Civilians running the Afghan war?

“Civilians held Petraeus’s ear in the war zone” [front page, Dec. 19] questioned the access and influence Gen. David H. Petraeus accorded to civilians while he was running the Afghan war. As a civilian who has acted as an informal adviser on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I think it is critical to stress that a wide range of commanders, as well as senior Defense and State Department officials, sought advice from a broad range of civilians — many of whom did not support the campaign plans then in use, call for more troops or emphasize military over civilian options. The commanders did so because they realized they needed different perspectives, challenges to conventional wisdom and help in looking at the political, civil and economic aspects of the war. Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, whom the Post’s article focused on, may have spent more time in Afghanistan than the rest of us and may have focused more on military planning and options, but that reflected their passion for the U.S. military — they once taught at West Point — as well as their concern for their country and for Afghans. I have often disagreed with one or both of them, but I never saw them act as ideologues or misuse their access. Nor did I see them exploit their relationship with Gen. Petraeus or any other senior officer or official. All of us who were given access to classified information in Iraq and Afghanistan had to go through clearance procedures. At a NATO meeting this spring, I asked a senior officer with special access to security issues about this; he told me that he knew of no leak or compromise from any of the civilians who had theater clearance during the previous decade. On many occasions I asked the military and career civilians on the scene whether they found our presence to be useful. In most cases, the answer was yes, and in many cases they took our advice. Some criticized the use of outside advisers, of course, but more of the critics were civilians than in the military. Many of those whom I worked with in the theater had different views from the Kagans, and they received the same access to the senior commander and ambassador. I have often been deeply critical of our country’s tactics and strategy and have challenged aspects of our classified and public analysis of the


Better ways to limit deer

Regarding Jim Sterba’s Dec. 16 Outlook commentary, “To get along with deer, we need to shoot a few of them”: Reducing the deer population may not be the best and most efficient way to reduce damage attributed to deer in urban areas. Most deer damage is site-specific and cannot be effectively addressed through population reduction. It’s far more effective for landowners to use fencing and repellents to keep deer away from specific areas of concern. If population reduction is deemed necessary, fertility control is an affordable option that can be implemented in our national parks and urban communities where culls may not be effective, feasible or socially acceptable. We need a toolbox with many tools to resolve conflicts between humans and our wild neighbors. There is no “silver bullet” solution to conflicts with deer, hunting included. Stephanie Boyles Griffin, Washington The writer is senior director for wildlife response, innovations and services at the Humane Society of the United States. Thanks to Jim Sterba for his Dec. 16 Outlook article, “To get along with deer, we need to shoot some of them.”


Prince William news in brief

wet lab space for growing life sciences companies. The Science Accelerator was launched through a public-private partnership among the Prince William County Department of Economic Development, Rinker Design Associates and NAL Research. The county will hold the master lease for the space and enter into licensing agreements with life sciences companies. “With the groundbreaking research occurring here in personalized medicine and biodefense, we believe that there is exceptional opportunity for more biosciences industry growth here in Prince William County,” Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large) said. “We expect this industry to be one of the key job-growth generators for the next generation.” Space is available for custom build-out in the Prince William Science Accelerator. For information, call 703-792-5500, e-mail econdev@pwcgov.org or visit www.accelerate.pwcecondev.org . Ethanol train terminal in Dumfries to serve N.Va. Eco-Energy Holdings, a biofuel supply chain company, and NuStar Terminals Operations Partnership, the second-largest independent liquids terminal operator in the country, have partnered to develop an ethanol unloading, storage and outbound truck loading facility in Dumfries. The ethanol unit train terminal, which will serve Northern Virginia and the District, will have a storage capacity of about 155,000 barrels of ethanol and will be able to distribute more than 400,000 barrels a month. “As we considered the right location for this project, Prince William County quickly emerged as the front-runner,” Pete McKinney of Eco-Energy said. “With access to multiple rail providers and two major interstates, Prince William County is an ideal location from which to serve mid-Atlantic markets.” The project is projected to bring 10 to 15 jobs to the area. Tourism agency sponsors contest showcasing area Novice and professional photographers are invited to enter the Best of 2012 Photo Contest, sponsored by Discover Prince William and Manassas, the county’s tourism marketing agency. The agency is interested in seeing how residents and visitors captured events, historic sites and anything else relating to Manassas and the county this year. A grand prize winner will receive $500, and three runners-up will receive prize packages, including a Civil War Experience Pass for two. Winners will be determined by the number of votes received on Facebook. All photographs might be used on Discover Prince William and Manassas’ Web site, Facebook and Twitter pages, and in the 2013 Visitor Guide. The deadline is Jan. 18. For information and to enter, visit www.manassasbullrun.com, www.visitpwc.com or www.Facebook.com/pwcmanassas. — Compiled by Sarah Lane


Area banks brace for withdrawals as TAG program expires

Washington area community banks say they are bracing for large scale withdrawals when a special federal guarantee expires on Dec. 31 that safeguards money held in accounts that don’t earn interest. The temporary provision, called the Transaction Account Guarantee, was put into place by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. during the recession. It insures all funds in non-interest bearing bank accounts, which are typically used by municipalities and small businesses for payrolls. Once the provision expires, the FDIC will insure up to $250,000 in any given account, up from $100,000 before the financial crisis. When the program was first implemented in October 2008, some financial institutions such as Sandy Spring Bank in Olney say they had an influx of new clients and deposits. “The combination of the TAG program and falling interest rates led to a dramatic increase [in new customers and deposits] for us,” said John F. Goedeke Jr., a senior vice president at Sandy Spring Bank. “People started closing up their money market accounts. The logical place to put that money was in checking accounts where it was insured.” But that’s about to change. Earlier this month, the Senate decided to not renew the measure — and there is little chance, area bankers say, that the program will be resuscitated next year. Area banks say they’re anticipating a wave of withdrawals as customers move their money to larger banks that they perceive as more secure. “We’re well-capitalized, profitable, have a great credit rating,” said Ron Paul, chairman and chief executive of EagleBank in Bethesda. “Nonetheless, I think [customers] are going to go back to the mega banks. They’ve been assured by the government that mega banks are too big to fail. It’s a horrible, bad, poorly-thought out situation.” Some organizations, such as the American Health Assistance Foundation, require that all funds be FDIC insured. Now that the TAG program is set to expire, the Clarksburg-based nonprofit is looking for other places to put its funds. “Like many organizations, we want our money insured,” said Dave Marks, director of finance and administration. “We don’t want our money at risk, and we’re looking to put our investments in a safe place.” The FDIC is requiring banks to notify clients with more than $250,000 in their accounts of upcoming changes. Some, like Sandy Spring Bank, have taken the opportunity to reassure clients that their money will continue to be safe. “We’ve


Taylor Gourmet to open three locations in three months

The original Taylor Gourmet on H Street NE. (Lois Raimondo/The Washington Post) Taylor Gourmet, the homegrown Italian deli that opened its doors four years ago in the H Street Corridor, is undergoing a rapid expansion. The company, which currently has four locations, is in the process of adding three more delis in as many months — two in Washington and one in Merrifield. “We typically don’t plan to take on this much work at once,” co-founder Casey Patten said. “But each project takes on a life cycle of its own.” Earlier this month, Patten and co-founder David Mazza, both Philadelphia natives, opened Taylor Charles Steak and Ice, which serves Philly cheesesteak sandwiches and water ice, at 1320 H St. NE in the District. The duo has a team of in-house contractors — project managers, plumbers, electricians — who oversee the design and building of each new location, making it possible to set up shop within a couple of months, Patten said. “We essentially have someone on board for every trade,” he said. “They understand the specs, which in turn speeds up the process. You get a better product, better quality and better pricing.” In the coming months, Patten and Mazza plan to add about 100 employees to their current roster of 250. After that, Patten said they’ll take a break from opening new stores. “We’ll have our hands full for a while,” he said. The deli in Merrifield’s Mosaic District, which will be the shop’s first Virginia location, is set to open by early February. A month later, Taylor Gourmet will open up shop at 645 E St. NW. And as for a third location in the works — at 1750 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, less than two blocks away from the White House — Patten said he was hoping to be close to one of the sandwich shop’s most famous customers: President Obama. “If we can get a direct line to deliver there, it’d be great,” he said.


A ‘Nutcracker’ that captures Tchaikovsky’s spirit, if not his precision

Abigail Diedrich and Brian Bennett dance the roles of Clara and the Nutcracker Prince in “The Nutcracker” at the Modell Center for the Performing Arts . (Courtesy of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) ’Twas the weekend before Christmas, and all across the country, sugarplum fairies were dropping and waltzing flowers were wilting. Except in Baltimore, where from party guests to polichinelles, every dancer in “The Nutcracker” could not stop smiling. In an unprecedented community collaboration, 120 dancers from the Baltimore School for the Arts performed “The Nutcracker” at the Modell Center for the Performing Arts on Friday and Saturday. Below them in the pit was the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and behind them were three-story backdrops painted by students at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Were the School for the Arts students as polished as professional ballerinas? No. But in so many cities, like Washington, the professionals are waltzing to tinny recordings, and by December’s end, may look bored out of their minds. There is so much to be said for watching smiling teens dance slightly out of sync while listening to gorgeous live harp glissandos. In the pit, conductor Cristian Macelaru slowed the tempos down slightly, and when the ebullient young dancers did step to the music, their amateur status didn’t matter. Former Washington Ballet dancer Barry Hughson smartly choreographed this production knowing male dancers would be in short supply. Rather than a Rat King, he’s opted for a slinky Mouse Queen (Janea Williams) who stalked around the Christmas tree, stabbing her pointe shoes at pint-sized soldiers. Clara (Hannah Myers) and the walnut-cracking prince (Quincy Dow) weren’t technically the best dancers onstage, but they were the smoothest; she stepped into his secure lifts like they had been paired up for a decade. Dow was one of several promising African American dancers in the cast. Xhosa Scott brought puckish charm to the role of Fritz, while Brian Bennett was a strong, stoic partner in “Arabian Dance,” and the audience responded with rhythmic clapping to a trio of young men leaping to Tchaikovsky’s “Russian Trepak.” This crowd was decidedly more blue collar than the typical Kennedy Center set (buy a Natty Boh at intermission and bring it back in with you!). But few things are more heartening to a dancegoer than seeing people of all incomes and ages enjoy a ballet. Call it the “Nutcracker” spirit, and hope it lasts all year, or


