
KC Summers: Thanks -- that's what we get for trusting our readers. Just kidding, and sorry about the error.
Edinburgh in late October: I am travelling to London this October and want to visit Edinburgh and surrounding areas. I have around 2-3 days. Any recommendations on how to spend the time. I am interested in castles and forts but not in museums. Also, does any one have any suggestions for a moderately priced hotel?; Thanks a lot.
Cindy Loose: We're Edinburgh challenged. Can anyone help?
For Maui traveler: Definitely do the road to Hana and Haleakala. We didn't make it all the way to Hana (turned around somewhere after the Jurassic Park arboretum) because we watned to catch the sunset at Haleakala. Yes, I know everyone goes for the sunrise, but the sunset was stunning and we had the summit completely to ourselves.
John Deiner: Wow, what a great idea. Two points for you. Oh, two points and a star. Thanks for the suggestion!
Across the US: Hi Flight Crew: THis is my third try with this question, so hoping I'll make it through this time. I'm driving from South Carolina to San Diego next month over 12 days. Any tips or lessons learned from you or the readers?; Must sees?; Planned stops include Knoxville, St. Louis, Kansas City, Amarillo, TX, Sante Fe Area, and Flagstaff. Thanks!;
Steve Hendrix: Third time's the charm, XUS (these hugely broad questions can be easy to pass over in the crush). It's a big country, and whatever tips we come up with would depend largely on the route you pick.
I've only driven cross country once, 25 years, with my high school buddy Braxton. We made a point of not missing New Orleans (we started from Georgia), Dallas, the Grand Canyon and Vegas. Feel free to retrace our steps. I believe the route has been named "America's Least Imaginative Roadtrip Highway" in our honor.
Seriously, my only suggestion is this: If you are an Easterner with limited experience in the great Southwest, speed like hell through the first three days then linger in the Four Corner states.
That, and plan your route to mooch off of as many friends as possible.
Memphis-bound: We have to catch a flight out of Memphis at 12:40 on getaway day. If possible, we'd like to see Graceland (which is almost next door to the aiport) that morning first.
Anyone have experience with trying to get in line at 9:00 and out by 11:00. (e.g. this should work if we get advance tix; or don't bother--we'll spend your whole two hours in a long line).
Cindy Loose: I think that's pushing the clock, but if I were you I'd call the museum. Perhaps if you got in line even earlier??? Plus, to assure getting through the airport on time you need to allow 90 minutes plus the time it takes to get there.
Washington, DC: I really enjoyed Anne McDonough's article yesterday. I actually am travelling to CA for my own wedding, and have to deal with carrying on my dress!; Do you have any tips, or should I just hope to get kind-hearted flight attendants?;
Anne McDonough: Whatever you do, don't check it! I believe that wedding dresses carry a bit more weight with flight attendants than attendants' dresses do (I never had my bridesmaid dress hung up in a first class cabin, for example, which I hear is par for the course for many airlines, regardless of where the bride is actually sitting). I'd keep it in the same garment bag you purchased it in, but some of those are larger than the garment bags permitted as carry-ons so you might want to check into that. Whatever you do, chances are you'll have to have it pressed when you arrive at your final destination-no matter how careful you are, whether it's hung up or placed on top of other people's carryons it's going to come out with wrinkles. Mention this when you get your ticket, be early to check in and mention it again to the gate agent. If there's space, I'm sure most airlines would be willing to help out.
Bethesda, Md.: To the poster who asked about cabin rentals near a New England Lake, may I suggest a quick trip to Deep Creek Lake for this summer?; It's a good 10 degrees cooler there than in DC, only two and a half hours away, and has a very New England type feel to the place. There are many lakefront cabins to choose from, as well as more traditional townhouses and stand-alone homes. Wonderful fall color to look forward to as well. We gave up our annual trips to Maine when we discovered Deep Creek.
John Deiner: Great idea, Beth. How could we forget? Sort of wondering how booked up that area is now as well, but it's a terrific suggestion.
For the person trying to choose a cruise: I find that the ports are the LAST thing I consider when going on a cruise. So often, the boat docks for 5 or 6 hours, not enough time to do anything much except for an excursion booked through the cruise - and they are pretty much the same all over. I just got back from a stop in Cozumel, which seemed like a smaller version of Cancun. There was no time to wander around and get a sense of what the place was really like. The kids will have more fun on the ship - meeting other teens and hanging around with them. So I suggest going for the one that is geared more toward families...
Cindy Loose: Thanks. Although for me, a swim in a natural body of water is the highlight of any trip for me, so the destination does have some bearing on my decision.
Washington DC: Travel to Contested Areas: If I had plans already made, I would probably go ahead with them, especially if I were going to see something unique. For example, I would tour the ruins etc. in Egypt, because this is unique to the country and a main reason for visiting, but I don't know that I would go just to lie on a beach at Sharm el-Sheik, since there are equally lovely beaches in a number of other places that haven't been targeted.
Cindy Loose: Good point. Thanks.
New Year's in Iceland: Do you know of any travel companies that have tours to Iceland for New Year's?;
Andrea Sachs: Try Icelandair (www.icelandair.com), Scantours (www.scantours.com), Isafold Travel (www.isafoldtravel.is). Also check with Iceland Tourist Board (www.icelandtouristboard.com), to find out where the bashes will be.
For the Maui person: I'm going to Maui tomorrow!; There is a fabulous guidebook called "Maui Revealed" that goes into much detail about self-guided snorkeling. From reading it, I decided to go myself instead of booking a tour - I would have never known that one of the best beaches for snorkeling is right outside my hotel if I didn't have that book. It's available on Amazon or probably at any bookstore and it's proven to be invaluable to me!;
John Deiner: Guidebooks? What are those??! No, no...thanks much for clueing us in. And lucky you for having grade-a fish-viewing right in your own Maui backyard. Enjoy the trip..give us an update when you return.
Washington, DC: I am travelling to Johannesburg, South Africa in mid-August on the new South African Airways flight from Dulles. I bought my ticket from Priceline.com through the bidding process. I did purchase the insurance policy offered by Priceline through AIG. SAA crews are now on strike and all international flights are cancelled. If this continues, what are my rights and options?; Will I be placed on another airline?; How will the Priceline purchase affect me?; Thanks!;
Carol Sottili: South African Airways is trying to place passengers on other flights, but seats are limited, and there aren't enough seats to go around. Check the small print on the insurance policy to make sure it covers strikes, and to figure out whether it will merely pay you back for the price of the ticket, or pay for your passage on another airline. Hopefully, the strike will be finished by mid-August.
Bethesda Mom: Hi Cindy & Crew:
I've just reread Cindy's pieces on Chicago Greeters and Madison Wisconsin. We're flying to Chicago in August as part of our mid-west college tour and I had a few questions: where did you stay in Chicago and is the Loop, Magnificent Mile, or North Side better for sightseeing?; Do you or any of the chatsters know how long it would take to drive to Madison from Chicago, and would this be a possible day trip?;
Cindy Loose: Chicago is about 140 miles and about 2.5 hour drive from Madison, so I suppose it could be a day trip. I'd check into trains, although not sure how the connections are.
As to the best of Chicago--there is no best really, since all the neighborhoods you mention have something to recommend them. Personally, I like the Magnificent Mile, but would make my final decision dependent on price.
Passport quandry: Does anybody have experience with applying for a passport at one of the DC post office locations?; They say that if you pay to expedite it's 2 weeks, but they don't guarantee anything. I'm worried that when dealing with the gov't, 2 weeks could be 3 weeks, could be...?;
Steve Hendrix: Actually, PQ, my experience with passport renewal and applications (both my own, and the countless family and friends I have shepherded through the thickets) has been uniformly successful. (My Travel colleagues agree. I just asked them.)
You'll get it in two weeks.
BONAIRE VENZ: I would tell your Bonaire traveler to avoid Venuzuela. The Chavez government is anti _ American and they have been having anti-American protest daily. Could be a bad situation if you get jammed up there.
Cindy Loose: I was thinking about that, but then held back, thinking maybe I was exaggerating the situation. So interesting to hear that occuring to another person.
Alexandria, Va.: Re: Travel to London. My husband and I travel to London at least twice a year. We stay at one of three hotels near Russell Square. One of the hotels was clearly visible in the news coverage of the Tavistock Square bombings. Ironically, it is the hotel where I spent September 11th, watching the TV in shock and trying to reach home. You bet we're going next week! I want the chance to be as supportive to and united with the people of London, and the Russel Square area in particular, as they were to me when our country was hit. And I want to show the terrorists that a few mad men cannot destroy civilized nations. Sadly, we will be unable to take the Tube as our tube stop remains closed.
Cindy Loose: Bully for you; a stiff upper lip is a good thing to travel with whenever visiting the British. I wish them the best of luck.
Last Minute Beach Trip: Hi Flight Crew--Hope you can help!;
Boyfriend and I are ditching the DC heat just for the day tomorrow and taking a spur of the moment beach trip--what's the best beach just for the day?;
John Deiner: Great question, LMBT. It makes for a longish day, but everytime my wife and I do that, we never regret it. We always head to Delaware Seashore State Park, tucked between Dewey and Bethany. Lots of parking, large clean beaches, decent facilities. You have to cut through outer Rehoboth to get to it, so you can always stop there for dinner.
Washington, DC: A very specific question... do you know when Northwest Airlines is planning on updating their flight timetables?; The current one is only good through August 19. I need a flight in September, but I don't know if the flight I want will be continued or not. Thanks!;
Carol Sottili: My guess is that the flight is not going to be continued into September if you can't book it now. But I'd call Northwest's customer service and ask.
Washington, DC: What is with airlines charging $100 each way to transport a small pet under a seat? I'm not talking about cargo -- I'm talking carry-on. We have a small dog who easily fits (in his bag) under a seat. What possible justification is there for charging us $200 to make him our carry-on? I certainly can't think of any. Maybe the occasional animal has an "accident" that must be cleaned, but even if 1 of every 5 has an accident, they would have $1000 to spend on that minor cleanup job.
KC Summers: Just checked a couple of airlines -- US Airways, United -- and the standard charge seems to be $100 each way for small to medium-sized kennels. US Airways says it's not a new policy, that it's been charging for this service for at least five years. Just one more way for them to make a few bucks, and I wouldn't begrudge it -- it's bound to generate ill will, between complaints from allergic passengers, accidents, etc. This service is limited to dogs, cats and household birds, btw. It gives you paws....
Washington, DC: My brother's wife and two young children were on an American Airlines flight from Dallas, TX to San Juan, PR via Ft. Lauderdale last Monday evening. About 40 minutes into the flight the plane turned around back to Ft. Lauderdale due to a bomb threat note found on the plane. There are at the least two really odd parts to this story 1. The pilot came over the loud speaker and announced that they were returning to FL because of a bomb threat found on the plane. As anyone would, the folks on the plane, including my niece and nephew, 5 and 7 respectively, freaked out for the next 40 minutes back to the airport. Shouldn't there be some airline protocol as to what exactly is announced by the plane's crew? 2. When they got to the airport, the plane was rightly left out on the tarmac - but so were the passengers! They sat in a plane that was under a bomb threat for 1 B/urs before they were allowed to get off. Having trouble understanding the reasoning. What is airline protocol these days for secutiry threats?
Also, I have a friend going on a cruise to to Ibiza, Mykonos, Santorini, Istanbul and a few other Med places. Can you or the chatsters out there recommend souvenirs for him to look for?
Thanks as always for your input.
Cindy Loose: That is a fascinating tale--I'll look into today. Don't know the protocol, but know I'd be demanding to go down the shoot.
As to souveniers in Greece and Turkey---rugs for one; I bought a flokata and a longhaired sheepskin while in Greece. Jewelry is good. There should be lots of interesting things in the markets of Turkey. Anyone else have suggestions?
Normal, Ill: Dear flight crew
To answer your question about London, Turkey, or Egypt, I'll deal with the three places separately.
With London it's a no brainer--yes I'd go. London is an extremly safe place to visit. Suggesting otherwise is ignoring reality.
Turkey is really similar in my opinion. It's visited by millions of Tourists a year, and I imagine visiting it is safer than driving to work.
Egypt is the only place I really think about this. I think Western tourist are a little more prey ot this sort of targeting there, though most of the victems of the recent event were Egyptian of course. The lavish tourist resorts probably do make juicy targets for some extremest groups. Still, I imagine it's not really empirically dangerous to visit Egypt, though I havne't looked at any figures.
All in all, I'd take a free trip to any place without much thought, and I'd probably happily spend a vacation at any of them too.
My question--I'm planning a trip to Australia next spring hopefully. I don't have detailed plans yet but I'll certainly visit Melbourne (where I have a friend that I'll stay with), Sydney, and Canberra. With the view that this may be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, what are the essential must-see's in Australia, both in the areas i've mentioned and otherwise?;
Cindy Loose: Funny how free makes it easier, but I understand completely.
West Coast: For the Wanna-Be Graceland visitor: when I was there a few years ago, the first tour group at Graceland was 8 a.m. My friend and I arrived there about 7:30 a.m., got our tour passes and had time to browse the gift store. We did the main tour in about 70 minutes and were back downtown before 9:30 a.m., in plenty of time for our 10 a.m. business meeting.
Cindy Loose: Hey, first person account. Thanks much!
Re: Maui Snorkeling: We went on our own, just did some research on several beaches and drove there with our own equipment, just part of exploring the island. That was about 10 years ago but I can't imagine the island changes that much.
John Deiner: Good stuff. Thanks -- sounds as if doing it yourself isn't such a bad idea.
Re: Venezuela: I would be extremely careful with Venezuela. Its level of crime and attacks on tourists is extremely high, like Colombia. I've been there three times, and while it's gorgeous, its levels of dangers has increased exponentially. If you can get a tour there, it might be OK.
Of course, the most incredible place in Venezuela is Canaima, home to Angel Falls. It has these amazing mesas called tepuis, and over 400 waterfalls. It's so remote-- in the middle of the jungle-- that you can only fly in and out. I've been to 35 countries but it is the single most beautiful place I've ever seen.
Scotland: The castle in Edenbourgh is a must - it is pricey (13 pounds last time I was there) but totally worth it. Can't recommend a place in that city as I always stay in Glasgow which is cheaper and there are trains every few minutes to the capital. (the train ride is only an hour or so). I've never been, but was told there is an incredible "undergroun" museum that follows the lives of the citizens who lived underneath the city for generations. And the Parliment building is pretty cool as well.
RE: Edinburgh: Not sure what qualifies as inexpensive, but a friend stayed at the Best Western City HOtel in the Old Town. It was nice and convenient. In October it starts to get dark early, so if you do go out of town (and there is more than enough to keep you in town for 2-3 days) plan accordingly. Edinburgh castle could take the better part of one day to explore, especially if you are interested in military history. But be prepared to walk and to walk hills. The Old Town and New Town are only about three blocks apart, but that's one and a half blocks straight down and one and a half blocks straight up.
Cindy Loose: More help with Edinburgh---I really have to check it out sometime. Thanks for the help.
Bank Fees: I would still use the ATMs anyway, because it is a better rate and way more convenient. One percent of a thousand dollars is ten dollars. That's not too much to pay for convenience. But it is still just the thought.
Cindy Loose: A vote for ATMs. Personally I like credit cards because A. Using credit cards doesn't feel as much like spending money and thus less horrifying as expenditures mount, B. I like to have a record at the end of what I spent, which of course is counter to reason A. How's that for logic?
Washington, DC: South Africa Airways pax here. I read over the insurance coverage and strike is excluded, so I have no travel insurance whatsoever in the event of a strike. We had to put money down on our very expensive safari lodge and we don't have coverage for that if we cannot get there. I hope things can be worked out soon (and of course, I'm sure they all do far more than I).
Carol Sottili: I'm convinced that lots of travel insurance isn't worth the paper it's written on. There are some good policies out there, but you have to shop around. Go to www.insuremytrip.com or www.quotetravelinsurance.com to compare policies. Don't just buy the policy offered by the provider without reading it. In your case, have you looked into buying insurance now that would at least cover the safari lodge?
Cameroon alone: I travelled throughout West Africa alone for 6 months as a 20 yr. old female. Never had a problem, on the whole I felt safer than here in DC. Your sister should have a great time. I assume your mom could check with the NGO as well for information on their safety and security procedures (it's likely a huge manual).
It may also help if she stays in close contact with your mom while she's there (in most places internet cafes are everywhere, and cheap--and mobile phones are more prevalent than you'd believe).
Cindy Loose: Good ideas. Thanks.
Not scared of traveling: I just got back from a 10-day trip to the Philippines, which is experiencing a resurgence of muslim activity in the south. I saw lots of military men in camo sporting submachine guns on Manila street corners for security. It was a bit disconcerting, and didn't necessarily make us feel safer. But I didn't feel that we were in any danger.
If I were planning a trip to London, Turkey or Egypt, I would still go. When I was in junior high, I went to London soon after bombings there in the late 1980's, and I still had a good time.
Cindy Loose: Philippines would scare me now, but then, I'm afraid of rollercoasters.
Rockville, Md.: Does anyone know of a good, moderately priced hotel within walking distance of Fenway Park in Boston?
Cindy Loose: No--can someone help?
Portland, Maine: I currently live in Portland, ME and my boyfriend is soon moving to Boston. Can you or others out there think of any nice sidetrips/bed and breakfasts that are located in between. Thanks as always.
Anne McDonough: Any clicksters out there with a favorite inn in the area?
I love your chats and have been a long time lurker; now I have a question. I'm going to Oktoberfest this year for the first time. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and while I was able to get a hotel room, I'm unsure how to get the most out of the experience. It's too late to get reservations at the fest tents, but I've read that smaller groups don't need reservations. Is this true? There will only be two of us and I'm hoping that if we stake out a spot early enough, we'll have a seat for when things really get going. Also, how do you pay--cash or credit card at the tables, or do you need to prepay or get food/drink tickets before sitting down? Are any tents preferred over others? I'd appreciate any advice you or the peanuts have. Thanks!!
Cindy Loose: Can anyone help---quickly--with Oktoberfest advice?
Parking Angst: Crew -- I have an 8 a.m. flight out of National next week and am wondering if the parking situation has settled down. Don't want to miss my flight driving around looking for a space, nor do I want to take a shuttle. My return flight lands after 11 p.m., and the last time that happened, no shuttle would pick me up.
Cindy Loose: You need to call ahead.
McLean, Va.: I just had a GREAT time in Las Vegas. It helps when you win a substancial amount playing poker! Question: I was on a red eye flight from Vegas to Newark on Continental. We had to change planes due to a problem with reverse thrust. Is there any chance of getting compensation due to the 4 hour delay?
Andrea Sachs: You can be reimbursed if you were bumped due to overbooking and had hours of downtime, but not because of mechanical difficulties. Just be happy that you struck it rich in Vegas; Continental is more of a crapshoot.
I'd never miss a chance to go to London. I'm likely going to go on an Italy/Greece/Turkey cruise next summer. I've been on 4 trips so far this year with at least 3 more coming up (only two are international so far)
the only place I'd likely NOT go - and wouldn't have in the past either - is Egypt. Or elsewhere in the Middle East. it's too bad I might not see the Pyramids, but, they have a long history of going berserk on tourists.
Dakar, Senegal: Do you have any good advice about getting cheap tickets to and from the United States while living abroad?; My husband and I are looking for cheap, round trip tickets from Dakar to Washington, DC this fall. I find it is hard to get any good deals because in order to buy through all the main bargain web sites, you must start in the United States. Any ideas?;
Carol Sottili: The major travel sites will sell tickets that start in Dakar, but the price may not be good. I'd try a consolidator. For example, Spector Travel (www.spectortravel.com) has consolidator fares to Dakar, I believe.
Now I have a question for my readers. I'm writing a story about consolidators and would love to hear your stories - both good and bad - about working with these outfits. Email me at sottilic@washpost.com. Thanks!!
Annandale, Va.: Am planning to go to Paris for a week in Oct. Airfares (even Expedia and the like) are in the $750 to $830 range. Is this high for Oct? Is it fashion show season? Should I consider going in Nov.? I'm going solo so when single supplement is added on doing a air/hotel package doesn't seem to save anything. Should I bite the bullet and use my frequent flier miles? Thanks and I really enjoy Travel Online.
Carol Sottili: Those fares sound high. You could try traveling in November, which is cheaper, or you could wait for a sale. I'm sure there will be something before you travel, as long as you are flexible. If you have enough frequent flier miles, by all means, use them!
Washington, DC: We will be in Big Sky, Montana in May 06 for about a week. We plan to spend most of our time in Yellowstone of course, but would like to do something that should not be missed in Montana and the vicinity. Plus any suggestion for good local restaurants.
Steve Hendrix: I was in Yellowstone in the winter, and while May won't be quite as cold, I do have a tip for you: Chico Hot Springs Resort just north of the park is a Wild-West old pile with an excellent dining room. Get a room in the creaky old building, soak your bones in the huge pool and then tuck in. www.chicohotsprings.com
Re: Wedding Gown: I got married in CA last year and carried my dress on to two flights. (Definitely do NOT check it- there was an episode of "Airline" where some woman's dress fell off the belt and got run over by the baggage cart on the tarmac!;) On the first flight, the flight attendant took the dress and hung it up for me as soon as I stepped on to the plane. On the second flight (a much bigger plane), I had to ask a flight attendant if I could use the first-class closet and had to hang it myself, but it was fine. It helped that it was the beginning of September and there were no coats filling the closet. Anyway, you should be fine....
Anne McDonough: Hopefully this will put the heading-to-Calif. bride's mind at rest. Thanks!
Herndon, Va.: Would I hesitate to visit London, or somewhere in Egypt or Turkey? NO!! Something to remember - after 9/11 a statistician noted in the Post something along the lines of - if the equivalent of a "9/11" happened every month, and someone was flying commercially once a week - that person was still in much more danger driving to and from the airport, than flying on a commercial airline. The bombings are horrible, but, as far as a person's chances of being hurt, they're statisically insignificant.
Carol Sottili: I'm a big believer in the statistical thinking, although when my 17-year-old daughter landed in Heathrow the day of the bombings, I wasn't so sure.
traveling in troubled times: Even if it were not a big trip just a 3 day get-a-way I am on the plane. I love London I have friends from there and they are coming here in Oct. I may go there in Dec. and you can bet your sweet bippy I am on the tube and anywhere else I want to go.
