Could women in combat mean fewer wars?

for selective service. The idea of a draft is pretty much off of the table, but if it were ever to be reinstated because of a serious attack on our homeland not everyone drafted would go into combat. Combat should be reserved for those who volunteer. If there is a war the majority of Americans believe is worth fighting, there would be no shortage of men and women willing to sign up for battle. If not, we shouldn’t be in it. Period. Few people would object to women and men being called up to serve in some capacity, other than combat, in a national emergency. In fact it has often been proposed that every young American be required to participate in some form of national service for two years. The biggest problem with required combat for any sex is that we don’t always send our young men and women into harm’s way for good reasons. We have fought some terrible, some would say illegal, wars. Vietnam was a disaster. Even President Lyndon Johnson admitted early on that it was a bad war and unwinnable. He knew it and so did his secretary of defense and they pursued it anyway. Korea wasn’t exactly World War II, the last “great war” worth fighting. Iraq was invaded on faulty intelligence and turned out to be a disaster. Afghanistan has turned into a quagmire. Too many people have died because of fickle, weak, dishonest, corrupt or ambitious politicians. The idea of having to fight in a war you don’t believe in is reprehensible, whether you are a man or a woman. That is why only those who volunteer, men and women, should be required to fight. Kathleen Parker talks about the unacceptability of 18 year old girls going into combat. Certainly the prospect of one being captured and raped is horrible. I would venture to say though, that today’s female enlistee is also in danger of being assaulted by a comrade, a sad fact that some believe will be reduced by equalizing the opportunities for men and women to hold all positions. Let’s talk about 18 year old boys. They are children too. Anyone who has ever seen “Saving Private Ryan” cannot forget the unbearable scenes of teenagers landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day, screaming for their mothers as they are being slaughtered. War is a terrible thing. Nobody should ever have to fight


Finding an oasis or two in the Natural History Museum

course of the exhibit. The plants represent the best winter-flowering orchids from the collections of the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Botanic Garden. As much as orchids have enchanted humans, they have worked their real magic on insects and other pollinators. Mirenda is struck by a slipper orchid that lures bees into its bowl, where they can escape only by squeezing through a hatch while pollinating the plant. “They can’t even open their wings; they have to crawl,” he said. Then there are the epidendrums, tall terrestrial orchids bearing clusters of orange or red blooms at the end of wiry stems. Squint and the blooms and the foliage remind you of a perennial closer to home: the milkweed. The milkweed is the host plant of the monarch butterfly — the adult sups the nectar, the caterpillar eats the leaf. But in the orchid version, “the flowers have no nectar,” Mirenda says. “It’s a type of deception.” As he says this, I’m thinking of a butterfly named the viceroy, which mimics the monarch. Such beauty, such subterfuge. The exhibit includes 11 photographs by Christian Ziegler from his book “Deceptive Beauties.” He roamed the world to record the beautiful deceit of this floral family. Mirenda points out a picture of an iridescent green euglossine bee with pollen on its back. The poor dear is visiting orchids to gather neither pollen nor nectar but perfume. “The males that have collected the most complex array of fragrances get the females,” he says. And we thought the orchids were scenting the air for us. This engaging and mysterious interplay between flower and insect is played out on the floor above the show, where the museum’s butterfly pavilion provides a standing exhibit of live butterflies and moths supping at more common flowers. If the winter chill is in your bones, it’s a good place to be. Warm and misty, the pavilion is about the size of a Metro car but alive with the prettiest of insects. The curators stock it with more than 40 species that are hatching at any one time, and currently include a large white- and black-veined beauty from Malaysia named the Paper Kite, as well as the iridescent and eye-marked stunner named the owl butterfly from Latin America. These creatures live no longer here than they would in the wild, two to three weeks, and it is sad to see some of


Washington Post Co. to sell Everett Herald

McDaniel said that Black Press’s Sound Publishing, with 39 papers in Washington, will consolidate the Herald with other facilities it has in the area. According to The Post Co.’s most recent annual report, the Daily Herald Co., which employed about 200 people at that time, is also a regional printing site for USA Today. Everett is about 30 miles north of Seattle. The company publishes a weekly community newspaper that is home-delivered in south Snohomish County; La Raza del Noroeste, a weekly Spanish-language newspaper; and the Snohomish County Business Journal, a monthly publication. In her 1997 memoir, the late Katharine Graham, longtime chairman of The Post Co., wrote that the acquisition of the Herald in 1978 was part of a “larger plan to acquire several smaller newspapers which never materialized.” She said the Herald was poorly appraised. “We paid a monopoly price for a paper that was in a somewhat competitive situation with Seattle and then proceeded not to run it well until recently, when it has been vastly improved,” she wrote. Black has said that he may have erred in paying $165 million for the Akron paper in 2006, shortly before the recession. He also drew criticism after buying and closing the Honolulu Advertiser and laying off more than 430 people to bolster his other Honolulu newspaper, now renamed the Star-Advertiser. But a Vancouver Sun profile of him in 2010 said his papers have a combined circulation of 2.8 million and more than $500 million in annual income. The news follows announcements by The Post Co. that it will also sell two shipping terminals in Old Town Alexandria and consider the sale of its headquarters building in Northwest Washington. Together, the three moves could generate substantial amounts of cash; the headquarters properties in downtown Washington alone are assessed at about $80 million, although the buildings would most likely be torn down by a buyer. McDaniel said the moves were not related, calling them “total coincidence.” According to the company’s most recent disclosure, The Post Co. had $467.3 million in debt on average in the third quarter of 2012 and paid a 7 percent interest rate. The company had working capital of $373.1 million. The Post Co. said it expects the Herald sale to close in March. Related stories: The Washington Post Co. explores the sale of its downtown headquarters Washington Post Co. subsidiary puts Alexandria warehouses up for sale