Playing with the fire of polio

THE GLOBAL BATTLE to wipe out polio has come closer than ever to success, but obstacles remain. The hurdles are not only the highly infectious nature of the disease but also war, corruption, weak public health systems and failing states. Last week added another obstacle to that list: obscene acts of violence. In Pakistan, nine unarmed vaccination workers were killed by gunfire while distributing medicine that could save the lives of countless children. Six of the victims were female, including three teenagers. The attacks were unprecedented. In their wake the United Nations suspended a vaccination drive aimed at high-risk areas of the country and the young people who are most susceptible to the polio virus, which affects the nervous system and can lead to paralysis. The perpetrators are unknown, and no one claimed responsibility, but they are believed to be the Pakistan Taliban. The Taliban has denied it, but the Associated Press reported that suspicion has fallen on the terrorist organization because of its past opposition to the campaign and because of claims by some extremists that the vaccine could make children sterile — not true — or that the workers are spies for the United States. This is not true either but may be lingering blowback from the CIA’s use of a doctor in Pakistan and a fake vaccination campaign in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Huge strides have been made toward eradicating polio since the effort was launched in 1988. Then, the disease was endemic in 125 countries; today, only in three: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Last year, there were 650 cases globally; this year, as of last week, 214. In the 1980s the disease annually killed or paralyzed more than 350,000 children. The member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “programmatic emergency” in May to galvanize efforts toward a final eradication, an exceedingly difficult task that has been achieved with only one other disease, smallpox. Pakistan’s progress is notable but fragile. This year there have been only 56 polio cases in the country, less than a third of the 175 last year. Yet the virus can spread rapidly and unexpectedly, especially where hygiene and sanitation are poor. This is why vaccination is so important; if enough children are immunized, the virus can’t find susceptible children to infect and dies out. By shooting the vaccine teams in Pakistan, the assailants are playing with fire.


Thousands of Syrians leave Jordan for the front lines

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled across the border into Turkey and Jordan since the uprising in their homeland began. MAFRAQ, Jordan — The exodus has emptied hundreds of the safe houses, apartments and refugee tents that have housed Syrians in Mafraq and other northern Jordanian cities, according to Syrian activists and Jordanian officials. Jordanian security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk on the record, said that as many as 8,000 Syrians have crossed the border back into their home country in the past 10 days. According to Syrian activists in Syria and Jordan, the sudden returns are a response to a call for reinforcements issued in early December by the rebel military council, the main umbrella organization of army defectors locked in a bloody war of attrition against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Activists said the response has been greatest among refugees in Jordan because pro-Assad militias in Lebanon have prevented similar returns from that country and because many Syrians in Turkey have already been involved in the fight. Syrian rebels said the call for more forces has come as the opposition faces a critical stage in the nearly two-year conflict, with its offensive inching closer to the heart of the capital, Damascus, capturing several military bases and fending off counteroffensives on rebel strongholds in Aleppo, the southern city of Daraa and the Damascus countryside. “Now, Jordan has become our number one source of manpower,” said Abu Hani Darawi, a Free Syrian Army coordinator whose battalions in Daraa have received the bulk of the returnees from Jordan. “We are now entering the final battles for Syria, and we need every able Syrian to join us.” The call for recruits has sparked a steady stream of voluntary returnees from Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp near Mafraq, close to the Syrian border. Jordanian officials are facilitating the repatriation of as many as 150 military-age Syrians every day, according to Interior Ministry statistics. Ahmed Rifai, a 25-year-old camp resident, said gains by the Free Syrian Army in Daraa prompted him and two of his cousins to request repatriation in a bid to join the rebels. “We can feel that Bashar’s final days are coming,” Rifai said. “We want to experience liberation day placing our boots on the neck of the regime, not cowering in a refugee camp.” In addition to


D.C. area brewers embrace their barrels

Barrels for aging beer are delivered to Goose Island Beer in Chicago, Ill. (Goose Island Beer) When Becky and Scott Harris founded Loudoun County’s Catoctin Creek Distillingand released their first rye whiskey in 2010, opportunists came looking for used barrels. There were restaurateurs who wanted to sling barrel-aged cocktails, artisans envisioning barrel-aged maple syrup and, of course, brewers. “By and large we give preference to the breweries,” Scott Harris says, adding that he has seen bargoers drain a keg of barrel-aged beer in eight minutes flat. “The flavors of the grain-based spirit with the grain-based beer are just so complementary.” Throughout the Washington area — and especially now that chilly weather has made boozy ales appropriate — brewers and consumers are recognizing whiskey’s affinity for its lower-alcohol cousin. They are appreciating the nuances that only barrels can impart, which include vanilla and oak. What’s more, as whiskey-barrel beers, often thick porters and stouts, become common locally, brewers are moving beyond these craft-beer mainstays, hoping to dabble in barrels used to age wine, gin, and even mezcal and tequila. To be sure, wood-aged beer isn’t new. Wooden fermentation vessels dominated pre-industrial brewing, and barrel-aging has been part of craft beer for decades. Barrett Lauer, head brewer at the District ChopHouse & Brewery, says the ChopHouse first brewed its bourbon-barrel oatmeal stout in 1996. But he adds that the price of the barrels he uses has jumped by 50 percent in the past two years as more brewers have discovered what happens when you mature beer in a whiskey vessel. “The longer you let it mature, the more character,” he says. “Vanilla, sometimes some coconut flavor, mocha, cedar, burnt sugar. Sometimes I even get a little bit of marshmallow and coffee.” One newcomer that has entered the marshmallow and coffee arena is DC Brau, Catoctin Creek’s biggest barrel customer. “We’re trying to make a big push with our porter,” says head brewer Jeff Hancock, referring to the whiskey-barrel version of his Penn Quarter Porter. “We’re going to be making it pretty much a year-round offering.” Hancock also hopes to obtain mezcal or tequila barrels, and he has used Catoctin Creek’s fruit-brandy barrels to age occasional beers, such as a riff on the Middle Name Danger hoppy saison he brewed with Brian Strumke of Baltimore’s Stillwater Artisanal Ales. “We aged that one in a peach-brandy barrel,” Hancock says. “I wished I’d actually bottled


The one issue food activists should focus on

asked the pharmaceutical industry to change labeling and marketing practices so that antibiotics are used only to treat sick animals. It was the first related action the FDA has taken since it first noted the dangers of adding antibiotics to animal feed 34 years ago. Without some push from inside the administration, political watchers say, the agency probably would have continued to stay mum. But the FDA guidelines don’t go far enough. They allow plenty of wiggle room about what constitutes an appropriate use of antibiotics for disease prevention. And the guidelines are voluntary. Although there is an implicit threat of regulation in the agency’s position, pharmaceutical companies could choose to ignore them. Luckily for food-reform activists, there is a quicker way to get antibiotics off the farm: a bill called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, or PAMTA. Sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), it would require farmers to phase out the use of common antibiotics for growth promotion and disease prevention while allowing their use in the treatment of sick animals. The bill has been introduced in every session since 2007. But it has gone nowhere because the powerful meat and pharmaceutical industries have many friends on both sides of the aisle in Congress. Slaughter plans to re-introduce the bill in the new session of Congress, and food reformers should support its passage. That means doing the usual things, such as writing letters to members of Congress and asking them to co-sign the bill, and supporting efforts like the Pew Campaign and Keep Antibiotics Working, a coalition of consumer, environmental and agricultural advocacy groups. But it also means that food-reform groups must develop alliances with powerful and, frankly, more experienced lobbies that hold greater sway on the Hill. In this case, that means forging relationships with health insurers, which will suffer mightily if America sacrifices the power of antibiotics for cheap meat. “The food movement needs to make alliances. One is with the health-insurance industry,” says Pollan. “It’s the only way to make change.” Over the past decade, the food movement, if you can call it a movement, has successfully made food an “issue.” But its solution, for the most part, has been to support an alternative food chain — critics allege mostly for its mostly elite members — rather than remaking the food chain that feeds millions, indeed most, Americans.


Google in 2012: Android soars, battles with regulators and a tricky new role

2012, watching its Android mobile platform continue grow and taking some interesting steps into hardware. Larry Page celebrated a year as chief executive in April and received generally high marks for his performance. The company sparred often -- and continues to battle -- with regulators on both sides of the ocean, which may change how it does business in the future. But Google had plenty to celebrate, too, with the introduction of a new Android operating system, several smartphones and tablets and an exciting future product, Google Glass. Here’s a look at the highlights (and lowlights) at Google in 2012. Regulation: Google is also facing questions from antitrust regulators in Europe and the United States over its advertising and search practices. The company was said to be near a deal with the FTC early in December, but those talks have since shown signs of fraying, according to The Washington Post. Critics said the FTC was not being aggressive enough by passing over accusations that Google is prioritizing search results from its products over its competitors. The announcement of an agreement -- once expected by the end of year -- has now been pushed back to at least January, The Post reported. Google+: Hardware pushes: Other hardware experiments have been less successful: Google introduced and, within a few months, stopped production of a streaming-music device, the Nexus Q. The company is said to be working on a new phone through its Motorola Mobility unit next year. The Wall Street Journal reported that the new device, an iPhone competitor, is being called the “X Phone” within the company. Meanwhile, the company continued to back its Android partners, many of whom were embroiled in legal battles with Apple over intellectual property. Page reportedly even met with Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook to discuss patent matters. Android: The company released a new version of Android, Jelly Bean, at its annual developers conference over the summer. The new system introduced features including a new form of typing, a better camera interface and a more unified system between smartphones and tablets. Free speech: In some cases, Google cited its own community guidelines -- which clearly advocate for freedom of speech -- while it deferred to local laws in other cases. Sign up today to receive #thecircuit, a daily roundup of the latest tech policy news from Washington and how it is shaping business, entertainment and science.