No rangey outlaw is going to tell me what to do!;
Carol Sottili: That's the spirit.
Arlington, Va.: Hi crew, I have a couple questions about a flight I'm planning to Australia.
1. I have TSA-approved locks for my suitcase. Do you know if inspectors at overseas airports can open these locks as well? Will I have any problems if I use them on my flights to, from, and within Australia?
2. To get the best price, I wasn't able to book my flight directly from DC to Australia; I had to book the DC-LAX and LAX-Sydney legs separately. Am I going to run into problems with getting my luggage transferred correctly at LAX? Am I going to have to go through security again? Does it matter if the airlines I'm flying between DC-LAX and LAX-Sydney are codeshare partners?
3. I've never gone through customs when I had checked bags; when I come back, will I have to retrieve my bags at LAX, have them inspected, and then check in again for my flight to DC? Or do they just not inspect my checked bags, or inspect them without me there?
Many thanks for your help!
Cindy Loose: I am not at all confident about overseas agents having TSA-approved lock keys, since some agents here don't seem to have them.
I'd be quite worried about having two separate, and I assume nonrefundable tickets. You understand, if for some reason the first airline gets you to the connection point too late to make your flight, the subsequent airline simply considers you a no show. I hope you have many, many hours built into that connection. I don't recommend separate tickets unless you have an overnight stop.
On your flight out, whether or not you must go through security a second time depends on whether or not the second flight is in the same terminal where you arrived. On the way home, you'll have to go through customers personally in LAX.
Bel Air, Md: Good Afternoon,
I've just started a new job where we get two weeks of vacation per year that we have to use or we lose it at the end of the year. I have a hard time taking vacation just to hang around the house (because I know I wouldn't do anything useful), but at the same time, I can't afford to spend lots of money and take a trip.
Any suggestions for what a young, single female could do for a vacation alone that's not too cost prohibitive?; (I'm not that inclined towards cruises, though I've never been.)
KC Summers: No reason you should take a cruise, Bel Air, if you're not into them -- there are a lot of other vacation options out there. But it's hard to throw out ideas since you don't indicate what your interests are (beach vs. woods? city vs. countryside? etc).
One fun way to approach this would be to go to Southwest, JetBlue, Independence Air or another budget carrier's Web sites, and choose your destination from the places they fly to (especially if they're having a sale). Choose a city with a variety of lodging options and you can put together a nice, cheap little vacation for yourself. Just one example: Fly to Cleveland on Southwest and spend a couple days going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, taking a cruise on Lake Erie, seeing a show, etc.
Or, check one of the low-budget trip packager sites like go-today.com or travelzoo.com -- they frequently offer amazingly cheap hotel-air packages and you can get some great ideas on places you might not have thought of.
If all else fails, hop in the car and take day trips to one of the many cool cities or towns within a couple hours of DC. Baltimore, Richmond, Charlottesville -- we have a lot of great options to choose from, and you can splurge on a nice lunch with the money you'll save on hotels. Good luck, and let us know what you end up doing.
Re traveling to the Philippines: For anyone thinking about traveling to the Philippines - Go!; Beautiful islands, fantastic snorkeling, lovely, white sand beaches. The only place where safety is a bit iffy is on the island of Mindanao, in the south. We didn't go there on this trip, although I know some people who did, and they didn't experience any trouble.
Cindy Loose: A vote for the Philippines.
Washington, DC: Re: Edinburgh, the Queen's Palace at Holyrood is fabulous: interesting tour guides, lots of Mary Queen of Scots trivia, and occasionally really good special exhibits (like the Queen's private collection of da Vinci drawings!;)
Alexandria, Va.: For the Edinburgh poster - consider visiting the town of Stirling, which has a wonderful castle and other historic sites (Bannockburn, etc.), and is a day trip from Edinburgh. I highly recommend Derek of Claymore Travel, who can take you there on a tour (we also used Derek for a tour of the Highlands, Loch Lomond and some other small towns with castles).http://www.claymore.btinternet.co.uk/
Cindy Loose: More on Edinburgh
Arlington, Va.: We're also going to Greece next month. On the way home, we have an overnight layover in Vienna. We're excited to see Vienna, but how will this work, logistically? What should we expect when we arrive at the airport the next morning for our flight back to DC? Will we go through customs or anything? If we check bags, will we reclaim them in Vienna to check through to DC, or will they go right to DC for us to reclaim when we get back?
Andrea Sachs: If you are exiting the gate and airport in Vienna, you will have to go through check-in and security all over again the next morning (plus go through customs on the way out that night). If you sleep in the airport, then you are okay. Depending on the times, the carrier might allow you to check your bags all the way to D.C., or you could lock them up in the Vienna airport. If you take your bags with you for your Vienna overnight, they will have to be inspected again the next morning.
University Park, Md.: Wine country query: I fell in love with the Sonoma Valley on a recent visit, and I'd like to take my husband there next year. What's a good time to visit, in terms of weather and smaller crowds? Lodging recommendations for both Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley would also be appreciated.
John Deiner: Hey UP. The quick answer to this one is, I believe, is fall, like from late September to early November. The weather is beautiful, the colors gorgeous, crowds not so bad. I've had good luck with Four Sisters Inns, which have a number of beautiful (albeit pricey) bnbs in the Napa/Sonoma region. Check out www.foursisters.com.
Re: Washington, DC : Thanks for the quick reply on the Greece question. Just to follow up, we have an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam and plan to leave the airport for quick sightseeing. I assume we would have to go through customs once we arrive back at the airport. How much time should we plan for in customs?;
Andrea Sachs: Yes, once you leave, you have to do it all over again. It's just as if you were never in the airport. Two hours is recommended.
Mount Vernon, Va.: RE: Edinburgh--The major tourist area is the Royal Mile. The Edinburgh Castle tour is great fun, and you get to see an award-winning restroom! You can easily avoid the museums and hit what you're interested in. If you get bored in the city, there's a really nice Marriott hotel with an indoor pool connected to a golf resort in the suburbs. You also can see Saint Andrews.
A question: My family and I want to go to Spain over the Christmas holidays. We're planning to leave December 17, before most schools close, and we could be a little bit flexible about going back, traveling the Monday after New Year's to avoid the hordes. We really don't care what city we fly into--it doesn't even necessarily have to be in Spain. I know Christmas is a hugely busy time of year. Any suggestions for getting a good airfare on a nonstop flight? Thanks!
Cindy Loose: Your flexiblity should help alot in terms of getting a decent airfare. Can't say off hand who has the best priced fares to which cities. I'd say start by picking the ideal city, and working back from there until you find the price you need.
Columbia, Md.- "Danger": I have zero fear traveling to London or Eygpt, or anywhere else that currently isn't an active war zone. Frankly, the most dangerous thing I do everyday is strapping myself into my little metal-and-plastic bucket and braving I-95. My better half has worked at the White House and now works again at a "terrorist target". I don't pray for his safety at the hands - but on his commute.
Actually, I think the State Dept's warning against travel to London was silly - as horrific as terrorism is, chances of another successful attack in the same location is minimal.
Also - I take warnings with a pound of salt - reading other government's warnings about DC and NYC are eye-openning.
KC Summers: Yes, it's always interesting to read other governments' reports about us (and the rest of the world) -- it's good to check a few sources to try to put things in perspective.
Travelling in the Wake of Bombings...: I wouldn't hesitate to go to any three of these places, if I had the chance. London is a favorite city of mine, and my first inclination was to go back when the first bombings happened. I was just there in May, doing all the things I love to do, walking around, riding the tube, and generally being part of the city.
I also would not hesitate to go to Turkey or Egypt, given the chance. I'd jump.
It's all about being aware, being careful and not doing anything too stupid. I'd sooner travel halfway around the world before I'd drive around the Beltway!;
KC Summers: Seems to be a common theme...
Star Tannery, Va,: We're planning a honeymoon over winter break. We're intrigued by Argentina and liked Cindy's article -- what do you know about access to beach, rainforest, and penguins if we're down that way?; Can you recommend other places we might get some relaxation, light adventure, town/city and nature all in one trip?; Someplace that's warm during our winter... (New Zealand our first choice but likely too far and expensive.)
Cindy Loose: There are beaches near Buenos Aires. For penguins, you have to go far south, and I'm not sure whether or not they're there in summer/our winter. But I think you could find every possible sort of terrain in Argentina, you just have to plan on flying between things. It's a very large, and verrrry long country. On the other hand, it seems to have frequent flights among the major sections of the country.
Washington, DC: Great article on St. Emilion!; Just came back from there in June and really enjoyed the more personal wine tours - emailing ahead of time for an appointment is easy.
I'm head to Paris in early August - how shut down is the city going to be?; Any advice on identifying good restaurants that will be open?;
Cindy Loose: Many, many natives leave Paris in August, and while I don't know how to find out ahead of time which restaurants are open, I'm confident you'll find plenty wishing to cater to diners.
Cindy Loose: Thanks so much for joining us today.
Would the person with the highly detailed info about Graceland email loosec@washpost.com for today's prize.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072200333.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2005072419id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072200333.html
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With Walken, There's Something In the Glare
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2005072419
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Christopher Walken, excuse me, sir, but what planet are you from? Did you beam down or arrive more conventionally, by saucer, falling star or rocket-propelled craft? Did earthlings try to make peace? Can you fly? Will you destroy our cities? Or do you sort of like us, after all your time on our little planet?
Whatever: Thank God, you're here.
Of off-earther Christopher Walken, again (for about the 90th time!) gracing the screen in "Wedding Crashers," it can only be said: Is this guy great or what?
In big movies or small, in parts ludicrous or noble, in costumes insane or muted, in hats foolish or stylish, Walken has been a constant source of delight for at least 30 years. It's no less true in the very funny if decidedly sophomoric "Wedding Crashers," which is one of his more moderate performances. The director, David Dobkin, casts him as a standard Hollywood trope, Hollywood's idea of an Important Man, Washington-style. But his job really isn't to act, to perform, to engage or even to wear three-piece suits and look reedy and distinguished; it is to be.
As the movie is set up, Walken plays the extremely prosperous, extremely powerful William Cleary, secretary of the treasury and some kind of Kennedy aristo stand-in with a Hyannis-like compound on the Eastern Shore where he lords it over his tribe of beautiful daughters, their various lacrosse-player-like suitors, his bitter wife and a staff. Two of those daughters are the objets de coeur of the movie: Our heroes, played by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, will bed then wed them while undergoing ordeal by withering glance.
But Walken's more than just the old guy playing the father; he stands for the whole idea of order and rank in society, the sense of an iron structure of probity and mature responsibility against whose rock-hard foundation the anarchistic stylings of Wilson and Vaughn lash and crash. Though Walken's not particularly funny, Wilson and Vaughn (who are particularly funny) wouldn't be funny without him. He contains them. He contextualizes them. He is rock and hard place. In fact, for them to be funny, he cannot be funny. In not being funny he is . . . really funny.
There are just two problems with this conceit: He has almost no lines and no character, only a wardrobe.
So it all comes down to actor's tricks, of which he has a hatful. The best in this movie is his glare. His usual mode of being is the pompous pontification where, completely absorbed in his own power and magnificence, he is unaware of the world around him, or at least convinced that it exists only to further honor him. His daughters obey, the lacrosse players listen politely and Wilson and Vaughn try to keep their eyelids propped open with toothpicks. Yet every once in a while he breaks out of this narcissistic cocoon, when something one of the bad boys does provokes him, and he fixes them with a glare that would impale a butterfly to the cotton matting with a pin through its thorax. It's quite a thing: laser hard, unremitting, a quick glimpse into the soul and brain of a man who is not gifted with much in the mercy or empathy department. For their part, Wilson and particularly Vaughn become completely unhinged at the application of this force in nature; they communicate their total awareness that they are way overmatched.
This is funny, really funny. It's far funnier than if they had challenged him for alpha status; no, no, that's not their thing; they're party boys, he's of the real world; they simply want to get the hell out of Dodge and go on in their messy, meaningless lives. His insouciant assumption of central importance is miraculous to see, particularly when so much more frequently he's played a gangly, jumpy fletch of a man, quirky-jerky in motion, pale in eye, blond in hair, almost always ready to bust into a dance (he started as a dancer). In between, he's been a star, a villain, a comic presence and a deathly one. The one thing he's never been is out of work.
The first recorded Walken sighting (by me), however, was not auspicious. He hadn't really become Christopher Walken yet. He was just a lanky pretty boy with too much hair. The movie was an early-'70s caper thing called "The Anderson Tapes," starring Sean Connery as a burglar who devises a plan to rip off an entire apartment building -- that is, all the apartments within it. The location was a posh Manhattan locale, and the gimmick was that law enforcement outfits had penetrated the scheme, had everyone under wired or taped surveillance but somehow never put it all together in time to prevent it from happening; the narrative was, therefore, assembled after the fact from the tapes of the title. In the end, if memory hasn't gotten it hopelessly confused with some other '70s banality, Walken's character is killed in a van crash as he's trying to get away from the scene.
We were not impressed. We did not even record the young man in our data bank of promising newcomers. In fact, the role hadn't let him be him, that twitchy presence with the sallow eyes and the shimmering sensitivity. He was just, you know, boney and not handsome enough to be really handsome. And there were handsome boys around in that time: William Katt, remember him? What about Michael Blodgett? Gone, all gone.
Walken managed to hang on -- he was in "Annie Hall" in 1977, and while I have no memory of him, other non-brain-fried citizens do, recalling him as Diane Keaton's brother who drove the two stars nearly insane as he drove them home in one scene, monotonous, accident-obsessed, hilarious -- until '78, when "The Deer Hunter" made him a star and won him an Oscar. It was the beginning of a short-lived star arc that illuminated the late '70s and early '80s, but the truth is, he brought a supporting actor's techniques to the center of the frame and never really seemed comfortable there. He's always doing character actor-y things even at the center of the composition, designed to make you notice him. But he's already there. He's in the center. The camera is on him.
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Search Washington, DC area movie listings, reviews and locations from the Washington Post. Features DC, Virginia and Maryland entertainment listings for movies and movie guide. Visit http://eg.washingtonpost.com/section/movies today.
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Retirement Reservations
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Congressional leaders of the drive to overhaul Social Security will limp into their August recess next week, divided and hoping against hope that political magic will resurrect the centerpiece of President Bush's domestic agenda this fall.
Out of the Social Security stalemate, however, a separate, bipartisan push is emerging to address an issue that is arguably more pressing: the nation's abysmal savings rate, which most economists see as a broader threat to retirement security.
A final House Ways and Means Committee bill on Social Security remains far off, but potential provisions aimed at bolstering the nation's anemic savings rate are coming into focus. Many of those initiatives will have bipartisan appeal. House Democrats plan to unveil their own proposals this week to boost national savings, said Rep. Sander M. Levin (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Social Security subcommittee.
"Perhaps out of the Social Security debate, we will come out with a consensus on creating retirement security out of the other legs of the retirement savings stool," said Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), one of the few Ways and Means Committee Democrats who still consults closely with Republicans. "We may bear fruit this Congress." The traditional retirement security "stool" includes Social Security, traditional pensions and personal savings.
A savings package, which could move on its own or be wrapped into a bill next year to overhaul the tax code, could have significant economic consequences. Personal savings as a percentage of disposable income was a meager 0.6 percent in May, compared with a personal savings rate of 4.6 percent just 10 years ago. National savings helps to keep interest rates low and to finance business investments that maintain economic growth. For now, the U.S. economy has relied on foreign investors to bankroll economic growth, but as Europe and Japan hit old-age crunches, those regions will begin drawing down their savings, not sending it here.
"Right now, our economic growth and capital formation is highly dependent on foreign capital," said Kevin A. Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. "If those in-flows dry up, we're going to either have to stop growing or finance that growth ourselves. With that in mind, policies to stimulate savings are perfectly sensible."
The 2001 tax cut created a "saver's credit" that provided a federal match equal to as much as 100 percent of a low-income worker's annual savings. But restrictions, complexity and a lack of publicity has kept participation low. Out of 54 million potential qualifiers, only 5.4 million Americans have actually received the saver's credit.
The centerpiece policy of a new savings package, crafted by Republican tax lobbyist Richard Grafmeyer, is an enhanced tax credit to spur savings among low- and moderate-income workers.
Grafmeyer's plan -- under serious consideration by the Ways and Means Committee -- would expand that participation greatly. Workers earning $50,000 or less would open a savings plan with their employer, a financial institution or even a tax preparer such as H&R Block. Those institutions would then match the deposits -- 50 cents on the dollar up to a maximum annual contribution of $2,000 -- and would receive a federal tax credit to cover the cost.
By checking a box on their tax returns, these workers could direct their earned income tax credits or income tax refunds into the new accounts as well, under a plan under committee consideration, said Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security.
McCrery said such policies could then be coupled with a significant boost to the maximum annual deposit limits in 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts. That move is not likely to help those who are not saving, primarily struggling families who cannot reach the existing annual limits. But it could boost overall national savings, he said.
Moreover, by promoting the new saver's credit, employers could expand the savings options of their well-paid executives without running afoul of rules that limit the tax-favored savings of "highly compensated employees." Such rules apply the brakes on executives if their savings are too disproportionate to the savings of lower-paid workers.
Another likely piece of the larger retirement security package being drafted by House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) would help employers make enrollment in 401(k) plans automatic unless workers choose to opt out. About 10 percent of companies with 401(k) plans already enroll new hires automatically, and the effect has been dramatic. A 2001 study by the University of Pennsylvania's Brigitte C. Madrian and United Health Group's Dennis F. Shea found that in one large corporation, retirement plan participation among new hires jumped to 85.9 percent from 37.4 percent when enrollment became the default option. For minorities and low-income workers, the change was even more striking.
Virtually every one of these measures is mirrored by a similar Democratic proposal, said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a Ways and Means Committee member who has been pushing savings provisions for months. If Republicans are willing to break them out of a private accounts package, there is little doubt they would be approved overwhelmingly.
"You could make progress on this in a New York minute," Emanuel said. "We're getting very close here."
Proponents of Social Security overhaul have not lost hope.
"We're operating on the assumption that we will be pulling together something in September for a vote some time this fall," McCrery said. But, he hastened to add, "there is no consensus."
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Congressional leaders of the drive to overhaul Social Security will limp into their August recess next week, divided and hoping against hope that political magic will resurrect the centerpiece of President Bush's domestic agenda this fall.
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Max Out Your Credit Knowledge
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I'm always trying to crack the credit-scoring code that plays a big role in determining how much consumers pay for the money they borrow.
So I was eager to dig up an answer to a question I received from a reader recently. She wrote: "In your column, I have read that if you use over a certain percentage of the credit on your credit cards, it will lower your FICO score. My question is this: Is it a certain percentage of your credit-card credit overall or a percentage of your credit on a particular card?"
The credit-scoring algorithm looks at the credit utilization rate for each active account and, separately, a person's credit usage for several accounts together, said Craig Watts, public affairs manager for Fair Isaac Corp., the company that created the FICO credit score used by many lenders to evaluate consumer credit risk.
According to Watts, here is what's factored into your credit score:
· Your credit utilization for each active revolving account, such as credit cards and some home equity lines of credit.
· Credit utilization across all active revolving accounts.
· Credit utilization for each active installment account you have, such as a mortgage, auto or student loan.
· Credit utilization across all active installment accounts.
"We have found that both factors -- individual credit utilization and aggregate credit utilization -- have value in predicting future credit risk," Watts said.
Here's a practical example of what Watts is saying: Let's say you have four active credit cards, each with a credit limit of $5,000. Three of the cards have zero balances. The fourth card has a balance due of $5,000, making you maxed out (100 percent credit utilization). Being maxed out on that card will hurt your credit score.
However, your overall utilization for all four cards is just 25 percent, which is good and would probably help your score. An even lower utilization rate would help your score even more. Generally, you don't want to use more than 50 percent of the available balance on any one card, and you don't want the combined utilization to be more than 50 percent.
In addition, Watts said, the FICO scoring model gives more weight to your credit usage on revolving accounts than on installment accounts.
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I'm always trying to crack the credit-scoring code that plays a big role in determining how much consumers pay for the money they borrow.
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Venture Capital Is Custom-Made to Give Zazzle a Little Zip
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A company called Zazzle wants to be the place you express yourself online by creating custom goods such as personal postage based on your photos, T-shirts featuring your dog or stationery adorned by doodles you drew in your zanier moments.
Two-year-old Zazzle ( http://www.zazzle.com/ ) is hardly the first to enter the so-called mass-customization market, but it drew media attention last week by announcing it had landed $16 million in venture capital from Silicon Valley's premier investment firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
It also added customized postage stamps through a partnership with mailing supplies vendor Pitney Bowes. Customers can upload an image or select one from Zazzle's library and have it appear on stamps. Prices start at 130 percent of the face value of first-class stamps, with a sheet of 20 selling for $16.99. Prices decline based on order volume.
Zazzle said it will screen all submissions on postage images to weed out those that violate rules set by the U.S. Postal Service. "We don't want to do anything that violates copyrights or is racist or offensive to the government," chief executive Robert Beaver said.
In addition to your own artwork, Zazzle also offers the use of over half a million licensed images, including 3,500 from Walt Disney that spotlight some 130 Disney characters. Parents can put their children's names on a Nemo T-shirt or Minnie Mouse poster. Images also are available from the Library of Congress, Neopets, Fox's "Family Guy," Build-a-Bear and Harvey Entertainment.
The company also offers customized posters and prints in five sizes with 200 framing options, and design-your-own apparel in more than 60 styles. It spent two years developing and refining its in-house manufacturing capability so it can ship orders within 24 hours, Beaver said.
Cafepress.com ( http://www.cafepress.com/ ) offers similar design-it-yourself products, as do many online photo sites. Both Zazzle and Cafepress go further and invite people to upload their own images and products for public display, so others can buy or customize them further. Those contributors receive commissions or royalties that vary on Cafepress and amount to 10 percent on Zazzle.
If you thought Google was losing its playful side, check out the lunar map that went live Wednesday. Google chose to honor the 36th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon by extending its mapping service to let Web surfers wander around a virtual version of the lunar surface. Using NASA images, the lunar map shows the six sites where Apollo landings occurred; clicking on each shows who landed where.
The feature extends Google's humor, too, with a satirical job posting for engineers to work at "our lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007." (Google regulars may recall this ad first appearing on April Fool's Day of 2004.) The listing says the company is seeking candidates who are "in top physical condition and are capable of surviving with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes, 'The Sopranos' and a steady supply of oxygen."