National Signing Day 2013: Virginia Tech high on incoming recruits

could receive playing time right away because cornerback Antone Exum suffered a torn ACL last month. Beamer said Fuller, the All-Met Offensive Player of the Year at wide receiver this past fall, may be used in some offensive packages as well. “He has that wow factor and I fully expect him to come in and be that guy with a little swagger. . . . He’s going to make an immediate impact,” said Foster, who called Fuller and four-star defensive end Wyatt Teller of Bealeton, Va., the future “faces of this defense.” Virginia Tech also signed two quarterbacks who could eventually supplant Thomas following the 2013 season, most notably four-star prospect Bucky Hodges of Virginia Bech. Quarterback Carlis Parker of Statesville, N.C., whose left-handed throwing motion and athleticism reminds Beamer of Michael Vick, is one of four signees who graduated high school early and already enrolled at Virginia Tech to work with new offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler during spring practice. In addition, the Hokies also received commitments from legacy recruits Kyle Chung, son of former Virginia Tech offensive lineman Eugene Chung, and Deon Newsome, son of former Hokies linebacker Myron Newsome. It wasn’t all good news for the Hokies, though. Running back Drew Harris, a 2012 recruit who spent this past fall at Fork Union Military Academy, did not sign his national-letter-of-intent. Harris has yet to be academically cleared by the NCAA, and one person familiar with the situation said the issue wouldn’t be resolved until June, at the earliest. This day, though, was about looking toward the future after a season that brought about the most drastic coaching changes this program has seen in 20 years. For the first time ever, Virginia Tech broadcast an innovative two-hour show that was live-streamed on its Web site and featured profiles of every signed recruit. New recruiting coordinator Bryan Stinespring, meanwhile, said the team will “spot recruit” going forward, allowing Virginia Tech’s assistant coaches to be more involved in the recruitment of prospects at their position. Stinespring also announced that new wide receivers coach Aaron Moorehead will recruit Maryland and Washington for the Hokies. Foster and defensive backs coach Torrian Gray will remain Virginia Tech’s primary recruiters in Northern Virginia. More college sports coverage: Reid: Edsall, Maryland on border patrol For Catonsville’s Lane, it’s a dream come true Forum: Recruiting tipping to Terps’ favor? Video: Taivon Jacobs signs with Maryland Virginia keeps


Going Out Guide for Montgomery County, Feb. 7-13

The Duquesne University Tamburitzans come to Rockville on Saturday, (Duquesne University Tamburitzans) THU 07 “9 Circles” Baltimore Symphony Orchestra FRI 08 Blackberry Smoke Stone Kawala and the Trees SAT 09 Flute and piano concert Reel Estate: The American Home on Film “Anime Momotaro” “Annie Jr.” Kim and Reggie Harris Carbonstone Tamburitzans “Hello, Dolly!” Crawdaddies National Philharmonic Play in a Day SUN 10 “Old McDonald’s Farm” “A Little Jazz Music” Hot Society Orchestra of Washington MON 11 “Small Gems Show Featuring the Work of Werner Drewes” An exhibit of small works by nine artists highlights the Bauhaus artist who studied under Kandinsky. Through Feb. 22. Marin-Price Galleries, 7022 Wisconsin Ave., Chevy Chase. 301-718-0622. www.marin-pricegalleries.com. Free. TUE 12 Testament WED 13 Wytold In this solo performance, the Strathmore artist in residence plays original compositions using acoustic and six-string electric cellos. Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m., through Feb. 27. Mansion at Strathmore, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. 301-581-5100. www.strathmore.org. $15. — Compiled by Carrie Donovan from staff reports


Poll: Americans expect economic pain to continue

of more than 30 percent, while another third said their pay went down between 11 percent and 20 percent. Even though the economy has recovered more than half the 9 million jobs lost during the Great Recession, the survey found that Americans perceive that the economy has descended to a new normal. Fewer than one in five agree that jobs, careers and employment opportunities will be better for the next generation. Nearly three in five said the ability of young people to afford college — a crucial, if ever more uncertain, factor in upward mobility — is permanently damaged. More than two in five believed workers will never feel as secure in their jobs as they did before the recession. Nearly half said the elderly will have to find part-time work after retiring. And 86 percent of Americans said the availability of good jobs at good pay will never return or will not return for many years. “We have had many months straight of private-sector job growth. Yet people are stuck with this attitude and perception,” said Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center. “It speaks to how powerful, widespread and enduring this Great Recession is.” The survey’s findings in many ways match other measures of the nation’s economic struggles after the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The downturn destroyed nearly 40 percent of Americans’ wealth, according to the Federal Reserve, and pushed the unemployment rate to 10 percent. Private employers have added new jobs for three years straight, and the unemployment rate is now 7.9 percent. The stock market is back to pre-recession levels, and housing values are beginning to rebound across the country. Still, significant damage remains — 4.7 million workers have been out of work longer than six months. Meanwhile, the Census Bureau has reported that wages are down, and other researchers have found that a disproportionate number of jobs created in the recovery are at the low end of the wage scale. The survey found that most Americans are not expecting sharp improvement. More than 61 percent expect their family finances to remain at their current diminished levels, nearly three times the number who think their finances will get back to pre-recession levels. The survey found that Americans blame factors other than the recession for their economic plight. Seven in 10 said the high jobless rate is partly the result of foreign competition and


Pentagon gearing up to fight the PR war

The “influence” part is limited to foreign populations, where, according to the manual, the goal is to get them to “support U.S. objectives or to persuade those audiences to stop supporting the adversary or enemy.” The Army, like the other military services, has had PR operations for decades, but mostly they have been aimed at U.S. audiences. As the manual states, “Some people think of the information environment as a new phenomenon. In fact, it has been present throughout history and has always been an important military consideration.” When radio and then television arrived, the services used their own personnel for interviews for the public. During the Vietnam War, they offered stories that often contrasted with what reporters were providing commercial news outlets. As the war expanded, reporters who went to the front lines traveled primarily with military support. In Desert Storm, the 1991 operation that forced Iraq out of Kuwait, reporters in the beginning had to cover the fighting far behind the lines by attending televised briefings by the U.S. commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Near the end of the conflict, a few selected reporters rode with U.S. units. As part of planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld decided to place reporters with military units. With “embedding,” many reporters who had never been in the military service shared time with troops and essentially became part of the outfit they covered. It mostly worked to the Pentagon’s benefit. That lesson is key to the new manual’s approach. The best way to keep Americans informed, it says, is “through the actions and words of individual soldiers.” And the best way to do that is through army units that “embed media personnel into the lowest tactical levels, ensuring their safety and security.” There is to be “a culture of engagement in which soldiers and leaders confidently and comfortably engage the media as well as other audiences,” the manual says. Strategic communications came to the forefront over the past decade along with “information operations,” propelled by the belief that the U.S. military has been losing the propaganda war in Afghanistan, thanks in good part to the Taliban’s use of messaging. “Adversaries and enemies have proven adept at using information to gain a marked advantage over U.S. forces,” the manual says. “With the advent of the Internet and widespread availability of wireless communications and information


