This undated photo provided by the U.S. Army shows Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair. Sinclair, who served five combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been charged with forcible sodomy, multiple counts of adultery and having inappropriate relationships with several female subordinates. (Uncredited/ASSOCIATED PRESS) The accusations leveled against three Army generals over the past six months are as varied as they are striking, the highest-profile of a growing number of allegations of wrongdoing by senior military officials. A one-star general was flown home from Afghanistan this spring to face criminal charges, including sexual assault. A four-star general formerly in charge of the increasingly vital Africa command was accused of financial mismanagement, accepting inappropriate gifts and assigning staff personal tasks. And a three-star general who oversees the U.S. Missile Defense Agency was described in an inspector general report as an abrasive and verbally abusive boss. The investigations have become an embarrassment for the Army, raising questions about how thoroughly the military has screened senior leaders before putting them in crucial assignments. The Defense Department’s inspector general reviewed 38 cases of alleged wrongdoing by senior officials in 2011, and substantiated the accusations in nearly 40 percent of the them, up from 21 percent in 2007. The total caseload this year is on track to exceed last year’s. Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe. “It’s always concerning when senior leaders have issues, because we have very specific faith in senior leaders,” Gen. Ray Odierno, Army chief of staff, said in a recent interview. Odierno said all such cases are taken seriously, but argued that “we can’t allow a few to detract from the honorable service of many.” The investigation into Gen. William E. Ward, the former chief of Africa Command, is being closely watched at the Pentagon, where rank-and-file officers wonder aloud whether senior leaders will be reticent to punish one of their own. A June 26 report, compiled after investigators pored through a trove of e-mails and expense reports, portrays a general using taxpayer funds to support a high-rolling lifestyle. The inspector general concluded that Ward used government funds to pay for personal travel expenses; assigned staff to run errands for him and his wife; and accepted meals and Broadway tickets from a defense contractor, in violation of Pentagon rules. The inspector general’s report says he wasted and misused tens of thousands of taxpayer


blowtorch and pliers.” Staffers at the MDA, the agency tasked with keeping the United States safe from missile attacks, described a culture of fear and low morale, in one case citing as an example a senior staff meeting during which O’Reilly called subordinates “a bunch of goddamned idiots,” according to the report. The report says O’Reilly disputed the characterizations, saying that some employees were unaccustomed to “having their work questioned when it included faulty logic, unsupported conclusions or other deficiencies.” The report says that the general maintains that he “never insulted or verbally abused anyone.” O’Reilly remains in charge of the agency, although the Senate is set to vote on a nominee to be his successor. O’Reilly also did not respond to a request for comment made through an Army spokesman. The case that came to light most recently involved the criminal investigation against Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, who was removed from his job as the deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division in May and flown home from Afghanistan. Although the militiary has released few details about the investigation, officials at Fort Bragg, N.C., where the 82nd is based, released a summary of the criminal charges filed against him last month. They include forcible sodomy, wrongful sexual conduct, engaging in inappropriate relationships, misusing a government charge card and possessing alcohol and pornography while deployed. Sinclair will appear before the military equivalent of a grand jury Nov. 5 to establish whether there is sufficient evidence for a court-martial. Ben Abel, a spokesman at Fort Bragg, said Sinclair’s defense team declined a request for comment. Garrison, the deputy inspector general, said it is unclear whether the increase in cases suggests that more senior leaders are engaging in inappropriate behavior. “I would like to say people are more vigilant than they were in the past,” she said. “Folks are looking at the IG system as something that has teeth.” The spike in cases has prompted the inspector general’s office to create nine new positions during the past two years to augment its team of investigators reviewing charges of misconduct, spokeswoman Bridget Serchak said. The office will soon have 26 investigators. Senior Army leaders are expected to make their recommendation on Ward’s case and O’Reilly’s to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta in the coming days. Ward could be forced to pay back money and retire at a reduced rank. “This is not


A declining Japan loses its once-hopeful champions

you don’t . . . sharpen your edge. And you become more inward-looking. There’s a sense in Japan that we are unprepared to be a tough, competitive player in this global world.” Japan is famous among historians for its sudden transformations, re-engaging with the world in the mid-19th century after two centuries of isolation, later moving toward the militarism that helped launch World War II. After the mega-disaster last year, Japanese hoped for another transformation, with the reconstruction of a tsunami-battered region prompting a broader political and economic overhaul. But Japanese increasingly feel that hasn’t happened, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. Just 39 percent now say that last year’s disaster has made Japan a stronger country, compared with 58 percent in a similar survey taken right after the earthquake and tsunami. (According to the same survey, released in June, 93 percent of the Japanese public describe the current state of the economy as bad.) Preference for self-criticism Global sentiment has swung so far against Japan, the last few optimists now relish the chance to make a case on Japan’s behalf. Although Japan is commonly thought to be a “Detroit-like zone” with little chance for economic growth, former Sony chief executive Nobuyuki Idei said in an interview, the country still has a chance to prosper if it can tap into Asia’s booming economies as a trade partner or investor. Tokyo-based venture capitalist Yoshito Hori said that Japan’s many strengths are often overlooked, because Japanese prefer self-criticism to self-promotion. “The value of Japan is, even when we do something good, we rarely say it,” Hori said. “When the Chinese achieve something, they say, ‘We have done this.’ ” Japanese must learn to do the same, Hori said, “otherwise, we will lose our position globally.” That’s partly why Koll, a JPMorgan Japan manager, decided this summer to give a TED talk — the common name for a series of pop-education speeches — in which he described his reasons for being the last optimist. Japan has the world’s most competent financial regulator, Koll said, and a per capita GDP several times that of China. Real estate prices are back down to 1981 levels — “wealth destruction has been tremendous,” he said — but Japan has weathered this while still retaining its social cohesion and relative quality of life, with an unemployment rate of just 4.2 percent. But Koll also admitted in


at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Nashville hospital where Lovelace died, “While that ‘probable’ classification works superbly for public health circumstances . . . an individual family might have a different view because they might wish to know definitively what their family member died of.” Unfortunately, he added, “We’re just stuck with that difficulty.” The widow’s experience of having to piece together the details of her husband’s case also highlights a gap in the ambitious official response to the outbreak. Federal and state officials, in their effort to track and shut down the source of the infection and alert additional patients at risk, were focused on protecting the wider public. They proved less adept at addressing the needs of relatives of victims such as Eddie Lovelace. His doctors never imagined his stroke could have been caused by meningitis, said daughter Karen Talbott. Neither did Talbott, a registered nurse. Eddie Lovelace experienced a few symptoms that in retrospect appear connected to meningitis — a severe headache the night before he had the stroke, for example. But when he arrived at Vanderbilt on the morning of Sept. 12, his primary complaints were the classic results of stroke, loss of some control over one side of his face and body, for instance. Lovelace’s physician declined to comment because the family will not sign a broad release form. According to Talbott, at first no one at the hospital was overly concerned because her father’s symptoms seemed mild and he appeared to be recovering quickly. When Lovelace took a sudden turn for the worse, the focus shifted to trying to increase blood flow to his brain in an ultimately futile effort to contain the damage. It wasn’t until a week and a half after his burial that his family learned there might have been more to his death. The first clue came several days after the Sept. 21 funeral. Joyce Lovelace said she received a phone call from a woman at the St. Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgery Center in Nashville, where he had received three steroid injections since mid-summer. How was Mr. Eddie doing, the woman wanted to know. Well, Mr. Eddie has passed away, Joyce Lovelace said she replied. Unbeknown to her, the clinic was calling at the instruction of Tennessee’s Health Department, which days earlier had learned that the injections might have been contaminated. The woman made no mention of meningitis. Neither did a


Augustus Maiyo, Hirut Guangul win Marine Corps Marathon

Championed as “The People’s Marathon,” the race was won by Augustus Maiyo, a specialist in the Army, and Ethiopia’s Hirut Guangul; it also featured runners from every branch of the military. The turnout on Sunday morning set a record, and about 20,000 people were expected to cross the finish line by the race’s end. Augustus Maiyo’s legs were dragging by the time he reached the Pentagon on Sunday, which marked the second to last mile of the Marine Corps Marathon. Maiyo’s head was bobbing from massive fatigue, and it was wet after he dumped an entire bottle of water over himself a few minutes earlier. After checking his rubber watch a few times on the last stretch, he knew he didn’t have a chance at the course record. But he was still all alone. Maiyo was dominant down the stretch in his first-ever marathon, clocking in at 2 hours 20 minutes 20 seconds to win the 37th annual Marine Corps Marathon on Sunday morning, beating a festive field of nearly 30,000 runners who braved a chilling cold front in Washington. Maiyo, who starred on the cross-country and track teams at the University of Alabama between 2005 and 2008, was the leader for much of the race. A specialist in the U.S. Army, he was one of many talented runners representing the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program based out of Colorado Springs in Sunday’s race. A number of those runners threatened to take control on the back end of the marathon, including second-place finisher Kenneth Foster, but Maiyo seized control when it mattered most. He took the lead near the halfway point at Hains Point, and broke away from the lead group 18 miles in, in the shadows of the U.S. Capitol. He wasn’t challenged for the final six miles of the race. The final 10 miles were accompanied by steady gusts of wind. That was the deciding factor in Maiyo’s failed quest to shatter the course record, which was set at 2:14:01 by Hagerstown native Jeff Scuffins in 1987. “I wanted to run a faster time, but I mean, there was a lot of wind on the way. It was something I couldn’t control,” said the 29-year-old Maiyo. “When I hit 18 miles, I knew I wasn’t even going to run 2:15.” All 50 states were represented in the race, along with runners from more than 50 countries. Ethiopia’s


