Leak investigation stalls amid fears of confirming U.S.-Israel operation

program, including its code name, Olympic Games, were revealed by Times reporter David E. Sanger in a book and article in June 2012. The sabotage of Iranian nuclear centrifuges by the computer worm dubbed Stuxnet had emerged two years earlier, and security experts speculated that it was the work of the United States and Israel. Confirmation of the joint authorship set off a political controversy, with congressional Republicans charging that the White House had deliberately leaked information to enhance Obama’s national security credentials as he sought reelection. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. assigned Rod J. Rosenstein, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, to investigate the leak. His office declined to comment. FBI investigators focused on Cartwright in the fall of 2012, officials said. They interviewed him at least twice, according to people who are familiar with the case and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. During the first interview, Cartwright had to go to the hospital. Part of the challenge of preparing a case like this is determining to what extent authorities who control the declassification of information, in this case the White House and the intelligence community, are willing to divulge information. In the case of a CIA officer who was recently convicted of espionage, the government disclosed sensitive details during the leak trial about a separate operation to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program that occurred more than a decade ago. The CIA even allowed a Russian scientist who had defected and taken part in the highly classified operation to testify. “The government’s got to make a choice: Is it more important to prosecute a national security leak or more important to preserve relationships with allies and shield sources and methods that protect the country?” said one individual familiar with the matter. The case also poses opportunities for “graymail” — a situation in which defense attorneys exercise leverage that lawyers in ordinary criminal cases lack by forcing prosecutors to make tough judgment calls about divulging sensitive or classified information. Craig might, for instance, push for broad discovery of information aimed at demonstrating that other officials could have been sources of the leak. Experts say he also could press to establish the factual basis for the information leaked, which could expose sensitive material. Cartwright, who retired in 2011, had White House authorization to speak with reporters, according to people familiar with the matter.


Beer Madness 2015: Which brew will be named the nation’s best?

Jace Gonnerman distributes samples to the panel of tasters during judging for Beer Madness. The competition was held over two days at Meridian Pint in Columbia Heights, where Gonnerman is the beer director. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) Two years ago, The Washington Post’s annual Beer Madness competition became an all-local affair. We were riding a wave of regional beer pride: For the first time in more than 50 years, Washington was home to three full-scale production breweries, not just brewpubs. Virginia’s Lost Rhino and Port City were making waves. Maryland’s Flying Dog and Heavy Seas were among the Free State breweries winning national awards. On both sides of the Potomac, smaller operations, such as Evolution and Blue Mountain, were attracting fans. It was only right that we celebrate, and we continued the “locals only” entry policy last year. [Vote for your favorites in this year’s Beer Madness.] But as we look at 2015, craft beer is bigger than ever, all across the country. Budweiser may mock drinkers of “pumpkin peach ale,” but it’s steadily losing market share to craft beer consumers. If the country’s largest lager producer can’t win craft fans back, it’s buying up the breweries that they love: Soon after Budweiser parent company AB InBev’s January purchase of Seattle’s Elysian Brewing, the Tampa Bay Tribune reported that Tampa’s much-loved and fiercely independent Cigar City Brewing had been approached about a possible sale. Closer to home, the ever-expanding market means our own DC Brau is regularly available in Philadelphia and New Jersey, and breweries from many states away are fighting for a beachhead in our area. Georgia’s SweetWater Brewing finally launched in Maryland last month after rolling out in Virginia and the District in 2014. An even bigger development finds some of the West Coast’s most popular and iconic brands building breweries close to Washington, to improve freshness and cut down on shipping time. Stone anticipates opening in Richmond as early as late 2015; Green Flash is expected to begin brewing in Virginia Beach in 2016. A bit farther away, Sierra Nevada is weeks from opening a brewery and taproom near Asheville, N.C., and New Belgium hopes to be up and running in the same area by the end of the year. They join Colorado’s Oskar Blues, which opened a North Carolina facility in December 2012. Expert panelist Miles Gray III goes to work. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) Tasters


Don’t know your IPAs from your IBUs? This glossary can help.

Fresh samples come to the table at Meridian Pint in Columbia Heights, where for two nights the Beer Madness panelists sipped, evaluated and passed judgment on craft 32 beers. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) The beer universe is constantly expanding. The online style guide for the 2014 World Beer Cup lists 94 styles, as well as assorted sub-categories and catchall niches for whatever doesn’t fit in elsewhere. Only a small slice of those was represented in Beer Madness. But we still sampled an extremely diverse lot, from high-octane hop bombs to yeast-forward Belgian styles to an oatmeal-and-coffee stout that almost constituted breakfast in a glass. This updated guide, listed in alphabetical order, will give you an idea of the workout our palates received. [Vote for your favorites in Beer Madness.] Ale: Double IPA or imperial IPA: Double or dubbel: Dry-hopping: Helles: India pale ale or IPA: International bitterness units: Kölsch: Lager: Pale ale: Pilsener or Pilsner: Porter: Saison: Scotch ales: Session IPA: Single or singel: Sour beers: Stout: Trappist ale: Triple or tripel: Vienna lager: Witbier: Kitsock is the editor of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. More from Food: Vote for your favorites in Beer Madness Meet the Beer Madness panel


Discovery of mysterious, goo-like substance turns into spectacle

THE DISTRICT Mysterious substance in home causes alarm It started as a routine call to the D.C. fire department about a mysterious, gooey substance inside a home in the District’s Chevy Chase neighborhood. Maybe a spilled household cleaner, firefighters first thought. But the call Monday quickly became serious after firefighters arrived at the house on Kanawha Street NW, just off Connecticut Avenue. It wasn’t that the substance — which officials said had been found in a just-opened 40-year-old safe — was particularly dangerous. But no one could identify it, even after on-scene tests. All they knew was it exhibited a chemical reaction to water. And so a routine call quickly became a spectacle, with as many as nine fire trucks, engines, ambulances and a full-blown hazardous materials team — workers in white space suits — filled the residential street, eventually shutting it down. After about 11 hours, firefighters ruled out a chemical hazard. The material was brought to an environmental lab for testing. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Lottery chief to leave job to join law firm Stephen Martino, the director of the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, will leave his job this month to become a partner at a private law firm in Baltimore. In a letter sent to his staff Tuesday, Martino said he informed Gov. Larry Hogan’s office that his last day as lottery chief will be March 27. Martino was appointed as director of the agency in 2010 by Hogan’s predecessor, Martin O’Malley. Martino oversaw the arrival and implementation of casino gambling in Maryland. Five casinos have opened in Maryland since 2010, and another, the $925 million MGM National Harbor taking shape in Prince George’s County, is scheduled to open next year. — Joe Heim Carbon monoxide in home injures two Montgomery County fire officials said high levels of carbon monoxide inside a Takoma Park home injured two people Tuesday. Rescuers responded to the 700 block of Forston Street for a call that a man was having a seizure and passed out about 7:30 a.m., according to Montgomery County Fire Department spokesman Pete Piringer. When firefighters arrived, the carbon monoxide detectors they carry were activated. Piringer said the levels in the home were about 600 parts per million — a very dangerous level, given that officials consider anything above 30 parts per million hazardous. He said the man, who was in his 60s, was taken to


D.C. police arrest suspect in 2014 killing outside Tyler House

District police have arrested a suspect in the May shooting death of a 32-year-old man outside the Tyler House apartment building in Northwest Washington’s Sursum Corda housing complex, according to authorities. Abdul Fields, 19, was charged with first-degree felony murder while armed. He was arrested Tuesday and was being held Wednesday pending an initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court. Fields is charged with shooting Donta Thrower, of Northwest, about 9:25 p.m. on May 30. Thrower died at an area hospital after being shot in the chest in a parking lot behind the apartment building in the 1200 block of Capitol Street NW. An arrest affidavit filed in court says Thrower was a fixture in the courtyard selling cigarettes. Witnesses said the gunman tried to rob him after losing money in a dice game, according to the affidavit. The shooting occurred outside an apartment building near where 13 people were shot in a drive-by attack in March 2013. The area, just off New York Avenue and near the revitalized NoMa neighborhood, has a history of violence that spills northward into Truxton Circle.


Montgomery County Animal Watch

These cases were received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. A biting issue: 16800 block, Excaliber Way, Sandy Spring, Feb. 23. A neighbor’s German shepherd bit a woman on the elbow and hip. She suffered minor injuries and the dog was placed under a 10-day home quarantine. If the woman files an affidavit, citations will be issued to the dog owner for “at large” and “unwanted contact.” Poodle out to play: Kensington Volunteer Fire Department fundraiser: Workshop for dog owners: Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt or foster rescue dogs: Rockville Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Adopt dogs and cats at MCHS no-kill rescue: Rockville — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


North Bethesda teen wins a top prize at Intel Science Talent Search

Noah Golowich, left, Andrew Jin and Montgomery Blair’s Michael Hofmann Winer each won $150,000 this week at the Intel Science Talent Search. (Patrick Thornton/Society for Science & the Public) A student from North Bethesda was one of three top winners at the Intel Science Talent Search finals Tuesday night in Washington. Michael Hofmann Winer, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, was awarded the Distinction for Innovation first-place medal for his research project. Michael’s project examined how sound particles called phonons interact with electrons, which are part of an atom. (Atoms are tiny particles that make up everything around us.) Michael and fellow first-place winners Noah Golowich of Lexington, Massachusetts, and Andrew Jin of San Jose, California, each received $150,000. In past years, one student took home the top prize. The competition, founded by Science for Society & the Public and now co-sponsored by the Intel Foundation, has honored young scientists and mathematicians since 1942. More than 1,800 students entered this year’s contest, and 40 were picked as finalists to compete for the top prizes. — Staff reports