World’s best: Mariss Jansons bringing Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to Kennedy Center

six continents, including its first performances in Australia (in November) and Africa (in March), as well as the current U.S. appearances — Tuesday’s concert will be his first in Washington since 2010. Add to that his commitments in Munich with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and that ensemble’s touring schedule — Jansons recently went with the group to Asia — and he’s left with very little time in the city he technically calls home. “I am in St. Petersburg so short a time, you can’t say that I’m living there,” he says. This kind of punishing schedule makes some conductors jaded. But Jansons doesn’t let anything become routine. In Asia with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, he did a cycle of Beethoven symphonies — warhorses, chestnuts or, depending on your outlook, revelations. Jansons’s gravelly voice brightens at the memory. “It was musically extremely exciting,” he says. “We did a video from Suntory Hall, a DVD — wonderful hall, very good public. It was one of the highlights, I must tell you, of my life.” There’s the hyperbole again. It’s hard to write about Jansons and avoid it. He’s a brilliant musician, and everybody likes him. “I think he makes, fairly consistently, deeply felt and committed performances,” says Henry Fogel, the dean of Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, who earlier in his career ran the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic — not at the same time. “Any orchestra he plays with, the musicians seem to fall in love.” Fogel adds, “The CSO musicians . . . kept asking me why we didn’t bring him more often. The issue was, you can’t get him.” You can’t get him — because he’s too busy and because of his health issues. The latter represent what appears to be the sole tension in Jansons’s biography. His story closely parallels that of his father, the conductor Arvid Jansons, who moved the family from their native Latvia when his son was 13 because Arvid was offered a post at the Leningrad Philharmonic assisting the great Yevgeny Mravinsky. Arvid Jansons died of a heart attack on the podium in Manchester, England, in 1984. Mariss Jansons, too, had a post at the Leningrad Philharmonic early in his career, before his steady international rise through a 20-year stint as music director of the Oslo Philharmonic and a seven-year tenure, from 1997 to 2004, as music director of


NASA: Asteroid flyby next week is the closest ever of its size

operators said they were monitoring the asteroid but expected it to safely cruise through a belt of satellites that are about 23,000 miles up. “We’re watching the situation, but there’s not a giant concern,” said Alex Horwitz, spokesman for Intelsat, which operates about 50 communications satellites. The Air Force, meanwhile, is leaving the tracking to NASA. An astronomer in Spain discovered the asteroid a year ago. Small, dim and speedy, it was a “slippery target” as it moved across a background of stars, said Jaime Nomen of the La Sagra Observatory in southern Spain. NASA-funded scientists then ran the numbers: The asteroid was about 150 feet wide. Its closest approach will occur at 2:24 p.m. Eastern time on the 15th. On the night side of the planet — mainly Asia and Australia — observers with small telescopes might see a pinpoint streaking at the rapid clip of two moon-widths per minute. Further observations refined the asteroid’s path. It cruises around the sun in an orbit almost identical to Earth’s. Our year is 365 days. Its year is a day longer. Like a drunk driver weaving across lanes, asteroid 2012 DA14 crosses paths with Earth twice a year, at varying distances. Despite these opportunities for disaster, scientists tracking the asteroid are confident 2012 DA14 won’t collide with us for at least the next century, which is as far as they’ve been able to project its path. Next week’s approach is the closest during that time. A chunk of rock about half the length of a football field — travelling at almost 5 miles per second — will pass about 17,200 miles from Earth on Friday. (The Washington Post/NASA) NASA began rigorously scanning the sky for cosmic hazards only in 1998, when Congress told it to. Agency scientists said Thursday they are confident their network of ground and space telescopes have found at least 95 percent of potentially planet-killing asteroids, those a half-mile wide or more. None of these monsters is headed toward Earth, Yeomans said. But the agency has done much worse identifying smaller threats, said Ed Lu, a former NASA astronaut. Lu spearheads the B612 Foundation, which last year began raising private funds to build an asteroid-spotting space telescope. “Saying we’re only going to find the civilization-killers is a [sub-par] threshold,” Lu said. “We can do better than that.” Lu said that so far the human race has spotted only


Compounding pharmacies have been linked to deaths, illnesses for years

B. Braun Medical declined to comment. A year later, CAPS shipped batches of cardioplegia from its facility in Lanham, Md., to Mary Washington Hospital, a hospital in Fredericksburg, records show. Shortly thereafter, two patients who had undergone open-heart surgery had a devastating infection and died. Nine other heart patients ended up in the intensive-care unit for extended stays. “It’s normal for people to have an inflammatory response following open-heart surgery, but to have a severe response that results in multi-organ failure — that’s rare,” said John Armitage, who ran the cardiac unit and now lives in Oregon. “We started changing everything we could think of. Nothing seemed to work.” In September 2005, cardiovascular specialists staged a mock surgery and found the cardioplegia was contaminated with bacteria, according to a hospital analysis. They repeated the mock surgery to make sure no other factors were contributing to the crisis. This time, the full cardiac team joined in, scrubbing their hands, slipping on sterile gowns, masks and gloves as they walked through each step of an operation while the hospital’s infection-control staff watched. The only thing missing was a patient. The cardioplegia seemed to be the only problem, the state health department concluded. When the FDA was notified, Armitage said, it took days for investigators to arrive, and they wouldn’t tell the hospital what they were finding out about the CAPS Lanham facility. “They said, ‘We are not a police agency,’ ” Armitage said. The hospital filed a Freedom of Information Act request and received the FDA inspection report about six months later. The FDA found 17 safety violations at the Lanham facility. Cardioplegia was tainted with the species of bacteria that matched those found at Mary Washington. Internal tests showed “the presence of bacteria in a water container used for cleaning. . . . Likewise, sterility testing demonstrated similar bacteria in its drug products.” The Maryland Board of Pharmacy suspended the Lanham facility’s license for two months. The FDA also found dozens of problems at CAPS’s facilities in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Missouri. Steen, who left CAPS last year to start his own medical consulting firm, said the cause of the illnesses remains a “mystery.” He noted that the facility sent the drug to a number of other hospitals that didn’t have any problems. That might have been because Mary Washington had ordered a special formula, said Diane Woolard, director of the Division


