Can the Steam Machine succeed? Readers debate

the Steam console for long. Once users can buy standard Steam hardware with a huge catalog of cheap and innovative games at launch, Steam OS will blow them out of the water. jwilker2 While I agree with the majority of your comment, I would point out that game development on Linux is no trivial task although it would be significantly aided by the SteamBox. Linux has always lacked the unifying proprietary underpinnings Windows and closed console manufacturers have made the 'accepted' standards which allow those platforms to enforce a more formal stricture on their developers. Game console manufacturers have another notable advantage in 'freezing' their hardware in each release. On Wednesday, I argued that "Patent thickets owned by IBM, Microsoft and other incumbent technology companies act as a tax on innovation, transferring wealth from today's innovators to the innovators of the past." bsr811 responded: This is a criticism, not of patent thickets, but of the underlying principle of the patent system. A single patent (as well as a thicket) will transfer "wealth from today's innovators to the innovators of the past." The argument about whether that incentive is a good one is well-documented, and necessarily includes a discussion of the counter-incentive of disclosure, i.e., you can't have a patent if you refuse to disclose your discovery to the public. The legislative proposals you mention will have no effect on that debate, which rears its head more often in academia than in Congress. The patent thicket problem is not so much about the fact that a patent grants the holder the right to exclude others from use, but about the fact that a company with a thousand patents, can force an unfair licensing negotiation by reserving for itself superior information about the risks and rewards. If both the patent holder and the accused infringer had perfect information about the patents being asserted, they could make a rational decision about the liability risk and come to an appropriate license cost. This is in fact what the Sun attorneys did with the 7 known patents IBM presented in the above anecdote. The problem arose when IBM then alluded to an immense collection of patents of which Sun had no information, but which IBM did have information. As a result of the disparate information available, IBM was able to strong-arm a license fee. Thanks to all our readers for their thoughtful comments this week.


Dancing on the debt ceiling: Brace for impact

The Capitol (Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press) Let me interrupt the fear over the looming government shutdown to convince you that if you’re not freaked out about having to wait for Speaker John Boehner to choose between his caucus and our country in the fight to raise the debt ceiling, you ought to be. The impending battle over the full faith and credit of the United States is exponentially worse than the 2011 debacle that led to the first-ever credit rating downgrade. I thought it was just me, but it turns out the absolute confidence that the White House and Congress would work things out before the deadline in 2011 is absolutely gone now. “In 2011, despite the histrionics, all signs pointed to a messy but stable conclusion to the debt ceiling. The situation now is far more dire,” Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at the centrist think tank Third Way, told me Friday. “There’s a one in four chance that we crack the debt ceiling. It may be fixed 24 hours later when the markets swoon, but the short- and long-term damage it would do to the economy is anyone’s guess. We’ve never been here before.” Steve Bell Remember, raising the debt ceiling would not result in new spending. Doing so would not be the equivalent of giving President Obama a blank check, as far too many tea partyers erroneously believe. Increasing the legal borrowing limit of the U.S. would allow the Treasury to pay for things already bought by Congress. To do otherwise would open the U.S. economy and the global economy to unimaginable risks. “We don’t fully understand what might happen, the dangers involved, because no Congress has ever actually threatened default,” the president said Friday. Or as Derek Thompson wrote in the Atlantic last week, “The truly scary thing is that we actually have no idea what will happen.” That’s because, from the time the Constitution went into effect in 1789 until 2011, it was unthinkable that the United States would not meet its financial obligations. As The Post noted yesterday, when the nation flirted with default two years ago, consumer confidence fell, hiring stalled and markets fell. The constant flirtation with default might have numbed folks to potential negative market reaction if the national borrowing limit isn’t raised by Oct. 17. But this much we do know will happen if the debt ceiling isn’t raised


Wonkbook: Obamacare’s October surprise

have chosen to stay invisible in this budget clash. All ridiculous prohibitions come to an end interlude: 3) Justice Dept. goes all-in against North Carolina The Justice Department will sue North Carolina over voting law, and they're going after everything. Fight is on over efforts to tighten voting rules; critics see it as a violation of Voting Rights Act. NYT does great documentaries interlude: 4) The Janet Yellen rollout begins What Would Janet Yellen Do? This is not your father's economy, and it's really much harder for young people than it once was. "The on-ramp to adulthood is delayed and harder to reach for young people today, a reality that is changing the country's society and economy, according to a new report. More demanding job requirements, coupled with the pressures of the recession, have delayed the transition to adulthood for young people in the past decade and earned them the title of "the new lost generation," according to the report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, published Monday...Through analyzing about three decades of census data—from 1980 to 2012—the study found that on average, young workers are now 30 years old when they first earn a median-wage income of about $42,000, a marker of financial independence, up from 26 years old in 1980." Caroline Porter in The Wall Street Journal. Explainer: In one of the most surprising economic stories Wonkbook has read all year, apparently the U.S. textile industry is making a comeback. Mother Earth interlude: 5) Are gun accidents way more common than we think? The hidden toll of guns on children. Reading material interlude: The worst sentence we read today. Wonkblog Roundup SNL takes on Obamacare, Ted Cruz, and Breaking Bad ‘Shame on us’: How businesses brought the debt limit mess onto themselves Et Cetera Your Monday-morning longread: Inside the nation's biggest experiment with school choice. Stephanie Banchero in The Wall Street Journal. The important story you'd have otherwise missed: Leak of al-Qaeda plot undermined U.S. intel. Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt in The New York Times. Lawyers Olson and Boies want Virginia as same-sex marriage test case As Congress fights over the budget, agencies go on their ‘use it or lose it’ shopping sprees Republicans and Democrats are treating the 2012 election like a mandate. They’re both wrong Got tips, additions, or comments? E-mail me. Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams.


Shutdown threat ebbs for D.C.

For ex-offenders convicted as minors, coming home means “finding new footing without much of a foundation” (Post) Taxi Commission says it will consider exceptions to credit-card deadline on “case-by-case basis” (City Desk, DCist, AP) Half of DCPS principals are rated “developing” — a notch above “ineffective” (Post) University police departments ponder policing off campus (Post) CFO pick Jeff DeWitt has already taken a whirlwind tour of the Metro system (Post editorial) The local courts won’t be spared in a shutdown (Legal Times) David Grosso: Nothing “nonchalant” about my support for civil disobedience (Post letter) MedStar used Navy Yard shootings to undermine nurse staffing bill (WBJ) Work begins on north-south streetcar corridor (WAMU-FM) Keith Forney would like to know how he lost this contract (WBJ) Former DCPS academics chief named Mississippi’s education superintendent (AP, Clarion Ledger) Rasmussen poll: Only 25 percent of Americans support D.C. statehood (City Desk) With hotel set to open next year, “definite uptick in bookings” at Convention Center (Capital Business) More Height Act musings (Post op-ed, Capital Business) Howard U. president on big incoming class: “There’s a demand for the Howard product” (Post) One dead, six wounded in weekend shootings (Post, Post) FEMS members hailed for Navy Yard response (Post) Deferred-prosecution deal in drag assault has activists miffed (Blade) D.C. health exchange chief: “I thought I was announcing good news, and no one wrote about it” (Wonkblog) Learn more about the exchange on today’s Kojo show (WAMU-FM) Muriel Bowser doubts decision to move forward with Hill East plan with one bid: “Not only do you probably not get the best price, you may not even get the best ideas” (Roll Call) New Web site culls data on school feeder patterns (GGW) Alice Rivlin remembers the 1995/96 shutdowns (Wonkblog) The future of fast food can be found on 14th Street NW (Wonkblog) Goodbye, National Aquarium (WRC-TV) Don’t let D.C. become a Amsterdam-esque bicycle-crazed dystopia (G’town Dish) Does this correlation equal causation? You make the call! (WRC-TV) Luxury living is at a premium in D.C. real estate (Post Magazine) Monty Hoffman tells Wendy Rieger that Southwest Waterfront construction will begin in “a few months” (WRC-TV) Inside Chris Donatelli’s Forest Hills lair (Post) No, the lack of a J Street has nothing to do with John Jay (Post column) Help some D.C. teachers help their kids (DCist) Georgetown still loves Jack Evans (G’town Dish) Muriel Bowser has an Evans-type parking


SmarTrip card changes start Tuesday

Metro has a new automatic reload system for SmarTrip cards that can keep you away from the fare machines. (Robert Thomson/The Washington Post) While you’re pondering the effects of the impending federal shutdown on commuting in the D.C. region, remember that Metro is launching several changes in the fare system on Tuesday. The cost of a new Metro SmarTrip card will drop from $5 to $2. I’d pitch this as a break for tourists, if I thought they’d have someplace to go. The Smithsonian museums and the zoo would be closed during a shutdown. But the shutdown will end someday, won’t it? At that point, tell your out of town visitors they should spend the $2 on the plastic cards. Using the paper card costs $1 extra per trip. With the drop in the card’s price, the purchase rules become more complicated. People who buy the SmarTrip at a Metrorail station vending machine or a CVS store will still pay $10, but the card will come loaded with $8 in value rather than $5. Riders will be able to purchase a card for $2 with no pre-loaded value at any Metro Sales Office or commuter store and some Giant and Safeway stores. A related change also effective Tuesday: Riders won’t be able to exit the fare gates with a negative balance of more than $1.50. A negative balance means the trip you just took cost more than the value you had on the card. If the negative value exceeds $1.50 — let’s say, if it’s $2 — you will need to go over to an Exitfare machine in the station to add more value to the card. Exitfare machines accept $1, $5 and $10 bills, but not debit or credit cards. (If you notice someone ahead of you on the fare gate line repeatedly tapping a card to no effect, it may be a result of the new rule on the negative balance.) SmarTrip has a feature called Auto Reload, which would spare you that Exitfare hassle by automatically adding value to the card when it drops below $10. Since I hate waiting in line for the fare machines, some of which aren’t in the mood for SmarTrip transactions when I get there, the auto reload seemed like a good bet, so I signed up for it. If you don’t already have a SmarTrip account online, you can start to