‘Achievement summit’ brings intellectual rebels together in D.C.

stretching an Internet line across the Libyan border to Egypt, says Elmufti, a technology adviser to the interim Libyan government who now runs a high-tech research-and-development firm based in Libya. “The revolution is not about technology, but technology definitely played an important role,” Elmufti says over espresso in the Off the Record bar, downstairs at the Hay-Adams hotel. Elmufti’s account of high-risk digitized adventure in the midst of the Arab Spring held special resonance for the men and women with whom he’d communed over the past few days. They, too, are tinkerers. Social media whizzes. Encryption aces. Thinkers. Innovators. Rebels. They were pulled together, drawn here from countries across the planet, by two of Washington’s behind-the-scenes aggregators of star power: Wayne and Catherine Reynolds. Catherine Reynolds is a philanthropist with an interest in the arts. Wayne Reynolds oversees a nonprofit called the Academy of Achievement, which gathers some of the world’s most successful politicians, political figures and artists to share their experiences with promising young people. The organization was founded in 1961 by Wayne Reynolds’s father, a famed Sports Illustrated photographer who captured some of the athletic world’s most iconic images of the 1940s and 1950s before changing his name from Hy Peskin to Brian Blaine Reynolds. The rosters of speakers for the organization’s annual “achievement summits” tend to be dazzling displays of marquee names. Bono? Steven Spielberg? Steve Jobs? Oh yes, they’ve all appeared over the years. You want political mojo? How about former president Bill Clinton? Yep. Desmond Tutu? Him, too. During this year’s five-day summit, Elmufti and fellow delegates from 29 other countries heard from Nobel Prize winners — chemistry honoree Roger Tsien and physics laureate Adam Riess. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta considered the group sufficiently important that he came to speak — then returned a second day to speak again. When the group dined at the U.S. Supreme Court, four justices joined . . . and took questions. Delegates buzzed about a poignant question asked by Rodrigo Nivonog Serrano Levin, a floppy-haired summit attendee who is a Mexican college student. Serrano Levin has convened tens of thousands of young Mexicans via social media networks to press for a rewrite of his country’s much-maligned and frequently disrespected Constitution. Why, Serrano Levin wanted to know, do Americans respect their Constitution? The answer he got from the justices was a homage to the Constitution as a document that emphasized


Harrison Gray Dyar: The gentleman naturalist

These heirs included Harrison Jr., a mere 9 years old, his younger sister Perle, and their mother, Eleanora. They lived a comfortable life in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and it was there that young Harrison first marveled at the creatures that crawled upon the earth and flitted through the air. He was bitten by the insect bug. It was not enough for Harrison to simply observe insects. He was a born cataloguer, with an intensely organized mind that was able to spot similarities and differences in even the tiniest creatures. As he hiked in the woods along the Hudson River, Harrison Dyar Jr. jotted discoveries in his notebooks. Later, he would flesh out his findings, adding watercolor illustrations of the bugs he had seen and collected: the intricacies of a thorax, the subtle veins in a powdery wing. His favorite creatures were the Limacodidae, a family of small, hairy moths that often perch with their abdomens extended at a 90-degree angle from their wings, a stance that looks almost priapic. While the moths are mostly unremarkable, the larvae are stunning. Some can be brightly colored, their green or orange skin covered in stripes, dots and spiky protuberances that contain an irritating poison. They are known as slug caterpillars. Perhaps Dyar was fascinated by the signature achievement of the moth and the butterfly: how it starts as a wriggling caterpillar, disappears into the comforting darkness of a cocoon, then emerges clothed in new garments and equipped with new abilities. It is the same individual, yet miraculously transformed. Dyar earned a degree in chemistry at MIT. From there he went to Columbia, where he completed a master’s in biology and a doctorate in bacteriology — the first such degree Columbia granted. Dyar’s doctoral thesis was entitled “On Certain Bacteria From the Air of New York City.” He had grown bacteria from cultures gathered in college hallways and apartment buildings and on street corners. Dyar joined the staff at Columbia’s medical school as an assistant bacteriologist. But his heart was not in these microscopic organisms. Again and again he returned to moths and butterflies, writing or co-writing about 20 papers on slug caterpillars. Perhaps in his more frustrated moments he exclaimed, “I’m an entomologist, not a bacteriologist!” When an acquaintance at the U.S. National Museum in Washington dangled the possibility of overseeing the Smithsonian’s Lepidoptera collection — moths and butterflies — Dyar jumped at the


Cornelius Meister and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: Brilliant Brahms and Mozart

Cornelius Meister led the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Brahms’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102. (Rosa Frank) The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was tuned up and ready to go Saturday at the Music Center at Strathmore, but the hall had to wait during a suspenseful minute for the evening’s guest conductor and two string soloists to emerge from the wings. It was well worth the extra time. German-born maestro Cornelius Meister dove into an emotionally charged performance of Brahms’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102, featuring the BSO’s own concertmaster, Jonathan Carney, and principal cellist Dariusz Skoraczewski. The concerto can be a demanding exercise in orchestral balance, but Meister, 32, who is the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor, managed it with ease. He wove intricate harmonies together in a way that buoyed the soloists. The two BSO colleagues blended seamlessly with each other, excelling in passages that extended into the upper ranges of their instruments. With a conducting style that favors facial expressions and gestures over beating a metronomic pattern, Meister set a jaunty tempo in Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385, and he entrusted the orchestra to maintain momentum while he focused on eliciting the score’s nuances. His left hand pulled long phrases, his head bobbed from side to side and his body leaned in to accentuate the rise and fall of the music. The BSO’s hallmark qualities — impeccable string intonation and orchestral lyricism — emerged as the group performed with an easy intellect that made the symphony a joy to hear. Meister’s knack for operatic drama helped to coax an energetic and colorful performance of Richard Strauss’s “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,” Op. 28. The work displayed the orchestra at its sonic best, closing out the night with musical morsels that were equal parts whimsical, comic, regal and triumphant. Grace Jean is a freelance writer.


Pakistani brothers reflect their country’s contradictions

The $10 million reward puts Saeed in the same top-tier terrorist category as fugitive Taliban chief Mohammad Omar. Far fewer have heard of Masood, whose 15-year tenure at the Islamic center in Sharon, Mass., won him praise for outreach to other faiths. His supporters, including members of a local synagogue, said the immigration case stemmed from anti-Muslim bias. “He was a positive influence on the community, and I didn’t think it made a whole lot of sense to deport him,” said Rabbi Barry Starr of Temple Israel in Sharon. “I found him to be a gentleman, a gentle person, a person of peace.” In Masood’s view, the case against him represented classic guilt by association. “When they want to find something on you, they will,” he said with a hearty laugh. In lengthy conversations, Masood, a stocky man with a chest-length beard, rarely seemed angry or bitter, even though he gave up everything he had worked to achieve in the United States: His family, a five-bedroom house on five acres, three cars, a lovely garden and access to the swimming pool and tennis courts on the Islamic center’s grounds. “I lost my worldly life,” Masood said. “I lost that for good.” Wartime paranoia “Hafiz” is a title bestowed on those who have memorized the entire Koran. Saeed, Masood and their younger brother, Hamid Mahmood, all earned that distinction, as have their two sisters. Their father was a farmer, Islamic teacher and respected village elder. “He did conflict resolution,” Masood said. Their mother ran a religious school for children. With her prodding, Masood learned the Koran by heart by age 10. In 1965, war broke out between Pakistan and India over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. It soon touched the family’s village, about 120 miles west of Lahore. Actually, there was no fighting there; it was wartime paranoia. Rumors flew that Indian spies might infiltrate the village. Their target: the nearby Pakistani air force base at Sargodha. The teenage Saeed grew convinced that Indian paratroopers might land in the vicinity. He organized a group of boys — 30 or 40 of them — to stay awake all night, brandishing sticks to guard the village, he recently told a Pakistani newspaper. “I still remember that the boys were fully charged,” recalled Masood, who was 7 at the time. Their leader instructed them to beat the bushes looking for Indians and “any


suspicious activity.” Did they ever catch any spies? “No,” he said, laughing. ‘The new far right’ As young men, Masood and Saeed earned advanced degrees in Pakistan and became professors. The elder brother focused on Islamic studies and Arabic literature, while Masood’s specialty was Islamic economics. The younger brother’s path led him to the United States on a student visa in 1987. He took his wife and five small children, enrolling first at Vanderbilt for a semester, then earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economic policy at Boston University. Saeed went in a different direction. His advanced scholarship took him to Saudi Arabia, where he studied in the early 1980s under the same teacher who once instructed Osama bin Laden. After supporting the fight to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan, Saeed in 1990 established Lashkar-i-Taiba to target Indian troops in Kashmir. For years, Pakistan’s main intelligence service backed Lashkar-i-Taiba as a proxy against India. Official support ended when then-President Pervez Musharraf banned the group in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But it has still enjoyed tacit sanction. After the ban, Saeed disassociated himself from the militant group and said it no longer exists. Instead he runs Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which many investigators describe as a benign facade behind which Saeed has tucked Lashkar-i-Taiba. But there is no denying that it has earned goodwill across Pakistan for its schools, anti-poverty programs and health clinics, as well as its relief work for flood and earthquake victims. Saeed has been periodically placed under house arrest but never convicted of any crimes. He has insisted that he has no connection to Lashkar-i-Taiba. As for the Mumbai attacks, Saeed was exonerated by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which declared that “the India lobby” concocted the charges. In gentler tones, Masood echoes his brother’s accusations that India, with U.S. help, is scheming to dominate Afghanistan as a way to intimidate Pakistan. He also calls the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan illegal and imperialistic. Muhammad Amir Rana, an expert on extremism here, said that Jamaat-ud-Dawa is trying to establish a different identity and build a political base, but that it retains its militant links. The group has made clear that it opposes attacks within Pakistan and condemned the Pakistani Taliban’s recent shooting of the young education activist Malala Yousafzai. But no matter how mild Masood comes across, Rana said, he still represents an extremist group that