With BSO, Steven Hough and Hannu Lintu’s clashing styles provoke rare performance

Members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. (Dave Hoffmann/Dave Hoffmann) Watching British-born pianist Steven Hough and Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu ply their respective trades, you might not think that they’d be compatible music-makers. Hough is the very model of physical restraint. Lintu is all exuberance and big gestures, curling himself into the smallest possible space to encourage a pianissimo or swinging his long arms in huge sweeping circles as the music motors to a climax. But they joined forces with the Baltimore Symphony at Strathmore on Thursday for as glowing and compelling a performance of the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 in A as I’ve heard. For all his composure, Hough has the ability to draw both unusually sonorous lines and explosive eruptions from the piano. His meanderings through the Lisztian thicket of finger-twisters look almost casual but emerge with exquisite balance and shape. Lintu proved to be an ideal partner, giving the orchestra its head as it expanded on a piano statement and letting the solo surface when needed, without ever seeming to tamp down the orchestral warmth. There were fuzzy edges to some of the orchestra’s entrances, but Liszt’s orchestrations almost invite that. Lintu led the orchestra through the restless landscape of Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 with remarkable delicacy. Although his tempos were quick, themes seemed to develop with unhurried inevitability. He let the silence of long pauses hang without ever feeling that the music had stopped, and he and the orchestra sculpted Sibelius’s wonderful sonorities with careful balance. The opening, Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini,” took a while to settle in, but then took off in a blaze of passion. Reinthaler is a freelance writer. Pianist Stephen Hough (Andrew Crowley/Andrew Crowley)


Secret Service investigating hack of Bush family e-mails

The Secret Service said Friday that it is investigating the theft of numerous personal e-mails from members of the Bush family, after an apparent hacker leaked the e-mails and Bush family photos to the Smoking Gun’s Web site. The Smoking Gun’s report, posted late Thursday, included excerpts from e-mails in which the children of former president George H.W. Bush discussed his severe illness in December and made plans for a possible funeral. He has recovered. The site also posted paintings made by his sonGeorge W. Bush — including purported self-portraits of the 43rd president in the shower and the bath. A Bush family representative confirmed that the e-mails were stolen but said the family would make no formal statement beyond that. On Friday, these moments from a famously private family became worldwide gossip. The story tested boundaries of propriety and relevance for traditional news media outlets: At the heart of the story was material that, in another day, might not have been published at all: intensely personal data, gained by apparently illegal means. The incident also underscored a fundamental contradiction of the Internet age. Millions of Americans rely on the data “cloud” to safeguard the intimate details of their lives, storing them in e-mail inboxes, social-media postings and other digital repositories. People do it despite occasional reminders that, up in the cloud, data can be vulnerable. On Friday, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said that the investigation is being led by the agency’s criminal investigative division in Washington. Donovan said he could not release any details about the investigation. The Smoking Gun said the stolen e-mails it had reviewed were dated between 2009 and 2012. In all, the site said, six accounts appeared to have been compromised. Among those hacked were Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of George H.W. Bush and sister of George W. Bush; as well as sportscaster Jim Nantz, a Bush family friend. The e-mails were obtained by a hacker called “Guccifer” and posted in an account “that appears to have been hacked for the purpose of hosting the material,” the Smoking Gun said. The site did not release the full cache of hacked e-mails or provide information about how it learned about them. “I don’t really want to go into any further details,” William Bastone, the site’s editor, said in a telephone interview Friday. He also declined to say how many e-mails the site had reviewed. “They


Protecting endangered foreign animal and plant species

From leopards and zebras to penguins and giant pandas, Janine Van Norman is working to make sure these and other endangered foreign species will be around for future generations. As the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s first-ever branch chief for foreign species, Van Norman seeks to protect animals and plants native to other countries that are at risk of becoming extinct. There are currently more than 600 foreign species protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. “At the Fish and Wildlife Service, we are entrusted in identifying species in need and providing them with protections,” said Paul Souza, deputy assistant director for the endangered species program. “Janine really cares about protecting species and their habitats, and she leads by example and with passion.” The Endangered Species Act requires the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to list species as endangered or threatened, regardless of where they are located. American citizens and residents without the proper permits are prohibited from activities such as hunting, selling, importing or exporting threatened or endangered species. By regulating these activities, the United States ensures that citizens and residents under its jurisdiction do not contribute to the further decline of the listed species. Van Norman, who began her career as a wildlife inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and as a supervisory wildlife inspector at the Port of Miami, said she knows from first-hand experience how regulating these activities helps diminish a species’ further decline. Janine Van Norman of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (Kate Norman/USFWS) To determine whether a foreign species should receive protections, Van Norman and her team of three biologists conduct year-long scientific reviews. Van Norman said a review typically begins with a petition by an individual, organization or foreign government. Once Van Norman and her team have assessed the validity of a petition, they use the best available scientific and commercial information to make a determination. Since they are reviewing species located outside this country, Van Norman said they must rely heavily on information from foreign nations, species experts and various data to analyze how many of the species are left in the wild, the threats to their habitats and survival. Van Norman admits that not being on the ground conducting the research can be challenging, particularly when “there are gaps in the data for some of the species that been petitioned to