Man is arrested in fatal shooting in Northwest Washington

THE DISTRICT Man is arrested in fatal NW shooting District police have arrested a suspect in the May shooting death of a 32-year-old man outside the Tyler House apartment building in Northwest Washington’s Sursum Corda housing complex, authorities said. Abdul Fields, 19, was charged with first-degree felony murder while armed. Fields is charged with shooting Donta Thrower of Northwest on May 30. An arrest affidavit filed in court says Thrower sold cigarettes in the courtyard. Witnesses said the gunman tried to rob him after losing money in a dice game, according to the affidavit. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Beltsville man linked to shooting incidents The man arrested in a string of shooting incidents at public buildings around suburban Maryland has been definitively linked to yet another shooting incident, through the window of a library, Anne Arundel County police said Wednesday. Hong Young of Beltsville is now a suspect in shootings at nine locations. No one has been reported injured in any of the incidents. Young, 35, was initially arrested March 3 on charges including attempted first-degree murder for firing at a man in his car near the Costco at the Arundel Mills mall on Feb. 24. Bullets hit the car and grazed the man inside but did not injure him. On Wednesday, authorities said he had been linked to a March 2 incident in which a bullet went through the window and into the ceiling of the Russett Community Library in Laurel. No one was inside the building at the time. — Julie Zauzmer Another setback for Costco gas station Kensington-area residents fighting a 16-pump gas station planned for a nearby Costco in Wheaton won the latest round Wednesday when the Montgomery County Board of Appeals denied the wholesaler’s petition after a marathon zoning debate. The five-member board voted unanimously to adopt a hearing examiner’s finding that Costco Wholesale had not met the requirements for a special zoning exception, in part because of the impact that vehicle fumes from such a large gas station would have on the surrounding community. The fight over the gas station plan has become one of the county’s longest land-use debates, generating more than 9,500 pages of testimony transcript. — Katherine Shaver


Man fatally shot in Northwest Washington

A man was found shot to death in a car early Thursday in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington, according to D.C. police. The shooting occurred about 1:30 a.m. in the 5300 block of 8th Street NW, near Jefferson Street. Police identified the victim as Christopher Adams, 20, of Northwest. He was pronounced dead on the scene. D.C. Police Cmdr. Wil Manlapaz, who heads the Fourth District station, said on the department’s Internet bulletin board that patrol officers heard the gunshots and found the victim sitting in the car at the intersection, two blocks from Georgia Avenue. According to police statistics, violent crime in the patrol area that includes Brightwood Park has dropped 17 percent in the first 10 weeks of 2015, compared with same time period last year. But armed robberies and shootings have gone up slightly.


Best state in America: Washington, for its good spirits

Reid Wilson is the author of Read In, The Post’s morning tipsheet on politics. Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. The booming craft spirits industry is fueling American interest in high-end cocktails and celebrity mixologists. It’s also promoting the image of the distiller — once an outlaw bootlegger — as an artisan. And while Kentucky is the home of bourbon and Tennessee brags about its whiskey, no state has birthed more craft distilleries than Washington. There are 110 distilleries in Washington state, accounting for more than 10 percent of the distilleries nationwide. The industry’s growth has exploded in recent years: At the end of 2013, there were 57 distilleries in Washington. Forty-five more are applying for operating licenses, according to Jason Parker, president of the Washington Distillers Guild. Industry analysts credit three factors for distilleries’ success in Washington: First, a state law passed in 2008 simplified the license application process. Second, a ballot initiative passed by voters in 2011 allows craft distilleries to sell their products directly to restaurants and stores, and to consumers through their own storefronts. And third is the strength of Seattle’s artisanal food market, which extends to the cocktail culture. “Craft distilling does seem to go hand in hand with food movements,” said Andrew Faulkner, editor of Distiller magazine, published by the American Distilling Institute. “Wherever craft distilling and craft spirits and craft cocktails have gotten a hold, there’s a real locavore movement.” Parker pointed out that booze isn’t the only libation Washington residents seem to enjoy making. The state has over 850 wineries, more than any other state but California, and more than 250 breweries, also second to the Golden State. New York and California, which have the second- and third-highest number of distilleries, also have significant winery and brewery cultures. Nationwide, the distilling industry is booming. Faulkner said sales have more than doubled in just the past few years, from an estimated 800,000 cases in 2012 to 1.9 million cases in 2014. Parker credited one more factor in Washington’s favor: “It rains here all the time, so there’s nothing to do but go indoors and eat and drink.” Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.


Another American with Ebola will be flown to NIH in Bethesda

Alberto Cagigi is beginning the multi-step process of identifying antibodies against Ebola in samples from vaccinated volunteers at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 4. (Cliff Owen/AP) An American health-care worker has come down with Ebola and will be transported to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda for treatment, NIH announced in a news release on Thursday. The statement said NIH will not share information about the patient, other than the fact that he or she was volunteering in an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone and contracted the virus. The patient will be flown in isolation in a chartered aircraft, the statement said. NIH’s Special Clinical Studies Unit has treated one other Ebola patient, Dallas nurse Nina Pham, who became the first person to catch the virus on U.S. soil. She was treating a patient. The Bethesda center has also admitted two others who were exposed to the virus but turned out not to have Ebola. The outbreak in West Africa has faded in recent months, but in the past week, Sierra Leone had registered a spike in new cases, the Associated Press reported. Read more: What it’s like to survive the worst Ebola outbreak in history


Spring home tours a beautiful tradition in the District area

The Choptank River Lighthouse, a replica of a screw-pile lighthouse, is part of May’s Maryland House & Garden Pilgrimage tour. (Jay Mallin) Over the next few months, architecture and design aficionados in the Washington region can choose from hundreds of stately homes, lush yards and embassies to admire as the annual spring house and garden tours begin. In April, May and June, more than a dozen tours will be offered — from 250 homes, gardens and historic sites in Virginia to more than 70 embassies in Washington and 44 historic mansions in Maryland. Here is a list of the tours: • 2015 DC Design House, 956 Mackall Farm Lane, McLean, Va., April 12 to May 10. Enjoy the work of 24 design firms throughout this new 8,869-square-foot estate. Open weekends noon to 5 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Thursday evenings 5 to 8 p.m.; closed Mondays. Tickets are $30 ($50 for the preview on April 11) and available at www.dcdesignhouse.com and at the door. • Historic Garden Week, April 18 to 25. This beauteous event will include 31 tours organized and hosted by the Garden Club of Virginia throughout the Commonwealth. Almost 250 private homes, gardens and historical sites, including many in Northern Virginia, will welcome visitors. Tickets, which average $30 per tour and $175 for statewide passes, are available at www.vagardenweek.org . The Cady-Lee House will be the centerpiece of the 125th Takoma Park House and Garden Tour on May 3. (Courtesy of Historic Takoma ) • Georgetown House Tour, April 25 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. This self-guided tour, one of the nation’s oldest at 84 years old — will feature eight homes in Georgetown. Advance tickets cost $50, which includes a tea from 2 to 5 p.m. in Blake Hall of St. John’s Episcopal Church, 3240 O St. NW, Washington. Tickets cost $55 the day of the tour. Go to www.georgetownhousetour.com for more information. • 2015 Flower Mart Celebrating Asia, Washington National Cathedral, 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, May 1, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and May 2, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This free outdoor festival includes the 10th Annual International Floral Exhibit; sales of annuals, perennials and herbs; shopping at more than 80 artisanal gift booths; and children’s rides. For more details, go to www.allhallowsguild.org . • Around the World Embassy Tour, Northwest Washington, May 2 from 10 a.m.


Dusseldorf vs. Cologne: My two rounds of a friendly German beer bout

stalwart — where Schumacher’s alt is served — are full most evenings, even when it’s really cold. Entrees from $9.30; alt $2.40. Takumi Ramen Immermannstrasse 28, 40210 011-49-221-179-3308 brickny.com/takumi Delicious, authentic Japanese food in the heart of Dusseldorf’s Japanese community. Pork ramen with gyoza dumplings is $16. If you go Where to stay Excelsior Hotel Ernst Trankgasse 1-5, 50667 Domplatz, Cologne 011-49-221-2701 www.excelsiorhotelernst.com/en/cologne.html Founded in 1863, this perfectly situated five-star property, which faces the cathedral, is rich in history. The hotel contains a Michelin-starred East-Asian restaurant, Taku, for those who tire of pork knuckle. Double rooms from $340. Stern am Rathaus Bürgerstrasse 6, 50667, Cologne 011-49-221-222-517-50 www.stern-am-rathaus.com This stylish little hotel in the heart of the Old Town offers air-conditioned rooms with free WiFi. There’s no lift, but the staff will be happy to help you with your luggage. Doubles from about $145. €130. Breidenbacher Hof Königsallee 11, 40212, Dusseldorf 011-49-221-160-909-09 www.capellahotels.com/dusseldorf Situated amid the opulence of Königsallee, this hotel offers large, lavishly furnished rooms. Expect king-size beds, touch-panel lighting and a rain forest shower. Doubles start at $286. Hotel Sir Astor Kurfürstenstrasse 23, 40211, Dusseldorf 011-49-221-936-090 www.sir-astor.de This quirky, English-style hotel (and its nearby sister, Lady Astor) offers a great value base and elegantly decorated rooms close to the city center and the Old Town. Doubles from $100. What to do Cologne Cathedral Domkloster 4, 50667, Cologne 011-49-221-1794-0555 www.koelner-dom.de Free entry. Open 6 a.m.- 7.30 p.m. November - April; 6 a.m.- 9 p.m. May-October. Reputedly the most-visited tourist attraction in Germany, Cologne’s Cathedral is not to be missed. For special tours in English — including one of the roof — see domfuehrungen-koeln.de. Romano-Germanic Museum Roncalliplatz 4, 50667, Cologne 011-49-221-211-244-38 http://bit.ly/1EwwmHf Entry $11.20; Tuesday-Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. First Thursday of the month, until 10 p.m. A world-class selection of Roman artifacts. Worth the entry price for the mosaics alone. The mosaics are worth the entry fee alone. Cologne City Museum Zeughausstrasse 1-3, 50667, Cologne 011-49-221-221-257-89 museenkoeln.de/koelnisches-stadtmuseum Entry $6.20; Open Tuesday 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Wednesday to Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. First Thursday of the month the museum is open until 10 p.m. English audio guide available. Find out about Kolsch, Cologne’s history and Carnival at this smartly curated little museum. Düsseldorf City Museum Berger Allee 2, 40213, Dusseldorf 011-49-221-899-6170 duesseldorf.de/stadtmuseum Entry $5; Open Tuesday-Sunday 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Düsseldorf’s tradition of art, poetry and industry is investigated at this impressively sizeable museum.