A New Way to Cruise for News
Become.com, a comparison-shopping site , upgraded its search engine last week to include news articles. Created by the folks behind the early online shopping service MySimon, Become.com is a recent entry into the crowded field of sites that aim to help people find product reviews and compare prices on millions of items.
Now Become.com has added a feature that automatically runs a search against hundreds of news sites whenever a user enters a query in its search box. If it finds stories on a related product or service, it presents links to those articles under an "in the news" label.
One nice feature of Become.com is how it invites users to click either a "research" or "shop" button when they enter a query term. Running a "research" query yields links to reviews, commentary and descriptions of products. Clicking "shop" for the same term pulls up information in a more structured format designed to help shoppers compare prices and shipping fees from various retailers. The free site is still in trial mode.
http://www.become.com/ E-mail Leslie Walker atwalkerl@washpost.com.
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A company called Zazzle wants to be the place you express yourself online by creating custom goods such as personal postage based on your photos, T-shirts featuring your dog or stationery adorned by doodles you drew in your zanier moments. If you thought Google was losing its playful side, check......
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Job Market in W.Va. Defies Efforts to Reform Welfare
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DELBARTON, W.Va. -- Sophia Diamond was born poor and does not doubt that she will die the same way.
She has just turned 30, but her left ankle, crushed when her Dodge compact slammed into a cliff four years ago, keeps her limping, in pain and out of work. Just getting around is a job. She lives in a hollow where the roads twist like whirligigs and it takes half an hour to get to the grocery store -- 45 minutes if you end up behind a coal truck. But she no longer has a car, so she has to grab rides from relatives when she can.
Diamond received welfare, or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), until the 60-month limit ran out. Nearly two years later, she began receiving disability checks, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI). She gets $479 a month and $160 in food stamps. Still, she says, she can barely afford the electric bills for her trailer or food for her 8-year-old daughter.
She believes this is how it will always be. "I can't work at all," she said, "and there ain't no jobs here no how, except in the coal mines. There's nowhere else for me to go, neither. Without my family, I would not survive."
In the Central Appalachian coal country, where the land is famously rich and the people famously not, welfare caseloads are down, but poverty still flourishes. Since the 1996 welfare reform law, or Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, took effect, the rolls in West Virginia have dropped from 38,404 to fewer than 10,000. In general, the law -- which sets a five-year limit for receiving welfare and requires recipients to get an education, take job training or perform community service -- is considered a success. But in West Virginia, many former recipients are worse off than before, according to research by West Virginia University.
Even as the Senate is considering reauthorizing the welfare reform act with stricter work requirements and more child care funding, a prime goal of the act -- moving welfare recipients into jobs -- remains elusive in rural West Virginia, according to the research, done in conjunction with the state Department of Health and Human Resources. A year after their checks stopped, 73.1 percent of former recipients were unemployed, 65.6 percent reported not being able to afford their basic utilities, and only a small proportion believed that their prospects for the future were good (11.3 percent) or excellent (3.1 percent), the researchers found.
The main problems: Jobs were few and far between, getting from here to there was a major ordeal, and added personal burdens -- from health concerns to child care quandaries -- could derail even the most determined attempts welfare recipients might make at self-sufficiency.
Not to mention that West Virginia, like many other states, moved fast to clear its welfare caseloads after the federal law took effect -- without providing support or guidance to some of its neediest residents, according to WVU researchers.
West Virginia, a major front in President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty, does have more than its share of challenges. But the researchers say the state is not unique in its struggles with welfare reform. While welfare cases have dropped more than 50 percent nationally since the federal law took effect (including by more than 70 percent in Maryland, 60 percent in Virginia and 32 percent in the District), studies in several states, including Illinois, Missouri and South Carolina, have found a majority of former recipients struggling with low-paying, often part-time, jobs -- or none at all.
Even in Wisconsin, considered the model of federal welfare reform, a recent state audit found that four-fifths of mothers who had "graduated" from welfare earn wages below the poverty level.
"The overall picture is fairly grim for low-income families," said Tom Gaiz, co-director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York at Albany, which has been studying welfare reform.
"We're moving against any general support for people who aren't working or without a working background," Gaiz said, "at least among the younger population." In some ways, he added, "we're spending more money overall than we were 10 years ago -- and that is for medical assistance, because we think that's a basic good, and for food assistance, and for supplements to income through the earned-income tax credit. But you can't really find general budgetary support for people who the government thinks may be employable."
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DELBARTON, W.Va. -- Sophia Diamond was born poor and does not doubt that she will die the same way.
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Unknown Illness Kills Nine Chinese Farmers
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BEIJING, July 23 -- An unidentified disease has killed nine farmers and sickened 11 others in a rural part of China's western Sichuan province, prompting the government to dispatch an emergency team of researchers to investigate whether the deaths are related to bird flu, a Health Ministry spokesman said Saturday.
State media said the illnesses occurred between June 24 and July 21 in about 15 villages surrounding the city of Ziyang, 945 miles southwest of Beijing. All of the farmers had recently slaughtered sick pigs or sheep, and researchers from the health and agriculture ministries are investigating a possible link, the official New China News Agency said.
Mao Qunan, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, said such a concentrated cluster of abrupt, unexplained deaths was rare, and that the government was taking necessary precautions. Mao said researchers hoped to quickly determine whether the outbreak might be related to the bird flu virus that has devastated poultry flocks in nine countries across Asia and killed at least 56 people in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
International health experts have warned that bird flu, which so far has not been able to spread quickly among humans, could undergo a genetic change and cause a global pandemic, killing millions if not tens of millions of people. Experts have also warned that pigs, which often carry the human influenza virus, could contract bird flu and act as a "mixing bowl," accelerating the process of mutation.
Scientists in China and Indonesia have already found bird flu in pigs, and the Indonesian government announced Saturday that it would kill about 100 pigs near the home of three people who are believed to be the country's first fatalities from the disease.
In late April, the Chinese government reported an outbreak of bird flu among migratory waterfowl at a nature reserve in Qinghai province, which is northwest of Sichuan. Then, last month, China reported two more outbreaks in Xinjiang province, which is northwest of Qinghai. But the government has never reported any outbreaks of bird flu in Sichuan.
U.N. officials and independent researchers have complained that the Chinese government has not fully responded to urgent requests by the World Health Organization and other international health groups for information about the three outbreaks, including samples of the virus found, analyses of its genetic makeup and details about the extent of the infection and efforts to contain it.
Reached by telephone, a disease control official in Ziyang said health authorities have already ruled out bird flu as the cause of the farmers' deaths. He also said there had been no cases of bird flu reported among poultry or other livestock in the region. But the official declined to give his name and there was no official announcement of findings.
A state-run newspaper in western China, the Huaxi Metropolitan Daily, reported that the sickened farmers suffered flu-like symptoms in the early stages of the disease, including fever, fatigue, nausea and vomiting. Later, the farmers suffered bleeding under the skin, shock and other symptoms, the newspaper said.
The newspaper said only one of the patients had recovered from the disease, while six of the 10 other surviving patients were in critical condition. The farmers were between the ages of 30 and 70, and all but one were men, the New China News Agency added.
State media said researchers have found no evidence the disease has been transmitted from person to person, noting that none of the farmers were related or had contact with each other.
Local authorities have taken steps to limit the spread of the disease, including forbidding farmers from slaughtering any more sick pigs or sheep, the New China News Agency said. The agency also said local authorities were immediately burying dead pigs or sheep discovered by farmers and carrying out sterilization measures, while requiring personnel to use protective gear and avoid direct contact with the carcasses.
Researcher Zhang Jing contributed to this report.
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BEIJING, July 23 -- An unidentified disease has killed nine farmers and sickened 11 others in a rural part of China's western Sichuan province, prompting the government to dispatch an emergency team of researchers to investigate whether the deaths are related to bird flu, a Health Ministry...
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Montgomery to Curb Flexible Zoning
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They were Montgomery County's answer to cookie-cutter subdivisions and isolated neighborhoods.
"Floating zones," as loosely defined by planners, are meant to free developers from the constraints of traditional suburban zoning. The results, at least on paper, are unique communities with diverse housing stock, amenities and retail space.
Since their inception in the late 1960s, the zones have been used to build new neighborhoods in Germantown. They also have served as a tool to revitalize older suburban town centers in Silver Spring and Bethesda and across the country.
But recent events in Clarksburg, where hundreds of homes were constructed in violation of building codes, also suggest that floating zones are much like they sound: vague, unpredictable and difficult to manage.
An estimated 80 percent of upcoming residential development in Montgomery will be done on the basis of floating, or "site plan" zones. The situation in Clarksburg, which is the subject of multiple state and local investigations, has county leaders scrambling to correct what they view as serious management shortcomings in the system.
"There was no conductor, and when you don't have a conductor, it's a recipe for bad things to happen," said County Council President Tom Perez (D-Silver Spring).
Traditional zoning laws establish specific rules for land use that usually can be changed only by lawmakers. Residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural zones all come with rigid standards for the type and amount of construction that can occur. The regulations leave little leeway for interpretation and require only casual oversight from planners.
Floating or site plan zones grant developers and county officials broad authority to negotiate the shape of a neighborhood. Although builders often push for greater density to maximize profits, planners tend to seek open space, retail and affordable housing. The result of the negotiations is a legally binding document called a site plan.
But the complexity of site plans creates a management challenge for county officials. Follow-up and enforcement can be time consuming.
"There is certainly a lot more work to review a project like that instead of one where everything is laid out specifically in ordinance," said Charlie Loehr, director of the county Department of Park and Planning.
There have been warnings about Montgomery's increasing reliance on floating zones. In 2003, a Denver consulting firm said the county's zoning ordinance was "one of the most difficult to use and understand" it had seen.
The report by Clarion Associates also said that "there is too much negotiated development with little guidance" and that "procedures and review processes routinely employed by staff are not reflected in ordinance."
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They were Montgomery County's answer to cookie-cutter subdivisions and isolated neighborhoods.
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Plame's Identity Marked As Secret
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A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.
Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.
The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.
Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.
Prosecutors attempting to determine whether senior government officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the media are investigating whether White House officials gained access to information about her from the memo, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
The memo may be important to answering three central questions in the Plame case: Who in the Bush administration knew about Plame's CIA role? Did they know the agency was trying to protect her identity? And, who leaked it to the media?
Almost all of the memo is devoted to describing why State Department intelligence experts did not believe claims that Saddam Hussein had in the recent past sought to purchase uranium from Niger. Only two sentences in the seven-sentence paragraph mention Wilson's wife.
The memo was delivered to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on July 7, 2003, as he headed to Africa for a trip with President Bush aboard Air Force One. Plame was unmasked in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak seven days later.
Wilson has said his wife's identity was revealed to retaliate against him for accusing the Bush administration of "twisting" intelligence to justify the Iraq war. In a July 6 opinion piece in the New York Times and in an interview with The Washington Post, he cited a secret mission he conducted in February 2002 for the CIA, when he determined there was no evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium for a nuclear weapons program in the African nation of Niger.
White House officials discussed Wilson's wife's CIA connection in telling at least two reporters that she helped arrange his trip, according to one of the reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, and a lawyer familiar with the case.
Prosecutors have shown interest in the memo, especially when they were questioning White House officials during the early days of the investigation, people familiar with the probe said.
Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, has testified that he learned Plame's name from Novak a few days before telling another reporter she worked at the CIA and played a role in her husband's mission, according to a lawyer familiar with Rove's account. Rove has also testified that the first time he saw the State Department memo was when "people in the special prosecutor's office" showed it to him, said Robert Luskin, his attorney.
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A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contains information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified.
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Stakes for the Court
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THE REPLACEMENT of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with Judge John G. Roberts Jr. could have a significant impact on the law, and on the country. How much impact is hard to know: While many people presume to know Judge Roberts's views, not much can be learned from the public record. Nominees are traditionally -- and rightly -- reticent about answering questions that could commit them on specific cases. All of which leaves senators in something of a bind. The stakes are high, and information will be tight.
Public discussion of the nomination has unsurprisingly focused so far on abortion rights. But abortion may not be the area where Judge Roberts will have the biggest effect -- at least not initially. He cannot provide the decisive vote for overturning Roe v. Wade , which is currently protected by a 6-to-3 majority, even if he favors doing so. What he could do is move the court toward tolerating a range of restrictions on abortion, such as the "partial-birth" procedure, that it currently does not permit. That would mean a unwarranted erosion of women's privacy rights.
Another area where Judge Roberts could have a big impact is on the court's approach to federalism -- that is, the balance of power between the national government and the states. The court seems less poised than it did only a few years ago to head in a radical direction in this area. One of Judge Roberts's
opinions, however, raises worrisome questions about whether he would be willing to go too far in reining in federal power. We would hope he could instead provide a strong center that is now missing from the court on these questions.
Two other areas where Judge Roberts could shift the court are campaign finance regulation and affirmative action in education. In both areas, Justice O'Connor provided the decisive fifth vote for upholding challenged policies: the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and race-conscious admissions at the University of Michigan. Judge Roberts's elevation raises the possibility of the court's taking a different course or even reconsidering those holdings, both of which we consider correct. It is particularly important that the court give Congress constitutional leeway to adopt effective campaign finance rules.
More generally, Justice O'Connor has been a key vote for expansions of judicial power in many areas -- some justified, some unwarranted in our view. She supported, for example, the court's assertion of jurisdiction over the Guantanamo Bay detentions, as well as its management of race-conscious redistricting. Judge Roberts would have to be only mildly more restrained in his attitude toward judicial authority to reduce the court's ever-growing profile. That could affect future judicial checks on the Bush administration's assertions of power in the war on terrorism, among other issues.
Teasing out what sort of justice someone will be is never easy -- particularly when that someone has been as careful in his public utterances as Judge Roberts. It will probably prove impossible to gauge how he will vote in specific case areas. It should, however, be possible to have a serious discussion with him about the general principles of constitutional decision making that underlie all of these questions. Judge Roberts has said he does not hew to a single all-encompassing theory of constitutional rulings -- an encouraging sign in and of itself. But what are his methods for interpreting the Constitution? How much deference should the court grant to its past decisions when they might have been in error, and under what circumstances should it reverse course and overturn major decisions? It should be possible, without demanding that the nominee compromise his independence as a justice, to learn a lot more about him.
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THE REPLACEMENT of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with Judge John G. Roberts Jr. could have a significant impact on the law, and on the country. How much impact is hard to know: While many people presume to know Judge Roberts's views, not much can be learned from the public record....
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A Right Turn With a Smile
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Judge John G. Roberts could turn out to be Antonin Scalia with a Washington Establishment smile. He is almost certainly a William Rehnquist for the 21st century. And he is David Souter turned on his head -- a stealth candidate whose winning personality disguises intense conservatism, not moderation.
Roberts was, in short, the shrewdest choice President Bush could have made to fill retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's Supreme Court seat. Roberts could move the court well to the right yet grin his way through the confirmation process. His advertising slogan might be: Staunchly on the Right. But With No Hard Edges.
All of which means that the next two weeks will be crucial in determining how the Roberts confirmation battle goes. The Bush administration will be desperate to frame the fight in terms of Roberts's ample qualifications, his bipartisan group of friends, his fine education and his lovely family.
Roberts's opponents need to lift the argument to the level of principle. It doesn't matter how nice or smart Roberts may be. What matters is that on a court where so many cases have been decided by 5-to-4 votes, Roberts's convictions and philosophy matter far more than his biography.
If you doubt this, consider that no one disputes Justice Antonin Scalia's intelligence or sense of humor. Many of us would welcome the chance to have Scalia as a professor. But outside the ranks of the right wing, few Americans want their country defined consistently by Scalia's choices. In shifting the balance on the court, Roberts could give Scalia the power to impose his worldview.
The issues at stake are not abstract. They have to do with the government's power to protect the environment, to safeguard civil rights, including the rights of the disabled, and to provide protections for employees and consumers. It's admirable that this son of a steel executive worked some summers in a steel mill. More important is how he would rule on cases involving steelworkers and other working men and women.
Anyone who doubts that Roberts will be a consistent conservative vote on the court should examine the avalanche of endorsements that immediately fell his way from right-of-center groups. Brian Fahling of the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy called Roberts an excellent choice. The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, said the nomination of Roberts provided "an unparalleled opportunity to restore the proper role of the Supreme Court." Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice called the nomination "great news."
These gentlemen are not "squishes," to use the popular right-wing word for conservative sellouts. They care passionately about moving the court to the right. If they think Roberts will do that, the rest of us should pay attention.
But while Roberts could expand Scalia's power, the nominee's background is more similar to Rehnquist's. Like the chief justice, Roberts has been a loyal Republican Party operative. He was reportedly involved in the Bush legal effort in 2000 to block further recounts in Florida. We always knew that the Supreme Court conservatives who helped put this president in office were paving the way for an even more conservative court. Roberts's nomination is the fruit of that effort. Surely he should be questioned closely about one of the most outrageous decisions in the court's history and his role in the Florida fiasco.
Yes, the opposition party has an obligation to be tough on this nomination. But there is every sign that it may exercise this duty in a civil way. In their initial remarks, Roberts's likely critics gave him his due as a lawyer and a person. "There is no question that Judge Roberts has outstanding legal credentials and an appropriate legal temperament and demeanor," said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a leading Democratic voice on the Judiciary Committee. Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way, said in an interview that "no one should question his likability."
But a good personality and a public record that, in Neas's phrase, is "very sparse" do not mean that Roberts belongs on a closely divided court. The Bush administration will be trying to create a nice-guy stampede to Roberts among moderate Democrats and Republicans. The stampede should be resisted until everyone knows more about where Roberts stands. Conservatives were surprised at how liberal Justice Souter turned out to be. There will be no excuse for discovering too late that Roberts is every bit as conservative as his supporters think he is.
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Judge John G. Roberts could turn out to be Antonin Scalia with a Washington Establishment smile. He is almost certainly a William Rehnquist for the 21st century. And he is David Souter turned on his head -- a stealth candidate whose winning personality disguises intense conservatism, not moderation.
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Chad Tidings
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Another hanging chad has dropped. His name is John G. Roberts Jr., and he undoubtedly will turn out to be opposed to abortion rights, affirmative action, an expansive view of federal powers and a reading of the Constitution that takes a properly suspicious view of the state's embrace of religion. In these and other matters -- the death penalty, for instance -- he is expected to substantially reflect the views of George W. Bush, the man who nominated him to the Supreme Court, because that was what the election of 2000 and its sequel were all about. You hang enough chads, and you get to change the Supreme Court.
My predictions on how Roberts will vote when he (almost certainly) gets to the court are not based on a close reading of his scholarly writings -- there are almost none -- or a parsing of his decisions as an appellate judge. It is based entirely on the supposition that Bush has taken the ideological measure of his nominee and has been assured by others that Roberts is a conservative, maybe deeply so. The White House in turn has passed that message to conservative groups. They all gave praise. "The president is a man of his word," said the very important Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "He promised to nominate someone along the lines of a Scalia or a Thomas, and that is exactly what he has done." God save us all.
Actually, the president has done no such thing. As opposed to Clarence Thomas, the oddest choice since the mad emperor Caligula proposed making his horse a consul of Rome, Roberts comes glittering with dazzling academic bona fides and, from a liberal perspective, seditious geniality. And, as opposed to Antonin Scalia, he has not managed to alert the opposition with ideological writings that are a joy to read and a fright to ponder. From what everyone is saying, had Roberts not chosen law, he would have made a dandy salesman. Everyone likes him. He sorely lacks the villainous aspect of the storied Robert Bork.
Bork's nomination fight is frequently cited nowadays, often by those who think a great injustice was done. Not so. What doomed Bork was what a Post editorial from the time (1987) called his "almost frightening detachment from . . . the real-world consequences of his views" -- particularly in the sensitive area of civil rights. It was with the utmost reluctance that The Post opposed Bork's nomination, even predicting that his rejection would "pave the way to a demagogic, highly politicized future where confirmation proceedings are concerned." Nonetheless, because Bork suggested that the law was more important than justice, the paper opposed him. So, ultimately, did a comfy majority of the Senate.
The reasoning of that editorial still makes sense to me. If, in the course of the Senate hearings, it becomes clear that Roberts, too, values brittle ideology over supple common sense, then the Democrats would be justified -- even obliged -- to put up a stiff fight. I suppose it can be argued, and I know it will, that abortion is one of those matters. It entails the aforementioned "real-world consequences" that are all too familiar -- consequences that the pro-choice people keenly appreciate and consequences that the antiabortion people feel no less passionately about. The Roe decision may by now be a matter of settled law, but the issue remains an open sore in the body politic.
But Roberts alone is not enough to reverse Roe v. Wade , and, anyway, a pro-choice nominee is just not in the cards. Most Americans support abortion rights. Still, I doubt that abortion is seen as the single most important issue in their lives -- insufficient reason for a scorched-earth response to the nomination. Abortion lacks the historical resonance of civil rights or, for that matter, a similar consensus.
Shortly after Sandra Day O'Connor tendered her resignation, I spoke to an important Democratic senator who confided that Bush was in a trap. I tried really hard to follow his logic, but it eluded me. It seems to me that it is the Democratic Party that has a problem. It can either come to terms with reality or appear, to much of the country, both petulant and in the grip of special interests, particularly the pro-choice lobby. In effect, the fate of this nominee was settled back in the year 2000 when Florida, for better or for worse, squinted hard and pronounced George W. Bush its winner. The chads have spoken.
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Another hanging chad has dropped. His name is John G. Roberts Jr., and he undoubtedly will turn out to be opposed to abortion rights, affirmative action, an expansive view of federal powers and a reading of the Constitution that takes a properly suspicious view of the state's embrace of religion....
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Metro Patrols Grow As Security Tightens
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Washington's Metro transit agency tightened security yesterday in response to the latest London bombings, increasing patrols and planning a sweep of the subway system last night to search for explosives and weapons.
But Washington's response was not as extensive as that of New York, which last night became the first U.S. city to begin randomly checking bags at its subways, commuter railways and buses.
Metro Transit Police Chief Polly L. Hanson said Metro officials are studying the idea of bag searches and will see how the practice works in New York, where the city's buses and subways carry 7 million passengers a day -- more than half the nation's daily mass-transit riders.