Police continue to investigate Capitol Hill slaying

The 1200 block of C Street NE is seen on Monday in Washington. A fatal shooting occurred in the early morning hours of Monday on the street. (Matt McClain/For The Washington Post) The hunt for the killer of a 28-year-old man who was shot in his car two blocks from his Capitol Hill rowhouse early Monday continued a day later with little new information. A police report made public Tuesday did reveal one new detail, however: Jason Anthony Emma’s black Audi was still running when police officers arrived to find him dead in the driver’s seat. Authorities have not said whether they believe Emma, an accountant who worked out of his home, was killed in a robbery or targeted for another reason. A close friend and roommate said he thinks Emma was shot moments after parking his car after a night out and returning to his home the 1200 block of C Street NE a few minutes after 2 a.m. The police report gave no new clues on the case, adding only fractionally to the scant description of suspects previously distributed by police — two men, one wearing a white T-shirt with dark sleeves. In the report, police added that both men are between 5-feet-10 inches and 6 feet tall, and weigh between 200 and 220 pounds. The report does not say the source of the descriptions. On Monday, D.C. Police Cmdr. George Kucik pleaded for help from the public and authorities announced a reward up to $25,000 for tips leading to an arrest and conviction. Police did not respond to requests for updates in the investigation Tuesday. Emma’s relatives and friends of Emma also did not return calls and e-mails. One of Emma’s closest friends told The Post on Monday that the victim had just moved into the rowhouse Dec. 1, joining lifelong friends from Virginia. The roommate said Emma, an Arlington native, had been excited about moving to Capitol Hill to join a neighborhood in which residents cared for the city’s future. Emma’s brother runs a food delivery business; his father is a psychiatrist who lives in North Arlington. An outpouring of support was evident on Facebook Tuesday, with more than three dozen friends and acquaintances sharing condolences. “My heart is aching for you and your family,” one wrote. “Know that Jason is in a better place, far from this horrendous earth.”


Russian Duma’s ill-considered adoption bill

languished in Russia’s grim institutions. It was with an eye toward improving the process of such adoptions that the United States and Russia approved a bilateral agreement in November. However, last week the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, threatened to upend this agreement. The chamber passed a bill that would outlaw the adoption of Russian children by Americans. The bill now goes to the upper chamber, the Federation Council; from there, it would go to President Vladimir Putin for his signature. Mr. Putin said at a Dec. 20 news conference that he supports the thrust of the bill but has not decided whether to sign it. The Duma’s abrupt action was taken in retaliation for U.S. legislation, approved by Congress and signed by President Obama, that deniesvisas and other privileges for Russian officials who abuse human rights. The measure is named after a Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who died of maltreatment in prison after exposing tax fraud by Russian officials. Mr. Putin and the Russian elite have been fuming about the Magnitsky bill for months. The Duma’s legislation stirred deep divisions in Russian society. Nationalists insisted that Russia could take care of its own children and they pointed to high-profile cases of death and abuse of adopted Russian children in recent years. There have been 19 deaths among the 60,000 Russian children adopted by Americans over the past two decades — regrettable cases, but relatively few. At the same time, many people in Russia spoke out against the Duma legislation, including some in the Russian Orthodox Church as well as liberal critics of Mr. Putin. In the rush to retaliate, the Duma has acted against Russia’s own best interests. The legislation would deny hundreds of children an opportunity each year to escape the dire condition of Russian orphanages. Although Mr. Putin says of caring for these children “we must do it ourselves,” the simple fact is that many of them will not be adopted by Russians, and they often suffer in primitive facilities. More broadly, the point of the Magnitsky bill is to name and shame those who violate human rights in Russia. This is a goal that Russia should welcome, a step toward rule of law and a healthy society. Instead, the Duma has picked up a cudgel more likely to hurt Russia than the United States. Mr. Putin should refuse to sign the bill.


Police lean toward robbery motive in Capitol Hill slaying

incident led bars in the area to warn patrons about walking home after closing. Police have made arrests in that case. “I don’t know what to tell people about this crime,” Wells said of Emma’s death. Emma, an accountant who grew up in Arlington County, had recently moved to Capitol Hill to live with longtime friends from Virginia. A friend and roommate said Emma loved city life and was excited about living within walking distance of D.C. bars and restaurants. In an interview Monday, the friend — a D.C. firefighter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was unsolved — would not say where Emma had been before he was killed, or what police have told him or relatives. A police official with knowledge of the case said detectives have found nothing in Emma’s past to indicate a motive for his killing. The official also said that detectives do not think anything Emma did in the hours preceding his death could be linked to the attack. Police officials discussed the case on the condition that they not be identified because the investigation is ongoing. On Wednesday, Emma’s friend said the family remained in seclusion in their Arlington home. Wells declined to share what he discussed with the victim’s father, Robert Emma, in a phone conversation. “It was Christmas Eve and he had lost his son,” Wells said. Emma’s younger brother Max posted a tribute to him on Facebook that has attracted dozens of comments. Through his brother’s friend, Max Emma consented to having portions of it published. “You were my brother, my best friend, a mess at times, but always carried a heart full of love,” he wrote. “You were a giving soul and always thought about others before yourself. If I may have one real complaint in life Jason, it is that I did not get to spend the remainder of my life growing old with you and our loving family. That was the plan.” He added: “Rest now, Jason. Close your eyes and wait for us to join you in the ultimate paradise. I will always love you. You deserved better.” At the end of the post, he told family and friends to “please stay tuned as we plan on honoring my beautiful brother’s life in a grand way in the coming days.” A funeral is scheduled for Saturday. Allison Klein contributed to this report.


China looks to meat exports to boost ties to Arab world

— took place this fall in Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia. In private conversations on the sidelines, Chinese officials described an overall strategy of outreach to the Middle East that was laid out in broad terms by central authorities, then planned and executed in more detail by local officials. The efforts appear to have produced some positive results. Last year, Sino-Arab trade increased by 35 percent to $196 billion, according to Chinese officials, and in the first half of this year, trade rose 22 percent over the same period in 2011, to $111.8 billion. The Sino-Arab trade remains dominated by oil, but Chinese exports such as textiles and home appliances have made a strong showing, according to limited data released by Chinese officials. Ambitious plans The decision by central authorities to make Ningxia a focal point for bridge-building efforts aimed at the Middle East gave local business leaders a much-needed boost of hope. It is hard to find a province more in need of development. A desert region largely left behind during China’s economic boom, Ningxia has the country’s third-smallest gross domestic product and few exports that it can rely on besides a fruit called wolfberry. One thing it does have in abundance, however, are Muslims. Two million members of the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority called Hui live here, making up a third of the province’s population. The Hui are thought to be descendants of Arab and Persian traders going back to the ancient days of the Silk Road. Local officials are starting small, with exports of such products as halal meat. But there are ambitious — and perhaps overly optimistic — plans to eventually turn the province into a gleaming financial hub for trade with the Arab world. At the Yinshun company’s slaughterhouse and meat factory on the outskirts of town, Vice General Manager Yang Li, an ethnic Hui, described the company’s goals as largely profit-driven but also patriotic and cultural. Almost half the staff are Hui, and the company follows strict Islamic rules about what their cows and sheep eat and drink, when slaughter can be performed and under what conditions. The factory, which is two years old, has hosted high-level dignitaries from Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia. But there have been some obstacles to increasing its exports, chief among them getting its halal meat certified under the byzantine and often-protectionist national laws of


Screen savers: 2012 movies to watch

man’s Casablanca is another’s Casa de mi Padre , which is to say that critics rarely agree on a movie. But review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes proves there are some movies we can almost all agree on. Ninety-nine percent of the 72 critics that saw Jiro Dreams of Sushi , for example, gave it high marks. The documentary follows elderly sushi chef Jiro Ono, who runs a tiny, bare-bones Michelin-rated restaurant beneath the streets of Tokyo. Oslo, August 31st was similarly hailed, with 53 out of 54 critics reporting positive feedback for the bleak Norwegian film about a drug addict who realizes the difficulties of staying clean outside of rehab. The documentary The Island President , meanwhile, spotlights the first democratically elected leader of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, a man whose agenda includes finding a solution for rising tides that could submerge the island nation. Forty-four of 45 critics gave the film a thumbs-up, and Hornaday gave it three stars. (All movies are available for home viewing.) People’s choice The Washington Post movie reviews that receive the most views online from readers are generally a pretty predictable line-up. The three biggest blockbusters of the year were among the top five most-viewed reviews on the site. And yet, sometimes readers offer surprises. The most visited movie review in 2012 was not a superhero action movie, but 2016: Obama’s America , Dinesh D’Souza’s pre-election cautionary tale about what would happen if President Obama were reelected. We can now see how his prophecies will play out. Other movies that received attention from Web readers of The Post include The Devil Inside , a horror movie about exorcists going about their demon-battling business, and Hope Springs , starring Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones as a husband and wife trying to rekindle their longtime marriage. Hornaday agreed with readers on Hope Springs, giving it three stars. (All movies are available for home viewing.) Kid-friendly crowd-pleasers On a rainy day, parents might be so desperate to entertain their little ones that they’ll go to any family-geared movie, regardless of quality. That could explain why Journey 2: The Mysterious Island raked in more than $100 million domestically while receiving only one star from our critic. But a trio of films dazzled both critics and audiences alike. Unsurprisingly, Pixar — the dependable purveyor of generation-spanning laughs — is the studio behind Brave . The animated fable follows a