The federal shutdown: Little impact expected for airports, Metro

The popular Circulator bus service will continue in the event of a federal shutdown. (The Washington Post) The federal shutdown is not expected to have an immediate impact on service for commuters or airports. If anything roads, trains and buses may be roomier since so much of the federal workforce will not be on the job. However, a lengthy shutdown may result in cutbacks in service as officials adjust to reduced ridership. Metro Metro trains and buses will continue to operate on a regular weekday schedule. The system will open and close at regular times. But given that federal workers make up a significant portion of Metro’s weekday ridership, there may be much more room on those trains and buses. However, Metro officials said that if the shutdown results in significantly lower ridership, they may make service adjustments. That could mean fewer eight-car trains. Riders will be given advanced notice should such changes be made. MARC Maryland officials said MARC service will operate on a normal schedule even if there is a government shutdown. However, like Metro, service may be altered if the shutdown remains in place and ridership drops significantly. Update, 4:45 p.m Here’s a breakdown of MARC service for Oct. 1 in the event of a government shutdown: Penn Line – No Changes Brunswick Line – Train 875 will be canceled. A special midday train will operate out of Union Station at 2 p.m. making all stops to Martinsburg. Camden Line – Train 850 will be canceled. A special midday train will operate out of Union Station at 2:15 p.m. making all stops to Camden. VRE Normal service. Circulator Officials with the D.C. Department of Transportation said that Circulator service will operate as normal. Parking enforcement in the District Now that D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has declared all D.C. government employees essential, parking enforcement will continue as normal. Airports The shutdown is not expected to have an impact on flight operations. Air traffic controllers will remain on the job, as will Transportation Security Administration officers who screen passengers at airports. Customs and border protection officers will also continue their work. Amtrak Amtrak officials said Monday that they will be open for business and issued the following statement: “Amtrak will continue normal operation of its national intercity and high-speed passenger rail network in the event of a short-term federal government shutdown. Passengers planning to travel on Amtrak trains in


Fed-worker commuters talk shutdown

During Monday morning’s commute, plenty of people in the downtown Washington area seemed to have the shutdown on their minds, and some eagerly talked about it as they rode in on Metro or walked to their offices. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) Some couldn’t give their names because their respective agencies prohibited them from talking to the media or sharing their opinions. Others were concerned their clients would get nervous if they were seen as taking sides or blaming politicians. At the Gallery Place Metro stop, Emma Bullock – who works as a geologist at the Smithsonian’s Natural History museum –quickly stopped reading her newspaper to share her thoughts on the pending shutdown. “I think it is ridiculous,” she said. “It is a huge waste of time. The fact that a bunch of politicians are playing chicken with each other is frustrating.” She said her department of roughly 40 employees at the museum spent several hours over the last week preparing for the shutdown, figuring out who is essential to come in and who is not and which labs they would have to close. With no children and only two cats, Bullock said she volunteered to come in. Many of her colleagues, she said, told their supervisors they couldn’t come in because the day care center at their job is going to close if there’s a shutdown and they didn’t have – or couldn’t afford – other arrangements for their children. Bullock said her department has had to deal with how they’ll communicate with each other, given that employees who are not required to come in are not supposed to even check their work e-mails. “It makes me sad if we have to have a shutdown,” she said. “It’s never the Senate or the House who suffers. They still get paid. They still get benefits. It is the staff and the public who have to deal with it all.” Who’s at fault for the situation? “I blame the career politicians,” she said. “If they had to live paycheck to paycheck like most people they’d find it a lot easier to come to an agreement.” A few blocks from the Smithsonian, one 22-year employee of the Justice Department who said she wasn’t authorized by her department to talk to the media about the shutdown walked quickly to her office. That didn’t stop her from sharing her opinion. The potential shutdown, she said,


You will no longer be able to watch this baby panda online if the government shuts down

This is the sort of adorable panda cub broadcast that will no longer be available from the National Zoo in the event of a government shutdown. (REUTERS/Smithsonian's National Zoo/Handout) You can watch the National Zoo's yet un-named female panda cub be nursed by her mother Mei Xiang right now on the zoo's panda cam. Go do it, I'll wait. But if congressional leaders are unable to come to an agreement to avoid a government shutdown, the roughly half of federal employees who will be affected won't even have the solace of watching the panda cub to distract them from their lack of paychecks. The zoo announced on Twitter that the all live animal cams would go dark during a shutdown, along with in real life public options. During a #shutdown, all vehicle, pedestrian & bike paths into the Zoo will be closed. None of our live animal cams will be broadcast.


Scientists at MIT and Harvard have constructed a light saber! Their skills are complete!

Your skills are complete. (Chris Pizzello/Associated Press) Indeed they are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen! Let me explain. Several scientists at Harvard and MIT are basically Jedi now. Harvard Professor of Physics Mikhail Lukin and MIT Professor of Physics Vladan Vuletic, working with colleagues at the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms (which would be an okay but not overwhelming name for a band) have constructed a light saber — or at least something that closely resembles one. After several months of intense training — levitating their droids, climbing into caves made of tree roots and having disturbing visions of the future that included cities in the clouds and (more disastrously) accidental spoilers for the final episodes of Breaking Bad, they finally honed their skills to the point of being able to build the elegant weapons of a more civilized age. A little actual science to leaven this exultation: What has actually happened is that scientists at Harvard and MIT created a medium in which photons behave like they have mass (our operating assumption for a while has been that they are “massless particles”) and from which they emerge bonded together into a molecule. This is nifty for reasons other than that we are marginally closer to light sabers than we used to be — it could come in handy in quantum computing — but mainly it is exciting because we are marginally closer to light sabers than we used to be. And this isn’t one of those scientific breakthroughs that actually bears little resemblance to Star Wars (“We found the Higgs boson, which is kind of like the Force, in a sense?”; “This recently discovered lizard totally belongs on Dagobah!”) except in the minds of the people who write up news stories, who are always desperately searching for some concept they can relate to. No, this time the scientists themselves said it was a good analogy! “It’s not an inapt analogy to compare this to light sabers,” Harvard professor of physics Mikhail Lukin told the Harvard Gazette. “When these photons interact with each other, they’re pushing against and deflecting each other. The physics of what’s happening in these molecules is similar to what we see in the movies.” As far as next steps go, all they need to do is defeat their fathers in combat and bring balance to the Force, but after constructing what is basically a light


Shutdown and kids: What to do when the zoo is closed

Sure, school is still in session. But if you're home with your little one or have a child whose day care center is on the list of places that may be shuttered, there is more to do in the area than just hitting the zoo (closed), Glen Echo (closed) or one of the museums on the Mall (closed, closed and closed). So we may have a shutdown. That means no work, no pay and no free Smithsonian museums. But here are some fun options that might provide for happy memory making in the midst of our area’s chaotic closures. For more information on these places, click the bold text. View Photo Gallery —So we have a shutdown. That means no work, no pay and no free Smithsonians. But here are options for some fun that might actually provide for some happy memory making in the midst of our area’s chaotic closures. For more information on these places, click the bold text.


National Weather Service would continue operating in shutdown

(National Weather Service) If the Federal government shuts down “[E]mergency operations that protect against a significant and imminent threat to the safety of human life and property” are excluded (or “excepted”) from the shutdown the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says. The exclusion would affect 3,935 employees at the National Weather Service (NWS) who forecast the weather, issue warnings, support radar, satellite and other weather monitoring, and are involved in computer model operations. Within NOAA, the NWS is by far the organization with the most employees excluded from a possible shutdown. When the government last shutdown in 1996, the NWS also continued its basic weather operations, as I wrote in a 2011 blog post: During the last Federal shutdown in 1996, NWS offices remained at least partially operational. For example, the NWS Office in Sterling, Va. disseminated forecasts and warnings during the Blizzard of 1996 which coincided with the shutdown. In order to pay some contract employees and even utility bills at NWS offices, the agency used 1995 carry-over funds (according to an article published in the Washington Post on 1/17/96). In a shutdown scenario, internal efforts to support the build-out of polar satellites, whose data is important for forecasting, are also slated to move forward. “The operational mission for JPSS [Joint Polar Satellite System] will be supported by excepted personnel,” said Ciaran Clayton, spokesperson for NOAA. A gap in polar satellite data is possible While weather forecasting operations and satellite projects would continue, employees who support weather research would not report for duty. For example, work to further develop and improve the Global Forecasting System (GFS) model would take a pause. The NWS is in the midst of an “arms race” with the Europeans to have the world’s most powerful, accurate weather forecasting model.


Smithsonian closed? Here’s what to do instead.