Local digest: D.C.-area news briefs

THE DISTRICT Man shot to death in Brightwood Park A man was found shot to death in a car early Thursday in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C. police said. The shooting occurred about 1:30 a.m. in the 5300 block of Eighth Street NW near Jefferson Street. Police identified the victim as Christopher Adams, 20, of Northwest. He was pronounced dead at the scene. D.C. police Cmdr. Wil Manlapaz, who heads the 4th District station, said on the department’s Internet bulletin board that patrol officers heard gunshots and found Adams in the car, about two blocks from Georgia Avenue. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Police investigate deaths of two men A man was fatally shot Thursday in a Forestville apartment building, police said. Prince George’s County police were called to the 6500 block of Pennsylvania Avenue about 3:45 p.m., police spokesman Michael Owen said. They found a man with a fatal gunshot wound. He has not been identified. In a separate case, Prince George’s police are investigating a homicide late Wednesday night in the Riverdale area. Rashad Jamal Clarke, 18, was fatally stabbed about a block from his street when he and a group of friends got into a fight with another group, police said in a statement. Police have not named a suspect. — Julie Zauzmer and Dana Hedgpeth VIRGINIA Lawsuit seeks to overturn decision The Republican chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors and three other GOP officials filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to overturn a county electoral board decision against holding primary elections in June. The lawsuit, filed in the county’s Circuit Court, contends that the candidates have the right to a primary election under a state law that allows political parties to determine the method for nominating candidates for office. Board Chairman Corey A. Stewart; Supervisors Martin E. Nohe (Coles) and Maureen S. Caddigan (Dumfries); and Glen Hill, the county sheriff, pursued the court action in hopes of avoiding what could be unpredictable caucuses or firehouse canvass elections. The local party committee had missed a state deadline for requesting primaries. — Antonio Olivo


Why large West Coast breweries are building East Coast plants

held a news conference last fall to announce the deal. (Steve Helber/Associated Press) What will Green Flash and Stone brew here? Pretty much the same beers they make in Southern California. Both are noted for their piquant, hop-forward pale ales. Will 3,000 additional miles from the hop fields of the Pacific Northwest affect quality? Koch and Green Flash chief executive Mike Hinkley dismiss that possibility: Both say they use pelletized hops that are vacuum-sealed and refrigerated to keep them fresh until the next hop harvest. Koch and Hinkley stress that their branch plants will mean fresher and cheaper beer for their East Coast fans. As of Feb. 1, Green Flash has been eating freight costs to the state of Virginia, dropping the price of a six-pack of West Coast IPA from about $12 to $10. “We intend to be local right now, at least from a price standpoint,” says Hinkley. But Virginia isn’t a beer desert. As of March 9, there were 104 licensed breweries in the commonwealth, according to Cassidy Rasnick of the Virginia Manufacturers Association. How do they see Green Flash and Stone: as comrades or carpetbaggers? “Maybe we should extend them an olive branch,” suggests brewmaster Jason Oliver of Devils Backbone Brewing in Roseland and Lexington. “We did a beer with Green Flash last year, East West India Pale Lager, that we released in 16-ounce cans. That was our idea: Let’s welcome them to Virginia.” He admits that he can understand Richmond brewers grumbling about the deal Stone got, but adds, “Stone isn’t just another start-up. It’s a huge entity. They’re bringing lot of jobs and revenue to the city.” Eric McKay, founder of Hardywood Park Craft Brewery in Richmond, says that “So far, our fellow Virginia brewers have expressed a mixture of trepidation and optimism. “Stone brews more beer than the 100-plus homegrown Virginia craft breweries combined, representing a daunting scale for an imported competitor,” McKay says. “On the other hand, craft brewers of all sizes can achieve great things when working together.” Craft beer has only about a 3 percent share of the Virginia market, he notes, leaving “plenty of room for growth.” Koch also sees great potential. “When we opened in San Diego in 1996, we were about the 15th brewery. Now there are over 100 breweries in San Diego County.” “But we’re not San Diego,” cautions Michael Byrne. “Richmond has 212,000 people with


Who says you need a law degree to practice law?

the program would tighten an already tough job market. Only 84.5 percent of recent law school grads are employed. But LLLTs won’t replace lawyers, who will still be needed when a client goes to court or confronts a particularly challenging legal issue. Down the line, the program might even discourage some people from going to law school in the first place, reducing the glut of law grads competing for a limited number of positions. “You’ve got a class of people who want to increase their earning potential through doing low-level legal work, but they don’t want to invest three years and $150,000 in debt,” Mystal says. “This seems like a great option.” Of course, Washington’s LLLT program won’t completely solve the access-to-justice crisis. But it’s part of a broader movement to lower the cost of legal services. Companies like LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer, which started out providing affordable, do-it-yourself legal forms for everything from starting a business to completing a will are thriving. They are beginning to expand the services they offer, ranging all the way to direct advice from a lawyer. LegalZoom had served some 2 million customers as of 2012, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings Meanwhile, there is increasing support for state bars to follow Britain’s lead and lift their bans on non-lawyer ownership of law practices. This would free corporations to deliver legal services on a broader scale and at more affordable prices. One day, customers could go to stores like Walmart to consult an attorney. Even the public face of the legal profession, the 400,000-member American Bar Association, is beginning to acknowledge that the crisis is too big for lawyers to solve alone. In a January 2014 report, an ABA task force on the future of legal education called on states to license “persons other than holders of a JD to deliver limited legal services.” Among the panel’s 28 members were two key organizers of Washington’s program. “We need to take a leaf from the medical profession, which has long recognized that people with health problems can be helped by a range of assistance providers with far less training than licensed physicians,” New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said in his 2014 state of the judiciary report. “We all accept that. Why not the same in the law?” ambrogi@gmail.com Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.


We’re throwing away tons of fruits and veggies for not being pretty enough

the odd ones, but that’s not how the rest of our food system works. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that high cosmetic standards in the retail industry exclude 20 to 40 percent of fresh produce from the market. Sometimes farmers can sell those unwanteds to processors making jam or cider or pickles, but as those systems rely increasingly on mechanization, they become less flexible when it comes to shape and size. Tons of food — 800 to 900 million tons globally each year, the weight of 9,000 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers — rot in storage or don’t make it out of the fields because farmers can’t find a market. The organic farm where I worked marketed primarily through a farm stand and a subscription service, so we had the luxury of communicating directly with our customers about why our produce looked the way it did. But farmers selling through distributors face very different standards. Some criteria are rightly based on food-safety and shelf-life considerations, but many are manifestations of misguided normative ideas about what produce should look like. Cucumbers should be straight, cauliflower florets should be tightly held, and rhubarb stalks should be ruby red. If not, retailers tell farmers, consumers won’t buy them. I worked on a second farm that sent much more produce to the compost pile. Beet butts, the ones that have deep vertical creases, and knobby potatoes were doomed. Kohlrabi that had grown too fast and split and Brussels sprout stalks that had seen any aphid action also got axed, even though the bugs pose no health risk. Even on the organic farm, we had to leave a lot of chard in the fields — our subscription-service customers, who tended to accept or even prefer imperfect produce, objected to certain types of damage to chard leaves. Farmers recognize that they’re at the whim of nature, and they plan accordingly, sowing extra seed with the assumption that pests, diseases or weather will take out some of the crop. That’s part of life. But when plants survive all of that, only to be rejected because they happen to be too small, a little twisted or not quite evenly colored, the loss is harder to face. My heart broke a little as I wheeled barrows of unmarketable onions that had grown long and skinny instead of short and round to the compost pile, or surveyed


A Reagan approach to climate change

the world’s most successful environmental treaty. In retrospect, the scientists who were worried were right, and the Montreal Protocol came along in the nick of time. Reagan called it a “magnificent achievement.” We all know there are those who have doubts about the problems presented by climate change. But if these doubters are wrong, the evidence is clear that the consequences, while varied, will be mostly bad, some catastrophic. So why don’t we follow Reagan’s example and take out an insurance policy? First, let’s have significant and sustained support for energy research and development. More of that is going on right now than in any previous period. The costs to the federal budget are small — little more than a rounding error — and a serious government effort would attract private capital from investors who want to know what’s new and want to contribute. These efforts are producing results. For example, we can now produce electricity from the wind and the sun at close to the same price we pay for electricity from other sources, and we may soon know how to do cost-effective large-scale storage of electricity, thus greatly reducing the intermittency problems of solar and wind and producing a hedge against the great vulnerability of our power grid. Second, let’s level the playing field for competing sources of energy so that costs imposed on the community are borne by the sources of energy that create them, most particularly carbon dioxide. A carbon tax, starting small and escalating to a significant level on a legislated schedule, would do the trick. I would make it revenue-neutral, returning all net funds generated to the taxpayers so that no fiscal drag results and the revenue would not be available for politicians to spend on pet projects. These two policies could be put in place in conjunction with eliminating burdensome existing laws and regulations and using the marketplace rather than edicts by the government to do this or not do that. Put a price out there, and let the marketplace adapt. You would be surprised at its creativity. So that is my proposal. Before you get mugged by reality, take out an insurance policy. It’s the Reagan way. Read more on this topic: Carter Eskew: GOP moves from climate-change denial to despair George F. Will: Climate change’s instructive past Charles Krauthammer: Obama’s global-warming folly The Post’s View: This global-warming warning can’t be ignored