Russia’s ban on U.S. adoptions devastates American families

more than it does American politicians and that it looks like a defense of corruption while unavoidably drawing attention to the sorry state of Russian orphanages. But Putin disregarded the warnings, seemingly pulled along by the enthusiasm for the legislation in both houses of parliament. Washington reacted sharply to the new law Friday. The State Department issued a statement saying it deeply regrets “the Russian government’s politically motivated decision.” It also expressed hope that adoptive parents and children “who have already met and bonded” would be allowed to complete adoption procedures that were initiated before the law took effect. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called Putin’s action “shameful and appalling” and said the law’s effects on thousands of Russian children would be “cruel and malicious.” He said in a statement: “I often wonder how much lower the Russian government under President Putin can stoop. But to punish innocent babies and children over a political disagreement between our governments is a new low, even for Putin’s Russia.” The issues at the heart of the U.S.-Russian relationship in the coming year are critical to the United States, primarily the continuing transit of goods into and out of Afghanistan, and Russian cooperation on Iran. So far, both topics have been kept mostly out of the fray. For several weeks, Putin appeared to be putting the brakes on the adoption ban. He raised questions about it at his annual news conference this month, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Science and Education Minister Dmitry Livanov, among others, called it ill-advised. But on Thursday, Putin said, “I have not seen any reason why I should not sign it.” The bill has elicited strong reactions from opposition figures, who view it as a case of Russia shooting itself in the foot. Journalist Alexander Minkin, on his blog for the Ekho Moskvy Web site, described it as “cannibalistic.” With Americans placing sanctions on certain corrupt Russian bureaucrats, he wrote, Moscow strikes back by punishing its own orphans. The move abruptly cancels a painstakingly negotiated bilateral agreement regulating American adoptions of Russians. That agreement went into effect just weeks ago. But Putin has described the agreement as ineffective and a case of “sham stupidity.” The adoption law passed the lower house of parliament by a vote of 420 to 7 and passed the upper house unanimously. Anti-American fervor Putin began stepping up his anti-American rhetoric a year ago, as


When doping is the norm

I was stunned to read in the Dec. 23 ombudsman column, “Lance Armstrong’s friend at The Post” [Sunday Opinion], that readers are criticizing Sally Jenkins for her sports column on Lance Armstrong. Such attacks are unjustified. Jenkins’s column is still the only piece that I’ve read that puts the doping “scandal” into perspective. As she points out, professional cycling had become a sport where it was impossible to compete without doping. As the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s report poignantly reveals, those cyclists who didn’t dope weren’t fast enough to even make a Tour de France team, let alone compete for a podium finish. Blood doping works. Armstrong didn’t win because he “cheated.” He won because he out-trained, out-worked and out-thought everyone else — all of whom also were doing some form of doping. Just look at how impossible it is to award any of Armstrong’s titles to those who finished the races behind him — all of them have been shown to have doped as well. And, in fact, for some of the years in question, some of the forms of doping weren’t even illegal. I’m really tired of self-righteous readers and sports columnists (including others at The Post) who profess to be so shocked and outraged that Armstrong “cheated.” Let’s put them in a situation in which the only way they can achieve their dreams and compete with others in their chosen field is to take the same performance-enhancing steps that everyone else is using. The solution is not to attack Armstrong but to change the culture of professional cycling. John Carey, Arlington


Early flu season could be severe, experts warn

Of the flu strains that are spreading this year, about 80 percent are the influenza A type, and almost all of those are the H3N2 strain, Bresee said. That matches well with this year’s flu vaccine, which includes the H3N2 strain. Flu vaccines are designed to protect against three influenza viruses that experts predict will be the most common during the upcoming season. The three kinds of influenza viruses that commonly circulate among people today are influenza B, influenza A (H1N1) and influenza A (H3N2). Each year, one flu virus of each kind is used to produce seasonal influenza vaccine. Also, the Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 21 expanded the approved use of Tamiflu to treat children as young as 2 weeks old who have shown symptoms of flu. The drug was previously approved to treat adults and children 1 year and older. The dose for children under 1 year old must be based on their exact weight. An unpredictable disease Flu is extremely unpredictable. “You never know when the peak will occur or how big the peak will be,” Bresee said. “If you’ve seen one flu year, it’s just one flu year.” Last winter’s flu season, for example, set a new record for the lowest and shortest peak of influenza-like illness. The season began late and was mild compared with most previous seasons. The last time a regular flu season started this early was the winter of 2003-04, which proved to be one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths. The dominant type of flu back then was the same one seen this year. But experts said there is a critical difference between then and now: In 2003-04, the vaccine was poorly matched to the predominant flu strain. Also, health officials said more vaccine is available now, and vaccination rates have risen for the general public and for key groups such as children, pregnant women and health-care workers. About 112 million Americans had been vaccinated by the end of November, the CDC said. Manufacturers were expecting to produce about 135 million total doses this year. Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. On average, about 25,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC. Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches, and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting


New rules on debit-card processing start to pinch small banks and credit unions

of Sandy Spring Bank in Olney, said in an interview. “Those companies took a hit when revenue dropped for the large banks, so they passed some of that loss on to us in the form of lower rates on processing fees. Our loss hasn’t been huge, not as high as what the large banks have been hit with, but still, it’s been significant.” Local banking executives said they expect the decline to continue in the coming years, which could prompt community banks and credit unions to follow in the path of many of their larger counterparts, adopting new fees and pulling back on free services to make up for lost revenue. “When these banks start losing revenue, consumers often start losing free checking and start paying new processing fees,” said Trish Wexler, a spokeswoman for the Electronic Payments Coalition, a Washington group representing credit unions, community banks and payment-card networks. “In the end, when two large industries fight and go to lawmakers to try to resolve those differences, it’s almost always the consumer who winds up with the short end of the stick.” In addition to capping swipe fees for large financial institutions, which took effect in October of 2011, an amendment to the Wall Street reform law also included what’s called the “routing and exclusivity” provision requiring credit-card issuers to give merchants’ banks more payment processing options. The intent is to drive down transaction costs for merchants as more processing companies vie to offer the most affordable services. But some economists expect the provision will lead card companies to offer lower compensation for each transaction. “The provision that could really start to lower interchange revenues for smaller institutions took effect in April, and in the only full quarter since then, the third quarter of 2012, we saw the first-ever decline in interchange revenue for credit unions,” Bill Hampel, chief economist for the Credit Union National Association, said in an interview, citing his group’s latest quarterly survey. “We are concerned about whether that was a one-time downward shift or the first of several quarters of decline.” Such uncertainty prompted many banking officials to suggest it is too early to evaluate the law’s impact on small banks and credit unions. “It’s kind of like saying ‘it hasn’t snowed yet this year, so it’s not going to snow,’ ” Bradford Thaler, vice president of legislative affairs for the National Association of Federal


In Nigeria, trapped between Islamist radicals and security forces

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolts, the fight against militant Islam in this moderate swath of Africa has gained fresh urgency. The armed men dragged Musa Muhammad out of his house and ordered him to lie face down on the ground. Then they grabbed his son. After asking his name, the men issued their judgment. “I heard three gunshots — pop, pop, pop,” Muhammad recalled, his voice trembling, his fingers in the shape of a pistol. “My son was dead, killed in front of me.” His assailants were not the radical Islamists who have brutalized this town. They were government security forces sent to protect the residents. In the epicenter of one of Africa's most violent religious extremist movements, civilians are caught in a guerrilla conflict that has shattered families and communal relationships. The Boko Haram, a homegrown group with suspected ties to al-Qaeda, is assassinating people nearly every day, targeting Christians, soldiers, police, even astrologers as it seeks to weaken the Western-allied government and install Islamic sharia law in this nation. But the security forces have also carried out extrajudicial killings, imprisoned hundreds on flimsy grounds, looted and burned shops and houses, according to victims, local officials and human rights activists. “We are trapped in between the Boko Haram and the security forces,” said Hauwa Yerima, a human rights activist. “Life has become so difficult for us in Maiduguri.” She and Muhammad asked that their grandfathers’ last names be used instead of their surnames because they feared reprisals by the military or police. People here often have multiple surnames. Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, a spokesman for the security units, which are known as the Joint Military Task Force or JTF, denied the allegations. He said that soldiers follow appropriate rules of engagement and that there “has not been any established case of extrajudicial killings, illegal detentions or harassment by the JTF forces.” This sprawling northeastern town is the birthplace and stronghold of the Boko Haram. From here, what began as a nonviolent Islamist uprising fueled by poverty, inequality and government corruption in 2002 has grown into a shadowy insurgency that U.S. and Western officials say has increasing connections to al-Qaeda affiliates. The militia has also sought to exploit long-standing tensions between Muslims and Christians in the northern part of this oil-rich nation of 160 million. But as Boko Haram becomes more lethal, the actions by the security


For Hill East redevelopment proposals, deadline nears

Developers interested in overhauling two District-owned sites near the Capitol Hill neighborhood and RFK Stadium are facing a Jan. 17 deadline to submit their proposals to D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray. Gray (D) and his deputy mayor for planning and economic development, Victor L. Hoskins, are attempting to redevelop the 67-acre Hill East area along the Anacostia River after canceling a previous solicitation that languished during the economic collapse and the 2010 election that made Gray mayor. They are beginning with two vacant lots along 19th Street SE immediately next to the Stadium-Armory Metro station totaling 114,000 square feet. The city issued a solicitation for private partners to develop the sites in October and officials envision a mi x of housing, offices, retail and institutional uses. Eventually the District expects to broaden Capitol Hill’s street grid to the banks of the Anacostia River, including the extension of Massachusetts Avenue as a central corridor. “Responses are expected to have a signature design, which complements the neighborhood character, and creates a pedestrian friendly environment,” officials wrote in the solicitation. Outside of the two vacant sites, however, the 67-acre area remains home to some of the city’s most critical social service, correctional and medical facilities, facilities that have proven difficult to relocate. The area includes 20 buildings of around 1.3 million square feet, including a drug treatment facility and the D.C. Jail. Once those complexes are relocated, the Hill East area has been considered a candidate for any number of major future uses. Gray and members of the D.C. Council considered building a training facility for the Washington Redskins on the property and it is one of the only sites in the city large enough to accommodate a future consolidated headquarters campus for the FBI, which is itching to leave the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. Development of two initial Hill East parcels is expected to kick start the area and the project is likely to attract private sector interest given its proximity to Metro and the wealthy and gentrifying neighborhoods of Capitol Hill. After Fenty sought private partners for the site, two development teams were named finalists, one led by developer Franklin L. Haney and the other by District-based William C. Smith & Co.