Kathleen Parker: Hillary Clinton and the ghosts of Benghazi

attack by an al-Qaeda affiliate,” which may or may not be confirmable. Isn’t every wannabe terrorist part of an al-Qaeda affiliate these days? To the point, was the White House’s response deliberately misleading? Or was Rice merely regurgitating what she had been told, using the best available information? Clinton’s huffy response “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?” Well, it all makes quite a bit of difference, though inarguably less now than it might have just weeks before the November election. Clinton’s response was so loaded with explosive potential, it’s a mystery why no one on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee attempted to provide an answer. Apparently, Johnson and his Republican colleagues were so hornswoggled by Clinton’s irritation that no one wanted to volunteer. Most important, obviously, is the possibility that those four American lives might have been saved. More prosaically, it is very possible that President Obama’s reelection might not have been assured had possible incompetence at the highest levels been highlighted sooner rather than . . . now. Americans got a clearer picture of what transpired last Sept. 11 during testimony Thursday by retiring Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Panetta said he personally delivered the news to Obama that the consulate in Benghazi was under attack during a 30-minute briefing that also included Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president said, “Do whatever you need to do to be able to protect our people there,” and that was that. He and Panetta didn’t speak again that night — and neither Dempsey nor Panetta spoke to Clinton at all. Under questioning by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Panetta added that the president didn’t ask about military options or deploying assets. “He just left that up to us,” Panetta said. As chief executive, Obama may have felt he delegated appropriately. Let the military handle it. But he is also the commander in chief. When our ambassador is being attacked, our country is being attacked. Should he have done more? Might he have made a call to Stevens or someone else on the ground? Obama didn’t hesitate to call Georgetown law student


India hangs man for his role in 2001 parliament attack

going to execute his brother. “We were not informed about the hanging by the government, we had to learn from the media,” he said, speaking from Sopore town in Kashmir by telephone. A government official said Guru’s family had been informed of the pending execution by a government-operated courier service. Guru, his brother said, was 42 and is survived by a wife and a 12-year old son. The family had last met with Guru in prison last August. “We want his dead body back, it is our right. But they are not sending him back to his birthplace to be buried. Is this humanity?,” he asked. “The streets have been completely shut down. Who do we complain to in the government?” Fearing angry protests, the government imposed a strict curfew in many parts of the Himalayan province of Kashmir where several armed groups have been fighting for independence for the past two decades. Many groups in Kashmir, including some of India’s leading human rights activists, have said that Guru did not get a fair trial and argued for clemency. Lawmakers in Kashmir had even introduced a proposal in the state assembly against the execution. The proposal failed to pass. Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir province, told reporters that the police and paramilitary forces have been deployed across the Himalayan valley to deter violence. “I understand there is certain degree of angst as a result of this execution. I also understand there are amongst us those who would like to exploit this situation for their personal and political advantage,” Abdullah said. “I appeal to the people of Kashmir to please allow us to get through this period, to please not let the situation go out of hand and to not resort to any sort of violent protest which would only make matters worse.” The last time a Kashmiri resident was executed for terrorism was in 1984. Security analyst B. Raman wrote in a blog post following Guru’s execution Saturday that today, unlike in 1984, terror groups are “well primed against India and are in a position to mount quick retaliatory attacks not only in (Kashmir) but also in the rest of India”. Sunita Bisht, the wife of a TV cameraman who was shot and later died from wounds suffered outside the parliament building, said she was “very happy Afzal Guru has been finally hanged to death, I


A Local Life: Aqiq Khan, Indian-born doctor, dies at 77

Born in a cave, the son of an illiterate 16-year-old mother in northern India, Aqiq Khan swam in the Ganges River as a boy. He knocked mangos out of trees for sport — and sustenance. He owned a goat. As a man, he would practice medicine with his wife in Burke, ski, play tennis and travel around the world. As a member of India’s Muslim minority who grew up before the 1947 partition of the country, he never forgot his roots. His early years were an odyssey of flight from religious, political and cultural strife. In the second half of his life, he had a comfortable home in the Northern Virginia suburbs and an income healthy enough to support and educate three daughters and give financial assistance to four younger brothers. He became an American citizen. He read American history. He was a volunteer docent at the Library of Congress and a volunteer poll watcher on Election Day — so enthusiastic that he had to be reminded that poll watching did not include giving advice on whom to vote for. His daughter Alia Khan described him as a quintessential “mixture of East and West.” Aqiq Khan, a physician who was born in a cave in India and became a world traveler and humanitarian poses for a portrait in this undated family photo. (Family Photo) As the man of the household, he expected to be in charge, and he was. But he could do little more than grumble when his Americanized daughters offended his Eastern sense of decorum by wearing tank tops. He would have liked to have taught them to speak Urdu, his native language, but he dropped the idea. It seemed pointless, he figured, since they would live their lives in America. He retired from his medical practice in 1994 and in retirement studied classical Urdu poetry. He liked to recite his favorite Urdu poems to a fellow countryman and Urdu speaker, Mohsin Khan, to a point where Khan (no relation) said, “My eyes glazed over.” Dr. Khan, 77, died Dec. 13 at Inova Fairfax Hospital of cardiac arrest. His daughter Alia confirmed the death. Aqiq Mohammed Khan was born July 31, 1935, in the village of Bara in the Ghazipur district of northern India. He was the eldest child in his family, the members of which all sacrificed to pay for his education. He went to a Muslim