The government shutdown has the potential to disrupt a lot of things -- government workers' earnings and federal services, for example -- but it's also a precarious situation for your weekend plans. That goes double if you have out-of-town visitors coming to the District during the affected time period: Many of the city's best attractions, like the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo, will be shuttered. What will you do with your disappointed nieces and nephews? Where will you take Great Aunt Mary, who traveled all this way? But the Washington area is so much more than the Mall. For every shuttered museum or park, we've offered up an apt substitute that is privately-run, thus avoiding the shutdown. They may not be free, like the Smithsonians are, but they offer new and different cultural or historical experiences, especially for seasoned Mall-goers. Or at least they'll get you and your kids out of the house. The Banneker-Douglass Museum tells the story of African-Americans in Maryland from the founding of the colony through the present day. (Photo by Lavana Ramanathan/The Washington Post) Anacostia Community Museum The Freer and Sackler Galleries Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden National Air Space Museum/Udvar-Hazy Center National Arboretum The National Archives The Folger Shakespeare Library owns 82 copies of Shakespeare's First Folio -- the largest collection in the world. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) The National Gallery of Art National Museum of African Art National Museum of American History The Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center at Mount Vernon features lifesize statues depicting George Washington at various stages of his life. This one depicts him as a Revolutionary War general astride his horse, Blueskin. (Photo by Dayna Smith/The Washington Post) National Museum of the American Indian National Museum of Natural History National Portrait Gallery National Postal Museum The National Zoo The Renwick Gallery The Smithsonian Castle Smithsonian American Art Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum


Vet groups: Congress and White House ‘playing chicken’ with lives

Updated at 4:53 p.m. Veterans groups have reacted angrily to news that an extended government shutdown will leave the Department of Veterans Affairs unable to make disability compensation and pension payments to veterans. Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters. (Charles Dharapak/AP) Losing the payments could have a devastating impact, particularly on severely wounded veterans who are unable to work and depend on the VA checks, said Tom Tarantino, chief policy officer for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Congress and the White House, they’re playing chicken with people’s lives,” Tarantino said. “That’s where this becomes scary.” “We have to be hopeful that Congress will reach some sort of compromise before millions of disabled veterans and survivors are financially devastated,” said Joe Davis, spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars. Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, plans to introduce legislation Monday evening that would provide funding allowing the Department of Veterans Affairs to continue issuing checks to veterans, a spokesman for his office said. On Friday, the VA issued a “veterans field guide” stating that compensation and pension claims processing and payments would not be affected by a shutdown, The Washington Post reported Friday evening that notwithstanding the field guide, department officials had briefed leaders of the House and Senate veterans affairs committees Friday afternoon that they would run out of money for the payments in two to three weeks. Perplexed congressional officials complained that the VA field guide was misleading, and that veterans should know whether to plan for financial disruptions. The VA confirmed the Post report over the weekend, issuing a statement updating the expected impact of a shutdown. While the VA has exempted claims processors so they can process claims, the department will not have money to issue by the end of the month, the statement said. “Those benefits are provided through appropriated mandatory funding, and that funding will run out by late October,” said the VA statement. “At that point VA will be unable to make any payments.” “Think a shutdown won’t hurt veterans? Think again,” Tommy Sowers, the VA’s assistant secretary for public and Intergovernmental affairs, wrote in a tweet Sunday referring to the Post story. Think a shutdown won't hurt veterans? Think again http://t.co/aGXG5hklp8 The House and Senate veterans committees are seeking more clarity from the VA on the impact of a shutdown on veterans, congressional aides said Monday.


A bunch of federal websites will shut down with the government

If the federal government is partly shut down, many online resources will be down or won't be updated. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) The National Zoo's panda cam won't be the only digital casualty if the government shuts down at midnight. Many government Web sites will be down or have limited functionality. Cyrus Farivar at Ars Technica reported Saturday that both the Federal Trade Commission and the Library of Congress sites will be taken offline and replaced with splash pages. The Sunlight foundation says that this includes THOMAS, the official source of legislative information. That means there won't be an official online resource to track when or if Congress comes to a deal to start things back up. A similar fate awaits NASA Web sites, according to the agency's shutdown plan, which notes that the public "will not have televised access to NASA operations and programming or access to the NASA Web site." Even the sites that don't go down may not function at regular capacity. The Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, says the agency's home page will be "updated intermittently." The Federal Elections Commission site will remain online "but static." A number of agencies' contingency plans made no mention of their online presences, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice. But last week, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) provided some general guidance that seems to imply that many government Web sites will be down. OPM advises that the “mere benefit of continued access by the public to information about the agency's activities” doesn't warrant the resources needed for non-essential Web sites to stay up. It does say that if Web site maintenance is needed to avoid “significant damage” to an essential activity, it can remain up, like maintaining the IRS Web site so tax filings and collections can continue during a shut down. But even in that case, online services are to be maintained at the lowest possible level – so while the IRS Web site might stay up, the whole Treasury Department likely would not. The memo also says that if a Web site is down, it should show a standard notice that it will be unavailable during the shutdown. If any part of an agency's site remains accessible, it should post a notice that it may be out of date and information or inquiries submitted through the site may not be processed until after


Kennedy Center’s lucky pre-shutdown timing: Makeover for concert hall, NSO black-tie gala

Kennedy Center chairman David Rubenstein had a long list of people to thank at the National Symphony Orchestra’s 83rd season opener. He started by pointing out the fresh coat of paint in the Concert Hall, the first renovation in 16 years. Music director Christoph Eschenbach at the National Symphony Orchestra’s season opener Sunday night. (Scott Suchman/National Symphony Orchestra) “I want to thank the federal government for paying for it,” Rubenstein told the audience Sunday night. “And I want to thank the painters for finishing before tomorrow night.” The timing, he admitted to laughter, was dumb luck. The gala concert was scheduled more than a year ago, so the $1 million repair and paint job (white, silver, and gold, which nicely matched the NSO’s gleaming new organ) was completed over the summer — long before a government shutdown threatened the national arts complex. Yo-Yo Ma and Cameron Carpenter. (Margot Schulman) The Kennedy Center has an unusual relationship with the feds: The government pays for the building, grounds and upkeep; private donations pay for performances, staff and other programs, explained spokesman John Dow. The shutdown contingency plans allow concerts, shows and educational programs to continue, but tours will be suspended and the building closed until an hour before evening performances. Of the center’s 1,200 full and part-time employees, about 50 are directly impacted by the government going out of business. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts chats with Kennedy Center chairman David Rubenstein at the gala. (Margot Schulman) Which gave the annual NSO gala a certain fin de siècle vibe: VIP patrons (including Justices John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy) in gowns and tuxedos, a post-performance dinner and dancing in a candlelit tent, music lovers clustered around cellist Yo-Yo Ma, organ virtuoso Cameron Carpenter (steampunk classical in a mohawk, feathered Victorian cravat and rhinestone boots), and conductor Christoph Eschenbach. The gala, chaired by former General Dynamics president Jay Johnson and Sydney Johnson, raised $1.3 million for the NSO’s educational programs. Oh, and Rubenstein has a proposal for those warring factions on the Hill. “As all of you have heard, music can be beautiful,” he said. “It can soothe people and make them feel better. So we’d like to invite all 535 members of Congress to come tomorrow for a concert. . .Hopefully afterward something good can come from it.” The Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall is overtaken by scaffolding for its recent


83rd season opener. He started by pointing out the fresh coat of paint in the Concert Hall, the first renovation in 16 years. Music director Christoph Eschenbach at the National Symphony Orchestra’s season opener Sunday night. (Scott Suchman/National Symphony Orchestra) “I want to thank the federal government for paying for it,” Rubenstein told the audience Sunday night. “And I want to thank the painters for finishing before tomorrow night.” The timing, he admitted to laughter, was dumb luck. The gala concert was scheduled more than a year ago, so the $1 million repair and paint job (white, silver, and gold, which nicely matched the NSO’s gleaming new organ) was completed over the summer — long before a government shutdown threatened the national arts complex. Yo-Yo Ma and Cameron Carpenter. (Margot Schulman) The Kennedy Center has an unusual relationship with the feds: The government pays for the building, grounds and upkeep; private donations pay for performances, staff and other programs, explained spokesman John Dow. The shutdown contingency plans allow concerts, shows and educational programs to continue, but tours will be suspended and the building closed until an hour before evening performances. Of the center’s 1,200 full and part-time employees, about 50 are directly impacted by the government going out of business. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts chats with Kennedy Center chairman David Rubenstein at the gala. (Margot Schulman) Which gave the annual NSO gala a certain fin de siècle vibe: VIP patrons (including Justices John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy) in gowns and tuxedos, a post-performance dinner and dancing in a candlelit tent, music lovers clustered around cellist Yo-Yo Ma, organ virtuoso Cameron Carpenter (steampunk classical in a mohawk, feathered Victorian cravat and rhinestone boots), and conductor Christoph Eschenbach. The gala, chaired by former General Dynamics president Jay Johnson and Sydney Johnson, raised $1.3 million for the NSO’s educational programs. Oh, and Rubenstein has a proposal for those warring factions on the Hill. “As all of you have heard, music can be beautiful,” he said. “It can soothe people and make them feel better. So we’d like to invite all 535 members of Congress to come tomorrow for a concert. . .Hopefully afterward something good can come from it.” The Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall is overtaken by scaffolding for its recent repainting. (The Kennedy Center) Also in The Reliable Source Hey, isn’t that . . . ?: Rita Moreno


Day One of the government shutdown: Now what?