Report: U.S. should allow Japan to use military air base for commercial flights

comes after a year-long study, says dual use at Yokota could help the United States make its military in Japan more nimble, more popular with locals and harder to attack. Washington could prove its willingness to cooperate with Japan, diluting the bitterness that dominates base issues on the southern island of Okinawa. Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe. The United States also could bargain with Japan for a “quid pro quo” deal, the report said, gaining military access to Japanese civilian airports during emergency situations. The report theorized that such access could come in handy as the United States increasingly focuses on potential threats posed by China and other Asian powers. “Although . . . securing the ability to operate out of additional airports in Japan would only be a small part of a potential U.S. response to counter [China], they would help mitigate the threat,” the report said. In the event of emergencies, the report said, military use would take priority over civilian use. The United States already has a handful of dual-use facilities across the world, including three in Japan, but Yokota is particularly appealing, lying just 23 miles west of downtown Tokyo. Tokyo’s two major airports — Haneda and Narita — sit to the south and the east of the city, leaving several million residents in the western part of Tokyo with a 11 / 2- to two-hour commute if they want to catch a plane. Tokyo, compared with other Asian cities such as Hong Kong and Shanghai, has a shortage of runway space for private business flights, meaning it gets passed over for major corporate events and conventions, city officials say. Tokyo is bidding for the 2020 Olympics, and although the bid does not depend on joint use of Yokota, gaining such access would spur train and road upgrades in the western part of the city and increase Tokyo’s “vibrancy,” said Takahiro Kojima, a Tokyo Metropolitan Government official in charge of the Yokota efforts. Tokyo officials, along with those from the central government, are trying to keep the issue on the front burner. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda called on President Obama during an April meeting to consider joint use of Yokota. Earlier this month, Tokyo released a report forecasting that 5.6 million passengers could fly into and out of Yokota by 2022. Yuki Oda contributed to this report.


‘Textbook’ of frightening coughing spells was not diagnosed immediately

been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost three times the number for the same period last year. Last month, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a vaccine introduced in the 1990s may be partly responsible for the resurgence. Researchers who studied a 2010-11 outbreak in California found that the effectiveness of the vaccine appears to wane significantly among children after they receive the fifth and final dose, usually by age 6. (A booster shot is recommended by CDC around age 11; in Joseph’s case, it is not clear whether the booster he received was sufficiently strong, his mother said.) Welch’s family was put on antibiotics immediately and was told to stay home and avoid other people for five days, in case they were carriers. Joseph, who had taken the five-day course of azithromycin prescribed by the pediatrician in early July, was given a second round of the drug as a precaution. Welch, who suspects her son might have contracted the disease at a high school graduation ceremony he attended about two weeks before he got sick, said she felt both vindicated and irritated. “I told my family, ‘Mom was right!’ ” she said, “but my first thought was ‘How did all these people miss it? Why didn’t the pediatrician swab him, instead of pushing asthma? Why did we have to go through all that wasted effort and putting my child under procedures he didn’t have to go through?’ If this had been an obscure childhood disease, I would have understood them missing it — but I’m shocked these pediatric specialists didn’t have it on their radar” since the surge in pertussis has been widely publicized in the past year. Welch said she was so grateful to Sandoval for listening to her that she called to thank her. But when she asked the lung doctor whether he would have done anything different, he told her no. Sandoval speculates that the diagnosis may have been missed because some of Joseph’s doctors did not hear his tortured breathing, as she did. “The recording was key,” she said, “because not everybody is going to use terminology in the same way to describe it.” And she speculated that some doctors may have been misled because Joseph had been fully vaccinated. Joseph is fully recovered, his mother said; his cough disappeared after 100 days. Looking back, Welch


Astronomy clubs eye night skies and an uncertain future

or two stars.” Morris took out a laser pointer and flashed its green beam until it reached the twinkling speck in question. Turned out, the speck was a plane. Astronomy has long benefited from people who recreationally stared into space. Ancient cultures drew mythologies from pictures written in the stars. In the 1700s, John Flamsteed, a man without a formal college degree, was the first to record a sighting of Uranus. Just five years ago, a Dutch schoolteacher named Hanny van Arkel discovered a new, bright blob next to a nearby galaxy. The skies aren’t getting smaller, so the idea that sky-watchers are getting older has worried the American Astronomical Society. Rick Fienberg, the group’s spokesman, said every child is born with a natural curiosity about what’s out there. As they age, that natural interest goes away. “The younger generation has options that we didn’t have, and that makes hobbying harder,” Fienberg said. “They can read about the stars online, they have social media, and so it’s harder to find younger people who are interested in standing outside.” Fienberg, a former editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, said he believes clubs will have to move beyond the typical telescope-making classes and meet-ups. More places, he said, are embracing the idea of “citizen science,” in which scientists solicit the public’s help in star-tracking. Academics are more willing to team up with relative amateurs in scientific journals and name celestial bodies after anyone who has discovered them. Fienberg hopes these steps will encourage future generations of hobbyists. In the region, the Greenbelt Astronomical Society has 25 members. The Northern Virginia Astronomy Club is the largest in the nation, with more than 1,000 members. The Capital Astronomers pride themselves on being different. They are affiliated with the Washington Academy of Sciences; many members have advanced knowledge. “Sometimes, when we have meetings to discuss new discoveries, even I don’t understand everything,” said Morris, a computer science engineer. He has been in the group for more than 20 years. Still, he has been surprised by those who stop by on outreach nights in the park. One older man handled the telescope so deftly that Morris knew he was a scientist. Days later, Morris saw the man sitting on a milk crate in the District. He was apparently homeless. About 40 people showed up this month, the night of the Orionid meteor shower. Morris showed off


2 NATO troops die in Afghan insider attack

KABUL — An Afghan official said the “green-on-blue” attack happened during a joint patrol in Girishk in southern Helmand province. The killer managed to escape, said the official, who spoke by phone on the condition of anonymity. He said the attacker was a member of the Taliban-led insurgents who have been behind similar attacks in recent years. The killings bring to at least 53 the number of deaths among NATO and U.S. forces in similar attacks this year, the bloodiest period since the phenomenon began in 2007. In a statement, NATO said the victims were members of the coalition but did not identify them. Most of the foreign troops in Helmand are British and American. A statement attributed to the Taliban’s reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar last week praised the insider attacks. The rise in such attacks has strained relations between Kabul and some Western nations. Among measures to combat the surge in insider violence, the coalition and the United States recently restricted joint operations between coalition and Afghan forces and ordered coalition troops to carry loaded weapons at all times. Dozens of Afghan troops have also been killed in such incidents. The Afghan Defense Ministry said it has arrested hundreds of Afghan troops as part of its effort to curb the violence. The insider attacks have raised doubts among observers and analysts that Afghan security forces are ready to take over from international troops as the planned transition and elections approach in 2014. The election is seen as a key factor in Afghanistan’s stability. Amid anxiety in some international and domestic circles about the polling, the country’s Independent Election Commission said Tuesday that the election will be held April 5, 2014, according to an Agence France-Presse report.


The bird that goes around, stays around

makes the chicken a popular game-day item and accounts in part for the 2,100 purchased each week. Unsold birds get pulled after two hours to be chilled, then incorporated into Costco’s rotisserie chicken soup, chicken Alfredo, chicken wraps and chicken Caesar salads. Savvy shoppers know to look for the tiny time-stamp sticker on the bottom part of each propylene box. On a recent weekday at Woodmore, Mary Jones of Hyattsville shoved containers on the heated stainless-steel surface like gentle bumper cars to find the prize she was after: 15 minutes old and evenly browned. “I get one every two weeks,” she said. Wegmans prides itself on offering a bird that “is not pumped — no phosphates or chemical solutions,” says spokesman Jo Natale. “We cook them to a temperature of 165 degrees [a USDA safety standard] and are careful not to overcook them.” Consequently, she says the company has seen double-digit sales increases for each of the past several years, selling millions each year. It has been able to trace its rotisserie chicken roots back about 27 years, when, it was recently discovered, the deli item cost only one cent less than it does today. Wegmans uses proprietary rubs, which are applied to young, 31 / 2-pound chickens just before they are roasted. Unsold birds are pulled after three hours, blast-chilled overnight and used in the store’s Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup. The charms of juicy, warm rotisserie chicken fade with a night’s refrigeration, of course. The sodium solution infused in the flesh of a raw bird can create pockets of uneven saltiness in a cooked one, evident in the Food section’s accompanying taste test. White meat can get mealy or stringy. For best results, let the meat come to room temperature so you can assess texture and seasoning. Bland white meat that’s dry might be right for a fruity curried chicken salad, or shredded into a creamy tortilla soup. A highly spiced bird can hold its own with stir-fried vegetables. The remnants of a barbecue rub may be pronounced enough to reserve that chicken for pressed sandwiches. Our reach for rotisserie chickens certainly came home to roost as Washington area cooks waited for Hurricane Sandy to hit. Over the weekend, the four ovens at Costco’s Woodmore store were going nonstop, says general manager Jeff Dawson. “We could not keep up,” he said Monday afternoon. “We sold 1,200 birds in two