Rising painkiller addiction shows damage from drugmakers’ role in shaping medical opinion

end of the study, and the other had simply run out of the medication. “Withdrawal syndrome was not reported as an adverse event for any patient during the scheduled respites,” the authors reported. The trial also showed that the drug was effective and was embraced by the Purdue marketing team, which ordered 10,000 reprints to distribute to its sales staff, with instructions to highlight the finding on withdrawal. But according to company documents disclosed in a court case, the paper left out several cases of withdrawal. Inside Purdue, supervisors and employees reviewed a more complex set of data, according to a document signed by company attorneys and prosecutors, which accompanied a 2007 settlement in which federal prosecutors charged Purdue with misbranding the drug. The document has not previously been linked to the Archives article. “Multiple” patients, a company review said, “directly stated or implied that an adverse experience was due to possible withdrawal symptoms.” Eleven study patients “reported adverse experience due to possible withdrawal symptoms during these periods,” according to the court document. How did this discrepancy arise? One of the authors of the Archives article, Roy Fleischmann, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, said the authors were given the data by Purdue. “We reported on the data which was provided to us,” he wrote. He said the discrepancy may have arisen because some of the side effects — such as insomnia, nausea and anxiety — were not characterized by Purdue “as withdrawal symptoms, although, in retrospect, they probably were,” he said in an e-mail. Doctors who have treated OxyContin addicts, and some former addicts, moreover, say that considering the doses given to the patients in the trial and its duration, even the internal document undercounted patients reporting withdrawal symptoms. They say the majority of patients were likely to have suffered withdrawal symptoms when the drug was cut off. At the doses given in the trial, most patients are “pretty consistently” going to have withdrawal symptoms, said Phillip Prior, a board-certified addictionologist in the Portsmouth area who has treated thousands of patients addicted to opioids. He said the lower estimates are “flawed conclusions from a very flawed study.” “I’ve never seen anyone come off of them and not get withdrawal,” said Billie Taylor, 42, a former addict who works at a treatment center in Portsmouth. “I would have quit a lot


Mobile app to track buses goes quiet

NextBus DC, a popular smartphone app that tracks Metrobus arrivals, has stopped working. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) A popular smartphone app that tracks Metrobus arrivals has stopped working. NextBus DC, which uses Global Positioning System tracking and other data to determine when the next bus will arrive at a stop, quit working a few weeks ago after a contract ended between companies that provide the data to riders. The data for NextBus DC was provided by a company called NextBus in Emeryville, Calif. But a contract between the company and Ken Schmier — who invented the bus-tracking technology — ended in mid-December. The Emeryville firm said it would no longer provide the “customized data feed,” according to Larry Rosenshein, vice president of sales, marketing and business development of NextBus. “The time, effort and energy it takes to supply the customized feed doesn’t make sense when the same data is available through [Metro’s] Web site for any third-party developer,” he said. Schmier said he is working with a developer to change the app’s software so that it becomes functional again. He said he has received 7,000 complaints about the service ending. He said he expects that it will take about a week for the app to be back online. Metro said it was “not involved in the contract dispute” between the companies and said NextBus DC is “not officially supported” by Metro, according to Metro chief spokesman Dan Stessel. He said riders can access information on when the next bus arrives by going to Metro’s Web site on a desktop or mobile device or by telephone. Metro has had a contract with NextBus to track bus arrivals for several years using a Web-based system, according to Rosenshein. The NextBus DC service interruption was first reported by the Washington Examiner.


Medical marijuana dispensary prepares to open in D.C.

WeGrow offers equipment and training for those interested in cultivating medical marijuana. The store’s opening in Northeast Washington coincides with the District’s selection of six companies to supply medical marijuana to users. A townhouse on North Capitol Street in Northwest Washington, with unobstructed views of the U.S. Capitol from the sidewalk, was recently painted bright blue. The fresh paint stands out in a changing block of Truxton Circle, home to both a Dollar Plus Food Store as well as a high-rise project with a planned hotel and condominiums. But by spring, the townhouse at 1334 N. Capitol St. will make a bolder statement by becoming a symbol for the District’s leap into the growth and sale of medical marijuana. “You can look out and see the dome of the Capitol,” said David A. Guard, the general manager of the Capital City Care dispensary, as he gave a Washington Post reporter a tour of the 2,000-square-foot office. “We want to set a precedent and want the country to see what medical marijuana can and should be.” As early as February, some District residents will be able to enter the townhouse by showing proper identification to a security officer. They will be escorted to a brightly lighted office with brick walls and bamboo flooring. The patients will have their prescriptions for marijuana — an illegal substance under federal law — verified by a receptionist. Then patients can consult an iPad in the office’s waiting area to review six strains of high-quality cannabis. When they are called, patients will walk past a security guard in a glass-enclosed room scanning video from security cameras. At another counter in the rear of the office, patients will then purchase — cash or credit — up to two ounces of medical pot help relieve pain, nausea or muscle spasms. Patients also will be able to buy water pipes, vaporizers or cigar pipes to inhale the drug in an adjoining showroom. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs gave Capital City Care approval in December to open once it receives a final inspection from the Department of Health. In the coming weeks, another four dispensaries are expected to receive certificates of occupancy. They will be supplied by cultivation centers that can grow up to 95 marijuana plants at a time. So far, the city has selected four cultivation centers. One of them, Holistic Remedies on Fenwick Street Northeast,


Russia’s adoption ban says much about Putin

Russia’s highest office in May, he has launched a similar drive to destroy his political opposition as well as perceived adversaries within civil society, pushing through measures that have broadened the definition of treason, increased penalties for protesting against the government, recriminalized defamation and imposed a new round of restrictions on civil-society organizations. His prosecutors are pressing spurious charges against opposition figures and critics and conducting armed raids on their homes. Putin’s strategy also exploits anti-Americanism. Ever since Russians went into the streets in December 2011 to protest pervasive election fraud, Putin has blamed the United States for his and, by extension, Russia’s problems. He has accused America of provoking anti-Putin demonstrations and expelled the U.S. aid mission that, among other things, worked to bolster Russia’s decrepit public-health system. He has made it illegal for Russian nongovernmental organizations to receive U.S. funding if they are engaged in “political activities”; similarly, the Yakovlev law makes it illegal to serve as head of a Russian organization if one has dual Russian-American citizenship — a provision clearly targeting the 85-year-old head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alekseyeva. Putin’s anti-Americanism has also led him to back Bashar al-Assad in his war against the Syrian people so as to deny the United States a global gain. Putin has spoken of the need for a new and uniquely Russian ideology, one that stands apart from, and explicitly rejects, the values of liberal democracy. Given all this, it is heartening to see many Russians, including the foreign and education ministers, oppose this latest abuse of power. At the same time, the absence of a serious response from the world’s leading democracies is troubling. The past seven months have seen the worst deterioration in Russia’s human rights situation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Putin regime demonizes the United States, heaps abuse on its officials, derides its democratic values and treats the humanitarian motives of its people as suspect, while backing the murderous Assad regime. U.S. officials need to wake up to the challenge that Putin’s Russia poses. American couples deprived of the opportunity to adopt Russian children are not the only ones calling for the Obama administration to finally take a firm stand. Read more on this debate: The Post’s View: The Russian Duma’s ill-considered adoption bill Vladimir Putin: My vision for a better Russia Fred Hiatt: Putin turns back the clock in Russia


Financial reform battle continues over Dodd-Frank law

one, has called on Congress to restrict the expansion of big banks by limiting their non-deposit liabilities — funding that comes from sources other than consumer deposits in savings or other accounts. “There is a potential for an alliance between liberals and conservatives,” said James Kwak, co-author of “13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.” “Liberals don’t like that big banks have lots of market power, which enables them to act in a predatory manor. Many conservatives don’t like the fact that these banks have an implicit government subsidy.” Conservatives, however, are even more opposed to the government interfering with the financial markets by limiting the size of banks, said Kwak, who is also an associate professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. The balance of power in Congress, he stressed, has not shifted enough for substantial reform to come from the Hill. Getting any legislation passed will depend on the political will of the House Financial Services Committee. Incoming chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) is a staunch advocate of community banks, but he doesn’t favor breaking up big banks. He has said that ending “too big too fail” is a top priority but has been vague on a plan. Hensarling could not be reached for further comment. For her part, Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.), now the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, supports the blueprint that Dodd-Frank has already created for ending government bailouts, including orderly liquidation, said her chief of staff, Mikael Moore. Economist Phillip Swagel, who teaches at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, said, “It’s clear Congress is thinking about the extent of government involvement in the financial markets, but the legislative approach will likely be incremental.” He added that parts of Dodd-Frank are still being phased in, and lawmakers may wait to judge the impact of the new rules before making changes. Like many market watchers, Swagel is curious about how housing finance reform will play out in Congress next year. There is a broad consensus that the secondary mortgage market must be reformed, but congressional leaders appear to be miles apart on strategy. Hensarling opposes federal guarantees for home loans and wants to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Waters is not on board to place the mortgage market solely in the hands of private companies. Yet there are aspects of housing reform that she