Hanson would not discuss details of Metro's search of its 106-mile subway system, which was scheduled to begin after midnight. But she said that all maintenance work was canceled and that contractors or other outsiders would not be allowed to enter Metro stations. The last time Metro conducted such a search was immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
"It's going to be a total lockdown," Hanson said. "We want to make a secure environment. . . . The incidents in London, I think, have really made people realize the vulnerability of public transportation. Here you had a city on high alert. They've just had a terrible incident two weeks ago. They were on high alert, and whatever's happened has happened today."
Two weeks after massive explosions inside London's Underground killed 56 people, four smaller explosions yesterday shut the city's entire transit system.
Metro's sweep is the latest step in an ongoing effort to assess and tighten security in the mass-transit system of the nation's capital. Outside law enforcement agencies said they would help the transit police by offering teams of officers from across the region, and police are altering their shifts to try to confuse potential terrorists.
Federal agents and police officials urged citizens to look for suspicious behavior on the area's Metro and rail systems -- and if necessary, to take action themselves.
"If there's no police officer around and someone is sitting there, sweating and riffling through a backpack, someone needs to speak up loudly. They need to say, 'You're making me nervous,' " said James M. Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Washington office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "Citizens have got to look up, they've got to notice and they've got to be alert."
Experts reiterated yesterday that no technology exists to detect someone carrying explosives onto a subway or a bus. ATF officials said the best tool they have for finding explosives in a backpack or on a person is a bomb-sniffing dog that has been trained to detect some 19,000 types of explosives.
"I heard someone on the radio suggest that we install a device in the Metro that sniffs a bomb," said FBI Assistant Director Michael A. Mason, who heads the Washington Field Office. "Does he think we haven't thought of that?"
Private companies are working to develop technology to help law enforcement officers detect explosives, Mason said. "But it doesn't exist today," he said. "There's no simple solution."
Officials in other federal and local government agencies agreed with Mason, saying that the technology being used in airports nationwide would not work in mass-transit systems, on which the high volume of riders across the nation and trains being spaced just minutes apart make screenings too difficult.
Mason said federal agencies and local police departments across the Washington area are trying to develop a long-term security strategy for mass transit, instead of reacting with tactical operations that they can sustain for only a week at a time.
In New York, hundreds of police officers stationed throughout the city's mass-transit system began randomly searching backpacks and packages. The plan announced yesterday placed officers at subway turnstiles and bus stops.
"You can say no, but you will be denied entry," said Paul Browne, spokesman for the New York Police Department. "You will not be allowed to enter the system."
The department has considered proposals for bag searches at various times since the 2001 attacks, but the decision to begin the program came after London's second attack.
In response to the London bombings, U.S. Capitol Police have begun randomly searching the bags of people who are anywhere on the Capitol grounds.
For many of Washington's Metro riders, news of the latest bombings seemed to spark a sense of the inevitable, more than feelings of fear or nervousness. A Metro spokeswoman said the number of riders was typical for a weekday.
At Metro Center yesterday afternoon, James Washington, 54, of Brookland changed trains for a trip to Silver Spring. He had heard about the bombings, but the news did not change his plans.
"There's not much you can do," Washington said. "These people have shown that even if you prepare for it, if they want to do something they're going to do it. It doesn't matter if you have all kinds of security or not. You have to keep going."
Nearby, Chad Pipan and his wife, Julie, of Modesto, Calif., said that they had just heard the news over lunch and that they hesitated only momentarily before getting on another train to head to Arlington National Cemetery.
"If they want to bomb something, there's not really something we can do about it," Chad Pipan said.
Staff writers Maria Glod, Sandhya Somashekhar and Michael Alison Chandler contributed to this report. Garcia reported from New York.
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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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Hearings' Topic A May Be a Surprise
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Democratic senators signaled yesterday that they may quiz President Bush's Supreme Court nominee more closely about his views on interstate commerce than on abortion. But some Republicans, sensing that John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination is off to a powerful start, counseled him to say as little as possible on all fronts.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), meanwhile, said Roberts indicated he favors "modest" changes to legal precedents, perhaps suggesting that he would be reluctant to overturn major rulings such as the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights. Some liberal groups have expressed fears that Roberts, a conservative jurist, might seek to help overturn Roe , even though he has described it as "settled law."
On his second day of making courtesy calls to key senators, Roberts generally received warm receptions, especially from Republicans who spent more time advising him how to handle his upcoming Judiciary Committee hearings than probing his judicial philosophy. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), citing court nominees who won unanimous confirmation, said he told Roberts: "It seems like the less they say to the committee, the better off they are." He said Roberts "is a person of few words" who began their 25-minute meeting by saying, "Give me any advice you want to give me."
Another committee Republican, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, spent an hour with Roberts and then told reporters, "We chatted about what this process is, how difficult it is to go through." Noting that Democrats will press Roberts for his views on various topics, Hatch said, "He knows he can't express himself on matters that could come before the court."
Specter told reporters about his hour-long session with Roberts on Wednesday. Specter said Roberts dislikes labels such as liberal and conservative, "and his view was that the court ought to be modest."
"The other word that he used, which I thought was very important, was an emphasis on stability," Specter said. "When you talk about a modest approach by a court, and an approach on stability, I think you have critical ingredients of a judge who'd be nonactivist."
Specter said he did not ask Roberts for his views on the major abortion ruling, but he added: "When he talks about modesty and stability, I won't characterize that or apply it to Roe either, but those are important words."
Key Democrats, meanwhile, hinted that the hearings may focus less on abortion -- an emotional issue that many Americans associate with Supreme Court struggles -- than on the Constitution's commerce clause, which regulates interstate commerce. The Judiciary Committee's most senior Democrat, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.) , told reporters that he cares about how a Supreme Court justice can affect "real people's lives."
"The most obvious area is in the area of the commerce clause," Kennedy said.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a panel member, handed Roberts more than 60 questions during their meeting yesterday, including nine on the commerce clause. Among the questions: "Do you believe that Roe v. Wade (1973) was correctly decided?"
Kennedy and other liberals have criticized Roberts's dissent, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2003 case known as Rancho Viejo . Roberts cited the commerce clause in arguing that federal environmental laws do not protect a rare species of toads because the animals live only in California and do not cross state lines.
"Neither the Supreme Court nor any circuit court has adopted Judge Roberts' crabbed view of congressional power under the Commerce Clause," the liberal Alliance for Justice said in a report. "The effect of Judge Roberts' views on Congress' Commerce Clause authority might threaten to undermine a wide swath of federal protections, including many environmental, civil rights, workplace and criminal laws."
Some conservative groups have praised Roberts's arguments, saying interstate commerce regulations should not curb a developer's rights in a bid to protect a stay-at-home toad.
As Roberts visited Schumer, Kennedy and others, the prospects of a Democratic-led filibuster of his nomination grew dimmer. After the pivotal "Gang of 14" met privately, several members said there will be no filibuster unless researchers discover a political bombshell in the next few weeks.
The seven Democrats and seven Republicans play a key role because their May agreement positioned them to make a filibuster unsustainable. Republicans hold 55 of the Senate's 100 seats. A filibuster can be stopped with 60 votes or more.
"There was united agreement that it's too early to reach a judgment" on Roberts, said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.).
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Democratic senators signaled yesterday that they may quiz President Bush's Supreme Court nominee more closely about his views on interstate commerce than on abortion. But some Republicans, sensing that John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination is off to a powerful start, counseled him to say as little as...
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Short Record as Judge Is Under a Microscope
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When 17 U.S. service members, held captive and tortured by Saddam Hussein's forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, went to federal court demanding nearly a billion dollars in damages from the new Iraqi government, a district judge upheld their claim.
But in June 2004, Judge John G. Roberts Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said no, in an opinion that affirmed President Bush's authority to strip the courts of power to hear such cases.
Roberts's opinion was unsentimental but also in the mainstream of legal discourse. Two other judges on the same panel, both Democratic appointees, reached the same result, differing with Roberts only in that they would have thrown out the suit on a narrower basis.
Having spent most of his legal career representing others, Roberts began to mark out his own judicial philosophy only two years ago with his appointment to the District of Columbia Circuit. Now, with his nomination to the Supreme Court, his short judicial record is being closely examined for clues as to how he might rule on the nation's highest court.
Both the scope of Congress's authority to regulate intrastate economic activity -- ranging from development to homemade child pornography -- and U.S. anti-terrorism policies remain unsettled areas of the law likely to come before Roberts in some form if he makes it to the court.
In his relatively brief tenure on the bench, he has written that the Constitution may impose limits on Congress's power to protect endangered species within individual states, and he has voted -- just four days before Bush announced his nomination -- to uphold a military trial for a suspected al Qaeda terrorist held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Roberts is simultaneously skeptical of federal power over the states and supportive of executive-branch power in foreign and military affairs, and his sparse judicial record resembles the conservatism of a man he once worked for at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.
"I would say that what unites a lot of positions he's taken publicly is that he would be more deferential to the executive branch than a lot of other judges would be," said Richard A. Samp, chief counsel of the conservative Washington Legal Foundation, which represented the ex-POWs. "The fact that he clerked for Rehnquist, who is perhaps of all the justices the most deferential to elected branches of government, may mean that to an extent he follows in the same mold."
Nevertheless, the full extent of Roberts's judicial philosophy remains undeveloped -- at least in his written opinions. How that philosophy may unfurl should he win Senate confirmation to the court remains unknown. For his part, Roberts has said he believes that is not unusual or undesirable.
"[I]n my review over the years and looking at Supreme Court constitutional decisions, I don't necessarily think that it's the best approach to have an all-encompassing philosophy," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his 2003 confirmation hearing.
Roberts has participated in more than 300 decisions and orders since joining the D.C. Circuit in May 2003. He has written majority opinions for the court in 40 of those cases, according to the Justice Department.
Because of the D.C. Circuit's jurisdiction over federal regulatory agencies, its docket is heavy on technical cases not likely to cause controversy at Roberts's upcoming confirmation hearings.
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2004 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.
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Armstrong Minds the Time With 7th Win Nearly in Sight
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MENDE, France, July 21 -- Lance Armstrong feels so sure of victory, so ready for retirement, that he doesn't want to get off his bike. Not now, with the end this tantalizingly close.
"Why don't we just not stop? Let's just keep riding, get it over with," Armstrong said when teammate George Hincapie, pedaling alongside during Thursday's 18th stage, reminded him that only three days and 219.6 miles remained until the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
"That would be better for me," the six-, nearly seven-time champion said. "The sooner it's done, the better."
Armstrong, who is retiring at the end of the race, defended his large lead in Thursday's stage, won by Marcos Serrano of Spain.
Armstrong finished more than 11 minutes back in a group of four with Ivan Basso of Italy, Jan Ullrich of Germany and Cadel Evans of Australia. They broke away from other riders with bursts of speed up a brutal ascent at the finish in Mende, in south-central France.
Armstrong's lead over Basso remained unchanged at 2 minutes 46 seconds. Mickael Rasmussen, in third, was slower up the last climb and slipped to 3:46 behind Armstrong.
Ullrich is still fourth, 5:58 behind Armstrong, but closed on Rasmussen. The 1997 Tour winner improved his chances of overtaking the Dane in the final time trial on Saturday.
Ullrich, who has three second-place finishes behind Armstrong, said: "We tried everything. But Lance is so strong, just like last year. We tried to attack him, but you have to accept he is the strongest. The way he rides, the way his team rides. He deserves it."
Armstrong came into this Tour as hungry and as well-prepared as ever, quickly silencing doubters who questioned his will and ability to win again at age 33. He distanced his rivals from the opening time trial and then built on his lead in the mountains.
"It's been smooth, smoother than I expected," Armstrong said. "There's never really been a true panic within the team, within myself."
Asked how he has managed to stay so focused for seven years, he replied: "A love for the event and a hatred for losing the event."
"I learned in 1999 that this race is bigger than any, greater than any," he added. "I also learned what it's like to win it . . . and how much happiness and joy it brings to myself and to an entire program and to a country really of non-cycling fans."
Armstrong said spending time with his children will be his first priority upon retirement.
Thursday's stage was run under baking sun and had five climbs, including the steep final ascent that winds up from Mende to a nearby aerodrome. That ascent is not that long -- 1.9 miles -- but climbs at a very steep gradient averaging 10.1 percent.
Serrano was one of 10 riders who broke away from the main pack containing Armstrong early in the 117-mile route from Albi. He shook off the remaining members of his group on the last ascent, scything through the dense crowds that flooded onto the road and winning a stage for the first time in his career.
He covered the route in 4:37.36 seconds. Armstrong, Basso, Ullrich and Evans were 11:18 back. Rasmussen was another 37 seconds slower than them.
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MENDE, France -- Lance Armstrong feels so sure of victory, so ready for retirement, that he doesn't want to get off his bike. Not now, with the end this tantalizingly close.
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Drama Queen
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When it comes to auditions, Taraji Henson, Howard grad, triple-threat singer-dancer-actress, is enthusiastic . Take, for example, her tryout for director John Singleton's "Baby Boy." She showed up and they told her that -- omigod! -- she'd be auditioning with Tyrese. Fiiine Tyrese, he of the eight-pack abs and the R&B recording career. With that news, well, Henson needed a moment. Went back to her car to pull herself together. Once reassembled, with adrenaline pumping, she went back into that audition and, um, expressed herself: She slapped Tyrese upside the head with a pillow, and he slapped her and they started ad-libbing and . . .
"I think I blacked out," recalls Henson, who says she is 32. "I just remember coming to and I was on his back."
Of course, she got the job. First movie. Leading role. She was on her way, a single mother taking on Hollywood with her own baby boy in tow.
So a few years later, when it came time to audition for the role of Shug, the singing prostitute with a heart of gold, in "Hustle & Flow," which opens Friday, Henson just knew she had the part. After all, Singleton was producing. He'd sent her the script! She knew that this would be a film with impact, and judging from the advance buzz surrounding "Hustle & Flow" -- which "could become a classic of its kind," the New Yorker's David Denby wrote, and which won the Audience Award at Sundance -- she was right.
Henson knew this was the role for her. This character needed a voice. Her voice.
Except that Terrence Dashon Howard, who plays DJay, the Memphis pimp hankering to be a rapper, had someone else in mind. And Henson found herself fighting for the part in a way that did not involve smacking the leading man upside his head with a pillow.
"Initially, I wanted Meagan Good; that was the picture of the little girl that I had," says Howard in a telephone interview. (He co-starred with the 23-year-old Good in "Biker Boyz.")
"But I am so thankful for Taraji's tenacity. She fought and got that job above my recommendation."
Says Henson, a small, cinnamon-brown woman with a kewpie-doll face, "I sold them on this." Her hands wave around and around for emphasis, her words tumbling out, one over the next, "I told them, ' Trust me, I get it, she's a beacon of light, she's an angel, she's the matriarch of the household, I get it, I know this girl.' . . . Terrence Howard, he was looking at me, like, 'Oh, I gotta up my game, you're for real.' I was like, ' Yeah .'
Committing is an intrinsic part of the District native's makeup. She grew up working class -- "working very hard" -- in Southeast Washington. Her folks split when she was 2, but she says she grew up snug and secure, wrapped in the love and attention of both parents. Her father was always there for her, she says, even when he lost his job as a metal fabricator and ended up living out of his van. If he had 50 cents, she says, he would give her a quarter.
"I was never ashamed; he was never ashamed," Henson recalls. "He was always there. He would come pick me up in the same van he was living in and we'd go for a ride."
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Search Washington, DC area movie listings, reviews and locations from the Washington Post. Features DC, Virginia and Maryland entertainment listings for movies and movie guide. Visit http://eg.washingtonpost.com/section/movies today.
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Porch Song Trilogy
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Laura Henderson's real estate agent was not sugarcoating the situation.
"She called me and said, 'I've got a house you're really going to like, Laura -- but I have to tell you: The outside is really bad, and I don't want you to drive up to it, take one look and just leave,' " recalls the Bethesda homeowner. "I took my 15- and 11-year-old sons with me, and when we drove up they said, 'Mom, if we buy this house you'd better do something with the outside. Because it is really ugly.' "
In Edgemoor, a neighborhood filled with large but elegantly scaled prewar homes, it stood out for all the wrong reasons. Gracelessly proportioned and stylistically indeterminate, the house, built in the late 1980s, resembled a giant red shoe box. Between a jarring imbalance of windows, a half-hearted attempt at landscaping and fortress-inspired masonry, it had a facade only a mother could love.
To her credit, Henderson, a single mom raising two boys, had a nurturing instinct. She immediately saw past the house's flaws to its winning potential, and knew just how to unlock it. A new coat of off-white paint, for starters. And a new porch. A big one.
Transformed by the addition, the house is now unrecognizable as the block's once-ugly duckling. The porch lends much-needed dimension to the facade's flat plane, makes organizational sense of the oddly positioned windows and has the overall effect of making the house look several decades older than it actually is, finally integrating it into the community architecturally.
To hear Henderson tell it, her new porch was greeted as if she had mercifully razed the red behemoth and built anew. "People from the neighborhood kept coming up to me and thanking me for doing it," she says.
Adding a porch to a house in need of one, says Michael Dolan, a Washington resident and author of "The American Porch: An Informal History of an Informal Place" (Lyons Press, 2002, 352 pps., $24.95), is like "adding the eyebrows and eyelashes to a drawing of a face. It gives it character; it gives it individuality."
In a frenzied real estate market such as Washington's, where capital improvements are almost always made with an eye toward increasing resale value, one might think that the decision to add a porch is all about pushing a house up toward that next price point. But that's not the primary reason cited by people who embark on a porch addition project, says Jim Rill of Rill & Decker Architects in Bethesda.
"They just want their house to be more welcoming," says Rill, who estimates that his firm has handled at least 50 porch or portico additions over the past 10 years. "And they want to have a place outside the house that's in-between the exterior and interior." A porch, he says, "allows people to sit outside with some sense of protection, both physically and mentally, in that you feel like you're still 'in' your house. Putting a roof over it gives you that sense of privacy. But you can still connect with the streetscape."
The veranda that Henderson commissioned from designer-builder Anthony Wilder, part of a larger renovation that also included the house's interior, did not come cheaply. Wilder estimates that the total cost of the porch -- which includes a Carderock foundation, a bead-board ceiling, electrical wiring and classical architectural touches -- was upwards of $90,000.
Though she could have saved many tens of thousands of dollars by building a portico -- essentially a porch-in-miniature with a gable and columns sheltering a doorway -- Henderson decided the extra money would be well spent. "Other architects I spoke with suggested adding a portico, but they just weren't big enough. The house was so flat that we needed to totally redefine the front."
Both Rill and Wilder place the cost of a large custom porch addition from anywhere between $75,000 to $125,000, a figure that factors in the costs of not only the foundation, architecture, wiring and details but also extra landscaping.
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Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland home and garden news/headlines, including build/fix and furnishing/design, garden/patio tips. Resources and coupons for homes and gardens, DC, MD, VA contacts. Guides for organizing, cleaning, planting and caring.
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The Highly Designed Dorm Room
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Patrick Baglino, a Dupont Circle designer, works with multimillion-dollar budgets. He's decorated mansions in Spring Valley, New York lofts in SoHo, homes in Kalorama and Georgetown, waterfront condos in Florida. He also does dorm rooms.
A recent makeover for two friends at Georgetown University included Ralph Lauren bed linens, window treatments from Anthropologie and a $1,200 Angela Adams carpet. Total price: about $5,000, not including Baglino's fees.
College students who can't quite manage a personal designer can still customize their dorm decor by registering for exactly what they want at Bed, Bath & Beyond, Linens-N-Things or Wal-Mart. College registries, which have evolved from wedding registries, offer convenience for students and parents, especially those traveling long distances. Some retailers will take your wish list and have everything ready at the store nearest your campus. Bed, Bath & Beyond even delivers to college dorms near its stores.
At American and George Washington universities, students' push to have a best-dressed room prompted student associations to arrange bus rides to and from the Alexandria Target during the first week of school. Never mind Washington's monuments and museums. "When students get to school, they want to go to two places," says Julie Weber, executive director of housing and dining programs at AU. "Best Buy and Target."
Moving way past carpet remnants, milk crates and hand-me-down refrigerators, style-conscious students these days aspire to roman shades, featherbeds and micro-fridges (a combination of refrigerator, freezer and microwave) to adorn their cinderblock cubicles.
Danielle Feuerberg of Centerville, 18, is heading to Tulane University in New Orleans next month. She has not yet met her freshman roommate, Ashlee Riden of Kansas City, also 18, but the two already have shopped together, via e-mail. "I think we were a little overzealous about it," said Feuerberg, "because the day after we became roommates, we started talking about our room -- after getting the formalities out of the way, definitely the first thing we talked about was decorating."
The girls have picked a color scheme for their room (pink and orange) and purchased coordinating bedspreads. "We send hyper-links and pictures of things we've found on the Internet, and e-mail everyday with messages like, 'Do you like this?' and 'What do you think of this?' " With gift cards and money saved, Feuerberg has spent $200. By the time she's finished, she expects the cost to be about $500.
That's well below the approximately $1,200 the average freshmen spends on back-to-school items, according to a 2004 National Retail Federation survey, which estimates that college students and their parents will spend about $25.7 billion. The breakdown: $7.5 billion on electronics, $8.8 billion on textbooks, $3.2 billion on clothing and accessories, $2.6 billion on dorm or apartment furnishings, $2.1 billion on school supplies, and $1.5 billion on shoes.
Turning a sterile dorm room into a cozy, comfortable retreat often means as much to parents as to theircollege-bound kids.
Baglino says the parents of the Georgetown students he helped seemed more distraught than the children who were about to leave. His help in creating a comfy new nest provided the assurances the parents needed. "My impression was they were letting go of their child and it was a difficult process for them."
Designer Dana Tydings of Laytonsville, Md., has been designing dorm rooms for years. She says families certainly can outfit a room without a pro's help but that advice can be a cost-saver in the long run. "Left to their own devices, parents will overbuy," says Tydings. "They're dealing with their own separation anxiety."
Retailers are keenly aware that many students don't want the same look and color scheme as everyone else on campus. In response, large chains give over a big percentage of their stores' floor space -- and high-visibility promotions online -- to dorm gear. Other stores catering to college-age shoppers, such as Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, carry a smaller selection, but their items tend to be edgier and more eclectic. Trends so far this summer, according to Linens-N-Things spokeswoman Anne Evans, include anything brightly colored, and extra seating: "Kids have laptops. They don't have to sit at their desks anymore."