It’s here. The first U.S. government shutdown in 17 years takes effect on Tuesday morning after Congress and the White House failed to enact spending legislation for the new fiscal year. The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo shortly before midnight ordering executive-branch agencies to implement their plans for closing down in the absence of appropriations. An estimated 800,000 federal workers now face furloughs indefinitely, while roughly 1.3 million will remain on the job as “excepted” employees because they protect human life and property, or because their positions are paid for by funds outside of congressional appropriations. A view of the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial. (Alex Brandon/AP). Federal agencies informed employees last week and on Monday whether they would be furloughed, but official notices are due to arrive on Tuesday now that the shutdown is official. Federal workers will show up for work on Tuesday regardless of whether they face furloughs, and those who are placed on leave must spend a few hours making preparations for their absences. That means closing down work stations, setting up their out-of-office e-mail alerts, and putting things in order. More on the Post’s Shutdown FAQ page. Agencies will eventually pay excepted employees for work they do during the shutdown, but not until Congress approves a new round of appropriations. The situation for furloughed feds is not so clear, as lawmakers would have to pass legislation that pays them for time they didn’t actually work — through no fault of their own. That’s what legislators did in 1996, but it’s far from certain that today’s Congress would agree to such a deal. Congress on Monday approved legislation to continue paying members of the military during the shutdown. The White House said President Obama signed the “Pay Our Military Act” late Monday. The shutdowns during the Clinton administration lasted a combined 26 days and cost the federal government an estimated $1.4 billion, or roughly $2.1 billion in today’s money, according to calculations around that time from the White House budget office. Some of that loss was due to the toll of stopping and re-starting operations, but most of it resulted from the retroactive payments for agency employees, according to a 1997 report by University of Maryland Baltimore County political scientist Roy T. Meyers. The number of furloughed workers varies widely between agencies. The FBI, for instance, will not place any


Why Obama should still go to Asia if the government stays shut down

(Michael Franchi - Pool/Getty Images) President Obama is scheduled to spend a week in southeast Asia, starting this weekend, as part of his administration's ongoing effort to cultivate American influence in that increasingly important part of the world. Alas, it looks increasingly likely that the congressional impasse that shut down the federal government could continue into the weekend. If that happens, he is widely expected to cancel his trip, as then-President Bill Clinton did during the 1995 shutdown. "If Obama doesn't go he will upset people in Asia for sure. But, he won't go," Thomas Wright, who studies foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, told me on Twitter. "I'd hate him to miss it, but I don't see how he can go. He needs to be in D.C. and be seen to lead, broker a deal, etc." And that's probably what will happen. But going to Asia might actually be more in the United States' long-term interests, the advancement of which is after all Obama's job. In a parallel universe where American presidents are allowed to act purely in the national interest, and not be quite so constricted by the Kabuki theatrics of Washington politics (yes, I know Kabuki is from a different part of Asia), Obama would leave some senior advisers in charge of shutdown negotiations and jet off for Manila. Here's why: what the United States is doing in Southeast Asia, or at least seeking to do there, is really important in a way that this latest D.C. political drama just isn't. The American goal with Obama's trip and over the last few years, not explicit but quite clear, is to organize the region under U.S. leadership, as a counterbalance to China in its own backyard. Southeast Asian economies are rapidly growing; trade through regional seas is becoming a crux of the global economy. Both China and the U.S. are pressing for influence there. The stakes in the shutdown are real, both politically and for the many actual Americans who will be directly affected. But the stakes of American outreach in Asia are continental and generational in scope. I think, here, of this quote from "Confront and Conceal," a 2012 book by the New York Times' David Sanger on Obama-era foreign policy: "If we get China wrong," one of his most senior diplomats said to me, “in thirty years that's the only thing anyone will remember." It's not


Mommy, what did you do in the Great Shutdown?

and collapse, sobbing. They remain this way, immobile, until the government resumes normal operations. 12:06: The president, Dick Cheney and other senior officials of present and former administrations begin to shed their human skins to reveal their true Reptilian forms. 12:07: Congress is still giving speeches, even though John Boehner has turned into a pumpkin. 12:08: Mars Rover stops roving, temporarily becomes the Mars Stationary Object. 12:09: After a long debate among SHIELD, the Pacific Rim-protecting Jaeger program, and Whoever Those Government Guys Are Who Seem To Deal With Superman A Lot, on the subject of making cutbacks to nonessential personnel, Hawkeye gets furloughed. 12:10: Party caucuses threaten to devolve into roving bands of vicious, self-interested predators incapable of thinking more than one step ahead. Frustrated President-Now-Part-Lizard Obama is heard muttering something about how “that might actually be an improvement if they do it in time for the debt-ceiling talks.” 12:11: In absence of government, citizens rush to form fiefdoms under the protection of the strongest and most capable. Chuck Norris’s and Jose Canseco’s respective fiefs swallow several states. 12:12: Panda cam has been off for 12 minutes. Pandas forget how to breathe in absence of viewers to remind them and finally do what nature intended them to do decades ago: go extinct. 12:13: Mob of unruly citizens strolls into a national park and forcibly enjoys the rich array of indigenous wildlife, including several exhibits about stick bugs. A furloughed park ranger looks on, quivering in terror. 12:14: Bereft of public service announcements, teens turn to smoking and drugs with wild abandon. 12:15: Aliens being secretly held in Area-51 go on hunger strike. 12:16: Unable to go to museums, roving mob of Moderately Obnoxious Guys You Went On A Single Date With forms outside the Portrait Gallery and decides to go to a wine tasting instead. 12:17: With cutbacks at the State Department, entire U.S. foreign policy left in the hands of Dennis Rodman. 12:18: Internal Revenue Service guy whose job it is to sit there with a worried expression looking like he understands the tax code goes home, sighs heavily, smiles and puts his feet up. 12:19: Someone unleashes the Kraken. 12:20: Obamacare still goes into effect. “Wait,” the children will interrupt, “I thought it was just nonessential personnel.” “Oh, yes,” I will say. “Anyway, all this was nothing compared to what happened when the debt ceiling rolled around.”


Doors close on D.C.’s basement aquarium

an emotional experience for some. Lisa Pulaski, a volunteer diver at the Baltimore facility, was bummed that things had to come to an end. “To know that this is one of the oldest ones in the nation, it’s sad to see it finally closing down. It’s historical. You don’t want to see it go away, because it’s been here so long,” she said. “It’d be nice if they had another National Aquarium somewhere here on The Mall. … [But] I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen.” The Hoover building is undergoing renovations, which is why these fish and other animals have to find new homes. What will become of this space is a sobering reminder of how banal federal life can be: plans are to use the space as a thoroughfare between the Reagan Building and the renovated space above. “A fancy word for a hallway,” one worker told a dismayed tourist Monday. Around 4 p.m., the staff became visibly anxious. The final ticket sales are usually at 4:30, and the aquarium closes at 5, as it really only takes half an hour to see the whole thing. Workers gathered around the ticket desk, hugging each other occasionally and looking to share that final moment. Yet, the last person to ever buy a ticket at D.C. National Aquarium was a man that made the decision to come just a few hours earlier. “Actually, I didn’t know it was closing until like 2 p.m. when my dad told me. I’d been meaning to come here for a while, so it was [a decision] just at the last moment,” Gabriel Olivero, 26, a Navy hospital corpsman who lives at Ft. Belvoir said. He was there with a female friend- it was the first visit for both of them. “I thought maybe they’d just close it temporarily, but it turns out they don’t have any plans to come back. So, that kinda sucks,” he said. After the final stub was sold, the last tour map was given and the gift shop — picked clean and nearly bare bones — rung up one more sale before shutting down, the inviting voice over on the house speakers felt louder than ever. “The aquarium today is still a gem in our nation’s capital, providing an intimate experience,” she says as part of script that plays on repeat. This day, yes. The next day, no.


Shutdown consequences set to begin for government contractors

Contractors in recent weeks have complained about losses in productivity from preparing for a potential government shutdown, but worse impacts are almost certainly on the way now that the closure has taken effect. (Pete Marovich/Bloomberg) The Department of Homeland Security warned of what would be in store last week in a letter to partner firms. “As a consequence of the lapse, certain planned procurements may be cancelled and certain existing contracts may be stopped, reduced in scope, terminated or partially terminated,” the memo said. DHS promised to notify businesses of any changes that would be necessary, but the answers cannot come soon enough for some firms. A recent Post article quoted company planners saying they found it nearly impossible to determine how the shutdown would affect them because of the many variables involved. Among the factors to consider: Whether contracts are covered by past or future congressional appropriations — the latter would require a new spending deal from lawmakers and the White House — and whether their workers are exempt from furloughs because they assist with essential government functions. At this point, contractors can only wait for word from partner agencies and hope the shutdown ends sooner rather than later to minimize their losses and disruptions. House Speaker John Boehner indicated on Monday that he would ask the House and Senate to appoint members to hash out differences between the two chambers’ proposals. There is no telling how long that process could take, but the last round of shutdowns during fiscal year 1996 lasted a total of 26 days. To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed or e-mail josh.hicks@washpost.com. For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics.


Google celebrates Yosemite National Park — which is closing due to the shutdown

(Google.com) Today's Google Doodle celebrates 123 years of Yosemite National Park. But much like NASA, the Yosemite is having a pretty depressing birthday: The park is in the process of closing due to the government shutdown. According to the agency's contingency plan, 21,379 of the National Park Service's 24,645 employees have been furloughed. Of the remaining 3,266 excepted employees, 2,139 of them are emergency personnel like EMTs, law enforcement, or wildland fire control personnel. The shutdown process for National Parks will take place in two phases. Phase one, presumably in effect now, "includes all activities to notify the public of the closure, secure government records and property, and begin winding down operations to essential activities only" and is supposed to last a day and a half. It also involves kicking out all day use visitors. Phase 2 includes "the complete shutdown of all concession facilities and commercial visitor services." Current overnight visitors will be given two days to make other arrangements and get out. Both phases are supposed to be completed within four days.