No signs of dissent in BSO at Strathmore

Just as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was preparing to announce its 100th-anniversary season this week, its musicians were publicly complaining about morale. Whatever the problems behind the scenes, however, they were not apparent in the orchestra’s exceptionally beautiful all-Mozart concert this week at the Music Center at Strathmore. Guest conductor Masaaki Suzuki recently finished a complete Bach cantata recording with Bach Collegium Japan, the historically informed performance ensemble he founded. In January, the group released a splendid recording of Mozart’s Requiem Mass, and Suzuki’s take on Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor, K. 427, with the BSO at Strathmore suggesting that a most rewarding focus on Mozart is in his future. Suzuki coaxed an incisive and beautifully balanced performance from the classical-period-sized orchestra. The smaller number of strings played almost entirely without vibrato, and the well-drilled University of Maryland Concert Choir sang in a mostly straight, white tone, with the soprano sound especially light. Crowning the choir’s work was a stupendous performance by Slovak soprano Simona Houda-Šaturová. Her voice was laser precise and perfectly placed from a firm low A-flat to a crystalline high C in her two solo movements. The concert began no less admirably with the overture to “Don Giovanni,” with both fast and slow tempos pushed to extremes. Matching the soprano’s exploits was violinist Augustin Hadelich, who had an astonishing solo turn in Mozart’s fifth violin concerto; it was both technically and musically impeccable. As the final sign of his consummate musicianship, Hadelich played his own fascinating cadenzas, daringly laden with double-stops. A nightcap of Paganini’s ninth caprice, nicknamed “La Chasse,” a further study on double stops, was the perfect finish. Downey is a freelance writer. Masaaki Suzuki. (Marco Borggreve)


U.S. unease about nuclear-weapons fuel takes aim at a South African vault

private letter sent to Zuma in August 2011, went so far as to warn Zuma that a terrorist nuclear attack would be a “global catastrophe.” He proposed that South Africa transform its nuclear explosives into benign reactor fuel, with U.S. help. If Zuma agreed, the White House would trumpet their deal at a 2012 summit on nuclear security in South Korea, Obama wrote, according to a copy of the letter. Together, he said, the two nations could “better protect people around the world.” Zuma was unmoved, however, and in a letter of his own, he insisted that South Africa needs its nuclear materials and was capable of keeping them secure. He did not accept a related appeal from Obama two years later, current and former senior U.S. officials said. Differing points of view The United States says there are reasons to be concerned about South Africa’s nuclear explosives. (Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images) Washington may bear a special responsibility for ensuring that South Africa’s materials do not wind up in the wrong hands. Over nine years ending in 1965, it helped South Africa build its first nuclear reactor under the Atoms for Peace program and then trained scientists to run it with U.S.-supplied, weapons-grade uranium fuel. Washington finally cut off the fuel supply in 1976, after becoming convinced the apartheid regime had used nuclear research to create a clandestine bomb program, fueled by its own highly enriched uranium. The apartheid regime hatched the bomb program at a time when it faced sabotage at home, wars on its borders and increasing international isolation. But by the end of the Cold War, the government realized that its whites-only rule would have to be scrapped, and so its leaders ordered the weapons destroyed and the production facilities dismantled, while holding onto the explosive fuel. In interviews, top officials in both countries made clear that they see the issue through different prisms. Zuma’s appointees assert that it is absurd for the United States to obsess over the security of the country’s small stockpile while downplaying the starker threat posed by the big powers’ nuclear arsenals. Raising the threat of nuclear terror, officials here say, is an excuse to restrict the spread of peaceful and profitable nuclear technology to the developing world, and to South Africa in particular. This claim of being singled out is similar to that made by another emerging nuclear power: Iran. And


On the shores of the Arabian Sea, pollution erodes a way of life

picnic or dip their feet in the water. The wealthy still build beachfront villas, and restaurants that advertise locally caught seafood thrive. But the pollution threatens a way of life that the fishermen have passed down through generations. Not only are there fewer fish, but villagers also suffer from ailments that they attribute to pollution, including stomach pain, hearing loss, and respiratory and skin infections. Some even say pollution is causing their hair to go gray sooner. “All that I know, three years ago my hair started to change from black to white,” said Waqar Baloch, 16, who wears a “Hang Loose Hawaii” hat to cover up his salt-and-pepper hair. Located on an inlet known as Hawk’s Bay, Abdul Rehman Goth is a few miles from a small nuclear reactor that Canada built for Pakistan in the 1970s. Some residents blame the plant for their health problems, but officials say repeated testing has shown normal radiation levels around the plant. Instead, health experts say, it appears the fishermen are being exposed to the same harmful chemicals poisoning the marine life they are trying to catch. Several recent studies have shown that fish near Karachi contain elevated levels of chromium, cadmium, lead and iron. “We are seeing a lot of skin problems in communities that live in the harbor area and are directly exposed to the water,” Rasool said. “The good thing is, twice a day, the tide comes in and flushes all the pollution out.” Rasool said that Karachi officials hope to build several new wastewater treatment plants but that they will cost a total of $170 million and take years to complete. In Abdul Rehman Goth, villagers wonder how much time they have. “My eye burns, I lost some of my hair and I have digestive problems,” said Shakeel Ahmed, who estimated his age as 21 and was nursing a bloodshot right eye. “And this is the season of the shrimp, but for the last seven, eight years, day-to-day, there are fewer shrimp.” The bustling port of Karachi can be seen in the distance. But the 6,000 villagers of Abdul Rehman Goth live in one-story concrete houses and wooden shacks stretched across the sand. Many do not wear shoes and wade in and out of the sea dozens of times each day. Boat builder Naveed Saeed uses a hand drill as he makes a small fishing vessel he and


After a spate of train wrecks, Congress takes a new view of federal rail agency

to show a greater presence at grade crossings and ticket drivers who try to beat the warning lights. Next, the railroad administration says it plans “to employ smarter uses of technology, increase public awareness of grade crossing safety and improve signage.” “When it comes to the rail industry, that is lightning fast, and it’s really impressive,” said a congressional aide who focuses on transportation. “We’ve seen, time and time again in the rail industry, incidents happen. And it takes years, and sometimes even decades, to get action.” Grade-crossing deaths, though frequent, pale in comparison with the potential catastrophe that Feinberg says keeps her awake at night. All of the crude-oil train derailments this year happened miles from the nearest town. But little more than a year ago, a CSX train that included six crude-oil tank cars derailed on a river bridge in the middle of Philadelphia. And an oil-fueled fireball after a derailment in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic in July 2013 left 47 people dead. “We’re transporting a highly flammable and volatile crude from the middle of the country, more than 1,000 miles on average, to refineries on the coast,” Feinberg said. The number of tank-car trains has expanded exponentially since a production boom began in the Bakken region, centered in North Dakota. Seven years ago, 9,500 tank cars of Bakken crude traveled by railroad. Last year, the number was 493,126. In 2013, an additional 290,000 cars transported ethanol. “Fifty to 60 trains pass through this area every day,” Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) said as she visited the spot where 21 tank cars derailed and leaked crude on March 5. “I cannot overstate my sense of urgency in making sure that we keep people safe.” Like every other member of Congress dealing with a train wreck back home, Bustos said one of the first people she heard from was Feinberg. “She answered every question I had,” Bustos said. “She was informative, she took her time with me. I feel good about that. Not every agency responds to a crisis like that.” The FRA is an agency that flies under the radar most of the time, a powerful presence to the railroads it regulates but generally out of the public eye. The Federal Aviation Administration — think drones and airlines — gets attention. So does the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with record auto recalls last year and the fight


Maryland physics phenom ‘tried not to faint’ upon winning national award

said. His award of $150,000 will help pay for college, he said. In a biography for a national physics competition, Winer wrote: “I’m a person who likes his textbooks long, his equations short, his bagels well-done, and his meat medium-rare. I am one of the happiest people I know.” He said he started life as a math person and became a physics person after “a series of happy coincidences.” Galitski said the teen’s research, in quantum condensed matter physics, could lead to a better understanding of quantum matter and thus contribute to the development of a new generation of electronic devices. He said that after assigning the teenager problems and supervising his work, he concluded Winer was extraordinary. “I have supervised many students, and I have never heard about anybody reaching this high level of understanding of advanced physics so early in life,” he said. Winer said that he first embraced physics in sixth grade, when he began using it “to get good at video games.” (He recalls: “It helped me in some games, not in others.”) His father, Ken Winer, is a lawyer and his mother, Emily Hofmann, is a computer scientist. Winer has a 16-year-old sister, Jessica. None are deep into physics. “I learned my physics watching the Big Bang Theory,” his mother, Emily, joked. Winer’s mother said his talents were visible early, recalling his love of doing algebra problems on family vacations during elementary school. She said he has thrived at Montgomery Blair, where he has been involved in physics, math and science bowl teams. Winer was a silver medalist at the 2014 International Physics Olympiad, where he was the top-scoring U.S. student on the theoretical exam. The family was “ecstatic and shocked” by his first-place Intel award. “I’ve always known he was a very talented kid and a very able kid, but this is a whole other level,” she said. His teacher, Schafer, described Winer as student of great humor and deep passion for physics. “He brings a lot of enthusiasm and energy into it,” Schafer said. “He likes it, he gets it. He wants others to like it and get it too.” In Winer’s free time, he writes science fiction and fantasy on a blog, most recently telling a tale involving a sorcerer named Dragoneyes who tries to find the true nature of things. As Winer spoke of his big win late Tuesday night, he


Fight between SpaceX and industry heavyweights heads to Capitol Hill

launches from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station March 12. (Aubrey Gemignani/AP) ULA shot back, saying its on-time launch reliability is far superior and that it is on the verge of announcing a next-generation launch system that will ultimately replace its Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. ULA also is developing a rocket engine with Blue Origin, a space company owned by Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, and has a separate engine development project with Aerojet Rocketdyne. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) The latest spat is occurring as SpaceX comes close to being certified by the Pentagon, which would allow it to compete with ULA for the military launches. SpaceX is taking aim at a ULA contract for “space launch capabilities,” which it calls a billion-dollar subsidy. The contract helps cover ULA’s overhead costs, a benefit that other launch providers don’t have, SpaceX argues. “It is really hard to compete against ULA when they get a billion dollars a year to cover their fixed costs,” Shotwell said. She said SpaceX has been lobbying Congress to eliminate the ULA contract. “Frankly, I think they should end it now,” she said. ULA officials said the capabilities contract has been around for years and was designed to ensure that the Pentagon could reliably launch critical payloads, such as the satellites that troops use to communicate on the battlefield. The contract created a partnership between the Pentagon and ULA, which for years has been the sole launch provider, so that the Defense Department had deep insight into how the company was developing its space systems for military missions, which have requirements far more stringent than those for civilian launches. “It’s not a subsidy,” said Chris Andrews, ULA’s director of strategic planning and business development. “It’s paying for and meeting very well-defined national security space requirements.” Even without the capabilities contract, Shotwell said SpaceX’s prices are far lower than ULA’s. At most, SpaceX would charge about $180 million for a military launch, which she said is much less expensive than ULA’s average launch charge. Musk founded the company “to change the whole game in space transportation,” she said. “He wants to make space transportation very much like an airplane operation. He wants it to be accessible to the public.” ULA officials have said the company also is pushing to make space travel more accessible and is moving to aggressively cut prices and compete with SpaceX.