‘Orchestra of Exiles’ a reminder of how artists can rise to meet a moral challenge

Furtwangler urged Huberman to return for the opening of the Berlin Philharmonic’s 1934-35 season. “Someone must make a beginning,” he said. The answer was no — not before German Jews, musicians and non-musicians, had been reinstated, Huberman replied. Addressed to Furtwangler, the letter appeared in full in the foreign media. A second letter, published in the international media a few years later, denounced not only Furtwangler but all of Germany’s non-Nazi intellectuals for the silence that effectively made them Hitler’s enablers. Deeply concerned by the worsening scene in Germany, Huberman went to Palestine for 12 concerts in 1934. Two years later, the outbreak of violent Arab protest revealed that the famous Zionist axiom, “A land without people for a people without land,” was seriously flawed. But his version, “An audience without an orchestra for an orchestra without an audience,” turned out to be right on the mark. Between 1934 and 1936, Huberman recruited 53 players from Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Holland, 20 of them ex-principals. He toured the United States and mobilized Albert Einstein for the obligatory Waldorf Astoria dinner to raise a desperately needed $80,000. With the help of Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, he outflanked both the British Home Office and David Ben-Gurion’s Jewish Agency to get permanent immigration certificates for his players. He recruited the great Arturo Toscanini, not Jewish but as passionately anti-Hitler as Huberman was, to conduct the debut concerts. Within weeks, the new orchestra had been heard in concert or rehearsal by 15,000 of Palestine’s 400,000 resident Jews. Aronson’s film takes dutiful note of Huberman’s life as prodigy and virtuoso. But only on reaching Palestine does it become genuinely interesting. Reenactment scenes, as inevitable in documentary film these days as imaginary dialogue in nonfiction, are not the film’s strength. Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony is mysteriously identified as his Italian concerto. If clips of Toscanini in action look remarkably like scenes from a documentary produced by the U.S. Office of War Information in 1943, this is because they are. Yet the film’s virtues are also hard to miss. Cameos by Ivry Gitlis, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Leon Botstein, reminiscences of second- and third-generation orchestra players, and interviews with surviving contemporaries cover a multitude of soft spots. Archival stills recall a place where the Promised Land showed unimagined promise, and the best of times met the worst of times in a minimally watered landscape of cars,


Songdo, South Korea: The city that could change the way we travel

and several hotels. By the end of the decade, this new pleasure carnival will open and connect back to the airport by a magnetic levitation train that will make a 33-mile loop around the entire island. “The concept of an airport is changing,” says Min-Jae Chun, director of the Airport City Development Group. “In the past it was just about transportation. If you want to progress, you have to create a destination.” These new Vegas imitations probably won’t hold much appeal for Americans, who are unlikely to fly 12 hours or longer when our own candyland is so much closer. But a quarter of the world’s population is within 31 / 2 hours of Incheon, and by 2018, the airport anticipates 62 million visitors a year, with 65 percent coming from Japan and China. “These cities are being built as tourism infrastructure for people who can now afford to travel,” says Lindsay. “These are the mega-resorts for the world’s emerging middle class.” The aerotropolis, however, does cause other, less readily obvious ripples in how we travel that will affect American travelers. “Once you build these infrastructures and you make travel more efficient, you change global travel patterns,” says Lindsay. “It opens up places. It makes it easier to create hubs and connect. It leads to a rise in travel destinations we never thought of before or that were really difficult to get to.” He points to Dubai as the ultimate example. “It was barely on the map 20 years ago,” he says. But after spending $500 million on a new concourse, and after Emirates airline acquired several new long-haul jets, the city became an important hub, linking places that had never been connected before. “The Seychelles becomes easier to reach because you can stop over in Dubai,” says Lindsay. “In Africa there are 14 aerotropolises being built. And in places like the Middle East and Asia, people are sitting down and building cities from scratch around the airport. China alone is building the equivalent of Rome every week. It will be interesting to see what destinations open up.” Opening up the world Songdo aims to be the best of these new aerotropolises. It has taken features of well-loved cities, such as Venice’s canals and Savannah’s pocket parks, and replicated them. It’s a smart, wired, sustainable city. It’s as accessible to the airport as Reston Town Center is to Dulles. If


FDA begins implementing sweeping food-safety law

“The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act is a common sense law that shifts the food safety focus from reactive to preventive,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. (Charles Dharapak/AP) The Obama administration moved ahead Friday with the first major overhaul of the nation’s food-safety system in more than 70 years, proposing tough new standards for fruit and vegetable producers and food manufacturers. The long-awaited proposals by the Food and Drug Administration are part of a fundamental change aimed at preventing food-borne outbreaks — caused by everything from leafy greens to cantaloupes to peanut butter — rather than simply reacting to them. Every year, contaminated foods sicken an estimated 48 million Americans and kill 3,000. The rules, which span 1,200 pages, are aimed at creating safer conditions from farm to fork. Produce farmers would be required to ensure that their crops aren’t contaminated by bad water or animal waste. Some will likely be compelled to build fences to keep out wildlife and to provide adequate restrooms and hand-washing facilities for field workers. Food-processing companies “It’s a big leap forward in applying modern, preventive measures across the whole food supply,” Michael R. Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said in an interview. “It’s important to see these rules as setting the standards for food safety.” The proposed rules focus on two key portions of a broader food-safety bill that President Obama signed into law two years ago and that many lawmakers, consumer advocates and industry officials say has taken far too long to implement. FDA officials and consumer advocates say the rules are essential to laying the groundwork for a major revamping of the country’s food safety system. These rules “are the heart and soul of the law,” said Sandra Eskin, director of the Food Safety Campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “These are the priorities. Everything else flows from them.” Taylor said FDA officials tried to craft the rules in a way that would set a common safety standard while allowing for the different ways in which foods are produced. “The strength of this system is it is science-based; it’s not one-size-fits-all. It’s inherently adaptable to all sorts of operations,” he said. “We’re looking to take widely recognized principles and apply them to a widely diverse food supply.” Food industry groups welcomed the proposals, saying they provided some clarity but stopped short


For small exporters, security-related regulations can be a thicket

it is selling far beyond a salesperson’s talking points. Suppose Kincaid’s K&F makes a circuit board for a telecom company selling an antenna that could be used for military or civilian purposes. The telecom company must determine whether it is subject to Commerce or State Department regulations that account for a host of contingencies. For example, a Commerce Department license is required for national security reasons to send certain items if they have “an acoustic carrier frequency outside the range from 20 kilohertz to 60 kilohertz,” according to the regulations. An exporter selling such a piece of equipment would not need a license to sell its product to obvious allies, such as Australia, but could need one for trade partners such as India. If, however, the antennae is designed for a sensitive military vehicle, the licensing jurisdiction falls to the State Department. Its restrictions for military items are far more stringent. Unlike Commerce regulations, the State Department requires explicit authorization to export almost every product that falls under ITAR. So a defense contractor sending equipment for U.S. military use on a battlefield abroad must obtain its authorization to “export” its product to a foreign country. And what of Kincaid’s responsibility? “If a customer never says ITAR,” Kincaid says, “that board can be sent to a foreign country, as far as we’re concerned.” Lichtenbaum, the lawyer who has done work for the circuit-board industry, says the responsibility to comply with regulations falls to the exporter. So when K&F sends a batch of circuit boards to a customer who intends to export, that customer is expected to know where the boards are going and who will use them. Determining the end user and use of a product can be difficult enough in a globalized economy, but the sophisticated cat-and-mouse games played by countries such as China and Iran can raise the risks to levels for which small manufactures are unprepared. One common technique for a country seeking sensitive material is to set up a shell company in a shipping center such as Singapore and “ping” U.S. companies in an attempt to find one that will inadvertently export sensitive technology. It is a classic part of the intelligence game, where countries go to multiple places to gather disparate pieces of a larger puzzle. So even an honest small company can find itself in trouble should a barred entity — person, company or country


Five innovation predictions for 2013

these were just the start of the “quantified self” movement. As sensors become smaller, more powerful, and cheaper, we will see many new types of devices that help us monitor our health. These will be embedded in our iPhone cases, bathroom scales, toothbrushes, and even in our jewelry. - In 2013, expect to be able to purchase sophisticated new devices like the AliveCor Heart Monitor, which I have been testing and the FDA has approved for use by licensed U.S. medical professionals. If I had a device like this 10 years ago, I may have been able to avoid the heart attack that I had. The device will cost $199 when prescribed by a physician. Today, we need physicians to analyze the data the device provides. But, given the rate at which technology is advancing, computers may be able to do a better job. Witness the way IBM’s Watson defeated Jeopardy champions. It had far more data available to it. Eventually, I foresee cloud-based systems that have access to the latest medical knowledge and to data from hundreds of millions of people analyzing medical data. I would trust these systems more than I trust my cardiologist, and the app to access these will be available anytime and as often as I need it. Even before we reach this stage, consumers should be allowed to purchase these devices off the shelf to see and analyze their own medical data. This is where the battle lines will increasingly be drawn between technologists and regulators. Users will begin to demand greater control of their own data and more ways to monitor it in order to improve their lives. That means, in the coming year, one should expect to see the regulatory battles over these types of technologies become more frequent and heated. Manufacturing jobs continue to return to the U.S. Expect advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and 3D printing to, as I have previously written, change the economics of manufacturing, lead to a renaissance in design and creativity, and bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. over the next year. Manufacturing is also destined to become a technology industry. The jobs of the future will be in creating 3D designs and maintaining and operating sophisticated computer machinery. In 2013, expect to see the commercial availability of a new generation of robots like Baxter from Rethink Robotics and the grape-picking Wall-Ye. From big baloney