Nightlife Agenda: Oktoberfests, whiskey and the Weeknd

Every Tuesday, the Going Out Gurus highlight the week's best DJs, bands, dance nights and parties. If you're looking for events and specials related to the government shutdown, you can find those in a separate blog post. London Grammar brings its haunting late-night tunes to U Street Music Hall on Sunday night. (Photo by Jem Goulding) Tuesday, Oct. 1 Wednesday, Oct. 2 Thursday, Oct. 3 Antibalas Jimmy Valentine's Lonely Hearts Club Saturday, Oct. 5 The area's longest-running beer festival turns the streets of Shirlington into a boozy block party this weekend. Fifty breweries will be pouring four-ounce samples at the Capitol City Brewing Company's Mid-Atlantic Oktoberfest while local restaurants feed the masses. Taps open at noon and gates close at 7; Arrive early, before the popular booths start running out of beer. Something to look out for this year: In addition to Oktoberfest Lager, new Cap City brewer Kristi Mathews Griner is introducing two seasonal beers: Smoketoberfest, a smoky German lager, and the pumpkin-flavored Dr. Punkinstein. For the past three years, Canada's the Weeknd (singer-producer Abel Tesfaye) has been at the center of a strain of music that critics and tastemakers have been falling over themselves to classify in catchy fashion. PBR&B? Hipster soul? Neither of those are very useful to describe a singer with an R&B background crooning about sensitive introspection and the hedonism of the young party scene over indie and electronic soundscapes. After his three buzz-building mixtapes, Tesfaye is now touring on the strength of his official album, "Kiss Land," and gets to fill a big room in the form of Constitution Hall. Alice Russell Sunday, Oct. 6


Former Obama official: Domestic spying ‘inconsistent with the values of this country’

role in domestic cybersecurity and surveillance activities. Why is that? One of the themes of the 2012 cybersecurity debate was thinking about how to leverage the technical crown jewels that are NSA and bring that incredible technical capability to bear on this domestic security problem. Inherent in that assumption is that only NSA has the technical capability to aid our law enforcement and homeland security community. But technology paradigms have changed. There's an enormous amount of data the federal government collects. They're parsing through that data to generate leads, looking for correlations to potential terrorists overseas, other leads the law enforcement community is looking for, etc. It used to be you needed enormous supercomputer infrastructure to do that well. Now, due to faster computers and parallelization, anyone can do it. Thanks to Amazon Web Services or Rackspace, if you have access to the Internet, you have access to a supercomputer. [The private sector] can do a lot of the big data capabilities that used to be an inherently government function in the past. These big data analytics are driving the American economy right now. So to think that a government agency is going to do this better than our tech innovators in this country I think is fallacious. I think it was an old paradigm, it was an old assumption that needs to be challenged. Still, the NSA has a lot of technical expertise and powerful hardware, right? Why not use that to address domestic security problems? I don't believe that Americans are comfortable with the military intelligence community having such a central domestic role. We should come up with a strategy to divest the military and intelligence community and instead look for ways to leverage this [private sector] advantage. I think there's a way to leverage our competitive advantage in big data in a way that also is consistent with the Fourth Amendment. We also have an over-classification problem. I don't condone what Ed Snowden did. He made a commitment to protect classified information. Breaking that commitment was wrong. However, he did bring to light this classification problem, which needs to be debated as a society. The problem with over-classification is you create an inherently closed system. Closed systems are prone to failure. In fact it's not just technology. Think of the political system. Closed totalitarian systems are inherently weaker than open egalitarian systems. There's a principle called Kerckhoffs's


How to reduce the gender gap in one (relatively) easy step

of the author make other scholars cite an article more or less? The results were striking. Even when we controlled for an enormous range of factors, gender remained one of the best predictors of how often an article would be cited. If you were female, your article would get about 0.7 cites for every 1 cite that a male author would receive. This paper has garnered a lot of press here, here, and here, not because it’s telling us something we hadn’t already suspected but because the data are incontrovertible. Crunch the numbers in different ways and the results are always the same: articles written by women in IR are cited less than men, all else equal. The question then becomes, what can we do about it? In the paper, we offered four suggestions. Women can cite themselves more (another interesting finding of the paper was that women self-cite less than men). Faculty mentors can help women network so that they are better incorporated into what is still a very male-dominated profession. Faculty can make sure that their syllabi don’t rely disproportionately on male authors, a practice that only perpetuates a gender imbalance in citations. And journal editors can pay attention to citations in the articles they accept to ensure that this bias doesn’t continue. But there’s another potentially easy solution: anonymity. What if we set up evaluations in academia so that we never knew the gender of the person being evaluated (or at the very least downplayed it as much as possible)? Anne-Marie Slaughter suggested this recently at a conference panel on the subject. This would be akin to what elite symphony orchestras did in the United States in the 1970s. Prior to adopting anonymous auditions in which candidates sat behind screens when they played, less than 5 percent of all musicians in these orchestras were women. Once blind auditions were instituted women were 50 percent more likely to make it out of the preliminary rounds and significantly more likely to ultimately win the job. Today, 25 percent of all musicians in these elite orchestras are women. Credit: B.F. Walter What if we did the same in academia? What if the norm for scholars was to identify themselves only with their first initial and last name when submitting an article for review and publication? This would make it more likely that initial impressions about the quality of scholarship were


How the shutdown is playing in the states

U.S. National Park Service employees close the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall Oct. 1, 2013. AFP PHOTO/Brendan SMIALOWSKIBRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images Thousands of employees The outrage and frustration are playing out across newspaper front pages this morning. Here’s a taste of the impact the shutdown is having on the states: As many as 40,000 Utahns who work for the federal government or government contractors will stay home from work today. That includes 215 state employees who oversee federal programs and 192 members of the Untah National Guard, according to Juliette Tennert, chief economist in Gov. Gary Herbert’s (R) Office of Management and Budget. If the shutdown lasts more than a week, the Women, Infants and Children program, which provides food stamps to about 66,000 state residents, will run out of reserve funding. About 120 engineers attached to the Colorado National Guard working to repair flood damage to a highway through the Rocky Mountains could be told to head home today, according to the Denver Post. Another 700 guardsmen will be furloughed this morning. The repair work faces a critical deadline imposed not by Congress, but by weather: Colorado emergency planners are worried that an early snow could hamper repair efforts for months. Alaska, where one-third of all jobs are supported by federal dollars, will be particularly hard-hit. As many as 13,000 Alaskans would be furloughed, according to Sen. Mark Begich’s (D-Alaska) office. And Head Start centers that serve 1,761 Alaska children will close, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The Bureau of Land Management will stop processing applications to drill on federal land, which means drilling in national parkland on the Fort Berthold Reservation and in the Dakota Prairie National Grasslands will stop, according to the Fargo Forum. Iowans who planned to spend a day fishing at federal reservoirs in Saylorville, Coralville, Red Rock and Lake Rathbun are out of luck, according to the Des Moines Register. The reservoirs are operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The 3,000 civilian employees at Scott Air Force Base near St. Louis are likely to be furloughed. About three-quarters of the 100 National Park Service employees who maintain St. Louis-area attractions like the Gateway Arch and the National Great Rivers Museum, in Alton, won’t be allowed to work. About 560 members of the Army Corps of Engineers in the St. Louis District will be furloughed too. The Louisiana Agriculture Department


Congress gets paid during a shutdown, while staffers don’t. Here’s why.

It's one of the cruel paradoxes of the government shutdown: The politicians who are most responsible for the chaos will still get paid. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of federal workers either get sent home or see their paychecks delayed. Still raking in paychecks. (The Washington Post) So why do members of the House and Senate still draw salaries during the shutdown while many of their staffers and other federal employees don't? Blame the law. And the Constitution. And Congress for not changing the law. Here's the background: The government shutdown only affects agencies and employees that are funded through annual appropriations. But that doesn't apply to members of Congress. Salaries for members of the House and Senate are written into permanent law. (Members in both chambers currently make $174,000 a year.) That's why politicians get paid even in the event that Congress can't agree on a bill to fund the government. It's a different story for congressional staffers. Individual members and committee chairs will decide which staffers are "essential" and need to stay on during the shutdown (with retroactive pay) and which staffers get sent home. The latter might get back pay later on, but that's up to Congress. There's another twist, though. The current Congress can't actually stop itself from getting paid. That's because the 27th Amendment specifically says that the salaries of the House and Senate can't be altered until the start of a new term. The idea was to prevent members of Congress from handing themselves a raise before an election took place. Some members of Congress have tried to find ways around the bad optics of the situation. Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), for instance, has said he'll donate his salary to charity during the shutdown. "Michigan families work hard and when they don’t go to work, they don’t get paid, and the same should hold for Congress."* Meanwhile, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Bob Casey (D-Penn.) have proposed a more lasting solution. They have a bill that would prevent any member of Congress from getting paid during a shutdown. (The Senate approved a similar bill in 2011, but the House never voted on it.) That bill likely couldn't take effect until after the next election, but it could come in handy if there's ever another shutdown in the future. *Update: Related: Absolutely everything you need to know about how the government shutdown works.


Got shutdown questions?

Join Federal Eye reporters Josh Hicks and Eric Yoder for a live discussion about a broad range of shutdown topics, from who is affected to what happens next. Readers who have questions can ask away starting at 11 a.m. on the Post’s online shutdown chat room. Hope to see you there.


Non-Smithsonian exhibits for ‘nonessential’ workers during the government shutdown

With the museums on the Mall closed by the government shutdown, many local workers who suddenly find themselves with a lot of time on their hands have fewer good weekday attractions with which to pass the time. But if you head away from the Smithsonians, you'll find plenty of diversions in smaller museums and galleries across the city. Here are a few arty essentials for the "nonessentials." A collection of postcards of American life and landmarks in "Ellen Harvey: The Alien's Guide to the Ruins of Washington, D.C." at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. (Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) The Corcoran Gallery: The Phillips Collection: The National Museum of Women in the Arts: Artisphere: American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center Art fair-goers walk down the second floor corridor of the (e)merge art fair on September 22, 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) (e)merge: FotoBazaar: RandallScottProjects: Flashpoint: Connersmith: More on the Shutdown: Smithsonian closed? Here’s what to do instead.