Zoo asks public to help name two Andean bear cubs

Cub No. 1 (Connor Padraic Mallon/National Zoo) Voting will end Sunday, and zoo officials said they expect to announce the winning names March 26. Two days later, the bear cubs are expected to make their public debut. Name options, translations for the significance of the names and personality traits Zoo officials said Cub No. 1 is a bit more rambunctious and “seems to need Mom’s attention a bit more than his brother.” The options for his names in the Aymara language include: ●Larusiri (lah-roo-SEE-ree), which means giggly. ●Mayni (MY-nee), which means unique. ●Kusisqa (coo-SEES-kah), which means happy. Andean bear Cub No. 2 (Connor Padraic Mallon/National Zoo) His brother, called Cub No. 2, is described as playful and “likes to wrestle but is more laid back” than Cub No. 1. The options for his name in the Quechua language are: ●Tusuq (too-SOOK), which means dancer. ●Muniri (moo-NEE-ree), which means loving. ●Wayna (WHY-nah), which means young. In the indigenous cultures, the Andean bears are said to “protect pilgrims, especially musicians and dancers, during their pilgrimage to a festival that is held high in the Andes mountains and is called Q’oylluriti. The bears are said to “put order to” the festivities. They also are believed to be conduits between the people and the Apus, known as the gods of the mountains. The cubs were born to Billie Jean in November. She had two previous litters, in 2010 and 2012. Andean bears are very rare, so the birth of the brothers at the zoo has been a treat for animal keepers. Only four litters of these bears have been born in North American zoos in the past nine years. In the wild, Andean bears are a threatened species, with only 2,000 said to be left in the wild. They are the only bear species in South America. At the National Zoo, officials have been monitoring the cubs and their mother via a video camera since their birth. They’ve also been observing how Billie Jean interacts with the cubs. In one of the videos, the cubs are shown exploring and climbing on a wall and under a tree branch. In one shot, the mother bear appears to hug one of the cubs with her paw. The father of the two latest bear cubs is 21-year-old Cisco, who came to the National Zoo in September from the Queens Wildlife Center. The pair were bred in April.


D.C. police arrest suspect in Brightwood Park killing

D.C. police have arrested a 24-year-old man and charged him in Thursday’s fatal shooting in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington. Glenn R. Walker, who lives steps from Eighth and Jefferson streets where the shooting occurred, was charged Friday with first-degree murder while armed. He was ordered detained until a preliminary hearing March 27. Police said last week that the victim, Christopher Adams, 20, of Northwest Washington was shot about 1:30 a.m. while sitting in a car at Eighth and Jefferson streets. He was pronounced dead at the scene. An arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court says that officers responding to a call for gunshots found the victim in the driver’s seat of a Chevrolet Geo Prizm. Police said he had been shot in the head and upper body. The affidavit says police questioned two witnesses, including a man who had been in the car with Adams. He told detectives that Adams stopped near the intersection to meet someone and that the gunman opened the car door and shot the victim. Another witness said he was in the area to buy drugs and saw four people, including the man who was arrested, standing around the car when Adams was shot, according to the affidavit. That man told police he called 911, then went to the suspect’s house on Jefferson Street to buy drugs, the affidavit says. The documents do not indicate a motive for the shooting.


Can you become addicted to exercise?

physical fitness If I can do just a few more reps, a few more miles . . . ‘The Truth About Exercise Addiction,’ by Katherine Schreiber and Heather A. Hausenblas In a society that worships a stick-thin body image, a culture obsessed with diet and weight loss and a nation facing ever-rising obesity rates, the idea of exercise addiction as a serious health problem seems almost funny. But Katherine Schreiber and Heather A. Hausenblas take it as seriously as other researchers do eating disorders in “The Truth About Exercise Addiction: Understanding the Dark Side of Thinspiration.” Heavily footnoted and with a history of exercise critics going back to Plato and Aristotle, the book says that studies — admittedly few — indicate that perhaps 0.3 percent of adults may be at risk for exercise addiction, which the authors define as an above-normal pattern of physical exercise that “engulfs” a person’s personal, professional and social life and is difficult to control or reduce. The authors note that it is often connected to issues of low self-esteem or body image, and they point out that like all other addictive behaviors, excessive exercise has the temporary benefit of flooding the body with positive feelings. The book includes a number of detailed histories from recovering exercise addicts: One is Schreiber, who begins by saying, “The moment I became cognizant of my body I wanted to change it” and who describes the elliptical trainer as “one of the ravenous loves of my life.” There’s a chapter on the history of diagnosing other psychiatric disorders, another on drugs and other treatments, advice and a compendium of resources for exercise addicts. And there’s a lengthy section of advice for people who find themselves ignored by, irritated by or worried about the addicts — even relatives and friends.


Couple has spent decades exploring glaciers, which reveal climate history

Ellen: The mid- and low-latitude glaciers are under attack. Once the ice is gone, it’s gone. In terms of global climate change, for glaciers it doesn’t look good. It takes five years to execute collecting an ice core from bedrock from a remote place. Not every glacier is a good candidate. It can’t have any melting at the base because it removes layers of the annual record of snowfall that contains climate information. It has to be relatively thick because you want a long record. You want annual variability in things that are preserved to get a time scale. Lonnie, what were the challenges on your first expeditions to the glaciers of Peru back in mid-1970s? The elevation. How do you get in, how do you get an ice core, how do you keep it frozen? My initial thought is “We will bring a drill from Antarctica and a generator, and bring in a helicopter and fly the drill up there and fly the ice cores back down.” We took flights early in the morning and late in the evening when going at 19,000 feet, and the helicopter would fall downward in the thin mountain air because of the elevation. We brought in fuel on a train and staged out of the back of a small hotel. We were at the upper limit of the helicopter. A few years later, we wrote another proposal [for funding] to drill using solar power. The National Science Foundation approved the grant. So we built the drill and tested on a parking garage and drilled through blocks of ice on campus. What’s next? Lonnie: I’m going back to Quelccaya [the world’s largest tropical ice cap] in June. Small wetland plants are coming out of the margin of the glacier as the ice retreats. These are perfectly preserved wetland plants that tell us that this ice field hasn’t been smaller for about 6,300 years. If it had been, they would be decayed after being exposed to the air. It is amazing that 6,300 years ago it took the glacier 1,600 years to advance 300 meters [about 1,000 feet], where it covered plants that now date back 4,700 years, but it has only taken 25 years for the ice to retreat the same 300 meters to expose plants that date back 6,300 years. It gives you a sense of the rate of change in the climate


He slipped as he got out of the shower, and the Segway was born

there’s water outside the shower. A nice polished surface. As I step out, my heel hits the floor as it usually does. But instead of creating friction, it starts sliding out on a very slick puddle. I put my arms behind me as kids do as they learn to balance. That’s because of momentum: Putting your arms back rotates your body forward and you won’t fall on your butt or your head. There I go sliding through the puddle, swinging my arms, about to go down and slam into the wall on the other side. I could swing my arms and the momentum can hold me up. I stood there and said, “Problem solved.” We can get around so well because we’re not static, unstable machines with a big, heavy base at the bottom, like a Coke machine. A Coke machine doesn’t fall over because it has a 4-foot-by-4-foot base at the bottom. But a human being, who is as tall as a Coke machine, stands on little toes. If you got drunk or if you’re not thinking and balancing, looking around without moving, you do fall over. You are dynamically stabilized, not statically stable. “Dynamically stabilized” requires this ability to move front and back. I tried to build a machine that duplicates what a person does walking around: Let’s put two points on the ground separated about shoulder width. Let those two points move forward and back. If you are about to tip forward, move those wheels back. A set of sensors that do what your inner ear and brain and muscles do. Literally, I stood there dripping wet, getting cold, thinking, “Hey, we are solving the wrong problem. We’re not a big, clumsy, statically stable bulldozer. Let’s build a balancing system and put a person on top of it.” It was a totally new way to look at a very old problem. Dean Kamen with a prosthetic arm developed by his company. (Courtesy of DEKA ) Do you look to nature for inspiration? Nature is a pretty good source. Engineers are very proud of the things they do. We’re very proud now we can make tiny flying machines, drones. Then you watch a mosquito go by and its ability to do things — fly inverted, land on anything, suck a little blood out of you, get away before you can stop it. It powers itself. It has vision.