Stores also are poised to advise first-time dorm shoppers. Bed, Bath & Beyond even has a registry consultant available at every store. From Evans at Linens-N-Things, we gleaned these tips:
· Most resident halls provide a chair for each student, but extra seating is a must. Collapsible styles save space and are easy to transport and put away.
· Find multi-purpose items, such as tapestry, which can be used as a wall hanging, bedspread, window treatment or privacy screen.
· Take advantage of vertical space: tall CD holders, behind-the-door towel or shoe racks, extra closet rods and bed risers, which will lift the bed six inches, adding storage space underneath.
Before parents start spending, Tydings suggests getting a copy of the dorm floor plan: "Space limitations will be the best tool against overbuying." Some last-minute items she suggests: electrical power strips and double-sided Velcro tape. And remember that in most college dorms, halogen lamps are not allowed.
Caroline Vandenberg, 17, of Alexandria, is heading off to Columbia University this fall. She says spending an excessive amount of money on dorm stuff is "illogical," but she has definite thoughts about how she wants her room: "Like home. Nothing about the stark, white, cinderblocks you see when you get there remind you of home."
Her mother, Anne Vandenberg, agrees. "My baby is going away. . . . You want to believe that a comfortable room will alleviate the homesickness a little. Caroline is going off to New York. We're worried enough already."
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Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland home and garden news/headlines, including build/fix and furnishing/design, garden/patio tips. Resources and coupons for homes and gardens, DC, MD, VA contacts. Guides for organizing, cleaning, planting and caring.
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Hernandez Threatens to Have Surgery
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The loss to the Colorado Rockies -- a 3-2 decision in which the Washington Nationals squandered opportunity after opportunity -- would have been enough to handle last night, for it was the second in three games to lowly Colorado, the National League's worst team, and meant the first-place Nationals have lost four straight series to mediocre opponents.
But then, with the team on the precipice of losing its lead in the National League East, came a bizarre postgame interview session with ace right-hander Livan Hernandez, who claimed he is contemplating having surgery on his problematic right knee, though he believes he could pitch if he feels like he did last night.
"I'm not going to say nothing," Hernandez said. " . . . And this is the best organization. After the season, I'm going to tell you something. Don't worry about it."
The meandering, difficult-to-follow exchange between Hernandez and reporters followed a seven-inning outing in which Hernandez tied a modern major league record by hitting four batters, failed to protect a 2-0 lead by allowing a two-run homer to Rockies catcher J.D. Closser -- who came into the game hitting .207 -- and suffered consecutive losses for the first time all season, dropping his record to 12-4.
But several times afterward, Hernandez said he would likely make a decision today as to whether to have surgery on his knee, which has bothered him since he left a start against the Chicago Cubs on May 14. To this point, Hernandez has adjusted his stride and delivery to compensate for the knee, and he became an all-star in the process.
But after last night's outing, he said something or someone had made him upset enough that he would consider having surgery -- whether he needed it or not.
"The knee is okay," Hernandez said. "I not say nothing about my knee is hurt. Nothing. I don't say nothing about my knee."
He said he has not had an MRI exam on the knee since May, and that he doesn't plan to have one. A Nationals spokesman said the training staff briefly looked at the knee after Hernandez came out of the game, and planned a follow-up examination today.
Manager Frank Robinson was caught off guard by Hernandez's remarks.
"I have no answers for you," Robinson said. "I don't have a full picture of it. I have no idea what's going on."
Yet at one point, Hernandez said the chances that he would decide to have surgery were "99.9 percent." In the next breath, he said he wouldn't abandon his team, which has lost 10 of 14 and had its lead in the NL East whittled to just a half-game over the Atlanta Braves.
"Listen, it's hard for me," Hernandez said. "You think it's easy, but it's not easy. It's not easy for me to make the decision. It's not easy.
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This is your source for info on Washington Nationals baseball. Learn about DC baseball at the RFK stadium. Get the latest schedule and stats for the Washington Nationals. Stay updated on the latest Washington Nationals news!
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Supreme Court: Nomination Process
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Georgetown University law professor and former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh , who was also a clerk for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor , was online Friday, July 22, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the latest on John Roberts 's nomination to the Supreme Court.
Washington, D.C.: Maybe a year or two ago, I heard you speak at a panel. I recall you expressed an opinion that, when vetting judicial nominees, in your opinion Roe v. Wade was settled law, and the question is not whether the potential judge agreed with that decision but whether s/he could follow that law.
Since that talk, Lawrence v. Texas was decided, reversing Supreme Court jurisprudence from less than 25 years ago.
(1) Given that, unlike district or circuit court judges, Supreme Court justices may overrule Supreme Court precedent, does your position that Supreme Court law is "settled" apply with equal force to Supreme Court nominees, or just to inferior court nominees?
(2) Has your position changed since the Supreme Court overruled Bowers v. Hardwick? That is, can Lawrence be taken as a sign that, since the Supreme Court could reverse itself given the chance, Roe could very well remain a viable issue to raise with nominees for Supreme Court vacancies?
Viet Dinh: A very good question, and my reply a year ago, incidentally, is the same reply that Judge Roberts gave to the senate during his confirmation hearings to the DC circuit.
1. Yes, it does apply. Lower court judges by constitutional design have no choice but to follow Supreme Court precedent. The question whether a Supreme Court precedent is settled, therefore, really turns on the Justices understanding of stare decisis, or the persuasive force of prior precedent. And here I think Judge Roberts and others are correct to say that the questions is settled. It may well be that other developments may prompt the Court to reconsider, but I think as it stands, the question is as settled as any in constitutional law.
2. No. The application of stare decisis to particular cases depends on the facts of the case as well as the vitality of the prior precedent. I do not think the Lawrence changed the doctrine of stare decisis but rather applied in a specific context.
Washington, D.C.: Professor Dinh: As a former student of yours at GULC, it's great to be able to "talk" with you again.
It seems that President Bush's nomination of Judge Roberts is a "safe" choice, one that might meet less resistance in the Senate than other choices he might have made. How much of this decision do you think was guided by the likely view in the White House that they'll probably have another SCOTUS appointment to make in the near future when the Chief Justice retires, and that THAT'S the one that will be more in line with the Scalia/Thomas end of political philosophy?
Viet Dinh: Great to talk with you again, and it would be great to see you on our ever changing campus again soon. I think that the choice of Judge Roberts is such an obvious one that this is one of those moments in Washington when what you see is what you get. The President interviewed a number of candidates and chose the one whom he thinks is most qualified and whom he is most comfortable with. This second criteria should not be underestimated. It has been widely reported that President Reagan, after meeting Justice O'Connor, was so charmed that he made up his mind and cancelled other interviews. Justice O'Connor certainly has the personality and intellect to do that, just as Judge Roberts did I think. As to the next nomination, your guess is just as good as mine.
Springfield, Va.: Although Judge Roberts is evidently not a member of The Federalist Society, he has spoken to society gatherings. Based on your experience at Justice, how do you explain that so many of the administration's judicial nominees (particularly at the appellate level) are in fact members of the society, have spoken at its conventions, etc.?
Viet Dinh: Many people of all political and jurisprudential stripes have spoken at Federalist Society gatherings, just as I have addressed the American Constitution Society, its more liberal counterparts. The Fed Soc exist in order to foster dialogue and debate, and there is no stigma or substantive implication to being a speaker. Otherwise folks like Walter Dellinger and Nadine Strossen--both of whom speak regularly at Fed Soc events--would be wrongly characterized. The fact that many judges and lawyers have spoken or attended Fed Soc events stems from the simple fact that it is the best game in town for intellectual exchange and, yes, for professional and political networking. Members generally believe in limited government and separation of powers, even though there is no official society policy or philosophy, and it's good to debate and challenge your ideas in a enriching context.
Vienna, Va.: Why not have more female justices? This country seems to give lip service to diversity when the highest court in the land will only have one woman left on the bench. I'm a male, and I would be angry if my mother, aunt, sister, or wife get passed up for a job that she is fully capable because she a female.
Viet Dinh: What a great question. As you may know, I clerked for Justice O'Connor, who will go down in history as the first woman justice. But to me, she is just a good, honest judge who works hard to find enduring answers to the hardest questions of our day in the context of concrete cases. She especially bristled when in the 1980's a law professor published an article commenting on "the uniquely feminine" voice and approach of O'Connor. Her rejoinder, and that of Justice Ginsburg, is simply that a wise old woman thinks the same as a wise old man.
That said, I am sure you caught her reaction yesterday to the Roberts nomination: "He is good in every way, except he is not a woman." I do think that we have come to a time when gender certainly should not and hopefully does not matter. The fact that 2 out of the reported 5 finalists were women gives me good confidence in the impartiality of the process. So we will have to wait and see.
Rockville, Md.: With Presidents seemingly wanting to leave their imprint on the future, do you see nominees for the Supreme Court being over 65 in the future? Over 60?
Viet Dinh: Folks always focus on age as a shorthand for longevity and impact on the Court. But even as shorthand, it is imperfect, because if longevity is what you are after, it should be expected time served on the court--that is, average life expectancy minus age. Compare that to average term on the court, and I think you find that someone in their early 60's would well be within the average zone. And let's not forget that it's impact that matters, not just longevity. So a very smart and influential justice may have more lasting jurisprudential effect in a short time than a long serving seat warmer.
Washington, D.C.: It seems as though the conventional wisdom on Judge Roberts is that he seems conservative, but its impossible to know exactly what he will do once he's on the court. He argued, for example, that the Endangered Species Act should be re-examined as an acceptable exercise of commerce clause power, but he also defended the integrity of Lake Tahoe against development. A similar give and take seems apparent on abortion, and perhaps other issues. No one really seems to know what to make of him, beyond his being smart, capable and friendly.
I wasn't paying as much attention back then, but aren't David Souter and John Paul Stevens smart, capable and friendly? In the run-up to the nomination I know there was a lot of conservative hand-wringing about avoiding another Stevens/Souter. Isn't Roberts an incredibly dangerous choice by Bush? What assurances do you think he may have that Judge Roberts will end up as Rehnquist pt. 2 (as he is often portrayed) instead of Stevens pt. 2?
Viet Dinh: The quickest answer I can give you is that with John Roberts, what you see is what you get. Having known him for a number of years, I still don't know what he thinks about particular political issues, but I know that he has the most stable, unflappable, steady, and measured temperament imaginable. When confronted with concrete facts in a specific case, he will bring to bear his best reason and piercing intellect, and just call it as he sees it. How that will go down in history and how he stacks up with the rest of the Court, I think he would just rather leave to the pundits and historians.
Another fact that reinforces my confidence in his ability is that he has been in government service and has had a long career of confronting difficult issues and so will not be surprised when confronted again with the responsibility of deciding difficult questions.
Atlanta, Ga.: I would like to know what kind of question the President could ask the Supreme Court candidate and would get a straight answer, but when the same or similar questions are raised before the Senate the candidate dodge or refuse to answer them? In short, is it possible the President already knows from the interviews he conduct where the candidate stands, specially when it come to some divisive issues, like abortion and affirmative action?
Viet Dinh: I can tell you point blank that during the two years when I was representing the Department of Justice in vetting and confirming judges that never once did I ask a nominee what his/her views are on abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, or French cooking. Nor did I ever witness any nominee being so asked. That is because the President made clear that there is no litmus test. And the questions and their answers are not very helpful to discern how and how well a particular person thinks. Much better to ask questions like, what is your view of stare decisis; what do you do when you disagree with the policy behind a particular law; etc. These questions are more illuminating and do not ask the nominee to prejudge issues or cases that may come before him/her.
By the way, there is a check in the process, in case you don't believe my description of the vetting process. The senate judiciary committee questionnaire asks of every nominee whether he/she had been questioned during the vetting process about his/her views on controversial topics such as above.
Laurel, Md.: Non-lawyer here, tell me if I'm off-base:
O'Connor became the swing vote in large part because she is a woman. She believed in conservative constitutional-constructionist principles; but also that real people would attempt to subvert them.
Conservative court critics have complained about the long list of "how many reindeer make a Christmas display secular" opinions the court has handed own recently. The reason this happens is essentially that O'Connor (rightly) believed that church-state separation issues are one arena in which elected officials will attempt to subvert constitutional requirements to the extent they can get away with it.
Viet Dinh: You are not necessarily off-base, but I think a lot of the pundits are for characterizing Justice as a "I know it when I see it" Justice, especially when it comes to church-state relations. The test she discerned from the cases is that of "a reasonable observer" which is derived from the centuries old standard of the "reasonable man." It is an objective test, and not one dependent on how an individual person or justice views a matter. Some may prefer a more stringent or more lax test, but I think it unfortunate that the pundits sometimes criticize her as rudderless.
One more comment. Justice O'Connor did not set out to be the middle vote, nor does she court that role. I think she finds herself, for a number of historical and jurisprudential reasons, as the median voter and therefore as the most important vote. But it is certainly wrong that she relished the position.
Vienna, Va.: Thank you, Professor Dinh, for responding to my question about why not more female justices. As a Vietnamese-American yourself, you have contributed to the diversity of our judicial system. That I must acknowledge.
By the way, as a Vietnamese-American myself, I'm very pleased to see another Vietnamese-American fellow setting great examples for others to follow.
Viet Dinh: Thank you very much. Your comment bucks me up for the times when I am criticized and sometimes vilified for what I do or say. Just hoping to serve the country I love to the best of my ability, however limited that may be. Thanks.
Viet Dinh: Toronto, Canada: Many Americans seem concerned that if Justice Roberts does get to be the new member of the SCOTUS that he will undo Roe v. Wade. Some Americans dread that. Others look forward to it. But, for a foreigner, like myself, the decisions of most concern would be decisions around the continued incarceration of the Guantanamo detainees. The proposed "trials" by military commission are so obviously unjust. The standards of evidence used there will, presumably, be just as much of a charade as that used in the determination that Murat Kurnaz was really an "illegal combatant".
The Bush administration is on the record, over and over again, over the necessity of the measures they used against the Guantanamo detainees, the risks they pose, their obvious guilt. But, near as I can see, just as Erik Saar reported, only a couple of dozen detainees match that description. Is it possible that the price of Justice Roberts nomination was that he help cover up this Bush administration vulnerability?
Viet Dinh: A good, if loaded, question. Let's remember that the decision of the DC circuit on the military trials was joined by two other judges. So there is obviously no reward and there is no cover-up, simply because there is no illegality. The important point is this: law and politics do not mix very well. What is politically charged, such as military detentions and Guantanamo, may not be legally wrong. It is often a fault of the political process to think of the law as an extension of politics. But good, honest judges like Judge Roberts should just apply the law regardless whether they agree or disagree with the underlying policy.
Arlington, Va.: I read that Roberts's wife is anti-abortion - how might Roberts's own opinion of abortion impact the Court? Thanks.
Viet Dinh: Jane Roberts is a member of Feminists for Life, but I frankly do not know what Judge Roberts thinks about the issue. She is, of course, an accomplished lawyer and an independent thinker (hence Feminist) so I do not think we can or should impute her views to him. As to Judge Roberts' effect on abortion, please see my earlier answer on Roe v. Wade.
McLean, Va.: I think an interesting question for Justice-select Roberts would be his attitude not toward Roe v. Wade but his attitude toward Griswold v. Connecticut. After all, THAT case, IIRC was the first recognition/construction of a Constitutional right to privacy. And it is on such a concept that much of the subsequent SC jurisprudence on controversial social issues such as homosexuality, abortion, etc. seems to rest, correct?
Viet Dinh: Great question, and I agree with you that Griswold v. Connecticut is the more relevant precedent on the meaning of substantive due process. But I think the issue there is even more settled than I described the state of law with respect to Roe v. Wade.
Cabin John, Md.: Is it true that, up until now, conservative SC justices (Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist) live in Northern Va., liberal justices live in D.C., and "swing" justices (O'Connor) live in the Md. suburbs? Thus, the fact that Roberts lives in Montgomery County means that we moderates can all rest easy?
Viet Dinh: An interesting geographical observation. And having formerly lived in Chevy Chase, I can say that good folks live there. Perhaps the more telling observation, however, is that in Wednesday's Washington Post, his neighbors said that he is just a regular guy with a very nice lawn that he cut himself (hopefully not in this heat).
Anonymous: What was wanted was a 30 year old conservative Latino female with judicial experience but no paper trail. That is the closest they could get.
Is the key to getting on the Supreme Court is to not be one of the brightest, but one who is credentialed but quiet?
Viet Dinh: Am not sure that was the search criteria, but your question is a good one. Given the current political turbulence, I do not think that any one, no matter how spotless or unknown, can expect to get a pass. The outside interest groups are just too strident and sophisticated to let pass a great opportunity to energize their members, get publicity for their parochial causes, and gather donations. So the day of the the Stealth candidates are over, both because of the risk in nominating one and of the lack of advantage in confirming one.
Someone once said to me that every lawyer harbors the secret ambition of being a Supreme Court justice. If that is the case, then it is equally true that no lawyer, no matter what he does or how hard he tries, should expect a shot at being a Justice. So better just to practice your craft, live your life, and buy lottery tickets.
Mt. Vernon, Va.: Why is it when Clinton nominated Breyer and Ginsburg, Republicans respected his right to do so, but whenever a Republican President (Nixon, Bush, Reagan) makes a nomination, the Democrats feel compelled to challenge? Can we conclude the GOP has a sense of right and wrong, while the Senate Democrats see everything as situational? Thanks for hosting the chat for us!
Viet Dinh: A good, if again loaded, question. I think the primary indicators of the confirmation process are (1) how strong the outside interest groups are both in generating public protest and in influencing Senator and (2) how disciplined is the caucus of the opposing party. I will leave it at that without further observation, as my luncheon appointment has arrived. Thanks so much for bearing with my immigrant English.
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Appearing every Wednesday and Friday in The Washington Post Style section and in Sunday Source, Tell Me About It Bæfers readers advice based on the experiences of someone who's been there -- really recently. Carolyn Hax is a 30-something repatriated New Englander with a liberal arts degree and a lot of opinions and that's about it, really, when you get right down to it. Oh, and the shoes. A lot of shoes.
Oakton, Va.: My wife and I have known for a while that we need marriage counseling. Our parents were disasters and we have no idea how to have a successful relationship. We love each other, we are just defensive and resentful. We also have a fabulous 18-month-old daughter and I don't want her to write someone 30 years from now and say, "My parents were a disaster." We have no idea where to start, how to find the resources. We've looked online and cannot find any sort of guides. Any ideas from people in Northern Virginia? thanks
Carolyn Hax: The Women's Center (which isn't just for women, and offers individual and jointcounseling). 703-281-2657.
There's something you can try out right away, too: Drop your dukes. Back down. Disarm. Things your wife does aren't always about you, not everything is personal, and even when they are, you don't have to win. I'm not saying it'll fix everything or that it's all your fault or that you need to change completely. I'm just saying to give it a short, what-the-hell trial run, and see what you get out of it.
Washington, D.C.: In this age of "he's just not that into you," what is your current take on a woman asking a man out on a date? In the difficult scene that is "Washington dating," sometimes I feel like life is too short to wait on the workaholic ambition-obsessed men in this town to ask a woman out to dinner. I don't want to be jaded, but everytime I leave Washington, I'm asked out to dinner (business trips, visiting friends, etc.) Not to mention I've had a female friend move away because she wanted to meet a man -- and she did as soon as she moved.
What is it about Washington?
Carolyn Hax: The age of "he's just not that into you"? Can people move away from there, too?
If someone gets your attention, give it a shot. You might get rejected. Applies to men and women alike.
I recently had a baby. Excellent. However, my close friend was also pregnant -- ahead of me by about 3-4 months -- but lost her baby at six months. She "seemed" to handle it well but also would not really discuss it much. Now, three months past my baby, she has closed down communication except through an occasional e-mail to say how busy she is. She came and saw the baby and genuinely acted very happy.
I've called... I've e-mailed... I don't think it is appropriate to say "are you not wanting to be close since you lost your baby and I didn't lose mine?" I anticipated this a little bit but not to the extent that she'd never call me again.
Any words of wisdom? She's really the only female friend I have and I've missed being able to talk to her -- and not about the baby -- just life.
Carolyn Hax: I don't think there's any such thing as handling that well. It's just awful.
And so while it's also awful that you've essentially lost a friend because of it, that is still the lesser of two awfuls. Keep in touch with her, keep reaching out gently, keep letting her know you want her in your life, in as unpressured a way as you can.
A comment on that: You're right that it isn't appropriate to say "are you not wanting to be close since you lost your baby and I didn't lose mine?" The reason you're right is that there's absolutely nothing for anyone to gain by your calling her out on something that you both know (it being screamingly obvious and all), and that she has every reason to feel. Should she be punishing you for her misfortune? Of course not. But should you be even gently nudging her when she's just doing what she needs to do to keep from losing her mind? Of course not. When she's ready, she'll be your friend, and when that time comes nothing would even cross your mind other to welcome her back, arms wide.
I just graduated from college, and I have to say that this transition really sucks. Most of my friends have moved away, and it's already hard to keep in touch. And, we all feel anxiety, I think, about all the decisions we have to make about jobs, places to live, relationships, etc., which just exacerbates everything.
Please say it gets better.
Carolyn Hax: Some things get better, some things you'll look back on and think, I can't believe I complained.
But both are immaterial. What is material is that you are in a transition phase, and two things you can expect of any transition is that it'll be hard and it'll pass.
As for "all the decisions," remember, life is long, and you can revise as you go.
Age 25 and married: Seems like the culprit might be maturity and he should have sought counseling before the wedding.
My 17 yr old niece is getting married in January. Everyone (including me) in her immediate & extended family was married before age 25. Three out of 14 ended in divorce and at least 5 are dysfunctional marriages.
Is there an acceptable way to warn her?
Carolyn Hax: As warnings go, I couldn't possibly improve on the one you just trotted out.
But then you also have to consider that anyone who thinks it's a good idea to get married at 17 isn't bent on processing a whole lot of outside data to help inform her decision.
So, you do what you can do. Assuming she isn't going to listen to you, you'd probably serve her best by not alienating her and therefore being around to listen/support/advise if she goes on to need help with her marriage. Which I guess means you either smile and support, or suggest that she and her groom sign up for a pre-marital class, since family history shows that love isn't enough to make a marriage easy.