Ellen G. McDaniel, U-Md. official

Ellen G. McDaniel, 71, a forensic psychiatrist who became associate dean for admissions at the University of Maryland’s medical school in Baltimore, died Jan. 3 at her home in the Howard County community of Highland. She had lung cancer. Her husband, John P. McDaniel, confirmed the death. Dr. McDaniel, who served on professional panels and task forces in Maryland, joined the medical school faculty in 1970 and became associate dean in 1982. After her full-time academic career ended around 1990, she opened a private practice in Towson, Md. Throughout her career, she was an expert witness in forensic psychiatry in legal cases and also conducted patient evaluations for competency to stand trial. Ellen Rachel Garb was a Cleveland native and attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh before graduating in 1966 from the University of Michigan’s medical school. She completed her psychiatric residency at what is now the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. She was a graduate of the Baltimore Washington Institute for Psychoanalysis in the District. Dr. McDaniel was a past president of the Maryland Psychiatric Society and a regional chapter of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. In addition to her faculty role at the University of Maryland, she had academic appointments at the George Washington University and the Georgetown University medical schools. She published and lectured widely. Dr. McDaniel was a past board member of the old Maryland Ballet in Baltimore and the Lab School of Washington. More recently, she was a founding board member of the Baltimore Lab School. Survivors include her husband of 47 years, John P. McDaniel of Highland; two children, Celia “Lorrie” Clendenin of Bethesda and Michael McDaniel of Baltimore; a brother; two sisters; and three grandchildren. — Adam Bernstein


Peer-to-peer car sharing grows in the District

WASHINGTON,DC. JAN..4, 2013. When D.C. resident Nathan Graeff isn’t using his car, he rents it out to others nearby for short periods through start-up RelayRides.1/4/13. (Jeffrey MacMillan/JEFFREY MACMILLAN FOR CAPITAL BUSINESS) District resident Nathan Graeff, a Metro contractor, takes the subway to work near Foggy Bottom from Columbia Heights each weekday. For weeks on end, his 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt used to stand parked outside his residence. Graeff kept the car for occasional visits to his family in Pennsylvania and for trips to Ikea and the grocery store, but for the most part, it was untouched. “I’d rather have someone else utilize it,” he said. In March, Graeff decided to lend his car to other D.C. residents who might need his car while he’s not using it— during daytime hours on weekdays and before 1 p.m. on weekends. He had searched for car-sharing platforms online, but only found one, called RelayRides, operating in D.C. San Francisco-based start-up RelayRides is a peer-to-peer car-sharing service allowing car owners like Graeff to rent out their cars to people nearby needing a car for a few hours or a day. RelayRides is one of a handful of businesses using the peer-to-peer model — others, which don’t yet have a D.C. presence include Getaround, mostly functioning on the West Coast, and Buzzcar, only available in Europe. The services suggest that car-sharing models are evolving, even as an early pioneer such as Zipcar gets snapped up by rental giant Avis for almost $500 million. Graeff’s car has been rented eight times so far, netting him an extra $250. He adjusts his asking price depending on his perception of demand — right now, it’s $8 an hour, $50 a day, or $320 a week. His renters have mostly needed the car for a couple of hours for errands, and Graeff usually meets renters to hand off the car and keys. RelayRides takes 40 percent of the owner’s rental fee, which pays for administrative costs and an insurance policy (each car is covered for up to $1 million), according to the company. It also screens potential renters by running a license and credit check. Growing fast While the company won’t disclose numbers of owners or renters, RelayRides chief executive Andre Haddad noted that its user base is growing fast, expanding from two cities at the beginning of the year to 1,200 in 49 states. (The service is available in


Headed for the moon someday? Here are some spots you might not want to miss.

In the not-too-distant future, it may be possible to travel to the moon. Space geeks suggest some must-see sights. (iStockphoto/iStockphoto) In December, a company called Golden Spike announced plans to offer trips to the moon beginning in 2020. The group’s target clientele is scientists — from countries that can’t afford their own space programs but can pay the estimated price of $750 million per seat — and possibly private foundations on scientific missions. But the prospect of making a trip to the moon has the imagination of every space geek running double time. Any terrestrial travel expert will tell you that you need to do your research before embarking on a major journey. Travel guides for the moon, however, are hard to come by, so I spoke with a handful of moon enthusiasts about what they would do if they were to make the trip. First, as with any destination, you have to time your visit appropriately. Maine is delightful in the summer, Walt Disney World is warm and uncrowded in the autumn, and Lake Tahoe is a winter wonderland. When is peak moon travel time? “I’d love to be there during a solar eclipse, watching the Earth move in front of the sun and then seeing the red glow of sunset for 360 degrees around the Earth’s eclipse,” says Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. The people at Golden Spike plan to have the capacity to make two to three trips per year in the beginning, and will work with their clients to pick a time to go. But, if you can’t be there to watch the Earth block out the sun, Brown says a lunar eclipse — when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun — is a pretty decent fallback. “Watching downward as the shadow of a lunar eclipse races across the Earth would be pretty spectacular,” he says. “These are things no human has ever seen.” Once you decide when to go, you have to deal with the where. A Golden Spike trip will have some limitations: “The landing site will have to be on the front side of the moon, so that we have a direct line of communication with Earth,” says Alan Stern, president and chief executive of Golden Spike. And travelers won’t have a vehicle to travel on the lunar surface, limiting them to


Discovery of ancient breweries offers clues of primitive lifestyle

findings suggest that alcohol has been a social lubricant for ages, said Lindy Crewe, an archaeologist who co-authored the Levant paper. While the cultivation of grain clearly transformed humanity, why it first happened has been hotly contested. “This debate has been going on since the 1950s: Is the first cultivation of grain about making beer, or is it about making bread?” Crewe said. Some researchers suggest that beer arose 11,500 years ago and drove the cultivation of grains. Because grains require so much work to produce (collecting tiny, mostly inedible parts, separating grain from chaff, and grinding into flour), making beer would have been reserved for feasts with important cultural purposes. Those feasts — and alcohol-induced friendliness — may have enabled hunter-gatherers to bond with people in newly emerging villages, fueling the rise of civilization. At work parties, beer may have motivated people to put a little elbow grease into bigger projects such as building monuments. “Production and consumption of alcoholic beverages is an important factor in feasts facilitating the cohesion of social groups, and in the case of [the Turkish site], in organizing collective work,” wrote Oliver Dietrich, a co-author of the Antiquity paper, in an e-mail. Dietrich is an archaeologist for the German Archaeological Institute. The site in Cyprus includes a courtyard and hall, along with jugs, mortars, grinding tools and, crucially, several kilns that Crewe and her colleagues believe were used to toast barley for a primitive beer. To test their hypothesis, the team replicated the kilns to produce malted barley and used it in a cloudy and slightly weird-tasting beer, Crewe told LiveScience. At the Turkish site, Neolithic hunter-gatherers worshiped deities through dancing and feasting at the temple site, which is filled with pillars carved with animal shapes and other cultic designs. The site also had what appears to be a primitive kitchen with limestone troughs that held up to 42 gallons of liquid. The troughs held traces of oxalates, which are produced during the fermentation of grain into alcohol. At both sites, the idea of a beer-soaked party must have been a real treat, Crewe said. “There must have been a real sense of anticipation within the community when you knew a big beer event was coming up,” she said. — LiveScience Raise Your Glass: 10 Intoxicating Beer Facts Top 10 Bad Things That Are Good For You Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans


Bank of America puts to bed claims from housing crisis, while retreating from market

its participation in the mortgage industry, leaving the market in the hands of fewer players to the detriment of borrowers. “You have less competition, and as a result the pricing has gotten worse,” said Guy D. Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, a home-loan publication. “Mortgage rates should probably be closer to 3.25 rather than 3.5. One of the reasons they aren’t is because banks aren’t that competitive and don’t have to be to get business.” Buying Countrywide grew Bank of America’s market share in mortgage originations from 7.8 percent in 2007 to 21.6 percent in 2009. That number has fallen to 4.2 percent as of September 2012, according to an analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. Wells Fargo, with about 30 percent of the market, has supplanted Bank of America as the nation’s largest mortgage lender. JPMorgan trails in second place with 10.3 percent. “If we want to open up competition, we not only have to show a willingness to settle the litigation but also make it a more favorable environment for lenders,” said Christopher Mayer, a professor of real estate finance and economics at Columbia University. “There is too much uncertainty in the market, which is making lending unattractive.” Mayer said policymakers need to clearly define the new parameters of the mortgage market, such as reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to give lenders more certainty. Until then, the mortgage industry will continue to consolidate. Cecala expects the void left by Bank of America will eventually be filled by other lenders who will step up their businesses once there is more clarity about the future of the mortgage industry. In the interim, the mortgage market will likely remain in the hands of a few well-heeled players. Officials at Bank of America say the bank has not completely given up on the housing market, but it is focused on reducing risk. To that end, Bank of America has stopped buying loans from other lenders in what is known as wholesale deals. Those kinds of deals represented nearly half of Bank of America’s mortgage business four years ago. “Mortgages are important to us, and we want to provide the product for our customers in the retail part of the business,” Bank of America spokesman Jerome Dubrowski said. He noted that the bank has increased the share of home loans it issues directly to borrowers from 6 to 8 percent in the