In Wash. state, a 10-person team toils for the government — selling pot

Two years ago, there was a major pot prohibition. Today, four states are setting up marketplaces. NORTH BONNEVILLE, Wash. — The store had been open for just a few days. Inside, manager Robyn Legun was frantically trying to restock. Outside, five customers stood waiting for the doors to open. Someone cracked a joke about this being a typical government operation, always running late. But, of course, it’s not. This government store, bearing the cozy name Cannabis Corner, sells dozens of strains of marijuana and in several different forms, from pungent buds to infused cookies and coffee. It sells glass bongs and rolling papers. And it does it all at the direction of the North Bonneville Public Development Authority, making the local government uniquely dependent on this once-illicit drug. “If I don’t get this order in this morning, we’re going to be out for the weekend,” said Legun, 36, fretting over her inventory list. Legun used to manage a Bed Bath & Beyond. Now, she leads a team of 10 people trained to sell pot. Her new government job had her placing orders for Blue Magoo, Purple Kush and Pineapple Express. “I can’t believe this is my life,” she said. Just two years ago, selling marijuana for nonmedical purposes was a crime everywhere in the country. Pot prohibition was on. Today, four states are setting up legal marketplaces open to anyone 21 or older. Tightly regulated private stores began popping up in Washington and Colorado in 2014; Alaska and Oregon plan to open stores in 2016. In the District, voters approved legal pot possession in November and the law took effect last month. And in November 2016, marijuana advocates expect to put legalization on the ballot in at least five more states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Massachusetts and Maine. “I’ve been surprised at how quickly things are moving. It’s just tremendous,” said Bill Piper, national affairs director for the Drug Policy Alliance. Marijuana clearly has momentum. “It’s night and day from 2009,” said Dan Riffle, chief lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project. He said doors on Capitol Hill once closed to him are now swinging wide. Still, even Riffle didn’t see the Cannabis Corner coming — a store where pot is not only tolerated by the government but promoted by it, like stamps, or maps, or Smokey Bear tchotchkes. “That’s something that would’ve been anathema six or seven years ago,” Riffle said.


Your kid is really sick, but the doctor says it’s ‘just a virus’

Your child has been coughing for days; she hasn’t slept in three nights (which means that you haven’t slept in three nights). She has a fever, has morphed into a living snot factory and has a rash that you think might be leprosy. Or smallpox. Or poison ivy. So you call the pediatrician, who agrees to squeeze you in. When you arrive, you are ushered immediately into that germ-ridden purgatory pediatricians call the “Sick Child Waiting Room.” You strongly warn your child not to touch anything — because no matter how sick your kid is, the ones who were there earlier might have been sicker. And finally you see the doctor, who does a quick physical exam from as far away as his arms will allow, and scribbles something on your checkout sheet. “It’s just a virus. He’ll be fine,” he says, and sends you off, leaving you wondering what exactly “just a virus” is supposed to mean and feeling quite confident that your child is far from “fine.” So what, exactly, is “just a virus”? Well, a virus is a certain type of microorganism, or germ. Viruses have some properties that distinguish them from bacteria and other less common infections, but unless you own a microscope, a lab coat and a petri dish, you probably don’t really care. Calling something “just a virus” is really misleading, because there are some pretty wicked viruses out there. HIV, polio and Ebola are all viruses. The herpes virus that causes mouth sores in some people can cause brain hemorrhages, seizures and death in infants. Other viruses can lead to cancer, liver failure and heart failure. (Bigstock) Fortunately, most of them don’t. In fact, most of them don’t cause any symptoms at all. And most of the viruses that do produce symptoms will cause some nasal congestion or a sore throat. Really, the vast majority of viral infections are more inconvenient than harmful. But calling something “just a virus” is a bit like saying something is “just an animal.” It could be a cuddly puppy or an angry wolverine; you really need to know more about it before you choose an approach. Of course, when your pediatrician diagnoses your child with “just a virus,” he’s implying that it’s one of those that doesn’t typically cause much harm. There are thousands of viruses out there that can cause cold symptoms, and we don’t tend


infections, but unless you own a microscope, a lab coat and a petri dish, you probably don’t really care. Calling something “just a virus” is really misleading, because there are some pretty wicked viruses out there. HIV, polio and Ebola are all viruses. The herpes virus that causes mouth sores in some people can cause brain hemorrhages, seizures and death in infants. Other viruses can lead to cancer, liver failure and heart failure. (Bigstock) Fortunately, most of them don’t. In fact, most of them don’t cause any symptoms at all. And most of the viruses that do produce symptoms will cause some nasal congestion or a sore throat. Really, the vast majority of viral infections are more inconvenient than harmful. But calling something “just a virus” is a bit like saying something is “just an animal.” It could be a cuddly puppy or an angry wolverine; you really need to know more about it before you choose an approach. Of course, when your pediatrician diagnoses your child with “just a virus,” he’s implying that it’s one of those that doesn’t typically cause much harm. There are thousands of viruses out there that can cause cold symptoms, and we don’t tend to test for them. It would be ridiculously expensive, it wouldn’t change what we do and you probably wouldn’t get the test result until the symptoms had gone away. “Just a virus” is also implying that it’s a problem he can’t do much about. In contrast to bacterial infections, which are typically treated with antibiotics, most viral infections are stomped out by your immune system in a few days. Antibiotics don’t do a thing to treat viruses. There are a handful of viruses that we can immunize against — such as measles and chickenpox — often with very good effectiveness. There also are a few that we can give medicine to treat, such as HIV and herpes. But these tend to be the bad ones, not the ones that cause colds. For the rest of them, you just have to give them time. It’s never really the wrong decision to take your child to the pediatrician. There’s always a chance that there could be something else going on. But for most viral illnesses, your child would probably do just as well waiting it out at home. If you do take your child to the doctor for a virus of the


Breweries’ form of support for D.C. voting rights: A pot-flavored beer

ballot measure last month over threats of jail time by congressional Republicans. Possession, sharing and home cultivation of marijuana is now legal in the District. But Congress has blocked legal sales or purchases of pot. The conflict has spurred sit-ins, marches and, as late as Tuesday, a band of pro-marijuana advocates dressed up in Colonial garb who barged into the Capitol Hill office of House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a leading opponent of legalization in the District. The protesters offered a glass peace pipe of sorts. Chaffetz’s staffers declined. Brewing a marijuana protest beer, however, was far less spontaneous. It’s been fermenting since last fall, said Brandon Skall, chief executive and co-founder of DC Brau. The company and Longmont, Colo.-based Oskar Blues Brewery, both of which can their beer rather than bottling it, had for more than a year been looking for a reason to team up on a brewing project. In e-mails last fall, Skall laid out the case for doing a beer together around D.C.’s legalization effort and the continued plight of the nearly 660,000 D.C. residents who have almost no voting rights in Congress. Oskar executives were sold, and brewers there took to their lab, Skall said. They found three experimental hops that, when combined, produced a distinctly marijuana-like aroma. “The experimental hops were definitely unique,” said DC Brau brewer Christopher Graham. “Some were over the top with melon. Some had a lot of berry notes. But all had that undertone of piney, resinous, dank quality that someone would expect from a nugget” of marijuana, he said. For Skall, the issue is more about the tax bill he said he pays every year to the District while feeling like a second-class citizen. “I’ll tell you straight up, I don’t smoke pot,” Skall said, “but I believe 100 percent in people’s freedom to do so. I think that if we didn’t have people standing for the end of prohibition . . . this business would not be here today.” But at its root, he said, the problem is that the District could only partially legalize marijuana, instead of fully like Colorado, which designated much of the revenue from taxes on pot to go to schools. “Something needs to change with D.C. — it’s ridiculous,” Skall said. “I live here. I’m about to have a second child here. We’re sending our children to school in Washington, D.C.


Severe solar storm bathes northern skies in dazzling green auroras

A severe geomagnetic storm whipped through Earth’s magnetosphere on Tuesday, causing fluctuations on power grids and spawning a green, St. Patrick’s Day-themed aurora that stretched from the Arctic Circle to as far south as Oregon and Illinois. The storm, which began Monday, is among the strongest in the current 11-year solar cycle, earning a rating of a “severe” G4 on a one-to-five scale, which means it had the potential to affect power grids, high-frequency communications and satellite operations. No abnormalities or disconnections, and only minor voltage fluctuations, were reported as of Tuesday afternoon. Interestingly, there was no radiation storm, which typically accompanies geomagnetic storms of this magnitude. Therefore, the Space Weather Prediction Center was not expecting disruption to satellite electronics or polar-routed aviation. But the changes in density in the ionosphere — the very high levels of Earth’s atmosphere — could cause more drag on low-orbit satellites, which operators may have to adjust for with thrusters. Simple GPS technology, like the kind in cars and smartphones, could be affected in the form of difficulties locating your position. The solar wind was not particularly fast, but it was potent enough to cause the severe geomagnetic storm, according to Joe Kunches, director of space weather services at Atmospheric and Space Technology Associates. The storm’s strength came as somewhat of a surprise to forecasters and was probably caused by the combination of two coronal mass ejections from an active sunspot region, forecasters at the prediction center said. Space weather models predicted just a “glancing blow” from these ejections, which instead have caused a stronger disruption here on Earth, and vivid auroras. Sunspots full of high magnetic energy frequently explode and send plumes of radiation called solar flares into space. When these flares and the super-heated plasma that can accompany them interact with Earth’s magnetic field, radiation or radioactive particles sometimes enter the upper atmosphere. These particles can interfere with radio communications and global positioning systems, and when strong enough they can even harm the electrical grid. But they do have at least one positive effect: The impact of the particles with the upper atmosphere creates a beautiful glow known as the northern lights. Because the Earth’s magnetic field funnels charged particles from these solar storms toward its poles, polar regions are much more likely to be affected by them. That’s why the auroras are most frequently seen in the North and South Poles


D.C. news in brief

entire tax penalty for 2015. Residents who qualify for Medicaid can enroll all year. The current penalty for those without health insurance is 1 percent of gross household income over the federal income tax filing threshold or $95 per person — whichever is greater. For 2015, the penalty increases to $325 per person or 2 percent of gross household income over the tax filing threshold — whichever is greater. For information, go to www.dchealthlink.com. Police complaints office seeks community groups as partners The D.C. Office of Police Complaints recently announced a community partnership program to make the office accessible through organizations, government agencies, social service providers, and neighborhood and advocacy groups. The groups identified as partners will have brochures and complaint forms available in their offices and be identified on the OPC Web site as a place to initiate the complaint process or get information about the office. For information on partnering, call 202-727-3838 or go to www.policecomplaints.dc.gov. D.C. centenarians sought for spring luncheon The D.C. Office on Aging is looking for District residents 100 and older to honor at its annual luncheon celebrating centenarians in the spring. To register a centenarian for the invitation-only event, call the Office on Aging at 202-724-5626 or e-mail darlene.nowlin@dc.gov and provide his or her name, birth date and contact information. For information, go to dcoa.dc.gov. Empty Bowl events will help local food pantry The nonprofit food pantry and medical and vocational charity So Others Might Eat is having two Empty Bowl fundraising suppers, from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, 3630 Quesada St. NW, and Wednesday at St. Ann Roman Catholic Church, 5300 N. 10th St., Arlington. Soup and dessert will be served, and guests can select a hand-crafted bowl from the Corcoran College of Art and Design or from local potters. Proceeds go toward meals for homeless D.C. residents. Tickets are $25. For information, call 202-797-8806, Ext. 1131, or e-mail rpotts-dupre@some.org. Skin cancer prevention seminar is Monday Dupont Circle Village, an aging-in-place program for elderly Dupont Circle residents, has scheduled a seminar on skin cancer prevention with dermatologist Marisa Braun of the George Washington University School of Medicine from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday at the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1724 N St. NW. For reservations, call 202-234-2567 or e-mail lindajkh@mac.com. Admission is $10. Members may attend for free. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