Book World: Barbara Kingsolver’s novel approach in ‘Flight Behavior’

tension in this opening scene, which is suddenly heightened by a vision. Before Dellarobia consummates her woodland tryst, she sees the whole mountainside on fire — blazing like Moses’ burning bush. “The flame now appeared to lift from individual treetops in showers of orange sparks, exploding the way a pine log does in a campfire when it’s poked. The sparks spiraled upward in swirls like funnel clouds. Twisters of brightness against gray sky.”But there’s no smoke and no sound — a spiritual revelation that changes Dellarobia’s heart and sends her scurrying back to her drab home. Only later does she learn that what she took to be flames were, in fact, tens of millions of monarch butterflies. Thrown off course by climate change, the majestic insects have mistakenly landed here, behind Dellarobia’s house, instead of their usual winter sanctuary in Mexico. Scientific probability aside, it’s an ingenious idea, and it makes for an eerie and gorgeous backdrop for this story about a woman emerging from her own chrysalis of ignorance and discontent. Dellarobia has been stuck in a bland marriage since she was 17, constantly fantasizing about taking flight, but the arrival of the monarchs transforms her life. Her church regards her testimony about the butterflies as a sign of grace. For the first time, she wins some begrudging respect from her hardhearted mother-in-law. Local and national reporters descend on Dellarobia’s water-logged sheep farm and transform her into an Internet meme. Tourists and wacky environmentalists take pilgrimages to her door. And a lepidopterist who’s been studying the butterfly migration for years sets up shop with his grad students in her barn. Despite the elements of absurdity here, Kingsolver plays none of this for laughs or satire. She takes her time — probably too much time — and carefully draws the intricate ecosystem of faith, farming and debt in small-town America. Church-going Christians make such easy targets in literary fiction, and Kingsolver has written before, in “The Poisonwood Bible,” about the nastier side of religious obstinacy. But in “Flight Behavior,” the church is a moderating and inspiring influence, supported by dedicated but thoroughly realistic believers. In fact, there’s a marked absence of villains throughout this story, which, frankly, saps its drama a bit: no corrupt ministers or rapacious developers; Dellarobia’s unambitious husband is boring but never unkind; even Dellarobia’s bitter mother-in-law evolves into one of the more complicated characters. What interests


D.C. Animal Watch

These were among cases handled by the Washington Humane Society, which operates its shelter at 7319 Georgia Ave. NW, and the District’s, at 1201 New York Ave. NE. For information or assistance, call 202-723-5730 or go to www.washhumane.org. Information sought: Stuck cat: Owner gives animals away: Abandoned cat: Dead dog in the park: Adoptable dog: This case was handled by the Washington Animal Rescue League, 71 Oglethorpe St. NW. For information, call 202-726-2556 or go to www.warl.org. New pet agreement: Sheridan St. NW, 1300 block, Oct. 18. A man relinquished an 8-month-old pit bull mix to the league because his landlord no longer allowed animals. Cats galore: Dash 5K and Doggie Run: — Compiled by Ria Manglapus


Corporate America begins to assess Sandy’s economic impact

Mid-Atlantic convenience-store chain Wawa saw about 450 of its 602 stores shuttered — some because of power outages and some that the company closed preemptively. By Wednesday afternoon, only about 80 stores remained closed, mostly because of power outages and because workers couldn’t reach some locations in New Jersey’s barrier islands. Wawa President Chris Gheysens said in an interview Wednesday that while the company has detailed plans to keep stores open through snowstorms and other harsh weather events, Sandy proved a unique challenge. “What’s new here is the breadth of this,” Gheysens said of the storm’s impact up and down the East Coast. “It’s a bigger challenge than we’ve had to face in the past. This is a large-scale effort.” That effort meant putting some employees up in hotels so they wouldn’t have to commute on dangerous roads and would be nearby when the time came to reopen. It meant keeping critical supply chains open for key products such as milk, eggs, bread and ice, and quickly restocking stores where power had gone out, leaving food to spoil. It meant making sure gas pumps kept running to provide fuel to residents and first responders. It also meant keeping the lights on at stores in any way possible. Gheysens said Wednesday that the company had deployed a dozen generators to Wawa stores where power remained out. “We’ve cast a wide net looking for more generators,” he said. “We’re just struggling to find them.” Gheysens said the company will continue pushing to reopen and restock stores along the coast, in no small part because people in hard-hit communities have few places to go for essential items in the wake of the storm. “They clearly expect us to be there,” he said. Many airports in the Northeast were shut down earlier this week, with the storm causing more than 18,000 flights to be grounded. On Wednesday, flights resumed at two of New York’s biggest airports, Newark Liberty and JFK International. A FedEx plane was the first to land at Newark when the airport reopened Wednesday morning, said FedEx spokeswoman Shea Leordeanu. The company suspended service on Monday, but all of its planes were operating by Wednesday. Its ground operations were also back up, aside from deliveries and pickups in some areas still deemed unpassable by emergency officials. “We’re delivering where it’s safe to do so,” Leordeanu said. Banks with offices in Lower Manhattan


Flood risk will rise with climate change, experts say

inserted language into the highway bill that Obama signed during the summer directing FEMA to consider climate change when drawing up flood maps. Specifically, the law tells the agency to consider “any relevant information . . . relating to the best available science regarding future changes in sea levels, precipitation, and intensity of hurricanes.” It is unclear how FEMA will implement these policies. The agency commissioned a study that concluded two years ago that the size of the nation’s flood plains could increase by 40 to 45 percent by the end of the century because of rising seas and more intense precipitation, but the agency has not released the analysis publicly. A FEMA spokesman said the study is “under review by federal agencies with expertise in climate sciences.” “The key agencies charged with managing floods and disasters in this country have had their heads in the sand for many years when it comes to climate change,” said the National Wildlife Federation’s vice president for wildlife conservation, John Kostyack, whose group has sued FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers for failing to take climate change into account when making policy decisions. By contrast, the Federal Highway Administration issued a Sept. 24 memo saying federal dollars can be spent on adapting transportation infrastructure to climate change and extreme weather. Officials in Vermont, which has experienced a flooding disaster every year for the past quarter-century and suffered widespread damage from Hurricane Irene in 2011, have sparred with FEMA on several fronts. The agency recently denied Townsend, Vt., the funds to build larger culverts to manage the level of flooding it recorded last year. FEMA also does not take into account the erosion Vermont is experiencing with more powerful storms, since it only considers inundation floods. “We already know they are undersized, and we know they will be destroyed in the next flooding event,” said Deborah Markowitz, secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources, referring to the culverts. Markowitz added that since the state requires communities to take the latest river science into account when rebuilding infrastructure, “That’s a major source of tension right now.” Other facilities that have met federal guidelines have also been overwhelmed by extreme weather events: in March 2010 a water treatment plant in Warwick, R.I., that had been built to meet FEMA’s flooding requirements shut down after having no plan to cope with the extreme flooding it experienced.


China’s ‘firefighter-in-chief’ ascending

Wang Qishan, China's vice premier, attends a news conference at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia in this Feb. 13, 2012 file photo. Until six months ago, rumours swirled that Wang, a historian by training, might even take the place of Li Keqiang, the man anointed to replace Wen Jiabao as premier (UESLEI MARCELINO/REUTERS) BEIJING— “The fundamental principle of a market economy is that the winners win and the losers lose,” he told them. Wang’s hardline stance in 1999 after the collapse of Guangdong International Trust and Investment Corporation earned him a reputation as the rarest of Chinese officials: a straight talker with a good feel for media, a strong grasp of finance and a willingness to tackle thorny problems. Those qualities have made Wang, 64, a shoo-in for promotion to the standing committee of the politburo, China’s top ruling body, when the Communist party unveils its new leadership line-up later this month. Until six months ago, rumours swirled that Wang, a historian by training, might even take the place of Li Keqiang, the man anointed to replace Wen Jiabao as premier. Li is now seen as having a lock on the premiership, but Wang is still expected to emerge from the once-in-a-decade political transition with greatly enhanced powers. Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe. The big unknown is whether these powers will be deployed in the economic arena, which he has focused on in recent years, or whether he will be given a broader political remit. Long seen as a pro-market reformer, Wang has given tantalizing hints that he might also push for political reforms with a series of comments in recent months about the importance of the rule of law. For now, though, Wang is less known for his ideological leanings and more for his practical side, particularly his knack for cleaning up the messes made by others – hence his nickname, “chief of the fire brigade” His first success in this regard was Guangdong in the late 1990s, when the freewheeling southern province had amassed huge debts. Wang was tapped to serve as vice governor. He negotiated with foreign creditors, keeping them onside even while forcing them to accept massive losses, and oversaw a consolidation of state assets that primed the province for a return to strong growth. He confronted a more dangerous crisis with the 2003 Sars outbreak. The


Is Mayor Bloomberg right to keep the New York City marathon on for Sunday?