Let them eat kale

calcium, kale is the latest darling of health-conscious diners. “It’s taking over the world,” says Katie Waterson, the Capitol Hill mom behind The Kid and the Kale (kidandthekale.com). The company handcrafts fresh, organic baby and toddler foods, which will be available this month through online market Relay Foods (relayfoods.com). For now, the leafy greens appear in just one item — a garlic-accented pearl couscous — but Waterson may incorporate them into other purees, patties and side dishes going forward. She started using kale a lot at home when she began cooking for her son, Thomas, who is now 18 months old. “I was trying to find ways to put greens into his food as early as possible,” she says. “I’d mix it into tomato sauce or quinoa. Now he loves it sauteed with a little olive oil and garlic.” Those cooking sessions — coupled with her frustration over being unable to find fresh, flavorful premade baby foods — inspired her to design her own options for kids. “Making our own foods felt like another full-time job,” she says. “Weekends would be spent researching, shopping, chopping, roasting and pureeing. So I understand why a lot of parents give up on it and go to shelf-stable foods. I want The Kid and the Kale to be an alternative to that.” Sneaky Snack Test The snack aisle is going green this year. Kale is sprouting up in chips, gummies and squeeze packs. To find out if these treats are “rah” or “blah,” we enlisted two brothers as taste testers: 6-year-old Nickolas and 2-year-old Naythan Correa of Brightwood. So they wouldn’t have preconceptions about what they were eating, we didn’t tell them that the snacks contained kale until after they finished. Snikiddy’s Eat Your Vegetables Chips with Sea Salt Navy beans, carrots, sweet potatoes and kale are the base ingredients for these crunchy creations. Each individual-size bag counts as a serving of vegetables, a claim you’ll never read on a packet of Cool Ranch Doritos. Nickolas: Naythan: Plum Organics’ Fruit Veggie Shredz (Rooty Blues) These sweet strips Nickolas: Naythan: Happy Squeeze’s Fruit Veggie Twist (Apple Mango Pear Kale) Made with all-organic produce, each serving includes 150 percent of the daily allowance of vitamin C. No refrigeration is required before they’re opened, and they’re nearly impossible to pop, making these pouches perfect for squirreling away in lunch boxes, backpacks and the glove compartment. Nickolas: Naythan:


D.C. area prepares for government shutdown

Tourists walk around the Lincoln Memorial as a government shutdown looms. (Photo by Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images) It’s not a hurricane; it’s a shutdown. So instead of gathering nonperishables, the owner of Z-Burger was busy Monday stockpiling four of his restaurants with enough produce, meat and buns to handle a considerable promotion. “We plan on giving out 5,000 burgers every day of a shutdown” to all affected employees and contractors, said Peter Tabibian, Z-Burger’s owner. A government shutdown would affect more than 700,000 workers around the D.C. metro area, and as the chances of averting doomsday shrunk Monday, local businesses, tourists and residents spent the day preparing for an onslaught of out-of-work federal workers. Sixth & I Historic Synagogue said Monday it would transform into a de facto community center starting at 10 a.m. today. Dubbed “Shutdown Central,” Sixth & I planned to offer free Wi-Fi and coffee, as well as pingpong and nonstop streaming of “The West Wing.” Elsewhere, panda-enthusiasts braced themselves for National Zoo panda-cam withdrawal, and tourists tried to get in as much sightseeing as possible amid threats that barricades would be erected to parts of the National Mall in the event of a shutdown. For those on the government’s payroll, many were focused less on what to do than how to pay the bills. “We’re not in the best state financially due to medical bills,” said Helen McGee, whose husband works for the D.C. government and was worried that a lengthy government shutdown could affect his paycheck. “We really depend on getting paid on time.” And that’s why Tabibian said he was preparing to launch his promotion. “We want to show Z-Burger cares more about the people than the government does,” he said. Other Shutdown Deals for Federal ID holders: - Taylor Gourmet: 10 percent off and a free cookie with the purchase of any hoagie or salad - Mockingbird Hill: one free glass of sherry - The Daily Dish: a free cup of coffee - Wisdom: 20 percent off your tab - Sprinkles: one free cupcake, today only - DC Reynolds: buy a drink, get one free from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. (not limited to government employees)


What to do during the shutdown

The U.S. Capitol on Tuesday morning. (REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan) For many locals, the government shutdown means lost paychecks and a sudden overabundance of free time. For visitors to the D.C. area, it means running into barricades while trying to visit museums and landmarks. But there’s still hope for furloughed workers and tourists looking for something to do. Many local eateries and venues are offering cheap drinks and discounted food, and there are still plenty of open venues and tourist destinations that offer free or low-cost activities and entertainment. (The Going Out Guide has rounded up some of the best options for food, drink or entertainment, so make sure you visit them throughout the shutdown.) Quite a few bars and restaurants are offering shutdown drink specials, with some spots extending their happy hour deals and others offering other discounts to workers with government IDs. For workers who want to go out and eat but need to watch their spending with paychecks on hold, there are plenty of deals available for cheap food or treats across the region. But maybe you don’t need cheap food or drinks. Maybe you just need something to do, either because you can’t go to work or because you’re visiting D.C. and can’t access the National Zoo or one of the museums on the Mall. There are still plenty of free options, ranging from the Washington National Cathedral to free music at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. And for every shuttered museum or destination, there are very good replacements available. Even though you can’t make it to the Lincoln Memorial or the Air and Space Museum, there’s still a lot you can see. Plus, some venues that normally cost money are offering free admission during the shutdown: The National Geographic Museum is waiving its usual $11 entrance fee and offering free admission on Tuesday. The National Museum of Women in the Arts is also offering free admission to federal employees with IDs. If you just need a place to go and aren’t looking for a museum, concert, food or drink, the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Northwest D.C. is offering a free social space for government workers. The venue has ping pong, board games and streaming episodes of “The West Wing” as well as coffee, food and Wi-Fi.


Shutdown won’t stop Marine Corps Marathon, Army Ten-Miler

(Jonathan Newton / Washington Post) The federal government may be in shutdown mode, but two big fall road races are expected to go on as planned. The Army Ten-Miler on Oct. 20 and and the Marine Corps Marathon on Oct. 27 are not likely to be affected, according to a Runner’s World Newswire report. Over 22,000 runners crossed the finish line in last year’s Army Ten-Miler, the second-largest 10-mile race in the country. The shutdown is “not going to affect our race,” a spokesperson told the outlet. The Marine Corps Marathon, the country’s third-largest marathon with a field of up to 30,000 runners, will be run by a staff that “is paid with non-appropriated funds. The race will go on,” Tami Faram, the marathon’s public relations coordinator, said. Some of the marathon’s partners, though, may have furloughed workers, but that isn’t certain yet. Those could include federal law enforcement and National Park Service workers. Follow @CindyBoren on Twitter and on Facebook.


Federal shutdown weakens weather and climate enterprise

Much of the National Weather Service is still functioning, but that does not mean all is well in the world of weather and climate with much of the Federal government closed for business. Most weather and climate-related activities not directly tied to the protection of life and property are on hold. This means atmospheric research conducted not just at NOAA, but also at NASA, EPA, and the Department of Interior among others has stopped. “A staggering 97 percent of NASA employees have been furloughed“, writes Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog. “The EPA is taking one of the biggest hits of any federal agency — about 96 percent of the agency’s staff aren’t coming to work,” notes Katie Valentine at Climate Progress. Products and services that educate, enrich and help us make decisions each day are blacked out. Vital research to better predict and understand hurricanes is taking a time-out. Climate data from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center is inaccessible. We’re denied NASA’s dazzling array of visuals showing off the wonders of the Earth and the Universe. And efforts to help individuals and decisionmakers better understand the challenges posed by climate change won’t be furthered. These are just a few examples of the damage that shutdown does to federal weather and climate initiatives and how they affect us. Correction, 10:00 a.m. Wednesday:


10 ways the government shutdown will impact your daily life

A protester sends a message to lawmakers outside the U.S. Capitol.<br />(Melina Mara / The Washington Post) Congress’ failure to reach a compromise on government funding last night means a number of federal agencies will close their doors for the indefinite future. That augurs big and costly consequences for federal workers. But it also impacts everyone who uses services administered or funded by the federal government -- which is to say, just about everyone. Here’s a quick guide to how the shutdown could impact you even if you're not a federal worker. 1) You may not receive certain government benefits, particularly if the shutdown lasts late into October, or you’ll see a delay in benefits. 2) There could be delays processing your Pell Grant and student loan payments. 3) Your passport or visa office might close. 4) You’ll eat food that was produced in neglected factories. 5) You won’t be able to visit national parks or drive on roads that cut through them. 6) You won’t be able to use some government Web sites or Twitter accounts. Due to a lapse in government funding, this account will not be active until further notice. 7) You won’t know if the flu is brewing in your area. 8) You won’t be able to ask the IRS for help with your taxes. 9) You won't be able to get certain types of loans. 10) You won’t be able to watch the Panda Cam. Of course, there are many critical government services that will not be impacted by the shutdown. Those include the Postal Service, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (better known as food stamps) ... and, ironically, the Affordable Care Act, which goes into effect today and kicked off this whole shutdown mess to begin with.