Gov. Christie signs bill to allow direct sales by Tesla in New Jersey

New Jersey,” Christie said in a statement Wednesday. A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — Brian Fung restaurants Starbucks to launch delivery service in Seattle, New York Starbucks says it will start delivering to customers in select parts of Seattle and New York City later this year. In Seattle, Starbucks will team up with a company called Postmates to deliver to homes and offices within specific areas. In New York City, delivery will be from existing or newly set-up Starbucks shops in certain buildings, starting with the Empire State Building. Starbucks Chief Digital Officer Adam Brotman said there will be no minimum purchase required, but deliveries will require “a small flat fee.” He declined to say what the fee will be. Delivery workers will accept tips, too. Brotman said the average time for deliveries will be 30 minutes, starting from when the order is placed. For New York City, people will be able use a Web site to place orders. In Seattle, customers would place orders via the company’s mobile app. The hours of operation for delivery are still being determined. Starbucks also said it’s on track for a national rollout of mobile order-and-pay, which lets customers place orders through its apps ahead of time so that drinks and food are ready when they arrive at the store. The program was launched in Portland, Ore., late last year. Mobile order-and-pay will launch in Canada this year as well, and be tested in the United Kingdom, according to the company. — Associated Press Also in Business ● About 40 percent of adult Apple iPhone owners in the United States are interested in buying the new Apple Watch, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. Ipsos surveyed 2,469 Americans aged 18 and older online between March 9 and March 17 and found that 24 percent expressed an interest in purchasing the Apple Watch. The data was weighted to reflect the U.S. population and has a credibility interval — a measure of accuracy — of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. Among the iPhone owners, 39 percent were interested in purchasing the Apple Watch. There were 788 iPhone owners in the survey with a credibility interval of plus or minus 4 percentage points. ● FedEx’s third-quarter profit jumped more than 50 percent and beat Wall Street expectations on a mix of volume growth and lower fuel costs.


‘Hide & Seek’ reveals the beauty in details

In the “Hide and Seek” exhibit, artistic collaborators Susan Eder and Craig Dennis take a close look at butterflies. (Susan Eder and Craig Dennis/Courtesy of Marsha Mateyka Gallery ) Artistic collaborators Susan Eder and Craig Dennis specialize in near-abstract patterns, but they don’t make them. The Northern Virginia photographers find them in nature — gazing at clouds, bananas or other commonplace things through a macro lens. The diptychs in “Hide & Seek,” their show at Marsha Mateyka Gallery, look at butterflies from both sides. The two-panel pictures contrast the undersides of the insects’ wings, which feature mottled browns and eye-shaped ovals as camouflage, with tops of silky blue or red. The vividly single-hued wings are used to attract mates, but when photographed and enlarged dramatically, they resemble color-field paintings. Eder also does solo work, such as the “Mutations” the gallery is showing. One set depicts four-, five- and six-leaf clovers, each biological curiosity endowed with authenticity by such little flaws as small holes and brown spots. The clovers are shown in glass vessels, while Eder arrays orchids in front of black backdrops, highlighting their voluptuous pinkness. Aside from arranging them in pairs or groups, Eder doesn’t manipulate the orchid images. Four-leaf clovers are natural phenomena, but the most unusual orchids (called peloric mutations) result from cloning or genetic alteration. Magnified and isolated, they are both beautiful and bizarre. Eder simply observes, but the greenhouse alchemists who beget such blooms engage in strange magic. Susan Eder/Craig Dennis: Mutations/Hide Seek Zimra Beiner, “Tools for No Purpose.” (Courtesy Zimra Beiner and Cross MacKenzie Gallery) Ruth Lozner In 1927, Philip and Mary Rosner signed a lease for a space at Baltimore’s Belair Market. That scrap of paper was a practical matter then, but now, some 90 years later, it has become a metaphor, or a fragment of one. Ruth Lozner’s “Legacies,” at Hillyer Art Space, assembles specific artifacts to conjure a general impression of past lives and dispersed communities. The local artist works with what’s left to commemorate what’s lost. These combines are not in the style of Robert Rauschenberg’s, which are more absurd and very much of their Pop Art moment. Lozner prefers venerable domestic objects — shoes, a straight razor, a brittle baby dress — and timeworn hues. (She writes that she follows “in the traditions of surrealism and dada, with a back story of folk art.”) Some objects are repurposed, and


Fixing inequality, starting with the youngest

Michael Gerson’s March 17 op-ed column, “Poverty and ‘Our Kids,’ ” dealing with Robert D. Putnam’s book “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis,” hit the nail on the head. The protests over race in Ferguson, Mo., have their origin in the inequality of children. I agree that this is largely due to the collapse of the blue-collar economy. We must find the means to train our youth via financial support at all educational levels. At the same time, opportunities are required for their elders to work on much-needed infrastructure where advanced knowledge is not required. Remember the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression? David Atlas, Silver Spring


England prepares a funeral fit for a king

helped to confirm that the skeleton excavated was indeed that of England’s last Plantagenet king. After recent tests, scientists say they are 99.999 percent sure that remains exhumed in 2012 are those of the king. Richard III died in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, only two years after becoming king, and his burial at the time was a hasty affair. But five centuries on, the long-lost monarch will be given a modern-day funeral with a splash of British pomp . Led by armor-suited knights on horseback, a funeral cortege on Sunday will tour local sites connected to Richard III’s final days, including the place he is presumed to have died and the church where some think he went to Mass on the eve of his fatal battle against the troops of Henry Tudor. The procession will then return to Leicester for a Sunday evening service at Leicester Cathedral, the king’s final resting place. Leicester, a city about a 100 miles northwest of London, seems fully aware that this is an incredible moment in its history. Over the next few days, there will be book launches, medieval-themed gallery exhibitions and talks by the genetic experts and archaeologists involved in the dig and identification of the remains. At University of Leicester’s “King Richard III Day” Saturday, visitors were invited to examine skeletal remains and snack on food eaten in Richard’s day, such as venison pie. “We hoped there might be some interest in a medieval king, but I think we’ve all been taken aback by the global phenomena that it’s become,” said Philippa Langley, a screenwriter and member of the Richard III Society, a group that thinks the king was much maligned by the Shakespeare play that depicts a hunchback king who orders the murder of his young nephews in the Tower of London and dies in battle crying out for his horse. Langley was the driving force — and fundraiser — behind the dig, convinced that Richard III’s remains had not been flung into the nearby river as some historians thought, but instead buried underneath a parking lot that was once the site of the former Greyfriars Church. And there they were. But even after a skeleton with a curved spine was found, further genetic detective work was needed. Historians were able to trace Richard III’s eldest sister, Anne of York, to Ibsen’s mother, Joy. She died in 2008,


Brooklyn Rider string quartet provides two hours of unalloyed listening joy

Brooklyn Rider. (Sarah Small) Brooklyn Rider, the string quartet from Brooklyn everybody talks about, played a concert at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue on Saturday night under the auspices of Washington Performing Arts. The only common denominator of its program, 12 new works created between 2012 and 2014, was that everything was written for string quartet. Played with complete commitment, sympathy and fierce virtuosity, the evening was two fascinating hours of unalloyed listening pleasure. A couple of years ago, Brooklyn Rider, known individually as violinist Johnny Gandelsman, violist Nicholas Cords and the brothers Jacobsen, violinist Colin and cellist Eric, decided to celebrate a decade of playing together with an ambitious commissioning project called Brooklyn Rider Almanac. They invited composers from a variety of musical backgrounds, including jazz, rock and folk, American and not, to write short works for string quartet inspired by some artistic impulse of the past 50 years. Some of the fruits of the Almanac project were showcased Saturday night. Among the works of a dozen composers, ranging in age from 31 to 64, was a richly textured piece called “ArpRec 1” by Tyondai Braxton, which was commissioned by Washington Performing Arts and heard for the first time. Space limitations dictate the merest suggestion here of the concert’s extraordinary diversity. Dana Lyn’s “Maintenance Music,” inspired by the site-specific art of Mierle Ukeles at the New York Department of Sanitation, evoked what might have been the distant sound of traffic or a slightly wheezy concertina in some of the subtlest and most idiomatic string writing of the evening. The drummer of the alternative-rock band Wilco, Glenn Kotche, composed “Ping Pong Fumble Thaw,” brilliantly exploiting pizzicato (plucking the strings), spiccato (bouncing the bow hair on the strings) and col legno (touching the strings with the wooden part of the bow) effects. These percussive gestures were further expanded in Gonzalo Grau’s Venezuelan merengue, “Five-Legged Cat,” which intermittently required the players to snap their fingers, slap their thighs and stomp the floor. “The Haring Escape,” by Daniel Cords, brother of the violist, touchingly recalled the vibrant murals of Keith Haring, whose career was curtailed at age 32 by AIDS. Padma Newsome paid tribute to the Australian outback and Arrente-born artist Albert Namatjira with “Gaps and Gorges.” Singer-songwriter Christina Courtin contributed perhaps the most direct and least self-conscious work on the program, “Tralala,” paradoxically inspired by the complex and highly self-conscious Igor


Marathon race lotteries: Are the odds going to be in your favor this season?