Brewed on the mild side

should be crisp and clean, neither too subtle nor convoluted in its recipe. “Everybody’s getting older. We want to be able to drink more than one” round, says Frazier. Making a lower-alcohol beer is a real test of the brewer’s skill, he adds, in that it leaves the brewer “more exposed.” Any defect will stand forth all the more clearly without a rich malt body or extravagant hopping to mask it. After shooting e-mails back and forth, the men agreed to brew a rye Pilsener clocking in at a non-punishing 5 percent alcohol by volume. It’s quite a step down in potency from last year’s symposium beer, a 10 percent West Coast hop bomb dubbed a “San Diego pale ale.” The Pilsener will contain about 20 percent rye, for a pumpernickel-like spiciness, and will be hopped with Sterling, a hybrid variety that combines the peppery flavor of Czech Saaz with the pungent fruity and floral notes of Pacific Northwest strains. Lager beers such as Pilseners require a longer conditioning (about five weeks in the case of the symposium beer), so the trio will do their brewing in early February at the Devils Backbone satellite plant in Lexington, Va. Among the trio’s breweries, that one has the most tank space. Conference attendees probably will get their first taste of the rye Pilsener at the opening reception, scheduled for the National Air and Space Museum on March 26. They’ll also get a souvenir bottle. A limited amount of draft beer will be served to the public at the individual breweries and at selected tap houses across the District. How much depends on conference attendance (last year’s event in San Diego drew a record crowd of about 4,500) and on a decision that Oliver will need to make in upcoming weeks: Should they brew 60 barrels or 120 barrels? Lower-alcohol beers aren’t exactly the forte of American craft brewers, but each of the three breweries already has dabbled with gentler beers below that 5 percent benchmark. At his brewpub, Oliver offers a Rye Session Ale flavored with the same Sterling hop and clocking in at about 4.5 percent alcohol. He says the beer is named after his Chihuahua, Session: “I’ve brewed with hop additions that are larger” than he is. Additionally, Devils Backbone features a semi-IPA called Four Point Pale Ale that measures a mere 4 percent and showcases a different hop with


For quality and value, six wines to try

District and Maryland, Country Vintner in Virginia: Available in the District at Ace Beverage, A.M. Wine Shoppe, Burka’s Wine & Liquor, Circle Wine & Liquor, D’Vines, Potomac Wine & Spirits, Pearson’s, Rodman’s, Whole Foods Market (Tenleytown), Wine Specialist. Available in Virginia at Oakton Wine Shop and the Wine House in Fairfax; on the list at Bistro Vivant in McLean, Virtue Feed & Grain in Alexandria. Raptor Ridge Pinot Gris 2011 ★★ Willamette Valley, Oregon, $19 Richer than a pinot grigio though made from the same grape, this Oregon pinot gris is a nice pairing with salmon or other rich seafood dishes. Nice Legs: Available in the District at Chat’s Liquors, Paul’s of Chevy Chase. Available in Virginia at the Aldie Peddler in Aldie, Market Cellars in Reston, the Wine House in Fairfax; on the list at Maplewood Grill in Vienna, Screwtop Wine Bar in Arlington, Trummer’s on Main in Clifton. Cline Ancient Vines Zinfandel 2011 ★1 / 2 Contra Costa County, Calif., $17 This wine shows zinfandel’s character of raspberry and cranberry, with some caramel and maple from oak treatment. It’s a bit plodding on the finish, but some zesty food smooths that out. Bacchus in the District and Maryland, Country Vintner in Virginia: Available in the District at Bell Wine & Spirits, Calvert Woodley, Costco, Magruder’s, Rodman’s, Safeway (Georgetown, L Street and MacArthur Boulevard), Schneider’s of Capitol Hill, Whole Foods Market (Tenleytown). Widely available in Maryland. Available in Virginia at Balducci’s (McLean); Whole Foods Market (Alexandria and Arlington; various locations of Harris Teeter, Total Wine & More, Wegmans. Backstory Chardonnay 2011 ★1 / 2 California, $9 Here’s a delicious, basic chardonnay with great balance and a touch of oak to match the peach and apricot fruit flavors of the grape. Nothing complex here — just good, basic fun. J.W. Sieg: Available in the District at Batch 13; on the list at Radius Pizza, Smith Commons, Vinoteca. Available in Virginia at Arrowine in Arlington; Aldie Peddler; Ashburn Wine Shop; D’Vine Wines in Winchester; Red, White & Bleu in Falls Church; Unwined (Alexandria and Belleview); Vienna Vintner. On the list at Screwtop Wine Bar in Arlington. More from Food: Spirits Column Beer Column Recommendations r Prices are approximate. Check Winesearcher.com to verify availability, or ask a favorite wine store to order through a distributor. Here are six wines that should grab your attention for their quality and their value. — D.M


Steroid-era athletes confront how much they’ve hurt their legacies

is a skepticism bordering on cynicism that has taken hold among a public weary of what feels like endless doping scandals in sports that demand strength, speed, stamina or a combination. “Swimming and track and field have come a long, long way; they’ve done a good job of policing themselves,” Ungerleider said. “Now we’re staring at cycling, which is in the limelight with one athlete after another coming forward and not only testing positive but disclosing that it’s a culture that’s rampant with cheating and doping. “That leads to a skepticism and cynicism: ‘Why should I turn on my TV and watch the Tour de France or the Italian Tour or Olympic cycling when whoever comes in among the top five, we’re going to hear in a month or so that their blood or urine was tainted?’ ” Norm Bellingham, former chief operating officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, views the current crisis in cycling as an opportunity for all sports to recalibrate their win-at-all-costs mentality. “Sports is an arena in which young people can test themselves to see what they’re capable of doing, and society can watch to see what our species is capable of doing,” said Bellingham, 48. “When it’s not real — when it has been altered chemically — it becomes a ruse for all of us.” Among those paying the steepest price, he notes, is the athlete who realizes the short-term, ill-gotten gain. “If you’re an athlete, and you put in that sort of effort but it’s not real, the results aren’t anything you can really hold your head up about when you look in the mirror,” said Bellingham, a former Olympic canoeist who won gold in the K-2 1,000-meter at the 1988 Seoul Games. “It’s all for nothing, in many respects. It becomes a profession based upon lies. The long-term ramifications for some of these people are very dark.” ‘A false journey’ Bellingham understands the temptation well. A Harvard graduate, he and fellow kayaker Greg Barton competed in the 1980s, when Eastern European kayakers increasingly showed up for races with unnatural physiques and posted phenomenal results. The scuttlebutt was that they were using steroids. Bellingham and Barton debated the choice at length. Was their sport secretly condoning steroid use? Were they being foolish by not doing the same? And they raised the issue with their coach, Bill Endicott. All agreed the ethical compromise wasn’t worth


“When it’s not real — when it has been altered chemically — it becomes a ruse for all of us.” Among those paying the steepest price, he notes, is the athlete who realizes the short-term, ill-gotten gain. “If you’re an athlete, and you put in that sort of effort but it’s not real, the results aren’t anything you can really hold your head up about when you look in the mirror,” said Bellingham, a former Olympic canoeist who won gold in the K-2 1,000-meter at the 1988 Seoul Games. “It’s all for nothing, in many respects. It becomes a profession based upon lies. The long-term ramifications for some of these people are very dark.” ‘A false journey’ Bellingham understands the temptation well. A Harvard graduate, he and fellow kayaker Greg Barton competed in the 1980s, when Eastern European kayakers increasingly showed up for races with unnatural physiques and posted phenomenal results. The scuttlebutt was that they were using steroids. Bellingham and Barton debated the choice at length. Was their sport secretly condoning steroid use? Were they being foolish by not doing the same? And they raised the issue with their coach, Bill Endicott. All agreed the ethical compromise wasn’t worth it. They chose instead to continue competing in the spirit of amateurs of old, treating their sport as a way to test their physical and mental limits. “If drugs entered into the equation, it became a joke,” Bellingham recalled. “We were working too hard for this journey to find out who we were for it to be a false journey.” But for other high-performing athletes, the calculus of doping yields a different answer. Ungerleider, the psychologist and doping expert and author, declined to venture into the mind of any individual athlete he has studied. But based on anecdotal evidence from working in the Olympic arena for more than 30 years, he believes that many athletes who knowingly take banned substances convince themselves they’re not doing anything improper. Their first rationalization is a matter of math. They might be college champions or nationally ranked, but they realize that just two or three athletes in their sport will qualify for the Olympic team. “There’s a perception that the only way you get there is if you create that edge, and that edge means doping,” Ungerleider says. “You have to do it because everybody else does it. It has been sort of the


Prince George’s and So. Maryland Going Out Guide

Alan King, the Maryland-based smooth jazz artist, performs at Blue Dolphin on Jan. 10 at 8 p.m. (Blue Dolphin Seafood Bar & Grill ) Alan King 3 THU 10 “No Strings Attached” An art exhibition featuring work by members of Delusions of Grandeur, an artists’ collective formed by Wesley Clark, Shaunte Gates, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Amber Robles-Gordon and Stan Squirewell. Through Feb. 23. 39th Street Gallery, 3901 Rhode Island Ave. (Second floor), Brentwood. 301-864-3860. www.39thstreetgallery.com. Free. “Freedom Train” Alan King FRI 11 Hyattsville Black White Party ”Backstairs/Upstairs,” a behind-the-scenes tour of the kitchen, private chambers, back staircase and undisplayed collections of Sotterley Plantation, takes place on Saturday at 1 and 3 p.m. (Sotterley Plantation) Theremin with Art Harrison “Fancy Nancy Sees Stars” “Daddy’s Dyin’. Who’s Got the Will?” SAT 12 “Backstairs/Upstairs” Winter Celtic Music Festival ’70s disco hand dance party “Hey, Boo: Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird” Martin Luther King Jr. celebration Pyrates Royale Twelfth Night Ball SUN 13 American Legion breakfast MON 14 Belair Mansion TUE 15 “Glitz: Art That Sparkles” WED 16 “Fighting on Two Fronts: Black Military Service in the United States” — Compiled by Jillian S. Sowah from staff reports