Zoo employees warned not to feed the media

The panda cam is closed down — along with the government. (Smithsonian National Zoo via Reuters) The Washington media’s ravenous interest in the state of the National Zoo’s panda-cam has apparently ruffled some fur. An e-mail sent this morning from a Zoo official warns volunteers that if they find themselves confronted with journalists trying to report on how the Zoo is handling the government shutdown, they should react much the way one might when interacting with an escaped animal: Don’t make any sudden moves, don’t speak, and baaack away slowly. “We heard today that many volunteers were approached by media asking for comments about the potential government shut down,” the e-mail read. “In some cases the reporters did not identify themselves up front.” (Bad reporters! No treats for you!) The missive continued, warning folks that whatever they might do, they should NOT feed the hungry beasts. “Our policy is that media interactions are channeled through our Public Affairs office, but if you are in the middle of a conversation with a Zoo visitor who reveals himself or herself to be a reporter, please remember that only Smithsonian Institution-designated staff should represent the Zoo,” it read. At this point, workers are advised to adopt the stance of someone faced with a dangerous creature. Retreat, they are told. But carefully. “If this happens to you, stop the conversation, walk away and notify your program supervisor or the NZP Public Affairs office.” We reached the sender of the e-mail by phone. Alas, she said she couldn’t comment — we’d have to go through the Zoo’s public-affairs office, she said.


Furloughed federal workers to hand out tourist guide to shut-down D.C.

Federal employment inherently involves public service, so why let a government shutdown stop that? A group of furloughed federal workers plans to lend a hand to tourists of the nation’s capital on Wednesday, distributing guides that tell visitors which area attractions are open and closed. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) – A National Park Service employee posts a sign on a barricade closing access to the Lincoln Memorial. The “Federal Workers’ Guide to Shutdown D.C.” lists open destinations with green lettering and closes sites with red. Federally-employed members of several unions plan to distribute the handouts from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Among the sites that are closed: All the Smithsonian Institution museums, the interior of the Lincoln Memorial, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Botanic Garden, the National Zoo and the National Archives, among others run by the federal government. The U.S. Capitol and the White House will also be off-limit for tours during the shutdown. For what it’s worth, the White House has not offered tours since March, when the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester began. The destinations remaining open are mostly privately-operated, with many requiring a fee for entry. They include the Newseum, the Spy Museum, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Museum of Crime and Punishment, the National Cathedral (which offers free admission) and the Phillips Gallery. Outside the Beltway, many of the nation’s federal tourist destinations will close down as the National Park Service shutters more than 400 national parks and museums, according to the agency’s contingency plan. To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed or e-mail josh.hicks@washpost.com. For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics.


food

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 26: Braised Lamb Ragu is photographed Thursday September 26, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)


The shutdown’s effect on federal contractors is a huge source of uncertainty

There are currently millions of Americans working for companies that do business with the federal government, from health providers to military firms. All told, the federal government did about $516.3 billion worth of business with private contractors in 2012. (The Washington Post) That's $1.4 billion in contracts each day, on average. And right now, it's still wildly unclear how all these contracts will be affected by the ongoing government shutdown. Companies will essentially have to find out as they go. And that's presently one of the largest sources of uncertainty on how the shutdown might affect the U.S. economy. Some contractors and firms already have clarity. Health-care providers won't be affected much because the federal government will keep making payments through Medicare and Medicaid. The same goes for many Realtors, since the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac will continue to guarantee mortgages during the shutdown. Yet the sprawling world of military contracting, worth $360 billion in fiscal year 2012 — or 70 percent of all federal contracts — remains a big question mark: Under the rules of the shutdown, the Department of Defense will continue performing "essential" activities related to national security and the protection of life and property. Essential personnel — including 400,000 civilian workers and 1.4 million active-duty military — will keep getting paid, thanks to a defense bill signed late Monday night. Another 400,000 civilian workers will get sent home. But it's unclear how this will all affect federal contracts. The bill that President Obama signed on Monday night allows the Department of Defense to pay any employees or contractors who are providing "support for members of the armed forces." But how that law gets interpreted is largely up to the Secretary of Defense. Will it include companies working on large weapons systems? "We still don’t know exactly how many contracts count as 'essential' services," says Rob Levinson, a senior defense analyst at Bloomberg Government. "That's up to the Department of Defense. We’ve told contractors that they need to talk to the government to find out if they'll get paid for the work they're doing [during the shutdown]." There's still another layer of uncertainty here. It's unknown whether contractors will be able to pay their employees if the contracts are put on hold. "If your contract is non-essential, those employees may be told to go home," says Levinson. "So then the question is, does


The shutdown could prevent kids with cancer from getting treatment

As long as the government is shut down, the National Institutes of Health will turn away roughly 200 patients each week from its clinical research center, including children with cancer. No longer open for new business. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) That's according to Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. He laid out the situation for the Wall Street Journal: At the National Institutes of Health, nearly three-quarters of the staff was furloughed. One result: director Francis Collins said about 200 patients who otherwise would be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center into clinical trials each week will be turned away. This includes about 30 children, most of them cancer patients, he said. Here's The Clinical Center won't simply close its doors during the shutdown. It will still keep 2,564 staff on hand for patient care and maintain about 90 percent of its normal load, according to an agency memo. Existing patients will still get treated as usual. But the rules of the shutdown mean that the Clinical Center "would not be accepting new patients or initiating new clinical protocols during a hiatus," the memo said. So, as a result of the budget impasse, there will be a certain number of patients who have exhausted all their options, were hoping to undergo treatment at the NIH Clinical Center, and won't get admitted — at least until the shutdown is resolved. (Hat tip: Jordan Weissmann) Further reading: -- The nine most painful consequences of a government shutdown. -- Absolutely everything you need to know about how the government shutdown will work. -- Here's an earlier look at how sequestration budget cuts have been paring back the NIH's research programs.


Shutdown deals continue: Theater, yoga and tire rotations

(Ron Edmonds/AP) We might have to stop feeling sorry for furloughed feds — they’re awash in deals from local merchants. (See the free burgers, gratis cupcakes, cheap booze and freebie chicken). Gimmicky? Sure, but you know what they say about gift horses. The latest entries in the pity-marketing sweepstakes include free theater tickets and tire rotations, plus cheap yoga classes. In case the brinkmanship on Capitol Hill isn’t enough drama, Signature Theater is giving away a pair of tickets to its current production of “Miss Saigon.” According to the theater, they’re available this week “in person at the Signature Box Office when reserved with a valid government ID.” And since furloughed workers might want to use their time off to check off those errands that always fall to the bottom of the to-do list, Koons of Silver Spring is offering “ALL furloughed government employees a FREE oil change, FREE tire rotation and a FREE multi-point inspection.” And for a moment of Zen, Willow Street Yoga Center of Silver Spring and Takoma Park has $10 classes for folks with a government ID. “We are acutely aware that the shutdown of the Federal Government is affecting our students and community,” the e-mail said. “We know that In times like this, yoga is more essential than ever.” As is filling those mats.


Wonkbook: This is what the Republicans were afraid of

to want to keep it. Wonkbook's Number of the Day: $1.4 billion. That's the amount of business that the federal government did with private contractors on your average day in 2012. A lot of that will be thrown up in the air by the shutdown. Wonkbook's Graph of the Day: Wonkbook's Top 5 Stories: 1) Top story: Shutdown, Day 2 Piecemeal bills go down to defeat. Republicans want to go to legislative conference. @robertcostanro ...And some are considering a 'clean' continuing resolution. But probably too few and not seriously enough. Quick shutdown resources: Important explainers: Timeline: Interviews: Treasury begins using 'extraordinary measures' to buy time. Treasury: Debt-ceiling timing won't be affected by shutdown. @TPCarney Behind standoff, a broken process in need of a broker. ...We could be in shutdown for quite a while. @JimPethokoukis ...In fact, we might be in shutdown until we get a debt-ceiling deal. When the government shuts down, government things shut down. Government workers pack up and go home. @conorsen Businesses don't really care about the shutdown. They do care about the debt ceiling. The shutdown’s effect on federal contractors is a huge source of uncertainty. The shutdown could prevent kids with cancer from getting treatment. Congress gets paid during a shutdown, while staffers don’t. Here’s why. Being a defense contractor during a shutdown: ‘I’m going to go update my resume.’ Australia had a government shutdown once. In the end, the queen fired everyone in Parliament. BOEHNER: Obama owns this shutdown now. @chrislhayes KLEIN: Should Senate Democrats reject any CR that doesn’t increase the debt limit? WOLFERS: One crisis leads to another. BROWNSTEIN: The Republican insulation. COWEN: A simple account of the shutdown. @daveweigel FOURNIER: The beginning of the end for Washington. DOUTHAT: Is Republican intransigence reasonable? FRIEDMAN: Our democracy is at stake. @davidfrum SUNSTEIN: Shutdown psychology made simple. PORTER: Why Obamacare scares Republicans. Music recommendations interlude: Shutdown humor interlude: 2) Millions search for health insurance Obamacare’s marketplaces are overwhelmed with traffic. Obamacare site goes live, with some glitches. Contact us: Profiles: HHS Sec. Sebelius on the rollout. New federal data on the variety of health plans for sale on exchanges. A correct reading of poll numbers shows fewer opposed to Obamacare than thought. Boehner, secret supporter of health-insurance subsidies on exchanges. Watch: Explainer: Signing up for Obamacare: ‘It will save me over $6,000. For that, I would have waited all day.’ Signing up for Obamacare:


21 surprising effects of the government shutdown you haven’t heard about

advisory committee that protects whales and other marine mammals is one of many cutting back for the government shutdown. (Bill Greene/Boston Globe via Getty Images) Here's 21 effects of the shutdown you might not have heard about. 1) No one will oversee the program that makes sure your organic food is actually organic. 2) The Department of Homeland Security will stop civil liberties complaint lines, investigation and training. 3) Wild horse and burro adoptions will stall. An employee of the wild horse and burro program shows off a mustang at the Nevada County Fair in 2009. (Bureau of Land Management) 4) A series of recreational trips and events for veterans, including an Antique Car Show and “Saloon Night,” were cancelled at the Armed Forces Retirement Home facilities in D.C. and Gulfport, Miss 5) New distilleries, breweries and wineries won't open. 6) Space will go silent. 7) Businesses that operate on federally managed lands or public parks -- such as privately owned campgrounds, concession stands and tour companies -- will close. 8) Twenty-four American war cemeteries, including the Normandy American Cemetery at the site of the D-Day invasion, will close. 9) The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will be back-burnered. 10) The Department of Agriculture will not operate its popular 25-year-old "Meat and Poultry Hotline." 11) Most research activities at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will go dark. 12) Towns impacted by the recent flooding in Colorado could wait longer for assistance. 13) No one from the Office of the Pardon Attorney will be available should President Obama want to issue a presidential pardon. 14) The Department of Transportation will not drug test its employees. 15) Charges of on-the-job discrimination complaints will not be investigated. 16) Only 15 people will care for the White House and the Obama family, down from their usual 90. The (empty) East Room of the White House. (Chuck Kennedy/White House) 17) No one will advise the government on "matters pertaining to the arts." 18) E-Verify will go offline. 19) The U.S. Coast Guard will delay licenses for both recreational and for-profit boaters. 20) The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement will stop monitoring coal mines 21) Whales will be on their own. Yes, the federal government is closed. Beside national parks, here are five other things that have shut down along with it.