Workers assemble the finish line for the New York City Marathon in New York's Central Park, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. The New York City Marathon is on Sunday, with many logistical questions to be answered. (Richard Drew/AP) It was a decision with no easy answers. Depending on who you ask, Bloomberg’s call to keep the marathon on is either a stroke of leadership brilliance that will inspire people with the city’s resilience and raise money for hard-hit businesses or an insensitive move that could divert police and other resources while ignoring the suffering of those who’ve lost so much from the storm. The marathon, as anyone knows who’s witnessed it, is indeed an event that brings New Yorkers together. People spill into the streets, cheering runners and toasting them with drinks from the sidewalk. Runners raise millions for various charities, and the marathon’s organizers will donate $1 million to the recovery fund and a reported $1.5 million in additional pledges from sponsors. Bloomberg has said the marathon will go on because “New York has to show that we are here, that we are going to recover” and that the race will “give people something to cheer about" after a "dismal week." But many believe the race shouldn’t be held Sunday. A Facebook page called “Cancel the 2012 NYC Marathon” has been started and, at this writing, had more than 40,000 “likes.” A number of officials in New York are disagreeing with the move, from city public advocate Bill de Blasio, an initial supporter of the decision who changed his mind (“we need to postpone the marathon and keep our focus where it belongs: on public safety and vital relief operations”) to Councilman James Oddo, who represents parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn (“If they take one first responder from Staten Island to cover this marathon, I will scream," he tweeted. "We have people with no homes and no hope right now.") And plenty are scoffing at the idea that the inspiration that could result from the event will outweigh the potential costs. As Lynn Zinser wrote for the New York Times, “For some reason, the uplifting value of the New York City Marathon, however, is so off the charts in Bloomberg World that nothing trumps diverting countless police and sanitation resources to marathon duty, even when parts of the metropolitan area lie in ruins and the city is mired in


Bloomberg cancels N.Y. marathon, pledges to keep resources on storm victims

Many said going ahead with the race was unsafe, given that police officers, firefighters and ambulance workers were needed to rescue those injured in the storm. In canceling the marathon, Bloomberg issued a joint statement with Mary Wittenberg, president and chief executive of the New York Road Runners, the nonprofit group that created the event, insisting that the race would not divert resources from the recovery effort. “It is clear that it has become the source of controversy and division,’’ the statement said. “We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it. We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event — even one as meaningful as this — to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track.” The reaction to the mayor’s turnaround was instantaneous. “The people have spoken,’’ wrote one Twitter user. “Score one for sanity,’’ said state Sen. Liz Krueger (D), parts of whose Manhattan district have been without power much of the week. She had argued that with four hospitals evacuating from Lower Manhattan, emergency workers couldn’t tend to runners with pulled hamstrings or heat exhaustion. “I am just delighted that people realized what I realized earlier: This was a bad idea at this time. I certainly hope that there is a way to reschedule when we’re all up and running, because New York City loves the marathon and loves tourism.’’ Many runners had already decided to pull out, saying they couldn’t stomach running past ravaged neighborhoods. Kristen Faughnan, 31, of Philadelphia, trained four months through the summer heat, running 750 miles, ignoring a nagging injury, to compete in her third New York City Marathon. But she said Friday that she decided not to enter the race when she heard that some hotels in New York City would be kicking out refugees from the storm to honor reservations made by runners. “They have tents in Central Park for runners, and generators,” she said. “Those resources should go to people who really need them. I can’t have any part of that.’’ Kate Krimmel of Manhattan canceled her marathon registration Wednesday with a note to race officials, copied onto her Facebook page, demanding that the race water, energy gel and insulated poncho she would have received be donated


Yes! Organic Market pulls out of Southeast

And I tried to do that the best that I could. But that location, the way it is located, is very hard to get to.” Cha said he changed managers, hung new signage and offered Groupon specials to try to turn things around, but never had a profitable month. He said none of his other stores were facing similar issues. “All of our other stores are doing very well,” he said. The developer of the building, Tim Chapman, said he was disappointed that Yes! would be closing. In better economic times, Chapman — an apartment developer — and Cha had plotted to pursue a number of residential-and-grocery projects in low-income neighborhoods. That partnership has fizzled, but Chapman said he still believed that residents in the neighborhoods where he builds affordable housing are willing to pay for fresh produce and organic products. “I think the market is there for a high-quality grocery store to provide high quality food to that area, and I’m disappointed in Gary’s choice,” he said. Chapman said he had not decided how he would replace the store yet, but had received interest from other retailers. “We will find an equal or better user for that space. We are not going to put a dollar store in there,” he said. For the District, the closure of the store means the loss of the $900,000 grant that the city provided during Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration to pay for the store’s build-out. Jose Sousa, a spokesman for Victor L. Hoskins, D.C. deputy mayor for planning and economic development, said the District would continue to try to expand new food options for shoppers in neighborhoods east of the river. He said he expected that most of the workers from the store would be transferred to other Yes! locations. “We’re still committed to obviously making sure that we locate grocery stores east of the river. That’s still very much a goal of ours,” Sousa said. “And we continue to use tools like the supermarket tax credit and restaurants and retail tours to show locations to prospective retailers all the time.” Cha expressed disappointment. “I think I let the people living east of the Anacostia down,” he said. “People who shop our store really like our store, and they really thank us, and they gave us energy to stay longer. But in the end there was just not enough of those people.”


American Symphony Orchestra falters without a firm hand

The American Symphony Orchestra, a part-time, midsize group composed of New York freelancers, performed at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts last Friday evening, led by its music director, Leon Botstein. (Steve J. Sherman/Steve J. Sherman) To the layman, what conductors do is something of a mystery. Actually, to many musicians it is as well; the projection (or lack thereof) of depth, authority and musicianship is as individual as a face or personality. It’s often difficult to articulate why one maestro is inspiring and another stultifying, particularly so when the latter might have clearer stick technique. But one way this alchemy can be dimly understood is when it is manifestly absent. The American Symphony Orchestra, a part-time, midsize group composed of New York freelancers, performed at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts last Friday evening, led by its music director, Leon Botstein. The ASO musicians are highly competent, but competent professionals are trained to give what they’re asked for, and it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that this worthy assemblage wasn’t asked for anything. In two large works teeming with genius, nuance and surprises — the Brahms Serenade in D and the Beethoven “Eroica” Symphony — Botstein seemed asleep. None of the well-known balance issues in the “Eroica” were addressed; vast stretches of music were undifferentiated “white noise,” as the winds and brass covered the undermanned string sections with sustained notes, obliterating all detail. Botstein just beat leaden time, his left hand often dangling indifferently by his side. The one time I sensed an actual musical idea being expressed (a slight rubato toward the end of the Menuet II of the Brahms), it was bungled; the viola accompaniment was ignored and the moment simply became an ensemble breakdown. For the rest, it was a flattened-out, joyless read-through by musicians who were clearly capable of much better. They need a conductor! Battey is a freelance writer.


For a break, NSO balances Beethoven’s heavier work with his back catalogue

Music director Christoph Eschenbach gave his singers and most of the National Symphony Orchestra a break on Friday night by having nine principal players from the NSO join him for a recital of Beethoven’s chamber music. (Scott Suchman/Courtesy of NSO) Between the two performances of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” on Thursday and Saturday, music director Christoph Eschenbach gave his singers and most of the National Symphony Orchestra a break on Friday night. Instead, nine principal players from the NSO joined Eschenbach for a recital of Beethoven’s chamber music. Such “B-side” concerts inserted between performances of a larger choral work were one of the notable successes of the Kennedy Center’s Music of Prague, Budapest, and Vienna festival last year, and a large audience turned out in the Concert Hall. The contrast of this program with the “Missa Solemnis” could not have been greater, featuring small pieces of chamber music from Beethoven’s early career instead of the massive religious statement of his final years. These musicians regularly play chamber music with one another, as members of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players, with the addition of the excellent Laurel Bennert Ohlson, who was moved up to acting principal horn this season. The high point of the concert was the Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Winds, Op. 16, which contrasted forthright wind statements — at times evoking an outdoor band anchored by Ohlson’s boisterous horn — with some suave introductions of themes by Eschenbach at the keyboard. The players worked together with admirable sensitivity to tease out the work’s more elusive beauties. Lambert Orkis showed up Eschenbach at the piano with his agile finger work in Beethoven’s first violin sonata (D major, Op. 12), partnering with the plangent violin of Nurit Bar-Josef. Only the C minor string trio (Op. 9, No. 3) did not quite cohere, with principal second violinist Marissa Regni sounding not quite comfortable at the top of the texture and violist Daniel Foster and cellist David Hardy too dry-toned to make a warm ensemble. Downey is a freelance writer.


Regarding Melinda Henneberger’s Nov. 2 She the People column “Sandy puts climate change back in the conversation”: Linking Sandy to climate change and global warming is like including hand gun restrictions in the world nuclear arms reduction talks; it may be just a little far fetched. Sandy was world-class storm both in circumference and atmospheric depression; two forces that greatly affect how much ocean water the storm can displace along a shoreline. Add in the elevated tidal effects from a full moon and the cold front that linked up with Sandy as it came ashore, and you have several factors that make much more plausible explanations for the severity of her outcomes then climate change. K. Jason Campbell, Hyattsville


Frederick County teen wins regional science competition

Sam Pritt, at the Siemens Regional Finals at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Courtesy of Siemens Foundation) Sam Pritt is only 17 but already has an impressive ability to see through chaos — and disaster relief teams responding to superstorm Sandy have noticed. Pritt has developed software that can analyze a photograph of a landscape and determine where the picture was taken to within 1,000 feet of the site. The achievement won the Frederick County teenager the top prize Saturday in regional rounds of a prestigious high school science competition. His winning research project was a computer algorithm that involved geolocation, a project he started a year and a half ago in Walkersville, where he is a home-schooled senior. As Pritt describes it, “The horizon is like a thumbprint. It’s distinctive enough to pinpoint the location” anywhere in the world. Pritt beat hundreds of other teenagers to earn the $3,000 top prize at the Siemens Competition regional qualifier at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Pritt now will compete for a $100,000 scholarship prize at the national finals of the competition, to be held in Washington in December. He will be joined by Neil Davey of Gaithersburg and Katie Barufka of Reston, the regional winners of the team competition. Davey, a junior at Montgomery Blair High School, and Barufka, a senior at Langley High School, won the team honors for their research on a vaccine for leishmaniasis, an infectious disease spread by the sand fly. After Sandy brutalized the East Coast, Pritt was contacted by an engineer who did work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The engineer asked Pritt to help FEMA by using his algorithm to map a coastal area slammed by the storm, Pritt said. With further development, he believes his software could be used for robot navigation and, most importantly, counterterrorism. “Terrorists take lots of photographs to document training, and then they post them to sites online,” Pritt said. Intelligence agencies and the military “need to know where the photograph was taken. Geolocation is usually extremely time-consuming and has limited success. My algorithm is more of an automated approach.” It’s also highly accurate. In one test, Pritt said, his algorithm identified the locations of 83 places in 100 photographs. Pritt’s interest in software development began in elementary school when he started tinkering around with computers and code. He began work on his geolocation computer algorithm about 18 months