Fairfax, Va.: Hi Carolyn, I love your chats and you do a great job with them. I'm supposed to start law school in the fall and I'm having some second thoughts. I feel like I'm doing it partially because I'm interested in the law, but also partially because I can't think of what else to do with myself, and because most of my friends went to law school (if they didn't go into banking, consulting, or medicine). It also seems like a "safe" career with a certain amount of stability. I've never been the type of person who had one thing I was passionate about and always knew I wanted to do. I'm not saying I'm not interested in law or the kinds of careers you can have with a law degree (I certainly am), I'm just asking how I tease out legitimate anxieties about committing to this path in life (complete with taking out staggering loans) from signs that it's not for me? It's not fear of failure -- I think I could do it reasonably well -- as much as fear of commitment to a decision that will affect my whole life, that has me thinking.
Call the career office where you got your bachelor's, and see either if they'll counsel you on your decision, or refer you to good resources where you can explore more thoroughly the various options open to someone of your interests and skills.
I also don't think it's a great idea to start an expensive degree program when you have strong doubts, but their not my doubts so I'm in no place to judge their strengths.
One thing I can say from here, with 100 percent confidence, is that there's no one schedule for finding one's passion in life. So while you (and our previous poster who recently had academia cruelly ripped out from beneath him/her) may feel pressured to know what you want out of life when you reach the early 20s crossroads, it's actually unreasonable to expect even, idunno, a quarter of you to have any clue at all. So hard as it may be, the best thing you can do is find some way to make yourself comfortable while your life sorts itself out. If creating a safety net out of a law degree fits that description for you, then great. If doing a bunch of fellowships or wage jobs or whatevers would make more sense, then that's okay too. It's okay not to know.
Carolyn Hax: I forgot to proofread that one before I hit send. Did it make any sense? Did I say, "I have one word for you: Ptlafftixh"?
Do you think it is possible to love two people at once and be genuinely so torn as to be unable to choose between them? My best friend is crazy about this girl who is caught between him and another guy. When he pressed her to choose, she said she couldn't, saying that "It's too complicated!;" Well, is it ever?
Carolyn Hax: Sure, yes, absolutely. But while being decent about it may be really, really hard, it is never impossible.
Re: Oakton, Va.: Your advice to Oakton is good, but one thing I'd like to add:
My husband and I both came from households where our parents' marriages were war zones or worse. His dad walked out on his mom when the kids were in their teens; my dad and mom were in an abusive relationship where police coming to the house because a neighbor called wasn't unusual.
When you come from an environment like that, you can see every disagreement, every problem as a sign that the relationship is about to come crashing down. You can be so afraid that something you say or do is going to anger/hurt the other person that you're almost paralyzed and can't relax and just be yourself. You try so hard to fix everything and make everything perfect because you think that if it's not, the relationship will fail -- which of course is just not true at all, but it's easy to feel that way when failure is where you came from and all you ever saw was your parents fixating on and blaming each other's imperfections.
With time and therapy, Oakton and his wife can learn that no marriage is perfect, no spouse is perfect, and they themselves as individuals aren't perfect -- AND THAT'S OKAY. Disagreements and problems and difficulties are par for the course of living, and don't have to signal impending doom of the relationship. If you love each other, you can learn to forgive your spouse for not being perfect and forgive yourself for not being perfect, and accept that even a marriage that become the joy of your lives together isn't perfect. AND THAT'S OKAY.
My husband and I have been happily married for 27 years now. There have been some tough moments, and some times when we needed help to see where we were going. But we love each other and cherish each other and the relationship we have, which is gloriously and chaotically imperfect because we are gloriously and chaotically imperfect people, AND THAT'S OKAY and the best thing that ever happened to either of us.
Carolyn Hax: No, that's great. Thank you.
Any tips on how to control anger? I've noticed I'm angrier than usual towards my S.O. and I'm feeling defenseless to control it.
Carolyn Hax: What are you angry about? The real thing, not the petty trigger things.
I don't like the idea of "controlling" anger, since it's too much like forcing a lid on a pot. The way to go at it is from the other end, the heat supply.
Re: Age 25 and married: My cousin married at age 17, had her first child 5 years later and her second 10 years after that. Now, 25 years later, they are still married. My brother married for the first time at 2 months short of 28, and 2 years later he was divorced... Basically, age means squat. It is the maturity level of the couple that matters (granted, maturity tends to come with age)
Carolyn Hax: I'm tempted to say that remaining married means squat as a measure of success. It does mean something, but way less than it's given credit for meaning. There are amicable divorce/es who are vastly more mature than some of those miserable, bickering messes who "celebrate" silver and gold.
Yes, people can start young and thrive just as they can be cautious and suffer. But, cheez. That's the kind of thing you see when you're standing right at the tree line (and it's what you have to tell yourself when your kid decides to get hitched at that age). Step back, and the forest doesn't look pretty.
One more thing. I get a lot of these anecdotes, and while they obviously have merit and do get my attention, I'm also skeptical when they don't come with an acknowledgement that being 17 now is, at least a little bit, different from being 17 several decades ago. The amount of responsibility entrusted to a teenager in the 1950s, and the 1980s, and the nows, is not a fixed quantity. Society has been pulling back and, in many ways, infantilizing adolescence, so a current 17 may very well be less equipped for adulthood than a 1985 17, who may be less so than a 1955 17.
Again--this is when you step back to see the whole forest. Any given tree might be in perfect shape to be a teenage bride or groom. (Must have an October wedding, when colors at peak!!!)
(Sorry, got silly on my own metaphor.)
RE: Finding one's passion in life: Julia Child didn't start cooking until she was 40.
Carolyn Hax: So there's hope for me still, thanks.
Tysons Corner, Va.: Dear Carolyn,
I have one more year of college left, and I've decided to apply for the Peace Corps. This is something I've dreamed of doing for many years. I believe it'll be an experience I'll enjoy, it'll bring a new perspective on my life, and it'll give me opportunities for jobs both in and out of the States after I finish.
I told my father this, and he doesn't seem convinced. He believes I'm taking unnecessary risks and I'm seeking an escape route from my mother, who wants me to stay in the D.C. area upon graduation. My mother used to abuse me as a child, and although she doesn't now, she continues to aggrevate and stress me out.
I remember your advice to the girl who tried to convince her father she wanted a facial piercing, and I'm wondering if this is anywhere in the same ballpark. And what is wrong with escaping something distressful?
Please help! I really do value your advice.
Carolyn Hax: He doesn't need to be convinced. When you get out of college, it will be your life to lead. "It would mean a lot to me to have your support, but please understand I won't be basing my decision on it."
That said, do make sure you aren't doing this just to escape/spite mommy dearest. From what I understand of the Peace Corps, it's about testing, not enjoying, yourself, though obviously enjoying can come with that; opening your eyes to strengths you might not have known you had in you; and, yes, bringing new perspective to your life. You're going to want a positive reason to be there, not just a negative one.
Not that that's a requirement, either; just like Dad's approval, it would be nice.
Another thing you might want to do, if you haven't already, is take advanbtage of your last year of way-easy access to way-free counseling at school next year, to try to develop some constructive approaches (that with any luck will become habits) for dealing with the mom stress. Putting half a planet between you is a fine one, don't get me wrong, but there may come a time where you'll want some more flexible options.
New Beginings: Carolyn, I just found out that my mom is leaving my dad. Needless to say, I'm devastated. I was always so prooud of being the product of a successful marriage. I am also one month into planning my own upcoming marriage and now find myself uninterested in continue with these plans. I feel like is's inappropriate to celebrate the start of a new life with my sweetheart when my parents' is falling apart. Thgouhts?
Carolyn Hax: It's totally appropriate, since it's your life and your love, but if you're not feeling right about it then it's also totally appropriate to set the plannig aside till the feeling of devastation passes. Back to the life-is-long theme--if your marriage starts a little later, so be it. (And if you reach a point where you feel that putting your life on hold b/c of your parents' decisions is inappropriate, then you'll know you're ready to start planning again.)
I hope I can say without coming off as too preachy that I hope you eventually come to see all this as a timely, possibly life-altering, visit from reality. Coming from an intact marriage can provide a false sense of confidence in marriage (and being proud to be of your parents' emotional lineage is a pretty good sign of that). Worse, it can lull you into thinking that their way of communicating/being married is good or healthy, when in fact there's some unhealthy stuff in there that they've just accepted in each other, or gotten used to or, probably most common, never themselves recognized as unhealthy.
So when you've stopped reeling--or maybe better, while the reeling is fresh--ask yourself if there's anything you learned from them unquestioningly that maybe it's now time to question.
It will suck. But you'll be glad you did it. And in the meantime, ask your fiance/e's patience.
Venting: So I just came back from a job interview and after a half hour they told me I missed a period in my resume and that was a concern that would keep them from hiring me. But they still wanted me to address it, even though they KNEW about it before asking me to come in. What the? I appreciate the fact they pointed it out but DON'T interview me then. PERIOD.!
Carolyn Hax: Maybe your resume is pregnant.
You have a period and an exclamation point at the end of your last sentence.
Yeah. I hate me too.
I agree with you, by the way. They shouldn't have called you if they weren't prepared to hire you pending the outcome of the interview.
Law School: For Fairfax, who's not sure what to do -- another plug for the Women's Center. They offer a career course that I found very useful. I wish I'd taken it before I spent $$ on a Masters degree in something that didn't suit me well.
Carolyn Hax: Excellent, thank you.
Re: It's too complicated: Thanks for answering my question. So, what should my friend do now? It doesn't look like anybody in this situation is capable of mustering the strength to do the "decent" thing at the moment. The girl technically chose the other guy but still wants to be Good Friends with my friend. As in the type of Good Friend you hang out with for hours, alone, every day. And my friend is so smitten he won't even contemplate not seeing her for a single week. Is there any hope of talking him out of this trainwreck, or am I just goint to have to help him pick up the pieces?
Carolyn Hax: Well what do you know, I answered you in an upcoming column. To be continued ...
Just Curious...: Do you get less fake questions and/or not so nice comments now that you have to register for Live Online?
Carolyn Hax: Immaterial. I found that doing this with a bag on my head cut out 100 percent of the fakes and the nastigrams, and it's hard to improve on that.
For Venting...: You should've just said "Hey, address this !;"
Carolyn Hax: I would hire you on the spot.
Carolyn Hax: All this is my way of not posting comments from people who lost babies, because they are making me cry. But I'm sure people who find themselves in this awful situation, either as the parent or as the friend, could really use the help, so I will grow up on their behalf.
Friend who lost baby...: My son died when he was two2 days old. His twin brother did not and is a joy (mostly -- he is a teenager now!). That was 18 years ago and some days the pain is still wildly fresh (and most days are just fine). The woman whose friend's baby died during her pregnancy needs the support of her friends, and that support may include just keeping in touch until she's emotionally ready. I remember distinctly the morning I woke up not feeling miserable -- and it wasn't until more than six months after the boys were born. Give it time.
Washington, D.C.: For the woman whose friend miscarried, I have a friend who lost a child at 35 weeks of pregnancy a few months ago. She still (understandably) cannot tolerate seeing friends and acquaintences who were pregnant at the same time and now have bouncing babies. She's not punishing those friends -- it's just too much for her right now. Your advice is right on -- remind the friend you're out there, but give her the time she needs to heal.
That might be all. There was one more but I'm having trouble finding it in the queue.
I have to thank you for your response to the "friend" who couldn't understand why the woman who lost her baby didn't contact her any more. You were dead on!;
I too lost a baby, and have lost touch with a friend who was pregnant at the same time. While I do, at times, miss that friend, the pain of losing my child hurts much worse. I could never be around her and her baby without thinking of what I lost.
THANK YOU again for giving that woman sound advice. Losing a child is the worst pain, and it is only increased by insensitive comments from those who don't understand.
Carolyn Hax: Thank you, and I'm sorry.
I looked for this one (forever) because I wanted to add something--most people on the outside of this, me included, as you can see from my original post, believe every person will eventually reach a point where she can reconnect with the friends she initially couldn't bear to see. I think it actually makes sense that with some people, there will be some friends who become permanent pain reminders, and all you can do is accept that the friendship can't come back, sad as that is to admit. And I think the friends who get cut loose also have to accept that--that it's not about them, it just is.
Re: Re: Oakton: Holy gestalt, Batman! The letter from the 'nut with the healthy 27-year marriage despite both parties having poor parental examples just gave me startling insight into the behavior of my boyfriend. For reference: we've been together five years, and we're both in our 30s. His parents had a tragically bad relationship which ended in a mean-spirited divorce. Although each of my parents annoys me in their own special way (whose parents don't?), their relationship is phenomenal. They really are like two halves of the same person.
My boyfriend responds to every little disagreement or difference of opinion as though it signals the beginning of the end. I view disagreements as being part of the natural ebb and flow of living. When he reacts as though each little thing is the harbinger of doom, I'm left feeling confused and hurt. I wonder if any of the 'nuts (or the same 'nut, since he/she has developed such terrific insight) have advice for how to overcome this difference?
Carolyn Hax: Probably being aware of it makes the biggest difference of all, because then you can reason and retrain yourself out of it, but I'll lob it nutward too.
"Bruce" in Triangle, Va.: RE: "Very Confused Guy"
My real name is not "Bruce."
The real wife does not know how bad I felt a while ago and I never told her about the "lost love," or the love lost, between us.
The change from being single and dating, and then being married was DRAMATIC. I urge all, if you are having the time of your life dating, then DON'T get married. IF you want a whole lot more (in every way good and not so good) then use caution. While the marriage pool is very deep, you can still get hurt diving off the board.
Ah, so back to lost love. Things change. We find new work. We have kids. We gain weight. We get tired. We grow old. And then, wham, someone from the past gets mentioned, or bumps in, and, BAM! old feelings bubble to the top.
I have to credit Bruce Willis, but in reality, it is the writer who put in the, "Just the fax, ma'am." line into Die Hard (2?) that made me see what I should do.
There is always some hot, usually younger, new face, out there. I can be a dog and run around, or I can choose to be faithful, engaged with my married partner, and live up to my commitment -- keep my word.
I initially decided that I "owed it" to my wife to stick out the marriage, "for her." What I now find, I have remade the marriage for "us" and I could not be happier about it.
It was never about her, it was about me not putting forth the effort to make thing, not just last, but better. Having gotten past my immaturity, I see little reason to bring it up with my wife and I surely do not want to risk hurting her over what would be a discussion of past and now passed feelings.
Carolyn Hax: "Bruce," you're all right.
(My real name is not "Bruce," either.)
For venting: Maybe they were prepared to hire you depending on how you reacted to their pointing out your mistake. The ability to take constructive critism gracefully is important.
Carolyn Hax: Agh, agh, I missed that one. I AM WORTHLESS SCUM AND SO ARE YOU FOR MAKING ME FEEL LIKE THIS.
I'm glad no one played head games like that with me on my interviews. Just sayin.
Re: Peace Corps after college: Not to advocate running away from problems or anything, but I went halfway around the world for a little over a year and it was the best thing that happened in terms of my parent-child relationship. From half a world away, my formerly abusive mother and I learned to get along. She discovered she was proud of me and I realized that she was human, I had a choice when it came to how/ when to communicate, etc. My father learned that I was a grown-up, on my own and could handle it- even the really, bad, hard trying stuff. Heck, these bitterly divorced people even communicated once or twice during the affair!;
That said, do NOT just run away thinking it'll make things better. If your reason for seeking to experience teaching, living, working, studying, whatever half a world away from your comfort zone has anything to do with that, put on the brakes and figure things out through counseling, friends and introspection. If you want the away experience in order to learn about yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, grow and push yourself to new limits, expose your culture to their culture (gleaning the best of both), vice versa and have an experience different from anything you ever expected, then go for it. Just be smart about why you are going for it because this experience, for better or worse, will change your life in more ways than you could possibly imagine and I could possibly explain.
Carolyn Hax: Another great perspective, thank you.
I should have put the 'puter on auto-post and taken a two-hour nap.
And a pox on all of you who were just about to ask how anyone was supposed to tell the difference.
I looked and looked...: But I couldn't find the "bacon pants" chat in the archives last week. But, my best friend refers to Lance Armstrong as "Lance Pants". Now, there's a topic for a future chat!;
Carolyn Hax: You know what, I steered you wrong--I sent you to the original holiday chat (12.4.00) when in fact bacon pants took their crackly bow maybe a year later. Remind me with an email and I'll have a look. Sorreee.
If anyone wants to mark down Lance Pants, it's 7.22.05.
How is this fair to the friends that are left behind who invested love and time into these relationships? And is this only reserved for women who have lost babies? Can this also extend to when people die or we lose our jobs or we become disabled. Is it fair to make the people who loves us the most suffer because we can't handle our own hardship?
Carolyn Hax: How is fairness even an issue? Sure, it's not fair, and I agree that emotional pain of all kinds and degrees can't be pressed into service as a universal get-out-of-friendship-free card. But I thought it was understood that this was a response only to extreme pain, and that it wasn't a good thing, just sometimes a necessary one, and that it did hurt the friend being dumped.
The point was that if this did happen, the friend wouldn't have a whole lot of recourse--what are you going to do, take this friend who is essentially admitting her grief has left her without the strength to be friends with you, and call her a self-centered wuss?--and so the best thing to do was accept that it wasn't personal.
On that note, another poster pointed out that the friend who decides she can't handle the friendship really ought to say something to that effect to the friend she drops, just to spare her the doubt and hurt feelings. Thanks for that, Another Poster.
Arlington, Va.: Carolyn, I was recently hurt by an ex-boyfriend and for the last two hours, I've been fighting an incredible urge to give him a piece of my mind through a question to you that he would likely recognize as being about us. Do you ever sense that is going on with certain questions? Does it effect whether or not you post it? It's funny -- in the past, whenever I've written to you I've felt the need to try to disguise the situation without changing relevant/crucial facts. Not sure why this is different. Maybe because I sense he has no idea how he hurt me and how easily he could have avoided it.
Carolyn Hax: I do sense it, but usually after the fact when I'm reading through the queue of quesitons I didn't see and the whole backstory starts to emerge.
Please tell your boyfriend that you sense he has no idea how he hurt you and how easily he could have avoided it. The stuff you guys send me is so often exactly what you should say.
Pittsburgh, Pa.: OK, so I'm eight months pregnant (we've wanted this and worked for it for a long time) and suddenly feeling very scared. Who the heck am I to think I can raise a baby in this world? And it has just really sunk in that this is going to be very, very painful. I don't want drugs, but I don't want pain either, and I just can't imagine that all the breathing I've been practicing is really going to help much. Any calming words of wisdom?
Carolyn Hax: Oooh, I am so sorry, to you and all others reading this today while staring down a birth. THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEM ARE OKAY. Really. It's just no different from anything else, that sheet sometimes happens. (Sometimes I type with a heavy accent.)
Calming words of wisdom are the least I can do for you, but I can't promise I have any. I can tell you what reassured me--thinking of the whiniest, wussiest mothers I know, and realizing they got through childbirth. You do get through it.
Re the drugs vs. the pain, try making a bit more of a decision before you go in. Not that it will assure any correlation at all to what actually happens; when a woman in her first pregnancy declared she didn't want drugs, it was the only time I've ever heard three women snort simultaneously. But what it will do is, in effect, lay a string along the path you prefer, and when you start to lose your focus, you can grope around for the string. Especially true if you decide you want to go natural.
People do have babies w/o drugs, obviously, there was a time when they had to, so, C-sections aside, it's not so much an issue of whether you can. It's whether you want that experience. And if you don't, you don't, and you don't have to apologize to anyone for that.
It is 20 times more awesome than painful, and it is painful.
Alas, we come back to that.
But that's when you also trot out that wimpy mom you know.
Carolyn Hax: Make me leave.
Carolyn Hax: Bye. Thanks everybody. Type to you next week.
Found it!;: The holiday bacon pants chat was on 12/10/2001, and the term originated in a chat on 10/23/2001. I've only just started to read them, and I'm already smothering giggles as I sit here in my cubicle...
Carolyn Hax: Thanks! All the info, plus a warning label.
Metro DC: Carolyn, I know it's the end of the discussion, but if you could spare a moment I would be so grateful. I'm about to find out whether or not I'm pregnant and I'm completely freaking out (just broke up with boyfriend, grad student, so not ready, etc). Should I get the scary news that I am pregnant on this Friday afternoon, can you recommend any resources to help me begin to deal with it - such as information on all my options, etc? I would have no idea where to turn if in fact I am pregnant. Thank you so much!;
Carolyn Hax: Let's make it a hat trick: The Women's Center.
Whatever happens, you'll be okay. Trust that.
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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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Welcome to Real Estate Live, an online discussion of the Washington area housing market, featuring Post Real Estate editor Maryann Haggerty.
Maryann's been with The Post for 18 years and has served as real estate editor for the last five years. She's been a business and real estate editor and reporter for about 25 years. In all that time, she still hasn't figured out where you can find a lovely but inexpensive house in a charming neighborhood.
Maryann Haggerty: Greetings, all. Thanks for joining me. here at the Real Estate section these days, we're closely watching the local sales market, attempting to weigh whether some signs of slowdown are anecdotes or a trend. (Watch the newspaper for more info!) Meanwhile, today's challenge: With the market the way it has been around here for a while, it sometimes seems as if any crap can sell--and sell "as is." So tell me what you have seen during your house-looking that makes you think, "They have the NERVE to try to sell THIS?" The best one will get a copy of one of the books on my desk--I think "The Pocket Idiots Guide to Home Inspections" is appropriate. And I will also ask folks who have good examples & are willing to talk to a reporter about them to ALSO e-mail me directly at haggertym@washpost.com. Of course, for that, you have to swear the example is true, & let us use your name. No anonymous sources here--you may be a Highly Placed Government Official all day, but when it comes to real estate, we're all just folks trying to doour best!
Washington, D.C.: We are looking in the 300K range. Would it be a better move to find a condo in the recently gentrified areas of Capitol Hill or to buy a house in a potential "up-and-coming" area?
Maryann Haggerty: Where & how do you want to live? A little tiny place with no yard care chores? A bigger place, weeds to pull, the occasional drug paraphernalia to clean up? (Tip from experience: Always wear gloves when cleaning out street gutters in DC!)I know it's tough, but try to divorce yourself from the finances of the decision, from speculation & investment thinking, and instead think about your day to day life.