It’s not just D.C. Here’s where the shutdown is hitting across the country.

The shutdown of the federal government has sent as many as 770,000 employees home, delayed the paychecks of another 1.3 million "essential" workers, and shuttered various government functions. That will put a crimp in the Washington D.C. area's economy — costing some $200 million per day. But it's not just D.C. As this map created by my colleagues shows, there are hundreds of thousands of federal workers spread out across the country. The D.C. area, which includes parts of Virginia and Maryland, has some 446,000 employees who work for the federal government or the military. That's 14.3 percent of the region's 3.1 million workers — clearly the biggest proportion of any major metro area. But, surprisingly, D.C. isn't even the city most dependent on its federal workforce. That honor belongs to Colorado Springs, home to two Air Force bases, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and a large Army installation. Here's a full list below: 1) Colorado Springs Not all these cities will be affected equally. Fewer than half of all federal workers will actually be furloughed, and all active-duty military and "essential" defense employees should get paid on time. But it's still a significant change. For instance, even though many of Colorado Springs' workers are military, at least 5,500 workers have already been sent home. How big an impact will this have? In a research note Tuesday, J.P. Morgan analysts estimated that federal furloughs will reduce national income by a total of $1.3 billion per week. As a result, the shutdown could shave 0.12 percent off fourth quarter GDP growth for each week it goes on. That forecast doesn't account for any knock-on effects on the private sector or dent in economic confidence, which are harder to quantify. All that lost income could be recouped if Congress later agrees to give those 770,000 furloughed federal workers back pay. But for now, that's very much uncertain. Republicans in Congress are split on whether to agree to retroactive pay to workers who get furloughed. (By contrast, the 1.3 million or so "essential workers" will eventually get paid regardless, though they may see their paychecks delayed.) Related: Absolutely everything you need to know about how the government shutdown will work


Charter school corruption

few comply (Post, HuffPo, WAMU-FM) Shutdown means most of our city’s parks are closed (WAMU-FM) That goes for many trails, too (GGW, PoPville, WashCycle) And Ford’s Theatre (AP) Metro volumes were slightly down Tuesday, heralding problems for the WMATA budget (Post) So were sales for some local businesses catering to federal workers (WaTimes) How, exactly, the shutdown will affect the District’s courts (Legal Times) NCPC meeting on Height Act changes will be postponed (WBJ) Fun fact: A quarter of D.C. income tax revenue comes from federal employees (WBJ) In other news: Howard University President Sidney Ribeau announces sudden retirement after five years in charge (Post) Ribeau had supporters in the university and atop the board, but university’s challenges were significant (Post) DCPS settles federal Title IX complaint by pledging to improve recordkeeping, survey girls (Post) The Washington Post now officially belongs to Jeff Bezos (Post) Rollout day for D.C. Health Link was relatively smooth (WTTG-TV, WBJ, DCFPI) D.C. Council takes final vote delaying attorney general election to 2018 (Post, Loose Lips, WAMU-FM) In gesture of good feelings, council votes to support shutdown defiance (DofD, AP, WAMU-FM, Roll Call, DCist, WUSA-TV) David Grosso: ‘Today was the most frustrating day at the D.C. Council since I was sworn in’ (Tumblr) The future of transportation is now for D.C.’s millennials (Post) Jonetta Rose Barras has some suggestions for the CFO nominee (jrbarras.com) Tom Sherwood will interview Ron Machen later this month (WRC-TV) D.C. cop under investigation for threatening Facebook posting (WJLA-TV) Four Monday shootings leave six wounded in Southeast neighborhoods (Post) MPD gets $1.25 million federal grant to hire beat officers (Crime Stories) Accountability for adult charter schools, too (GGW) Council legalizes off-site solar investments (Housing Complex) Mary Cheh bill would ban licensed therapists from practicing “gay conversion” methods (Hatchet) Navy awards contract to restore Navy Yard shooting site (AP) D.C. film incentive program isn’t quite as bad as previously advertised, but is still bad (WBJ) Georgetown ANC wants Glover Park road diet reversed (Patch) And GU Hospital to ditch temporary trailers for doctors (Current via Dish) Historic designation means Southwest residential project will be much smaller (WBJ) 9:30 Club impresario says council recognition wasn’t a “hookup from a friend” (DCist) Public gets first look at West Heating Plant plans next week (G’town Metropolitan) Neon artist moves from Shaw to Anacostia (Housing Complex) Jose Andres will soon be an American citizen (Reliable Source)


Shutdown Q&A for vets

Join Federal Eye reporter Steve Vogel for a live discussion about the impact of the government shutdown on veterans. As we reported Tuesday, the VA is now warning that the shutdown will hamper progress to cut the disability claims backlog. (Charles Dharapak/AP) – Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters. Readers who have questions can ask away starting at 11 a.m. on the Post’s online shutdown chat room. Hope to see you there.


A case study in accountability

Afghanistan security personnel in Khost, Afghanistan. (Rasool Adil/Getty Images) For a case study in accountability (and the lack of it), contrast the Marine Corps’ decision this week to fire two generals for inadequately protecting a base in Helmand Province with the CIA’s lack of any similar disciplinary measures after a comparable disaster in December 2009 when a suicide bomber invaded a base in Khost, Afghanistan. There was an almost brutal decisiveness in the decision by Gen. James Amos, the Marine commandant. He fired two major generals who were commanding Marine troops and aviators in southern Afghanistan when the Taliban overran a NATO airfield on Sept. 14, 2012, and destroyed a half-dozen U.S. fighter jets. The Marine Corps is a disciplined organization because it holds officers responsible for actions under their command. There were many extenuating circumstances in the generals’ defense: British troops had overall responsibility for guarding the base, and one of the cashiered generals had requested more troops to protect it a few months before. But Amos rightly decided that these factors were less important than the integrity of his service. Now compare the CIA’s actions after the tragic suicide bombing at the agency’s base in Khost by Jordanian double agent Humam al-Balawi that killed seven CIA officers, the agency’s worst loss in several decades. The Jordanian, who had secretly been recruited by al-Qaeda, was allowed to enter the secure compound partly because it was judged too dangerous for agency officers to go outside to meet him. The Dec. 30, 2009, meeting was supervised by Jennifer Matthews, the chief of the Khost base, who won that job because of her outstanding work as a targeter, but who had little experience running operations in the field. She died in the attack. The CIA conducted an extensive review of the Khost disaster. According to Joby Warrick in his authoritative history of the case, the review concluded that Matthews, supported by superiors in Kabul and at CIA headquarters, “failed to follow standard safety procedures in their meeting with Balawi. . . . Warnings that might have alerted the CIA to Balawi’s deception were never passed along.” Yet no individuals were held responsible. The agency did change some security and training procedures, but “no single person or failure caused the disaster at Khost, the investigators found,” according to Warrick. The CIA has been so battered and bruised by criticism over the years that


Preventing the government shutdown from ruining your D.C. vacation

So, you came to D.C. this week expecting to have a grand family vacation: sightseeing at the Smithsonians, touring the Capitol, taking photos of your kids on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The government shutdown has ruined all of that, of course, but you're still here, still on vacation and still hoping to make the best of it. Welcome to This Town. A US Park Police officer watches at left as a National Park Service employee posts a sign on a barricade closing access to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013. Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown Tuesday as a long-running dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law stalled a temporary funding bill, forcing about 800, 000 federal workers off the job and suspending most non-essential federal programs and services. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Don't panic: • The National Building Museum has an interactive kids' exhibit geared towards building blocks and plenty of architecture for interested grown-ups. If you have a government ID, admission is free during the shutdown. • The Corcoran Gallery of Art ($10) and the Phillips Collection (free admission to the permanent collection through Friday) are proper substitutes for the National Gallery, with contemporary and historical American artwork. • The National Geographic Museum, with its exhibits on exploration and biodiversity, could sub in for the Natural History Museum. Government workers can get in for free during the shutdown. • The Spy Museum and the National Museum of Crime and Punishment can be expensive -- admission is more than $20 for adults at each museum -- but kids love 'em. • The Newseum, while also on the pricier side at $22, will give you a look at American history through the eyes of journalists. Prioritize: Have a drink: Get outdoors: Get a good meal: Get out of the city: Your trip to D.C. may not be what you expected. But it'll be a fun weekend, we swear.