U.S. soldier charged in Kandahar massacre showed no remorse, comrade says

The preliminary hearing for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in March, begins today, with villagers expected to testify by video from Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan. (Spc. Ryan Hallock/AP) JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — “I thought I was doing the right thing,” Staff. Sgt. Robert Bales told Cpl. David Godwin, the latter testified. Describing the sergeant’s demeanor that morning, Godwin said Bales looked like “he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.” The opening of Bales’s Article 32 hearing — the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding — provided new details about the March 11 massacre, including an alleged attempt by Bales to destroy evidence by asking Godwin to bleach his blood-stained pants. Lt. Col. Joseph Morse, the lead prosecutor, said Bales was “deliberate and methodical” that day, despite having been drinking scotch the previous night. But he offered no substantive motive for the rampage, one of the most barbaric crimes attributed to U.S. troops in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nine of the victims were children. Morse said during his opening statement that Bales had previously visited one of the two compounds where civilians were killed, suggesting the sergeant knew the dwelling was home to women and children. Bales, 42, admitted to murdering 16 people, mostly women and children, and burning many of their bodies during a middle-of-the-night shooting spree. The defense opted not to give an opening statement before the judge, Army Col. Lee Deneke, who will determine at the end of the two-week hearing whether the government has enough evidence for a court-martial. Bales could get the death penalty if convicted. There are five soldiers on death row, but no American service member has been executed since 1961. In cross-examining witnesses, defense attorney Emma Scanlan drew attention to a spate of incidents in the weeks prior to the massacre during which Bales was uncharacteristically irritable. That raised the possibility that the defense may argue that military leaders missed warning signs about the sergeant’s mental state. Bales, 39, was charged with 16 counts of first-degree murder after military investigators implicated him in the shootings of civilians in two villages adjacent to a NATO base in the impoverished Panjwai district of Kandahar province. Villagers who have agreed to provide testimony over a video link-up from Afghanistan are expected to give the most detailed public account to date of what happened


Geoengineering is the answer to climate change. Unless it isn’t.

Some solutions to climate change involve manipulating clouds around the world. (istockphoto) Is it time to get serious about geoengineering our way out of climate change? Dozens of schemes have been devised to cool the planet. We could launch a vast fleet of ships to whiten the clouds by spraying salt mist, or squirt sulfuric acid into the stratosphere to reflect the sun. Send a swarm of mirrors into deep space. Engineer paler crops. Fertilize the oceans. Cover the world’s deserts in shiny mylar. Spread cloud-seeding bacteria. Release a global flock of micro-balloons. These schemes are ingenious, but would any of them work? Or would they just make things worse? Scientists have begun to explore some of these idea with detailed calculations and computer models, and as the results of such studies mount up, we’re starting to get an idea of what geoengineering might — or might not — be able to achieve. Some ideas can be dismissed with relative ease. Covering deserts in reflective plastic, for example, might reflect a lot of sunlight and cool the planet somewhat, but it would devastate ecosystems, alter regional climate patterns and require an immense army of cleaners to keep it going. Others are beyond our powers today. To shade Earth with a swarm of space parasols would require an estimated 20 million rocket launches. Without some radical new technology, that would be astronomically expensive and fatally polluting. “This is complete science fiction,” says Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter in England. “We ought to stop talking about it.” Many other schemes, such as painting roofs white, are certainly feasible, but can they actually fix the climate? The basic problem, of course, is that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are acting like a blanket around Earth, trapping heat. To stop the warming, any geoengineering scheme either has to block an equivalent amount of incoming heat from the sun or increase heat loss from the top of the atmosphere by that much. It also needs to work without drastically altering regional climates, while also preventing sea levels from rising. Ideally it should also stop the oceans from becoming so acidic that coral reefs vanish. Does it make a difference? But the first test is potency. In 2008, Lenton and Nem Vaughan of the University of East Anglia in England combined various model results with their own calculations to assess the


Afghan corruption, and how the U.S. facilitates it

that allowed truckers to steal $1.5 million of fuel from a forward operating base in 2010. In August, a former Army sergeant pleaded guilty to soliciting $400,000 in a similar plot that involved stealing $1.4 million of fuel in 2010 from another forward operating base. In June, two Army servicemen pleaded guilty in a plot to steal jet fuel from a base and getting $6,000 for clandestinely filling 3,000-gallon trucks owned by an Afghan contractor. Sopko told the House panel that his office has 20 active criminal investigations looking into the theft and diversion of fuel or bribery or bid-rigging on fuel contracts involving more than $100 million. Perhaps worse, the SIGAR inquiry found that U.S. coalition financial records covering $475 million in fuel purchases and payments from October 2006 to February 2011 had been shredded. This was done “in violation of DOD [Department of Defense] and Department of the Army policies,” according to the SIGAR report. In addition, SIGAR auditors were not given half the records sought for the March 2011 to March 2012 period. And although June 2012 Afghan army fuel purchases and payments were reconciled, the command “still could not account for the amount of fuel delivered and consumed,” SIGAR said. A July SIGAR report found that because the military command did not “file claims for damaged or missing equipment, it was providing fuel for vehicles that had been destroyed.” Sopko said his audit found that in one case “as much as 1 million gallons of fuel had been stolen over a four-month period without causing any red flags to be raised in the system.” In short, corruption involves Americans and Afghans. Now, according to SIGAR, the U.S.-NATO command “does not have accurate or supportable information on how much U.S. funds are needed for ANA [Afghan National Army] fuel, where and how the fuel is actually used, or how much fuel has been lost or stolen.” The command has taken actions “to improve controls over fuel purchases, vendor deliveries, and the payment of invoice amounts,” but SIGAR maintains there is still a need to ensure “all fuel activity is tracked and accounted for.” There may be a history of corruption in Afghanistan, but the United States is continuing to create tempting, rich, new targets such as fuel, and apparently enough Americans are willing to join in the illegal action. For previous Fine Print columns, go to washingtonpost.com/fedpage.


Lang Lang’s unique style, good and bad, offers originality

Pianist Lang Lang performed with the National Symphony Orchestra on Nov. 4. (Detlef Schneider) The pianist Lang Lang is one of today’s most popular, gifted and divisive performers. At a time when fewer and fewer classical artists are able to sell out a concert hall, he has mass appeal — as demonstrated on Sunday afternoon by the diverse crowd that filled the Kennedy Center for his recital. And there’s no denying his enormous talent. It’s his style that gets people talking. On Sunday, he swayed over the keys, conducted his own playing by gesturing with whatever hand happened to be free, dragged out Adagios melodramatically. This is too overdone for Mozart, some of us say, and dismiss him as exaggerated, a sell-out. And crowds continue to come. Whatever you think of Lang Lang, it’s a feather in the cap of the National Symphony Orchestra to have snared him for a week-long residency at the Kennedy Center — six performances, including a different Beethoven concerto every night of his three concerts with the full orchestra. The draw was the orchestra’s equally divisive music director, Christoph Eschenbach, who will perform with and conduct him later in the week, and whom the pianist, in remarks at the end of Sunday’s program, called “my favorite musician in the entire world.” Over the years, my reaction to Lang Lang has gradually moved from initial appreciation of his talent to the head-shaking disapproval I share with many colleagues at what we see as his excesses. Sunday’s recital started off with what seemed to me more of the same: the light contours of Mozart’s early G Major sonata, K. 283, stretched to the breaking point and asked to carry an emotional freight beyond its ability to sustain. The second movement slowed to a crawl and exuded Big Emotion; the third movement became a jaunty gallop that seemed to signal to the audience, “Isn’t this jolly?” in a slightly too brittle tone. Everything seemed to have quotation marks around it. Two more Mozart sonatas followed, all marked by similar intensity: the left hand crashing down chords while the right hand sustained a gossamer web of sound in the second movement of the A minor sonata, K. 310; or the pervasive air of melancholy that bled from the Adagio opening of the E-flat major sonata, K. 282, into what is usually the more cheerful sonata form section that follows


China’s Hu seeks to exert influence long after he leaves power

Chinese President Hu Jintao (C) and Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang (L) attend the banquet marking the 63th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China on September 29, 2012 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China. (Feng Li/Getty Images) BEIJING — Hu’s recent moves fit a familiar pattern in China, where top leaders don’t simply retire. They linger behind the scenes, exerting powerful but often unseen leverage until death. How successful Hu and his supporters are in these remaining days could affect the direction of the country’s leadership for years to come. Hu, 69, is battling strong head winds. He has long been seen as having a weak grip on power. And rampant criticism has bubbled up within the Communist Party about problems that have festered under his watch — including the increasing divide between rich and poor, widespread corruption and the growing need for economic reform. But Hu’s biggest challenge is the same one he has faced throughout his tenure: his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, 86, who continues to be the dominant force in Chinese politics. According to several current and former officials, party intellectuals, advisers and analysts — who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of heightened party sensitivities ahead of the once-a-decade leadership transition — Jiang is trying to secure key spots for his allies during the upcoming transition and, by many accounts, is succeeding. The most important appointments, to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, will be announced during the party congress, which begins Thursday. Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe. To help Hu make his case, the propaganda machine in Beijing has been in overdrive for months. Front-page stories have exalted “the golden decade” he has overseen, and state TV has reported pointedly on how incredibly happy the populace is these days. Last month, the government unveiled at least 20 books, eight brochures and nine documentaries chronicling “the brilliant achievements” made possible by Hu’s vague ideology of systematic progress through “scientific development.” The furious competition between the two senior statesmen — and their large role in the patronage system that undergirds Chinese politics — only adds to the pressure on Xi Jinping, who is expected to take over the top job, becoming the first party leader in China’s history forced to contend with two former chiefs hovering over him. “Hu is trying