Washington D.C.: Hi Maryann, How well are the city's development plans in the S.W. Waterfront coming along? I have seen the blue print but wonder what it will take for the blue print to come closer to being realized. Many thanks.
Maryann Haggerty: These things take forever, but sometimes they actually happen. For instance, a dozen years ago, the neighborhood around what's now MCI Center was totally different from what it is now. And only brave people--or streetwalkers-- walked near Logan Circle at night...
New Orleans, Louisiana: I am a prospective home buyer with an agent problem. I have been working with an agent who was recommended to me by a friend, but the agent and I don't click. The agent is good at what she does and is perfectly nice to me, however, she has made inappropriate comments on several occasions that made me uncomfortable. In addition, she specializes in a neighborhood that I am not interested in exploring anymore and seems determined to push me into a house that is more expensive than my budget will allow. She has shown me houses 4 or 5 times, and we have spoken on the phone a number of times, but there has not been what I would perceive as a long term relationship. I have not signed an exclusivity contract. How to I respectfully but firmly let her know that I would prefer not to work with her in the future and will use another agent?
Maryann Haggerty: You haven't signed a contract, so this is just an interpersonal problem. Tell her respectfully but firmly that you don't need her services anymore. Point out that you're interested in a different neighborhood. It is a business relationship, after all, and you can politely terminate it.
Washington, D.C.: Hi Maryann, I am interested in learning about what local areas look promising for real estate investing? With prices in and around D.C. so high, just wondering if you have any ideas on markets that are less pricey but have some good potential. LEE
Maryann Haggerty: I have a very tough time believing that there is any low-hanging fruit left for investors in this region. But, as so often, I may be wrong. Just try to find a place that the herd hasn't already trampled...
Arlington, Va.: Well, I've decided to wait things out right now. Feels like we might be on the cusp of some change. I don't expect any bubble burst just a leveling off, this can't go on forever. Hoping my salary catches up to housing prices a bit. I think in 2-4 years a percentage of risky loan payments will skyrocket and some folks will be forced to sell. Also my rent is less per month by far than a mortgage payment on a smaller property. Any thoughts ... am I just rationalizing?
Maryann Haggerty: Of course you're rationalizing. But that doesn't mean you're wrong.
Washington, D.C.: Our settlement time on a ratified contract is about one month. We are a week-and-a-half from settlement and the lender has still not sent someone for the appraisal. Is this typical, or should we be really pushing to have it done sooner?
Maryann Haggerty: Actually, it's pretty typical. But Monday morning, I would start nagging.
Washington, D.C.: I've seen so much about not taking interest-only loans -- and it certainly makes sense. But, do you rent and get nothing in return or go the interest-only route and at least get the interest back in the form of tax returns, put it towards debt or the principal, and hope to refinance within the three-year arm?
Maryann Haggerty: If you have the discipline to do what you propose, than perhaps you risk the IO loan. But many people aren't going to "get the interest back" and invest it. They're going to stretch to the max, reduce their tax withholding, etc.
Oxon Hill, Md.: My husband and I have been house hunting for about 5 months. We have had 2 of our bids accepted then just before closing both sellers wanted us to pay more money than the houses were worth so we declined both. It has been extremely frustrating and now my husband wants to just settle for a condo so that we can get the tax benefit. What do you think?
Maryann Haggerty: Just before closing they asked for more money? And you didn't threaten them with legal action for non-performance on your contract? Honey, you need a meaner lawyer... It sounds as if you are getting very close to buying. So bid again, if a house is what you want. A couple of months of tax deduction likely will not add up to all that much!
Silver Spring, Md.: We bought a house in 2003 in Silver Spring. During our search process we looked at a couple for sale by owner (FSBO) houses. I remember one near 4-corners in Silver Spring that had me mumbling about plumbing by owner (lots of duct tape on the pipes), electricity by owner (lots of black type on the wiring in the basement) and landscaping by owner ("let's clear away all living things within 30 feet of the house in case there's brush fire"). Some people take the do-it-yourself-to-save-money thing too far!
Maryann Haggerty: An entry in our "as is" discussion... And worse: Duct tape doesn't even work well on pipes!!!
Washington D.C., S.W.: Hello there -- I have been investigating all I can into buying my first home ... wondering if the 'First-time home buyer' programs and affordable housing set-aside programs are generally only for current state residents. For example, I live in D.C., but can I qualify for a program in Maryland?? I'm very nervous about this because D.C. seems very much out of my price range already. Thanks for all your help.
Maryann Haggerty: Some of them have residency requirements. Call and ask.
Washington, D.C.: How do you deal with an uncooperative and slow-moving condo association? Contractors damaged the flooring in my basement unit, and when it was ripped out, I discovered that water may be leaking up through the concrete sub floor. The association has been slow in dealing with the identified problem (it's been almost 2 months now) and is hesitant to shell out money for repairs ("let's get another estimate"). We're a small building with 7 owners, and it was converted to condos a few years ago. There is no real 'process' in place for dealing with this stuff. I imagine this is a common scenario with all the houses being converted to condos these days. What can I do? Do I have any way to force them into action? I'm displaced while all this is going on.
Maryann Haggerty: Read over your condo documents. Then--and this is the important part--sit down and talk with your neighbors! There are only 7 of you, & you all own the building together. It's not some impersonal association, & it's not like a landlord. You arepartners. Explain why this is a problem for everyone. Do everything you can to avoid suing; it will only make your life a living hell...
Alexandria, Va.: Same old question: Do you think that real estate prices are going to drop, and if so, when? My fiance and I are hoping to buy our first home soon -- a condo in Old Town Alexandria -- but keep receiving contradictory advice and even some doomsday prophecies. Should we wait it out or get into the market as soon as possible? Thanks.
Maryann Haggerty: Guess what? Same old answer: Nobody knows.
Dupont Circle, D.C.: Hi Maryann -- This might be a little off-topic, but any thoughts would be appreciated. I've been reading the articles in the Post lately about enforcement of the laws requiring permits for remodeling and want to do the right thing ... how horrible is the permit process here in D.C.? Thanks
Maryann Haggerty: Oh, it's pretty horrible. They keep promising to make it better, but I'm highly skeptical. If for ANY reason, you decide to go the no-permit route, make sure it truly is not visible what you are doing. Inspectors in DC cruise the streets looking for illegal work, especially in historic districts such as Dupont. And make sure your workers don't piss off the neighbors, so they don't rat you out.
Washington, D.C.: I went to an open house over the winter where I thought "They are trying to sell THIS"??? The house was being sold by a realtor, who hadn't even bothered to remove an extremely suggestive poster from the kitchen, the tag line of which was 'Got Milk'. It was tacked on the fridge a la a college dorm, so it would've been easy to remove. PS - it sold in one week, and was listed at nearly 600K!!
Washington, D.C.: When I was condo hunting in 2001, I looked at 49 different 1 BRs or studios (six in one building) over five months. I will never forget a 1 BR pig sty I saw in Foggy Bottom. It was being rented, and the occupants made no concessions in their housekeeping to the owner's attempts to sell it. My agent and I were shocked. Dirty dishes on every surface, clothes strewn, books and magazines on the floor, just a total mess. I am not sure I would have been interested if it had been clean and neat, but I couldn't be bothered to visualize what it would have looked like. We were also stunned by two empty but filthy units in the General Scott, a nice building. I am sure they sold but again, not to me. I found an old but clean 1BR in Capitol Hill (with FP and garage parking) and have been enjoying the staggering appreciation (DC appraises it at double what I paid in 2002) ever since.
Silver Spring, Md.: This week's articles have discussed the drop in New Housing starts. That's fine and all, but what about existing home sales? My wife and I have been looking for the past three months. Felt the summer-time slowdown, but now there are more and more sellers reducing price. We've even seen some that have been on the market two months! I think we're at the plateau of existing home sales' price appreciation.
Maryann Haggerty: National existing-home sales numbers for June are due out on Monday. We shall see...
For the New Orleans Poster ... : RE Agents are there to close the deal. It sounds to me like their agent is more interested in doing that than putting them in the best home for them. I found out the hard way after buying on a busy corner (when I asked the agent about the prospect of having traffic, she countered "you won't be spending time in your front yard anyway, right?"). Sure enough, there was tons of traffic, but it was an easy sale for her (it was the second house we looked at). So, sure, some agents are interested in seeing you in the house of your dreams, but it sounds like your agent is more interested in padding his/her bottom line. (Sorry agents, that's the way I see it.)
Maryann Haggerty: And, as I said, it's a business arrangement. You have to protect yourself. The agent can't make you buy something you don't want to buy.
Washington, D.C.: A few weeks ago, Anthony Williams had a press conference that was pushed to the back of the news. I caught a clip, however, of Williams expressing worries about the real estate bubble and that people should be more cautious. Isn't this a dangerous move (i.e. shouldn't a mayor be expressing confidence about the market to attract more investors)? Or is there an angle that I am missing?
Maryann Haggerty: I think people should tell the truth, not spin some optimistic nonsense to encourage investment. And Williams is an interesting case: He has been mayor during a period of such dramatic turnaround that he can't, himself, afford to buy a house in the city he runs.
DC -- Shaw: Re: the permit question -- For what it's worth, we began our deck renovation process in April and it took until July to get the permit, even with the contractor (who's presumably experienced on the ins and outs of permit getting) doing it.
Maryann Haggerty: A recent report from the front. The next time Lucifer redecorates, I suspect he will take some hints from DC's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs...
Washington, D.C.: Continuing the permit question, is it possible to call the permit office on a renovator after the fact? We are dealing with a real estate/investor group that is trying to inflate the price of their house even though they never got a permit and wonder if we can use such a phone call as a bargaining chip. Maybe that is just a slimy move and we should let go.
Maryann Haggerty: Well, it IS pretty slimy. Really. But sure, sometimes the city will do something after the fact.
Maplewood, New Jersey: My husband and I are looking to purchase our first home, however, our credit scores aren't that good -- around 570]. We have about $10,000 as a down payment and pretty good incomes -- combined $110K], however, I'm wondering if we should wait until our scores improve -- at least 600] and have more $$ saved before buying. What do you think?
Maryann Haggerty: I say improve your credit score, so you don't pay outrageous interest--and at 570, you are shark bait... Use that time to save some more.
Alexandria, Va.: The Queen of As-Is Houses will be the Fairfax County cat lady's. There's a real fixer-upper!
Maryann Haggerty: Ever tried to fix up a house after just ONE cat? That place ain't a fixer-upper. It's a tear down!
Centreville, Va.: It didn't show it's face during our current go-round of house hunting, but when we were looking back in '96 for our first house, we saw 50+ houses in our quest to figure out where we wanted to live (our realtor was a family friend and, bless him, put up with us through 5 months of looking). There was a TH in Franconia with plastic carpet runners nailed over the carpet ... with roofing nails with heads the size of quarters. In the basement was a wall of paper towels. Literally, the entire wall was a stacked floor to ceiling with paper towels. There was another house in Springfield (ranch, built in the 50's) with original kitchen appliances (egads!) and a wall that you could move if you wanted to reconfigure the space. Quite odd. Then there was the TH in Annandale where the cats had taken over. It reeked of cat urine. But the one that took the cake was the one we backed out of. Everything was fine except for the carpet and they agreed to a carpet allowance. We thought it was said and done, but then they added that they had to approve the carpet (it was to be done prior to settlement). We said sure, but then they said that if we backed out, we'd have to pay for it. We said sure, but only if it was through our own negligence. They came back with "even if one of you dies you'll have to pay, as dying isn't something we consider to be your 'fault'." We walked out on the contract and found our previous house the next day.
Maryann Haggerty: I wonder what was behind the paper towels?
Chantilly, Va.: We did it! We beat the market insanity! Now that both houses are settled, I can finally spill the beans (although after the softening of the market, it may be just another posting). After two years of having the market beat us, we came up with an alternate plan and won. We had already targeted our prime neighborhood and put out feelers to our network of friends. One of them told us of a house that was going to be on the market this spring (this was last fall) and we contacted the owners. They were amenable to doing it without realtors on either side, and in February we submitted an offer (they wanted to put it on the market in March, but were willing to field our offer prior to then). They accepted it with the condition that settlement wouldn't be until this month (two weeks ago) and we sold our house in June (allowing it to increase in price during that time). While this might not help those folks coming from out of town, it's one way for the "move-up" crowd to beat the market. Put out the word you're looking and maybe something will happen. That said, it does appear that the DOM for houses in Western FFX is increasing, which may either mean the market is softening or it's just the summer slow-down.
Maryann Haggerty: Thanks for the tips. They worked for you; they could work for others, too...
Washington, D.C.: I've seen several homes for sale recently that state that you must use a specific company for settlement or for financing. Why would this be? Anyway, when I see notes like this I generally lose interest in looking further. Am I being too wary?
Maryann Haggerty: Boy, that would make me leery, too. Obviously, people are getting deals/kickbacks in some way. Whether legal under RESPA (the law covering settlement) I don't know. I have always understood that it legally has to be the buyer's choice for both financing & settlement. That's why builders can't require that you use their financing arm--they can only offer you a financial incentive to do so. Same for realty brokers. Private parties may be treated differently, but...
Silver Spring, Md.: "...any crap can sell..." "...piss off the neighbors..." "...make sure it can't be seen from the street..." You are too funny! Tell us how you really feel!
Maryann Haggerty: Don't tell my mother; she thinks I'm a nice Catholic girl who would never dream of cussing.
Rockville, Md.: For today's challenge: 9011 2nd Ave, Silver Spring! My wife and I shake our heads and chuckle when we keep seeing this. It's been listed for over two months. We went to one of their -week after week after ... open houses. Are you kidding me? They're asking $650k for something that looks like the set of a TV show from the 70's. The main level is shag-carpeted in a mismatched bright green, with portions scrunched up. The kitchen looks like it hadn't received a retouching since the 70s. The upstairs bathroom has those tiny 1/2" x 1/2" tiles that I swear looks like the tiles in my high school bathroom. I'm not sure if it's the listing agent or the house that's worse. The front lawn is littered with about five of the same realtor logo signs, with new balloons attached each weekend.
Maryann Haggerty: The green shag carpeting coordinates with what? Orange walls?
Alexandria, Va.: I don't know if this counts, but I was house hunting in Connecticut, and we loved one house UNTIL we walked down into the basement and there was about 2 inches of standing water on the floor!! Um, what in the world would make you show a house in that condition?! My realtor laughed and said, "Well, I guess this one's out!"
Maryann Haggerty: OK, THAT'S amazing. Maybe the pipe broke that morning & no one noticed???
Arlington, Va.: Dear Ms. Haggerty, I'm temporarily in the D.C. area, for about 3 years. I make 75K, which is double what I made in my previous jobs, but it doesn't seem sufficient to buy a reasonable house for a family of four here. I'm close to 40, and would love to start building some sort of equity, but it seems like my short time period (after which my job prospects are uncertain) would make it unwise to commit to any real estate here (even if I could find somewhere I could afford). Would you agree, or is there some way I can build equity while I'm here? (I do have $60K saved I can use for a down payment). Thanks
Maryann Haggerty: Three years is indeed too short a time horizon for real estate. Should the bubble deflate, you are the one who will be hurt.
Wheaton, Md.: Love your chat! Just a report from the field, lots of places in the 20902 zip code of Silver Spring are staying on the market longer, but these properties are also priced about 10-15% more than comparable properties sold for just a few months ago! It seems that reasonably priced places are still selling within a week, just a lot of overpriced real estate out there.
Maryann Haggerty: The nature of home prices is that they are "sticky"--i.e., unlike stock prices, they don't move easily. Sellers need to consciously choose whether to reduce the price or just sit patiently...
Belle View, Virginia: Good Afternoon! I am considering a career change and have been looking at becoming a Realtor. A recently published poll on American's views of trustworthy occupations listed Realtors as being perceived as being "extremely untrustworthy", somewhat above used-car salesmen, but below door-to-door home improvement scam artists. Can you explain why most Americans view Realtors with such distrust? Many thanks
Maryann Haggerty: Americans do not like salespeople. Real estate agents are sales people. If you want to get a feel for the basic stereotype of real estate agents, think of Edie (Nicollete Sheridan), the bad neighbor on Desperate Housewives. She is a real estate agent. I'm not saying the stereotype is true. I'm just saying what the perception is.
Washington, D.C.: We saw a house in Capitol Hill (toward H Street and relatively far east) listed at 850K. They had renovated the Federal townhouse(granite countertops, basement apartment, etc.), but 850K? Way above even the inflated market. It has since dropped 100K, but has still not sold. More people renovating their home and getting greedy with the results. I just can't believe how out of touch these sellers were -- you can purchase a similarly priced house in a much better area!
Maryann Haggerty: Only YOU can prevent greedy sellers from getting rich!
Fairfax, Va.: Along the lines of 'Got Milk,' when I was house hunting in Vienna, Va., I visited one place occupied by renters. The place was run down -- tires piled on the front stoop, garbage the homeowners association never seemed to pick up. The icing on the cake was as we were touring the house, the tenant's small child enthusiastically giving a tour, some guy was sitting in the living room watching pornography of the hardcore variety. He changed the channel when I walked into the room, but the second I was gone, he flipped it back on even though my husband was still in there. Who wants neighbors like that?
Maryann Haggerty: Oh, triple Ick!
Washington, D.C.: When we were house-hunting for our current home (10 years ago), our agent got us in to see one home before the Sunday open house when it would be "ready to show". There was a painter in there, painting over the water marks on the drywall in the finished basement! They had laid down new sod in the backyard and when you walked on it, the dirt squished out of it. Apparently, it was the lowest-lying plot on all sides! In a similar situation, we went to one house that had apparently been sprayed for bugs, but no one bothered to come back and clean up -- there were a plethora of dead bugs all over the carpet in the family room! Needless to say, we are not in either of those two homes ...
Maryann Haggerty: I once went to see a house that had NOT DEAD fleas in the carpets, all the carpets. You could see them! And I am more than normal sensitive to fleas. I literally had to run out of there...
Prince Georges County, Md.: Hi Maryann - Hoping you can shed some light on this for me. Recently purchased a condo, new construction, in PG County. Received a letter in the mail the other day from the builders saying construction of the condo buildings (2) have been delayed due to obtaining a permit from the county. Oh what, OH WHAT could be the permit issue holding up the progress of my condo?!?! Is this unusual? Unusual for PG County? Thanks! Patiently Waiting
Maryann Haggerty: All permits, all around, are running slow. I wonder if my producer can post the June 25 story by Sandy Fleishman that reviews a lot of the reasons why?
Washington, D.C: Hi Maryann, thanks for taking my question. My wife and I own a 2Bd/2Ba condo. With the addition of the baby we need more room. However any decent 3Bd/2Ba property in a location we like is costing way too much. Yes, we could manage to make the 4K+ monthly mortgage payments(2X of our current payment), but I don't want to keep doing it for the next 30 years, especially in this volatile market. Those homes can easily lose 25% value in a bad market for all I know. So, what do you think if we rent a bigger apartment instead, and rent out our condo for a year or two? This way, with $1000 more per month we can rent a bigger and nicer apartment, while still building equity, getting tax breaks on interests, and won't fall too much behind when we decide to buy a bigger home 2 years from now. Make sense? Any drawbacks or hidden risks? Thanks much!
Maryann Haggerty: I'm very tempted some days to do that same thing myself. Just save every penny you can during the interim, so that even if prices somehow continue to rise, you really will be able to buy that house some day. Downsides? Maybe you'll find out that it isn't a lot of fun to be a landlord sometimes...
Washington, D.C.: A bird-themed entry: I found encrusted bird droppings on the floor of a 1BR condo near 14th and N Streets NW. Passed on that one. Also on the 1BR condo FSBO in a nice building near Mass and 11th NW. I could clearly see the bird-repellent mesh running along the ledge outside her apartment. But when I asked she denied the building had a pigeon problem. Kind of dumb to lie about a problem when the evidence is right there.
Old Town, Alexandria: For today's challenge ... a new standalone (tear-down with a re-build) on a postage-stamp-sized lot on Wythe between N. West and N. Fayette in Old Town. We watched the renovation, as we live a block away. Four bedrooms, all small but two with no closets -- barely tolerable. Three full baths, with mismatched appliances -- OK, but not great. Kitchen with laminate countertops and mismatched appliances -- tolerable, but not what you want in a new house when you see the listing price. One-car garage WITH NO ACCESS FROM THE INSIDE -- what were you thinking?!!? Initial listing had it at $999,999. That was five months ago. It's now on the market for $799,999 and still no takers. It's a piece of work and is ALWAYS talked about at other Open Houses in the area.
Maryann Haggerty: For close to a million, no access between the garage & the house. I agree. What were they thinking?
Oxon Hill, Md.: Hi, I'm writing back to explain what I meant by the sellers asking for money right before closing. One seller asked us to sign a statement saying that we would pay what we bidded for no matter what the appraisal price came back for and the other seller, the appraisal came back for $16,000 less and we had appraisal contingency clause in the contract. We ended up not accepting either house.
Maryann Haggerty: Different matter. If you had waived the appraisal contingency, you would have been stuck. But in this case, you were the one exercising your right to back out, not the seller non-performing.
Silver Spring, Md.: When I was looking for a house, we went into a townhouse in Briggs Chaney area (14 years ago) and found marijuana plants growing on the bedroom window sill.
Maryann Haggerty: This one is very close to being the winner.
Washington, D.C.: Just in response to your answer on the chatters question about Anthony Williams. Do you think he has been unable to buy a house or just prefers his current digs and is making excuses (always my assumption)? You know a city's real estate market is crazy if the mayor can't afford to buy -- that is, if he truly wants to.
Maryann Haggerty: I think where a family lives is a family decision, not solely the choice of one partner.
Petworth, D.C.: Maybe you've answered this before, but what seems to be the standard percentage for a real estate agent's cut here in D.C.?
Bethesda, Md.: Two months is pretty quick action for a condo association, even with professional management. And -- any -- kind of repair is bizarrely expensive these days, not to mention the kinds of serious problems that the poster was talking about.