Runners head under the Memorial Drive bridge near Arlington Cemetary to start the 2013 Marine Corps Marathon. The MCM instituted a lottery in 2004. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post) “Oh my god, I got in!” I spun around in my chair, lifted my hands and almost started doing the jig. My colleagues looked at me in wonder. Usually, I don’t get this excited about work. I had received an e-mail on March 3 from the New York Road Runners Club, saying I was selected to run the 2015 New York City Marathon. This was my first time entering the lottery and frankly, I’m beyond surprised I got in. (And for the record, I didn’t say I was a journalist.) This year, 14,326 applicants were selected from the non-guaranteed entry lottery process, up from 9,170 in the 2014 lottery. However, 80,080 runners applied, making that about an 18 percent acceptance rate. Runners lucky enough to get a spot in the New York City Marathon found out the lottery results this month. (Jason Decrow/AP) Judging from comments on social media, making or not making the lottery is almost akin to running the race. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat! Yet it’s a sign that these races are very popular affairs. New York isn’t the only major marathon with a lottery system. Chicago’s lottery runs until April 21, while the Marine Corps Marathon’s lottery system just closed. Aside from Boston, which has entries based on time qualifications, the rest of the World Marathon Majors in London, Berlin and Tokyo use lottery systems for non-guaranteed entries. According to the Marine Corps Marathon’s race director, Rick Nealis, he and his staff were surprised by the demand when they instituted a lottery in 2004. (Previously, and again afterward, it was first come, first served.) “That was a real eye-opener, in that it really was the first time that we honestly didn’t know how many didn’t get in,” Nealis said. “People are not getting into New York, into Chicago. There’s a lot of people out there that want to run marathons.” This year’s lottery is the second after the Corps re-instituted the lottery after the marathon sold out in record time in 2013, causing servers to crash and frustrating hopeful participants. Corps officials say this lottery process will be much smoother than last year’s and there’s plenty of time for participants to register. “We want


At Strathmore, Baltimore Symphony goes waltzing in an interesting way

Sol Gabetta performed the Haydn Cello Concerto in C Major on Sunday with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. (Marco Borggreve) The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Marin Alsop, celebrated the waltz at Strathmore on Sunday afternoon. In a curious programming twist, music from early-19th-century Vienna, where the waltz was essentially perfected by composers such as Lanner and the father and son Johann Strauss, was not heard. Instead there were two waltz extravaganzas by the French composer Maurice Ravel and a suite from the waltz-permeated opera “Der Rosenkavalier” by the Bavarian composer Richard Strauss, all composed in the early 20th century. Sandwiched in between was a Haydn concerto. Ravel’s lush orchestral music requires infinite subtlety of texture combined with rhythmic finesse. Placing it first on the program, before the orchestra is fully warmed up, is risky, as the uncertain performance of the “Valses Nobles et Sentimentales” demonstrated. There was some excellent playing by individual musicians, and Alsop took great care in shaping phrases. Yet overall, the performance failed to gel, with colors lacking focus and rhythmic transitions sounding a bit flat-footed. The other big Ravel piece, “La Valse,” opened the second half. By then the orchestra had found its French groove, and the work’s shape and contours were readily discernible. The suite from Strauss’s 1911 opera, “Der Rosenkavalier,” though approved by the composer, is thought to have been constructed by conductor Artur Rodzinski around 1945. Here orchestra and conductor sounded on a firm footing. If the musical momentum could have used a more pliant lilt, the textures had all the appropriate sparkle. The Haydn Cello Concerto in C Major, a work discovered only in 1961, was the highlight of the afternoon. The soloist was Sol Gabetta, an Argentine of French and Russian descent who now lives in Switzerland, where she runs her own chamber music festival. In addition to her instrumental mastery and beautiful sound, she is a musician with ideas. Her Haydn was stylish and lively, and the slow movement had a hushed intimacy that was deeply moving. Rucker is a freelance writer.


Book review: ‘Frog,’ by Mo Yan

would flatten the earth. So we must lower the birth rate, no matter what it costs. That will be China’s greatest contribution to humanity.” Tadpole, Gugu’s nephew and the novel’s narrator, concurs: “If no one had done what she did, it is truly hard to say what China might be like today.” More environmentally aware than his fellow villagers, he adds: “When all is said and done, we live together on this tiny planet, with its finite resources. Once they’re gone, they’re not coming back, and seen from this perspective, Westerners’ critiques of China’s family-planning policies are unfair.” Tadpole’s case is strengthened years later when he is almost killed by a teenage hoodlum who turns out to be one of the few fetuses that Gugu, in a moment of weakness, decided against terminating. But this book is no polemic supporting the necessary if heartless one-child policy. The emotional scenes of fathers and mothers risking punishment, fines and even their lives to have babies outshout the quiet explanations given by the main characters. Tadpole struggles with all this as he tries to give birth to a play about Gugu’s career. The novel takes the form of four long letters that he writes to a former teacher, recording anecdotes about Gugu in a rambling, episodic style. It is artfully artless: At one point, he apologizes, “Using this sort of language to describe Gugu’s work may seem inappropriate, but I can’t come up with anything better,” and he thanks his correspondent for telling him “that a little bit of reorganisation could turn it into a publishable novel.” Frog" by Mo Yan (Viking) But Tadpole is a rather bland character. More vibrant is Gugu herself, who undergoes many transformations: from a gifted midwife, to an independent-minded woman who defies the brutal dictates of the Cultural Revolution, to an equally brutal enforcer of the one-child policy. Late in life, she repents by marrying a man who molds clay babies based on her descriptions of all the fetuses she aborted.“I admit there are issues with Gugu’s mental state,” Tadpole says diplomatically. The script of his nine-act play functions as the novel’s epilogue. In it,Tadpole, now in his 50s, is celebrating the one-month anniversary of his first son when a crazed surrogate mother steals the child. A televised courtroom scene then reenacts a Ming-era Judge Bao crime story (one of many allusions to classic Chinese fiction). Here,


Steven Smith, tea entrepreneur, dies at 65

from cancer, said his daughter, Carrie Smith-Prei. The Navy veteran entered the tea business after returning from the Vietnam War in 1971 and took high-end tea drinking to mainstream consumers across America. With his companies Tazo Tea, Stash Tea and Steven Smith Teamaker, Mr. Smith added refined tea brands to the menus of the nation’s restaurants. Starbucks, the world’s biggest coffee-shop chain, bought Tazo Tea in 1999, five years after Mr. Smith created the brand. The Seattle-based company offers nearly 40 varieties of black, green and herbal teas under the Tazo brand through its more than 20,000 locations worldwide, according to its Web site. After agreeing to buy Atlanta-based Teavana Holdings in 2012, Starbucks began to replace Tazo teas with products from its more recent acquisition, according to a 2014 article on the Web site of Canadian broadcaster CTV. Steven Dean Smith was born May 29, 1949, in Portland. After dropping out of Portland State University, he joined the Navy and served on the aircraft carrier Hancock during the Vietnam War. After his discharge, he tapped the growing trend in organic living and managed a health-food store in Portland. He then went into business with Steve Lee and became a partner in Stash Tea. Stash had annual revenue of $10 million, and it became one of America’s largest specialty-tea companies, according to the Oregonian. It was sold to Japan’s Yamamotoyama Co. in 1993. The next year, he started Tazo Tea, selling blends with New Age packaging carrying such names as “Zen” and “Awake” for $4.49 a box, more than double the price paid for most other tea brands in the United States, according to a 2014 article in Portland Monthly magazine. Starbucks bought Tazo for $9 million, and Mr. Smith remained at the company until 2006, when he retired to the south of France. Coming out of retirement a year later, Mr. Smith started Steven Smith Teamaker with a special focus on the origins of each product’s ingredients on the packaging, allowing its customers to read what they were drinking. With a staff of about 30, the company sells its tea through 2,000 U.S. stores, including Williams-Sonoma Inc. and Whole Foods Market, Portland Monthly said. Mr. Smith’s first marriage, to Teri Schwarz, ended in divorce. Survivors include his second wife, the former Kim DeMent; a daughter from his first marriage; and a son from his second marriage. — Bloomberg News


NATO’s new perils

at the Brussels Forum, organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, of which I’m a trustee. The problem is that it’s hard to see how current sanctions policy will lead to a true deescalation, unless Russian President Vladimir Putin has a sudden conversion. Russian analysts here say it could take years for sanctions to bite so much that they force a policy change. Leaving aside whether a Russian economic breakdown would really be in the West’s interest, sanctions may have a perverse outcome in the near term: Rather than encouraging Putin and his cronies to change course, they may instead empower the most corrupt and conservative forces in Russia. Sanctions had just this unintended outcome in Iraq during the 1990s, when controls that were meant to punish the regime of Saddam Hussein enfeebled the mass economy but enriched elite regime cronies who could evade sanctions. Russians here warned that just such a process may be underway in Russia. NATO has learned to live with frozen conflicts near its borders, such as between Georgia and the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; and between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Diplomatic efforts to resolve these disputes have been underway for years, with little progress. But a frozen conflict with Russia itself would be considerably more dangerous. The status quo, with Ukraine vulnerable and sanctions continuing, would mean increasing isolation and impoverishment of a Russian economy that was foundering long before Putin annexed Crimea and triggered reprisals. Russians can probably live with a declining economy — their ability to endure suffering is part of the Russian national identity — but this course seems likely to produce a Russia that’s ever more lawless, unsteady and prone to violence, internally and externally. The Brussels Forum discussions explored another dilemma for NATO: As a conventional military alliance, it is ill-prepared for the “hybrid warfare” Russia has waged in Ukraine, which has been closer to a paramilitary covert action to support proxy forces than to a traditional military attack. Breedlove acknowledged this problem and said that NATO needed to mount an “all of government” response to Moscow, including information operations and other tools that are traditionally used by intelligence agencies or foreign ministries, not military alliances. While NATO leaders recognize they need these strategies, the debate about boosting the alliance usually centers on military hardware and whether countries are spending the promised 2 percent of