JFK50: A ‘soft American’ accepts the challenge

people completed an event longer than 26.2 miles in 2011, according to UltraRunning Magazine — Spinnler last year began admitting runners based on qualifying times, though slots are still reserved for various groups, including 100 participants running to raise money for nonprofit groups. One of those slots is mine. Accepting the challenge When I began to plan this story, I quickly recognized that I couldn’t allow a large group of people to accept Kennedy’s proposition for the 50th consecutive time without being among them. The MisFits creed (“No challenge too humiliating”) would not allow it. I yield to no American when it comes to softness. And so I began to train for a distance twice as long as I’ve ever run, quietly at first, unsure I could prepare myself to travel the equivalent of Washington to Frederick on my own two legs. Those few people I told, mostly family, openly discouraged me. A couple of friends who run ultras told me to hang in there and dispensed valuable advice. Slowly, I began to cover longer distances, despite the third-hottest summer on record. I ran the 17 miles to work with a 10-pound pack on my back a couple of times. I did a hilly 50-kilometer (31-mile) run in Upstate New York last month. Once, I followed a 15-mile run with a 23-mile run the next day, to condition my body to stave off fatigue. But I never ran more than 40 miles in a single week. Psychologically, I’ve convinced myself that this is really an extended day hike. Unlike marathoners, 50-mile runners — at least at my ability level — take walk breaks and stop to eat and drink. In my backpack, I will carry Band-Aids, salt tablets, Tylenol, energy gels, water, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, maybe a red-and-white checkered tablecloth and some nice candlesticks. I’d like to finish in 12 or 13 hours, basically before nightfall. If you think this would be an accomplishment, consider that the course record in the male 80-and-over division is 12:55. I am 54. Anyway, come Nov. 17 at 5 a.m., I’ll be on U.S. Alternate Route 40 in Boonsboro, like so many before me, peering, with the aid of a headlamp, down the darkened street of a sleeping small town and wondering whether I am up to JFK’s challenge. I'll let you know in a future column. RELATED: 30th Annual YMCA Turkey


In U.S. soldier’s war crimes hearing, Afghans to take center stage

In this detail of a courtroom sketch, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, seated at front-right, listens Monday, Nov. 5, 2012, during a preliminary hearing in a military courtroom at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state. (Lois Silver/AP) JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — Conspicuously absent in the first two days of the evidentiary hearing against Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales are any Afghans. As they read the charges, the judge and lead prosecutor struggled to pronounce the names of the nine children and seven adults who were killed. No photos of the slain villagers have been displayed. Nothing has been said about the lives cut short the morning of March 11, when Bales allegedly stormed into homes near his base before dawn and opened fire indiscriminately. That will change later in the week as the focus of the hearing shifts 121 / 2 hours to Afghanistan, where survivors and relatives of the victims are expected to testify by video from a military base in Kandahar. Starting Friday, the hearings will begin at 7 p.m. at this Army base in Washington State to accommodate Afghan witnesses who are believed to be central to the prosecution’s case. The Article 32 hearing is the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding. At the conclusion of the two-week hearing, the military judge will rule on whether there is enough evidence for a court martial, which could carry the death penalty if Bales is convicted. Bales, 42, admitted to murdering 16 people, mostly women and children, and burning many of their bodies during a middle-of-the-night shooting spree. The Afghans’ testimony about the massacre in Panjwai district of Kandahar Province will distinguish the hearing from other recent U.S. war crimes proceedings. The prosecution says that 17 Afghans have said they are willing to testify via video, although prosecutors have not described the kind of testimony they expected to elicit. Victims and local witnesses were largely unavailable in other high-profile cases, including the massacre of 24 unarmed Iraqis in Haditha in November 2005 and a string of shootings in the Maywand District of Kandahar in 2010 by rogue U.S. soldiers who became known as the “Kill Team.” Prosecutors struggled to get convictions in those cases, outcomes that undermined U.S. policy in both countries. Lt. Col. Joseph Morse, the lead prosecutor in the Bales case, noted Monday that investigators faced major obstacles in assembling the case. For


Army ROTC steadily grows on college campuses, including Virginia Tech

ROTC enrollment numbers, which dwindled on campuses during the heights of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are soaring as U.S. commitments overseas scale down and the economy falters. Army ROTC enrollment has surged 50 percent since the 2005-06 school year to a recent high of 36,000 — higher even than the post-Sept. 11 surge. Virginia Tech in Blacksburg has its highest ROTC enrollment since the 1950s. BLACKSBURG, VA. — The Army is in the waning stages of war and has largely stopped growing, yet its ROTC program is reaching near-historic highs for enrollment. Partly the result of increased scholarship and recruitment efforts of years ago, the Army has been welcoming the new officer candidates and funneling them into active duty and the Reserves and National Guard. College campuses, some of which spurned ROTC for years, now are embracing the military programs, as students look for leadership opportunities, financial help and the chance for service. The phenomenon is especially noticeable on Virginia Tech’s campus. Normally, yearly Army ROTC enrollment is about 110 to 120 students. This year, about 150 showed up to end-of-the-summer training, making it one of the largest classes the university has seen since the Vietnam War. Col. David W. Chase, who oversees the program, was stunned. There was no clear reason for the increase, so when Chase had everyone gathered in an auditorium, he asked: Why? Why are you here? There wasn’t just one answer: Many students have parents or relatives in the military, and some came here after not getting into a service academy. Others were enticed by the possibility of scholarship money and a job after graduation. Some were looking for leadership training that could bolster their résumés, or they wanted the structure and rigor of Virginia Tech’s Corps of Cadets. And then there were a lot of students looking for a way to serve their country. “ ‘Serve’ is a word that kept coming up,” said Chase, who spent more than 20 years in the Army and has been at Virginia Tech since 2010. “This generation we are getting in here is so patriotic. . . . They were 6, 7 years old on 9/11, and they have grown up during the war on terror. They’ve seen the unbelievable support for service members.” After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Army saw national ROTC enrollment jump from 28,470 during the 2000-01 school year to


Riders stranded after system closes early, but Metro has no answers

It’s one thing to forget to change your clock from daylight saving time. It’s quite another to mistakenly close the entire Metro system an hour early. But the second-busiest subway system in the country did just that over the weekend. Riders were stranded early Sunday morning, and lots of questions remain unanswered about how Metro managed to lose track of time. The transit agency had announced plans to stay open an hour longer so that, even with the clocks being turned back an hour, the system would remain open until 3 a.m., its normal weekend closing time. But what Metro is calling “human error” botched the transit agency’s plans. Riders who showed up at stations expecting trains to run until 3 a.m. were locked out and had no way home. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel would not explain how the error happened or who was responsible but said employees could be disciplined. “A mistake was made. It shouldn’t have happened, and we apologize to everyone who was inconvenienced by that mistake,” he said. Riders reported being stranded on U Street and finding locked entrances at Dupont Circle, two busy night-life areas in the District. Many people who are out late in those areas over the weekend come into the District from Maryland and Virginia, said Elizabeth Szatkowski, a manager at Marvin, the popular bistro on 14th Street NW. For those people, going home is more than a quick cab ride across the city, she said. “I can’t even imagine how stranded some people were,” she said. “It’s really inconsiderate.” And she pointed out that an unexpectedly early closure is also a problem for restaurant employees who have to turn around and spend the money they just earned on cab fare. “It’s definitely a point of concern,” she said. “I mean, everybody can’t afford to take taxis.” Stessel said they had received about a dozen complaints as of Tuesday morning. Refunds will be decided on a case-by-case basis, he said. The premature closure was no easy undertaking. Station managers had to close the 84 stops that were open (Rosslyn and Arlington Cemetery were already closed for maintenance). Station managers had to lock up all of the gates, operators had to make final stops and other Metro employees all had to head home, despite it being an hour earlier than trains were scheduled to stop running. “We’re going to take steps to make


Veterans, especially women, still face joblessness

industrial companies formed a coalition to train veterans in 10 states for advanced manufacturing positions that often go unfilled because job candidates lack the skills. Last year, New York-based JPMorgan Chase helped found the 100,000 Jobs Mission, which has a goal of hiring that many service members worldwide by 2020. Erik Sewell, who is studying for an MBA from the University of Chicago, said many military professionals often don’t market themselves effectively or convey adequately how transferable their skills, including vehicle maintenance and computer database management, are to the civilian world. “Many make the mistake of thinking that since those duties were performed in a war zone or training for a war zone, they should just forget everything they did, and start over from scratch in the civilian world,” the West Point graduate said. Sewell, a 7-footer who recently turned 28, said more companies need to follow in Home Depot’s steps. He said the retailer has an online translator that is part of its job application process. He said he typed in “field artillery officer” and up popped several examples of how that experience could be applied at Home Depot. “It would be great to see more companies utilize tools like this, and more veterans taking the time to learn how to communicate their skills more effectively,” Sewell said. Steve Calk, chief executive of Chicago-based Federal Savings Bank, said about 10 percent of the bank’s employees are veterans like himself. To help smooth the transition, Calk said, the bank assigns those hires with military mentors. The biggest challenge many veterans face is that they don’t think they’re qualified for jobs that are posted by the bank, Calk said. “They have a true desire to be trained and are more committed to success and better at working as a team,” said Calk, who is working with the city and Harold Washington College to develop a curriculum for returning veterans and other citizens to enter and become qualified for entry-level positions in banking. For female veterans, the transition into the civilian workforce is even more difficult. For one thing, female veterans tend to not even identify themselves as veterans, said Amy Amizich, women veterans’ program coordinator for the state of Illinois. Some didn’t serve in combat or spent only a year or two in the service and don’t think they rate the title, Amizich said. Others, she added, simply want to distance