Maryland officials probe possible abortion link in woman’s death

The Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Montgomery County Police Department are investigating the death of a woman who died at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital on Thursday — days after she was believed to have started an abortion procedure at a controversial clinic in Germantown. The facility has become a touchstone for the abortion debate nationwide. Those who oppose abortion have launched regular demonstrations near the facility, saying its leader, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, regularly performs late-term and dangerous abortions. Abortion-rights advocates say that Carhart courageously performs procedures that other physicians have backed away from. In this case, the 29-year-old woman, who has not been identified, died Thursday after being taken to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, according to local and state officials. The circumstances that led to her death are unclear. Carhart and clinic officials could not be reached. A woman who answered a phone number connected with him said he wasn’t available to comment. It is common for both the state medical examiner’s office and the Montgomery police to investigate death cases. Investigators and doctors at the medical examiner’s office review about 10,000 cases a year, including many of people who died in hospitals or at medical facilities. “At this point, there is no indication of any criminal activity in this case,” said Capt. Paul Starks, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Police Department. Anti-abortion advocates have planned a Monday demonstration near the clinic, according to organizers, who allege that the woman arrived at the clinic Sunday night to begin a multiple-day procedure. Protesters say she stayed at a hotel at night. On Thursday morning, they allege, she experienced shortness of breath and intense pain and went to the Shady Grove emergency room, where she died a short time later. Michael Martelli, the executive director of the Maryland Coalition for Life, called on the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to close the clinic until it can investigate the matter. He also called on the Maryland Board of Physicians to suspend or revoke Carhart’s medical license, pending a similar investigation.


Value Added: Ending a career with a slow gin biz

friend of Lowe’s to help them get D.C. law changed so they could sell their bottles on premises at a retail cost of $36 per bottle. (Wholesale to restaurants and stores is $24.) The big expense was construction. They had to upgrade steam, gas and water lines, install a sprinkler system and improve the electrical wiring. They knew from their Cornell class where and how to buy the distillery equipment. The total cost was $650,000 for infrastructure and $400,000 for equipment. Next, they got some hands-on experience in a week-long apprenticeship at a craft distiller in Spokane, Wash., from which they had purchased their equipment. To price their product, they compared themselves to other craft-distilled gin in the U.S. market, including Catoctin Creek gin in Loudoun County. It takes four weeks to turn their grain into gin. The first week, the grain is ground and cooked at 185 degrees. It is then cooled down. Yeast is added, and it ferments for a week. The result is distillers’ beer that is 12 percent alcohol. The next week is spent doing four different distillations, boiling off the alcohol, which is collected in stainless steel tanks. In the fourth distillation, the alcohol is converted to Green Hat gin by the addition of their secret botanical recipe, which includes juniper berries, which gives gin its distinctive flavor. After the second week, the 40 cases of gin rest for two weeks in a stainless steel tank. This allows the flavors to open up and create the liquor’s uniqueness. Finally, the gin is chilled to near freezing and run through a micro filter to remove oils and minerals that might cause it to cloud. Every Saturday, the company uses Twitter and other social media to recruit volunteers to help them bottle the stuff. The reward is some free sipping. Their sales started with stores, bars and restaurants where Uselton had worked or had patronized. Lowe and Uselton cold-called potential customers, showing up to offer bartenders and store owners a taste. The District law that allowed them to give tastes and sell retail at the distillery drove new customers and helped spread the gin through word-of-mouth. As they exploited social media, they began a conversation that resulted in bars and liquor stores requesting the product. The company is doing okay. Lowe gauged how much he could afford to invest in the company if everything collapsed. Then he


converted to Green Hat gin by the addition of their secret botanical recipe, which includes juniper berries, which gives gin its distinctive flavor. After the second week, the 40 cases of gin rest for two weeks in a stainless steel tank. This allows the flavors to open up and create the liquor’s uniqueness. Finally, the gin is chilled to near freezing and run through a micro filter to remove oils and minerals that might cause it to cloud. Every Saturday, the company uses Twitter and other social media to recruit volunteers to help them bottle the stuff. The reward is some free sipping. Their sales started with stores, bars and restaurants where Uselton had worked or had patronized. Lowe and Uselton cold-called potential customers, showing up to offer bartenders and store owners a taste. The District law that allowed them to give tastes and sell retail at the distillery drove new customers and helped spread the gin through word-of-mouth. As they exploited social media, they began a conversation that resulted in bars and liquor stores requesting the product. The company is doing okay. Lowe gauged how much he could afford to invest in the company if everything collapsed. Then he loaned the business about $1 million to fund the start-up costs. So far, no collapse. Revenue was $100,000 in its first quarter, which began last October. The firm has positive cash flow, but that does not include paying down Lowe’s loan, which doesn’t require payments for a while. Neither partner takes a salary, although there is one employee. Lowe said the economics should stabilize at around 50 cases a week. But the path to real profitability requires doubling production — and the purchase of another still. So far, they only sell in the District. Virginia requires state approval of their product, which they hope to receive in the spring. Montgomery County government owns the liquor stores in that county, so Green Hat will have to get approval from county regulators as well. The beauty of the District, said Lowe, is that Green Hat can skip the wholesale step and sell directly to restaurants and stores. For now, Virginians and Marylanders must drive to the District to buy. Next up is a spring/summer gin recipe that is due out in April. Five years down the road is a whiskey. No decision has been made yet on the name. For previous Value


Competing legally in the beer business

Steven Pearlstein’s Feb. 3 Business story, “King of Beers or Absolute Monarch?,” about our pending combination with Grupo Modelo, took unfounded swipes at our business practices at Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB). This deal is about growth outside the United States, and it will afford us no control over pricing, marketing or distribution of Modelo’s brands in the United States. As Mr. Pearlstein reported, we plan to divest Modelo’s U.S. business. The U.S. alcohol business is regulated at the federal and state levels, and our company scrupulously adheres to the law. Every day we fight for consumers’ hearts and minds, just like all of our competitors. We have built value in our brands and respect true competition in the marketplace, which is exploding. According to the craft trade group, the Brewers Association, at the end of 2012, there were 2,336 U.S. breweries, the most since the 1880s. As any business does, we adapt our prices to reflect increasing input or operational costs, and our pricing varies by market, brands and packaging. Mr. Pearlstein’s assertion that we have a “tacit agreement” not to compete on price is belied by the facts. He also mischaracterized our relationships with wholesalers, who are independent business people who understand their markets and look out for their own interests. For example, most have non-AB brands in their portfolio, which they are perfectly free to acquire. Somehow, Mr. Pearlstein turned today’s “bewildering variety” of beer into an industry that has only “two teams” on the field. Hardly. We compete every day in a league with many fierce competitors, and consumers are the ultimate judge. Sabine Chalmers, New York The writer is the chief legal and corporate affairs officer for Anheuser-Busch InBev.