Maryann Haggerty: Very good points
Happy in Md.: You can still "find a lovely but inexpensive house in a charming neighborhood." Try Cheverly, Maryland. My husband and I recently bought a house there, for perhaps 100,000 less than we would have bought in similar neighborhoods like Takoma Park and Silver Spring. Beautiful neighborhood, diverse and interesting housing stock, friendly neighbors, community unity and close proximity to metro and highways makes this, in my opinion, a rare gem in this region. Like Ms. Haggerty wrote earlier in this chat, if you can, put thoughts of investments and financials on the back burner and focus on what your priorities in lifestyle are like. That, more than playing the real estate guessing game, yields dividends that you'll always have, even if the market crashes.
Maryann Haggerty: It's also amazing how close in Cheverly is. There are plenty of people in my Capitol Hill neighborhood who belong to the swim club there.
Rural Md:: When we were looking at houses a few years ago, the first one that our realtor took us to was a dump. Built in the 1950s, it had red velvet bedroom walls, water damage in other bedrooms, 1950's kitchen appliances, and to get to the basement/one car garage where the washer and dryer were located, you had to go outside. The realtor asked what it would take to get us to buy and I replied, "A bulldozer and a new house". The only plus was that it was 3 acres. We found our house the next weekend -- a gem kept up by the original owners. Houses seem to be staying on the market longer in our neighborhood as well ...
Maryann Haggerty: ...red velvet bedroom walls???
D.C.: I looked at a house a few months ago, and besides being in pretty bad shape, the entire house was slightly tilted. It was obvious the minute you walked in the door. It felt like being in one of those carnival fun houses. This was a row house in Columbia Heights selling for 300K.
Maryann Haggerty: Visibly tilted! Wow!
Washington, D.C.: When I was house hunting a few years ago, my agent, who repeatedly showed me houses in neighborhoods that I was not interested in living, showed me one home that was part of the estate of a deceased person, again in a neighborhood that I wasn't interested in. The house looked like the descendents had just had breakfast one morning and went upstairs for a nap and didn't wake up. Literally, there was a glass of moldy juice on the kitchen table with a plate with food crumbs on it. The house was in complete dissaray and what took the cake was when my agent showed me the master bedroom, the only thing that was missing was the top mattress. My agent said something like, "Poor thing, she just died right here, didn't she? Well, the family will have the house cleaned up before the settlement." Needless to say, I didn't buy that house and I dropped my agent, immediately.
Maryann Haggerty: OK, the computer threw me off the chat for a minute there. I think that's a hint. I should sign off, but ONLY after declaring this entry, above, as today's winner. E-mail your address to me at haggertym@waspost.com. Any & all others willing to discuss their as-is experiences, e-mail me too!!! Thanks to you all. Sorry I couldn't get to anywhere near all you questions. Stay cool this weekend!
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Join Post Real Estate Editor Maryann Haggerty as she discusses all aspects of the local real estate market.
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Stakes for the Court
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THE REPLACEMENT of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with Judge John G. Roberts Jr. could have a significant impact on the law, and on the country. How much impact is hard to know: While many people presume to know Judge Roberts's views, not much can be learned from the public record. Nominees are traditionally -- and rightly -- reticent about answering questions that could commit them on specific cases. All of which leaves senators in something of a bind. The stakes are high, and information will be tight.
Public discussion of the nomination has unsurprisingly focused so far on abortion rights. But abortion may not be the area where Judge Roberts will have the biggest effect -- at least not initially. He cannot provide the decisive vote for overturning Roe v. Wade , which is currently protected by a 6-to-3 majority, even if he favors doing so. What he could do is move the court toward tolerating a range of restrictions on abortion, such as the "partial-birth" procedure, that it currently does not permit. That would mean a unwarranted erosion of women's privacy rights.
Another area where Judge Roberts could have a big impact is on the court's approach to federalism -- that is, the balance of power between the national government and the states. The court seems less poised than it did only a few years ago to head in a radical direction in this area. One of Judge Roberts's
opinions, however, raises worrisome questions about whether he would be willing to go too far in reining in federal power. We would hope he could instead provide a strong center that is now missing from the court on these questions.
Two other areas where Judge Roberts could shift the court are campaign finance regulation and affirmative action in education. In both areas, Justice O'Connor provided the decisive fifth vote for upholding challenged policies: the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and race-conscious admissions at the University of Michigan. Judge Roberts's elevation raises the possibility of the court's taking a different course or even reconsidering those holdings, both of which we consider correct. It is particularly important that the court give Congress constitutional leeway to adopt effective campaign finance rules.
More generally, Justice O'Connor has been a key vote for expansions of judicial power in many areas -- some justified, some unwarranted in our view. She supported, for example, the court's assertion of jurisdiction over the Guantanamo Bay detentions, as well as its management of race-conscious redistricting. Judge Roberts would have to be only mildly more restrained in his attitude toward judicial authority to reduce the court's ever-growing profile. That could affect future judicial checks on the Bush administration's assertions of power in the war on terrorism, among other issues.
Teasing out what sort of justice someone will be is never easy -- particularly when that someone has been as careful in his public utterances as Judge Roberts. It will probably prove impossible to gauge how he will vote in specific case areas. It should, however, be possible to have a serious discussion with him about the general principles of constitutional decision making that underlie all of these questions. Judge Roberts has said he does not hew to a single all-encompassing theory of constitutional rulings -- an encouraging sign in and of itself. But what are his methods for interpreting the Constitution? How much deference should the court grant to its past decisions when they might have been in error, and under what circumstances should it reverse course and overturn major decisions? It should be possible, without demanding that the nominee compromise his independence as a justice, to learn a lot more about him.
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THE REPLACEMENT of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with Judge John G. Roberts Jr. could have a significant impact on the law, and on the country. How much impact is hard to know: While many people presume to know Judge Roberts's views, not much can be learned from the public record....
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Democrats Say Nominee Will Be Hard to Defeat
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The White House and its allies opened their campaign to confirm Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court with a mix of soft-sell persuasion and hard-pitch pressure yesterday as Senate Democrats plotted strategy for responding to a nomination they conceded could be hard to defeat.
After meeting President Bush for coffee at the White House in the morning, Roberts headed to Capitol Hill for the ritual of convivial courtesy calls not seen in 11 years, while Republican operatives began television advertising to push the Senate to approve the appellate judge. Bush called for a "fair and civil process" that would put Roberts on the bench by the time the court reconvenes Oct. 3.
An array of interest groups on the left began mobilizing opposition to Roberts, but reticent Senate Democrats demonstrated little eagerness for an all-out war against him. Some Democratic senators laid the groundwork for a struggle focused on prying loose documents related to Roberts's career in government and using any resistance by the administration against him. Yet as the day progressed, Democrats seemed increasingly resigned to the notion that they cannot stop his appointment.
The key barometer came from members of the Gang of 14 senators who forged a bipartisan accord in May to avoid a showdown over lower-court appointments. Two Republican members of the group, John McCain (Ariz.) and John W. Warner (Va.), said the Roberts selection would not trigger the "extraordinary circumstances" clause of the agreement that would justify a Democratic filibuster.
Under Senate rules, a filibuster would be the only procedural way the minority party could stop the nomination. By the end of the day, though, Democrats held out little prospect of a filibuster.
"Everybody ought to cool their jets on this and let the process work," said Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), a Democratic member of the group. "Going in, it looks good" for Roberts, he said.
Bush introduced his nominee in a prime-time White House ceremony Tuesday night, choosing a practiced appellate lawyer to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Roberts, who served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and earned a reputation as one of the most successful lawyers in the Supreme Court bar, was appointed by the current president to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2003.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said yesterday that he expects hearings on Roberts's nomination in early September after the August recess, although he added that they could be moved up to late August if needed. He promised "extensive hearings" and predicted that Roberts "will have the answers" to senators' questions.
White House officials and Republican strategists exuded confidence, saying they had found the most confirmable conservative to put forward. "I think he's ultimately going to sail through," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel to the American Center for Law and Justice, who has been advising the White House on court strategy.
"There'll be a battle because all Supreme Court nominations are battles, but this is not a holy war," said Kenneth M. Duberstein, a Reagan White House chief of staff who steered the previous two Republican nominations onto the court for Bush's father. "I don't think the passion from the far left will be felt by all these Democratic senators."
Democrats prepared for a strategy that recently has served them well on contentious nominations: focusing on a nominee's refusal to answer questions or provide documents rather than just the person's political beliefs.
Senate Democrats have bottled up John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador by insisting on State Department documents that the administration refuses to yield. And they successfully filibustered Miguel Estrada's court nomination in Bush's first term by emphasizing his refusal to answer questions about judicial philosophy.
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The White House and its allies opened their campaign to confirm Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court with a mix of soft-sell persuasion and hard-pitch pressure
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A Move To the Right, An Eye to Confirmation
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President Bush moved boldly to shift the Supreme Court to the right last night by selecting federal appellate judge John G. Roberts Jr. to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But in choosing a jurist with establishment credentials and bipartisan allies, Bush also picked a nominee he believes can win confirmation with some Democratic votes.
Bush appeared to have the court's future and the confirmation process in mind as he made his decision this week. All day, the name of appellate judge Edith Brown Clement floated through Washington as the president's apparent choice, but many on the right consider her conservative credentials far more suspect than Roberts's. By picking Roberts, Bush displayed his determination to put a more conservative stamp on the court.
At the same time, the president passed over a number of highly conservative judges whose nominations would have been seen as far more ideological and polarizing than that of Roberts. Given that this was the first but probably not the last Supreme Court vacancy he will be asked to fill, Bush signaled a less confrontational approach toward the Senate than he has adopted with his lower-court nominations -- and challenged the Senate to avoid a divisive debate over his choice.
Roberts faces a potentially contentious confirmation battle in any case, given the significance of O'Connor as the swing vote in many of the court's most important cases. There was no more important seat on the court than O'Connor's, and outside groups on the left and right began drawing lines last night even before Bush appeared in the East Room of the White House with Roberts and the judge's family. They have been ready for months for a noisy and lengthy argument over the future of the court.
But Senate Democrats reacted much more cautiously, saying only that there are many questions they want Roberts to answer during his confirmation hearings. Privately, they were being urged to keep their powder dry until a fuller vetting of Roberts's record as a judge and a lawyer is completed this summer. But there was nothing approaching the denunciation that greeted the nomination of Robert H. Bork in 1987, when within minutes of the announcement he was attacked on the Senate floor by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) as someone who would turn back the clock on women and minorities.
The caution may have been as much tactical as substantive, given that Senate Democratic leaders had urged their colleagues not to overreact initially no matter whom Bush nominated. Later they plan to press for access to records relating to Roberts's service in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and, if denied, will turn up the heat on him and the administration.
Kennedy's statement in response to Roberts's nomination laid out a series of questions that he and other Democrats want answered. "No nominee, especially a nominee who is well known to have argued ideological positions on issues important to the American people, should be confirmed without full and candid disclosure and discussion of those positions and their importance to him," he said.
Whether Democratic leaders carry through with threats to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee whom they regard as too conservative is the more important matter. Given Roberts's background and demeanor, that is now a much more difficult choice for them. On that question, the bipartisan Gang of 14, which brokered a deal earlier to avert a Senate meltdown over Bush's appellate court nominees, will hold a considerable amount of power in determining how far Democrats may be able to go in opposition.
The Gang of 14 deal included a provision that said a judicial filibuster could come only because of "extraordinary circumstances" but left it to each of the signatories to decide what met that threshold. Several senators are likely to be critical indicators. Among Republicans, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) will play an outsized role, given his independent standing and following around the country. Last night, he endorsed Roberts's nomination and said he looks forward to a "swift up-or-down vote" on the Senate floor.
Among Democrats, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) may well be the most crucial voice in the Gang of 14. Republicans were pointing last night to a statement he made last week that Roberts was one of several judges "in the ballpark" who might be able to avoid a filibuster. An aide said last night that Lieberman was misinterpreted on the question of Roberts. Lieberman issued a noncommittal statement last night, saying he looks forward to "a searching review" of Roberts's record before making a decision.
Roberts's record of service in the Reagan and first Bush administrations and his membership in the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal group, have presumably established his credentials for the right. But his rhetoric is cool, earning him many friends and few outspoken enemies. His legal abilities are widely acknowledged to be excellent. And he has produced a paper record that presents no undeniable proof of personal views that could be attacked as extreme.
There is much about Roberts that is not known, particularly on some of the hot-button social issues that have made the Supreme Court the center of the culture wars between left and right. NARAL Pro-Choice America denounced his nomination and cited a brief he argued before the high court as deputy solicitor in the first Bush administration that said Roe v. Wade , which established a woman's right to an abortion, was wrongly decided. Whether that represents his personal view or the statement of a lawyer representing his client is a question Democrats will press Roberts to answer.
For the White House, the 50-year-old appears to be the ultimate confirmable conservative. As a replacement for O'Connor, a centrist who voted to uphold abortion rights and affirmative action, he would probably move the court's overall balance to the right. But he would do so without some of the verbal pyrotechnics that have characterized the opinions of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
One of Roberts's key advantages is his strong reputation among fellow members of the Washington bar, including many Democrats. Those relationships figure to earn him the support -- or at least the neutrality -- of a constituency that may otherwise be well placed to make the confirmation process difficult for the administration.
"John Roberts is one of the most measured, thoughtful judges out there," said John A. Rogovin, a Washington lawyer who served in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration and as general counsel of the independent Federal Communications Commission.
Bush had a range of possible choices with his first Supreme Court vacancy, with pressure from first lady Laura Bush to nominate a woman to fill the O'Connor seat, and Latinos and some Republican operatives hoping he would name the nation's first Hispanic to the high court.
Given the health of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who has thyroid cancer, it is possible that Bush will have another vacancy to fill in the future, and at that time he may make a choice more clearly aimed at one demographic group or another in the electorate.
With his first choice, he moved to fulfill the broader pledge he has made since he first became a national candidate. He has promised judges who will not legislate from the bench and who strictly interpret the Constitution, and his allies said last night that Roberts more than meets those criteria. But by avoiding an overtly ideological choice, he offered Democrats a much narrower target to aim at.
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Bush To Announces Supreme Court Nominee
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Read more: Bush Chooses Roberts for Court.
Washington Post staff writer Charles Lane was online Wednesday, July 20, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss President Bush 's Supreme Court nominee and the nomination process.
Fairfax, Va.: I realize John Roberts is a conservative, that's Bush's right. And I can see the Court going right on most issues, but when it comes to Roe V Wade, how likely is it really that he'd decide to overturn it? He seems to care a lot about the history of the Court, and from what I have learned so far, he seems like he'd be very reluctant to change a past Supreme Court decision, no matter how he felt personally.
Also since there IS so little paper trail, no matter how much the conservatives like him, could he not end up like a Sutter. Was it not Nixon who picked Harry Blackman to the Court, and he was considered a strong conservative, and he's the one who WROTE Roe v Wade.
Charles Lane: Justices do have a way of turning out a bit differently from the way the President who appointed them might have hoped. Blackmun is a case in point. On Roberts and Roe, we'll just have to see. The issue is not likely to be squarely before the court for a number of years, and for now the court balance, assuming Roberts is confirmed and votes to overturn Roe, would still be 5-4 in favor of Roe.
Baltimore, Md.: What do you think the chances are of Roberts turning out to be another Souter? Or for that matter, another O'Connor, who actually evaluates cases on the merits rather than by personal politics?
Charles Lane: I actually think the chances that Roberts will evaluate cases on the merits are quite high. What the results will be I don't know.
Hampton, Va.: I have lots of email in my inbox telling me that a Roberts confirmation means that Roe vs. Wade will be overturned. What happens then? Does that mean that abortion is outlawed nationwide? Scary!
Charles Lane: The email is wrong. Even if Roe were to come before the court, which takes years, the current court, even assuming Roberts is an anti-Roe vote, would still vote to uphold it. The overturning of Roe would NOT outlaw abortion, but rather return the issue to state governments to write their own abortion laws (or state Constitutional amendments.)
Haymarket, Va.: I'm a liberal Democrat, and would have appointed someone else, but that being said, Roberts looks to be a pretty solid pick. Already, I've received e-mail from Moveon.org blaring that Bush has appointed a corporate lobbyist to the Court (I cannot see any justification for this statements)and stating that Roberts is anti-environment, anti-voting rights, anti-abortion, etc... This seems vitriolic and knee-jerkish. In ten years it also may turn out to be right, but don't you think some of the liberal groups were so geared up for a fight that they're struggling to deal with a pretty decent choice and that they will lose credibility pretty quickly if they don't find some fire to go with all the smoke?
Charles Lane: Credibility will be at a premium on all sides this summer, since this is the first post-Internet nomination to the court, and everyone can fact-check everyone in near-real time.
What odds to you give Roberts of sweeping the "Gang of 14" Senators? Do think Bush's main motive in nominating Roberts was to get the most conservative nominee that could still get the support of the moderates in the Senate?
Charles Lane: I think his odds right now of being confirmed with a sizable majority are quite strong. But we still don't know very much about him, and we still don't know what issues the opponents plan to raise against him. Anybody can suffer an unexpected train wreck!
Portland, Ore.: I've heard that a justice's upbringing is a great way to determine how that justice will turn out. Those from humble beginnings tend to wind up in the liberal wing while those with more privileged origins tend lean to the conservative point of view. Obviously Clarence Thomas is an exception to this rule but there seems to be some psychological issues at play with him. In this light, what kind of origins does John Roberts have?
Charles Lane: John Roberts is the son of a steel executive (his father) who lived in the Indiana suburbs. He attended a private academy for high school and went to Harvard for both college and Law School
Arlington, Va.: Is Roberts of the same mold as O'Connor? Or is Bush attempting to appease the far right with this selection?
Charles Lane: I think Roberts is more conservative than O'Connor, but the president could easily have found a more conservative candidate. My sense is that social issues conservatives are happy with this pick, but not euphoric as they might have been with, say, Janice Rogers Brown or Edith Jones.
I think the timing of this nomination shows it as an obvious attempt to distract from the Plame investigation. Do you think the press will take the bait and forget about covering an important issue?
Charles Lane: Perhaps it has the effect of distracting from Plame, but the president had to pick someone around this time to get a confirmation in time for October. I think it was the chief justice's announcement that he wasn't going to retire that triggered the expedited nomination of Roberts.
Waco, Tex.: Has the President let down his base with this nomination? I supported George Bush during the past two elections, both with my vote and fundraising. I am so upset at his choice; I feel betrayed. I expected his nominee would promise to overturn Roe v. Wade, break down the wall separating church and state (allow Christian prayers in public school, Bible monuments in public spaces), and criminalize homosexual acts. I don't see any of these resulting from a Robert's confirmation. Do you?
Charles Lane: I don't see any of those results from a Roberts confirmation because he lacks the power all by himself to change the law in the way you describe. There would have to be a majority of five to overturn numerous precedents, and that doesn't seem to be in the cards.
Rockville, Md.: What is John G. Roberts' position on gay and lesbian issues/rights?
Los Angeles, Calif.: Hello Charles, can you explain something I don't understand: If the Supreme Court makes a decision, how can a future Supreme Court, in effect, "overturn" the initial ruling? Aren't decisions final? Perhaps you can address the questions in general terms and also, because I am curious specifically about Roe v. Wade, address what could be the grounds for overturning that ruling. Could it be so simple as new justices having different opinions? Thank you.
Charles Lane: The court is supposed to honor state decisions, the principle that existing doctrine should be left as is. But it does overrule cases from time to time -- e.g., Brown v. Board of Education overruled Plessy v. Ferguson. Roe has been reaffirmed specifically in 1992 with five votes (then Ginsburg added a sixth vote to the majority in 1993) and it was reaffirmed by implication in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. So I think it is a pretty firmly entrenched precedent now, more firmly entrenched than it was in 1991 when Roberts wrote his famous sentence saying the Bush I administration wanted to overrule it.
Alexandria, Va.: They say that Judge Roberts argued 39 or so cases before the Supreme Court. How many of those did he win?
Charles Lane: He won most of them--25 I believe. But sometimes he argued as amicus curiae, and not directly on behalf of a client.
Charles Lane: Thanks everyone. I have to run.
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.
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Britain Will Act to Bar Terrorist Sympathizers
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LONDON, July 20 -- Britain is drawing up a new blacklist to block alleged terrorist sympathizers from entering the country and deport those already here, officials announced Wednesday, detailing expanded efforts to head off violence such as the July 7 bombings.
Officials also said they had reached an agreement to extradite terrorism suspects of Jordanian nationality to that country. Civil libertarians have expressed concern that the deportees could be subjected to torture and other abuses, despite Jordanian pledges of good treatment.
The crackdown is part of a government campaign to root out what it views as fundamental causes of the July 7 attacks, following the disclosure that the four men who appear to have carried out the suicide bombings were young British Muslims who turned into fanatics. At least 56 people, including the bombers, died in the attacks and 700 were wounded.
Britain has for years seen itself as a haven for political refugees, including some considered extremists by other European countries and the United States. But the bombings have led the government to reconsider both its immigration policies and its tradition of freedom of speech.
In Pakistan, authorities said they were searching for a man named Haroon Rashid, who they believed might have played a role in the attacks. They denied reports that they had arrested him. A man by that relatively common name was taken into custody, officials said, but then released when it was determined that he was not the man being sought.
Senior Pakistani intelligence officials have said that, after early questioning of two dozen people suspected of being Islamic radicals, no clues about the terrorist contacts of the London bombers have been found. About 150 such suspects have been detained during a nationwide police crackdown in the past two days.
Three of the apparent bombers were of Pakistani origin and visited Pakistan in the months before the attacks. The fourth man was a Jamaican-born convert to Islam.
In London, the government hopes the new measures under discussion will cut off or reduce the opportunities for radicals to influence alienated young Muslims in urban areas such as Leeds, the northern British city where three of the men lived.
Charles Clarke, the cabinet secretary in charge of domestic security, told the House of Commons that the government plans to compile a database of "unacceptable behavior" such as preaching extremism, running radical Web sites and writing articles intended to foment terrorism.
He said he had asked his department and Britain's intelligence services to "establish a full database of individuals around the world who have demonstrated relevant behaviors." Those on the list could be barred from the country if their presence is judged as "not conducive to the public interest," he added.
"In the circumstances we now face, I have decided that it is right to broaden the use of these powers to deal with those who foment terrorism or seek to provoke others to terrorist acts," Clarke said.
Clarke also said he planned a new offense of "indirect incitement to terrorism" that would target "those who, while not directly inciting, glorify and condone terrorist acts knowing full well that the effect on their listeners will be to encourage them to turn to terrorism."
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