China’s Communist leadership set for change

Paramilitary policemen guard a road between Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People, where the Chinese Communist Party's 18th National Congress will be held starting Thursday in Beijing. (Alexander F. Yuan/AP) BEIJING — The usually crowded Tiananmen Square had been cleared, giving it an eerie, post-apocalyptic feel. Activists had been chased out of the capital, and buildings across the city were draped in flags, flowers and signs, all colored communist red. But beneath the pomp of the 18th party congress, estimated to last one week, are deep implications for the U.S.-China relationship and the world. “At present, as the global, national and our party’s conditions continue to undergo profound changes, we are faced with unprecedented opportunities for development as well as risks and challenges unknown before,” President Hu Jintao said in his opening speech at the meeting. He addressed the problem of corruption and promised a wide range of reforms. China’s new leaders will take over at a critical moment. The country’s economy, the world’s second largest, has been growing for three decades, providing much-needed fuel for the regional and global economy and helping to ensure stability at home. But it has slowed in recent months, and many believe economic reform is desperately needed. China’s complicated and often-fraught relationship with the United States also has been stalled for much of the past year, with China-bashing figuring prominently during the U.S. presidential election. At a news conference Wednesday, Communist Party spokesman Cai Mingzhao expressed hope that with his reelection, President Obama would “continue to build a positive China policy.” In recent years, the Obama administration has invested time and energy into nurturing ties with the next generation of Chinese leaders. Vice President Biden, in particular, has tried to develop a rapport with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is widely expected to replace Hu as leader of the Communist Party and the country next week. Xi is expected to assume the title of president in March. But whether that U.S. investment will translate into greater clout with China on thorny issues such as Syria, Iran, Taiwan or Tibet, or into better overall U.S.-China relations, is unclear. Hope for reform The highly scripted party congress carries serious domestic implications. Party officials are encountering growing criticism of corruption, their vested interests in state-owned enterprises, and the secrecy and democratic veneer used to cloak their iron grip on the country’s levers of


Legal battle looms over marijuana initiatives

assembly, which meets between January and May, must then pass legislation creating the regulatory framework for the new law. Under the measure, the state would begin accepting and processing license applications for sales by Oct. 1 and start issuing licenses by January 2014. Possession of marijuana would be legal, although it would not be legal to use the drug publicly. Supporters of the measures in both states argued that they would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue, with the funds being used for education, health care and other government services. They also said that the initiatives would give proponents a chance to show that decriminalization of marijuana could benefit the country’s war on drugs. In Colorado, the measure was supported by more than 300 physicians in the state, including Bruce Madison, the former associate medical director of faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who said that current laws waste “hundreds of millions of dollars in a failed war on marijuana, by ruining thousands of lives by unnecessary arrest and incarceration, and by causing the deaths of hundreds of people killed in black-market criminal activities.” Opponents of the measures in both states warned of a federal crackdown and unauthorized drug use by children. They also argued that the states could attract “drug tourists.” A similar proposal legalizing marijuana use was on the ballot in Oregon but did not pass. In September, nine former DEA administrators wrote a letter to Holder expressing their concerns about the initiatives. The attorney general did not respond. “To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives,” wrote the former administrators, who oversaw the DEA under Democratic and Republican presidents from 1973 to 2007. “We urge you to take a public position on these initiatives as soon as possible.” The Justice Department can file suit to try to block state laws that it deems to have violated federal statutes. It did so, for example, after Arizona passed a law in 2010 that the state said was aimed at cracking down on illegal immigrants but that the Obama administration believed was unconstitutional. On Wednesday, Justice Department spokeswoman Nanda Chitre would not comment on whether a lawsuit is being considered. “The Department of Justice is reviewing the ballot initiatives, and we have no additional comment at this time,” Chitre said.


Going Out Guide

THU 08 “Washingtonians” Jazzy Blu University of Maryland Chamber Jazz “Laughing at Life” “Urinetown” FRI 09 Drawings by Janice Knipe “Legends and Lore” “Auntie Mame” “Frost/Nixon” “In the Red and Brown Water” “Oklahoma!” Alan Blair and the Prospect Band SAT 10 Green Craft Fair “Flying High With Thaddeus Lowe” College Park Blues Festival “Daughter of the Struggle” “Trios: Salness, Elsing and Tsong” Jim Bennett The Solitaires SUN 11 Symphony orchestra competition Larry Stephenson School of Music choral showcase Ward Virts concert series MON 12 Fossil discovery program Chamber music showcase TUE 13 Birding in Borneo and Peninsular Malaysia WED 14 Juried student art exhibition — Compiled by Jillian S. Sowah from staff reports Jazzy Blu 3The D.C. band performs its eclectic blend of neo-soul, jazz and R&B music. Founded in 2005 by drummer Dominic “Nikk” Taylor, the band consists of bassist Skip Taylor, guitarist Leslie Lee, saxophonist Kevin Levi, keyboardist Jeff Chandler, vocalists Keith Brown and Danielle Hatchell, and percussionist Mike Artis. 7 p.m. Blue Dolphin, 1166 Route 3, Gambrills. 410-721-9081. www.jazzybluband.com. $10.


Same-sex marriage, recreational marijuana, s gambling all highlights of Election 2012 state ballot initiatives

Several controversial state ballot initiatives were passed and blocked in Tuesday’s elections. Some may have a long way to go before coming law, though. One such initiative is the legalization of recreational marijuna, which passed in Washington state and Colorado. Sari Horwtiz described the difficulty this initiative is likely to face: The approval of ballot initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana use in Washington state and Colorado on Tuesday could set the stage for a significant legal battle with the Justice Department, one that may bring fresh scrutiny to federal drug policy. On Wednesday, the Justice Department said it was reviewing the initiatives but would not comment further on how it would respond to the first attempt by any state to legalize marijuana for reasons other than medicinal purposes. A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Agency said that its “enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged.” The ballot initiatives in Colorado and Washington state are a step beyond the measures that have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes in the District and 17 states, including Massachusetts, which passed such an initiative Tuesday. In the run-up to the latest initiatives, the Justice Department was unusually muted about the possible conflicts between federal and state laws, even as former DEA officials called on Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to publicly oppose the measures. On Wednesday, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signaled his awareness of the legal conflict with the Justice Department, cautioning voters that the marijuana initiative violates federal law. “The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos or gold fish too quickly.” Colorado Amendment 64 allows individuals 21 and older to buy up to an ounce of marijuana at retail stores that are regulated. Possession of marijuana would be legal, although it would not be legal to use the drug publicly. Washington’s Initiative 502 is similar and allows adults 21 and older to buy up to an ounce of dried marijuana; up to a pound of a marijuana-infused product, such as brownies; or up to 72 ounces of marijuana-infused liquids. Same-sex marriage was also in the spotlight as several states voted on whether or not to allow it on the state level. According to Dylan


A final look at D.C.’s tunnel-digging bug man

ever feel guilty about the lies and the subterfuge? I think the answer can be found in the Latin carved on an arch in the B Street catacomb: Facilis descensus Averno. From “The Aeneid,” it means, “The way down to Hell is easy.” But Virgil’s passage continues: “The path out of Hell is hard.” Maybe Dyar chose that line because he knew he was a sinner, unable to resist his urges. Odd as Dyar might have been, he was a master entomologist, describing about 3,000 new species of butterflies and moths and 600 of mosquitoes, either by himself or with collaborators. His colleagues named nearly 70 insect species after him, from the mosquito Dixa dyari to the moth Euleucophaeus dyari. Marc Epstein “His story is pretty widely circulated in entomology,” Marc said. “He really laid down some amazing big-picture stuff on what we call phylogeny.” That’s the study of how organisms are related, much like a genealogy, but based on evolutionary theory. At a time when most taxonomists ignored larvae, “He looked at the whole organism, as opposed to just the adult stage,” Marc said. Dyar is best known for formulating Dyar’s Law, an equation that allows entomologists to estimate a larval insect’s stage of development based on measurements of its head. Dafydd Dyar “We do have a can-do, never-say-die, authorities-be-damned attitude,” Dafydd said. He said of his grandparents, “If society didn’t approve, well, they didn’t have to know.” And what of the tunnels themselves? After Dyar’s death, the Department of Agriculture bought the B Street house to use its dark, moist passages for mushroom-growing experiments. The tunnels were briefly considered for use as air raid shelters during World War II. Everything was demolished in the construction of the FAA headquarters. As for Dyar’s 21st Street tunnels, an entrance was exposed in 1958 when Lewis Curd was building a wall behind 1510 and 1512 21st St. NW. His three children were hustled underground for a photo that ran in this paper. “What I saw of it was well built,” said Chip Curd, now 60 and a Virginia pediatrician. His family still owns the two houses, which are divided into rental units. “I’m probably the only one who remembers it.” Today, a concrete slab blocks the entrance to the tunnels — or the former tunnels. Chip is certain that construction over the past 100 years has caused whatever is left of