Land for office buildings is a hot commodity in D.C.

the case in the District, where the availability of very few undeveloped sites, coupled with strong demand for new office space, provided an opportunity in 2012 for owners of lower-quality offices to unload their properties to enterprising developers eager for tear-down opportunities. Indeed, while total office sales volume of about $3.5 billion in 2012 was down by 11 percent from 2011 levels in D.C. proper, the $200 million spent on office properties purchased for redevelopment was the highest on record. It should come as no surprise that more Class B office owners are ready to sell. At the end of January, more than 4.8 million square feet of average-quality office space stood vacant in the District, and current vacancy rates of 9 percent are nearly double the low of 5.3 percent in 2006. Although the vacancy rate for Class A properties is even higher, at 10.5 percent, this upper echelon of properties actually lowered rates since peaking in late 2009, even as more than 4 million square feet of new Class A space was added to the market. Replacing unwanted or obsolete office space with new office space supports the thesis that land, which is becoming increasingly precious in the District, should be used at its highest and best use. And removing old space from the inventory before new space is added helps keep the supply and demand balance in better check during a time when most leasing activity is a result of musical chairs among tenants, rather than net new demand. What is surprising are the eye-popping price tags for some of these sales. MRP Realty paid more than $33 million to pick up the 0.3 acre below the now-demolished building at 624 Ninth St. NW, at a cost equivalent of $113 million per acre. A joint venture between Mitsui Fudosan America and Akridge paid $43.7 million, or nearly as rich a rate, for the former National Restaurant Association headquarters site at 1200 17th St. NW. The existing building, which will be razed to make way for a new 170,000-square-foot, LEED-certified asset, sits on 0.4 acres, which puts the price per acre at $112 million. Whether these purchases ultimately yield the kind of return buyers are seeking, they do indicate how hot a commodity a well-located office site in the District has become in the current market. Erica Champion is a real estate economist with CoStar Group in Washington.


World Wildlife Fund aims for conservation and work-life balance with ‘Panda Fridays’

Organization: Location: Employees: Every other Friday, the typical hustle and bustle at the World Wildlife Fund’s Washington office comes to a halt. That’s because the organization closes its doors for one day every other week, a schedule that helps it meet dual goals of conservation and work-life balance. As a nonprofit that champions environmental causes, WWF felt it was important to lead by example. By periodically closing down its office, the organization said it is reducing its carbon footprint by trimming use of electricity, heat, air conditioning and other utilities. And eliminating one day of commuting for its employees means that the nonprofit is taking some cars off the road. These days are known as “Panda Fridays,” named for the bear that is the organization’s unofficial mascot. Though some employees choose to work from home that day, they are not expected to do so. Instead, many staffers work extra hours on the other days to make up for the day they won’t be in the office. In that way, this arrangement can free up days for them to run errands or pursue hobbies. Esther Kantner, vice president of human resources, said that WWF’s chief executive Carter Roberts was instrumental in getting people to accept the program and not feel guilty about taking advantage of it. “Without that leadership support and behavior, it doesn’t work,” Kantner said. “So our executives really respect that day. It has been one of the fundamental reasons that it works.” Keya Chatterjee, the senior director of international climate policy, has used Panda Fridays to write a book, a side project that she calls a “personal passion.” Chatterjee said she never would have time for it if she worked a traditional schedule. By allowing workers to take responsibility for programming their own schedules, Chatterjee also said the policy is a reflection of WWF’s confidence in its workforce. “It shows that there is a trust that all of us are here because we are deeply, deeply passionate,” Chatterjee said. “It’s really nice to have an organization that recognizes that that’s what their workforce is.”


U.S. said to be target of massive cyber-espionage campaign

said that the administration’s options include formal protests, the expulsion of diplomatic personnel, the imposition of travel and visa restrictions, and complaints to the World Trade Organization. Cyber-espionage is “just so widespread that it’s known to be a national issue at this point,” said one administration official, who like other current and former officials interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The National Intelligence Estimate names three other countries — Russia, Israel and France — as having engaged in hacking for economic intelligence but makes clear that cyber-espionage by those countries pales in comparison with China’s effort. China has staunchly rejected such allegations, saying the Beijing government neither condones nor carries out computer hacking. Dating to at least the early 1980s, China has made the acquisition of Western technology — through means licit and illicit — a centerpiece of its economic development planning. The explosion in computer use has greatly aided that transfer of technology. China’s intelligence services, as well as private companies, frequently seek to exploit Chinese citizens or people with family ties to China who can use their insider access to U.S. corporate networks to steal trade secrets using thumb drives or e-mail, according to a report by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive. The National Intelligence Estimate comes at a time when the U.S. government is making a concerted effort to develop policies that address cyberthreats against the nation. “We need the NIE on cyber for a systematic and comprehensive understanding of what the most dangerous technologies are, who are the most threatening actors and what are our greatest vulnerabilities,” said former deputy defense secretary William J. Lynn III, who requested the report in 2011 but has not seen or been briefed on the contents. Some officials have pressed for an unclassified summary to be released publicly. Michael Birmingham, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, declined to comment on the report, except to say that “as a matter of policy, we do not discuss or acknowledge the existence of NIEs unless directed to do so.” A range of sectors Much of China’s cyber-espionage is thought to be directed at commercial targets linked to military technology. In 2011, when Chinese hackers attacked network security company RSA Security, the technology stolen was used to penetrate military-industrial targets. Shortly after, the networks of defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin, which used


An image issue for Chuck Hagel

A Senate Armed Services Committee vote Tuesday for Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary will not end his image issues. At the confirmation hearing on Jan. 31, Hagel appeared to be unprepared and open to bullying. I’m not saying the former Nebraska senator’s lackluster performance will keep him from being confirmed as the next defense secretary by the Democratic-controlled Senate. Enough of his former colleagues will accept the idea that he didn’t want to be confrontational or that he was having a bad day. The people Hagel must worry about are the men and women of the Defense Department for whom the hearing was a first look at their next boss in action. It wasn’t a promising start. If there is one characteristic that marks the military it is preparation — careful planning, covering all contingencies, firmness, clear questions and answers, personal discipline. Being prepared is a military habit practiced for that moment when lives may depend on it. It’s a quality expected in its leaders. Republican Sen. John McCain is tangling with Chuck Hagel over his past statements about the Iraq war. The late Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.) chaired the House Armed Services Committee when in 1992 President Clinton asked him to be defense secretary. Aspin was extremely bright and a good politician. But he was casual, if not sloppy, not just in dress but in his habits. He lacked discipline. Meetings with him could start late and go on forever. He loved to explore every relevant aspect of an issue, and even those that weren’t relevant. As one of Aspin’s long-term friends, I was among those who warned him that he had to shape up if he took the Pentagon job. His every step would be weighed by the military, from the Joint Chiefs on down the chain of command. I was sitting in the stands at Fort Myer during Aspin’s welcoming ceremony in 1993. I will never forget the murmurs among the officers and enlisted men around me when Aspin, slouching and out of step, reviewed the troops. Almost immediately he faced complicated issues, but Aspin’s easy-going style never gained much respect within “the building” — the Pentagon. Criticized for Somalia decisions and troubled by a heart problem, he resigned in early 1994. The irony about Hagel’s hearing performance is that it hid his feisty personality and left the impression he could be pushed around. More than


Obama wants to cut troop level in Afghanistan in half over next year

NATO troops salute during a change of command ceremony in Kabul Febr. 10, 2013. U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, expected to oversee the withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year, took control of the NATO-led mission on Sunday. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters) President Obama announced in his State of the Union address Tuesday night that the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be halved over the next 12 months, pledging that “our war in Afghanistan will be over” by the end of 2014. The president said he will withdraw 34,000 troops by this time next year, at which point about 34,000 U.S. military personnel will be left in Afghanistan. He pledged that “this drawdown will continue” throughout 2014, although the final target has not been determined. “Tonight, we stand united in saluting the troops and civilians who sacrifice every day to protect us,” Obama said. “Because of them, we can say with confidence that America will complete its mission in Afghanistan.” Administration officials said Obama’s decision is line with a recommendation from Gen. John R. Allen, who had been the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan until Sunday. Allen submitted a set of withdrawal options to the president several weeks ago, the officials said, and the general’s “preferred option” was to pull out 34,000 troops by February 2014. “What we chose was his recommendation,” a White House official said. As the U.S. continues its military withdrawal from Afghanistan, plans for a robust civilian and diplomatic presence are threatened by budget and safety concerns But other commanders, including Allen’s replacement, have favored a slower withdrawal, according to U.S. officials briefed by senior officers involved in the war. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who assumed command of the war from Allen, had been seeking a reduction of no more than 25,000 troops this year, leaving about 43,000 in Afghanistan in 2014 to continue training local security forces and providing security for the country’s next presidential election, which is scheduled for April 2014, according to a senior U.S. official aligned with the military leadership. “This is steeper than we had hoped for,” the official said. “Pulling out 34,000 leaves us dangerously low on military personnel while the fledgling Afghan army and police still need our support. It’s going to send a clear signal that America’s commitment to Afghanistan is going wobbly.” But many of the president’s top


Music review: ‘Auksalaq,’ the so-called telematic opera with a smartphone app

Auksalaq Telematic Opera (Jill Steinberg/JILL STEINBERG) When people incorporate art and technology, the first question is, how do you get the technology to work? This has been true since the days when early electronic composers manually cut and spliced audiotape to the lengths they wanted, and it’s true for today’s multimedia, multi-computer productions such as “Auksalaq,” the so-called telematic opera by Matthew Burtner and Scott Deal that rolled out at the Phillips Collection on Monday night. “Auksalaq” involved amplification, projections, electronic enhancement, simultaneous broadcasts in several physical venues and its own smartphone app so audience members could comment and even, to a limited degree, manipulate sounds. The second question is, what are you using the technology to say? This question is one “Auksalaq” is struggling to answer. Those who were there might counter that “Auksalaq” said plenty — indeed, that it was stumbling over itself in its eagerness to get its message across. It’s about global warming and its effects on the climate in Alaska, and it incorporated a lot of documentary-style techniques: photographs and time-lapse videos of Alaskan landscapes and icescapes, scientific maps showing the waxing and waning of the ice shelf, and even film footage of climate scientists and a Native American spokeswoman talking about the issues. These were linked together with sections of hypnotic poetic text sung and intoned by Lisa Edwards-Burrs, a member of the EcoSono Ensemble, a group founded specifically to further new music and ecological awareness. But with so many (figurative) trees, the piece got somewhat lost in the forest. It wasn’t quite a hard-hitting documentary on climate change; the talking heads were smart but not edited, and the images were not always illustrative as much as simply decorative. Then the soft, new-agey lull of the sung texts tended to diffuse the message, even or perhaps precisely because of Edwards-Burrs’s lovely, strong, earth-mother voice. At one point, she enjoined listeners to inhale deeply and exhale, and then let us know that we were breathing the air of Alaska and were all interconnected. The moment may have resonated for some people; to me, it smacked of “Kumbaya.” As for Burtner’s music, if you think of what the term “eco-music” might sound like, this was it. There were amplified bowls of water — a la John Cage or Tan Dun — dripping and roiling under musicians’ hands; dried stalks of plants brushing and rattling at each


Confessions of a recovering diet food junkie

with a bleak landscape of diet foods. There were the low-fat frozen meals and veggie “burgers.” There were the meal-replacement bars, meal-replacement shakes, meal-replacement cereals and countless 100-calorie snack packs (which, let’s be honest, taste best when eaten in multiples). There are more than 40 synonyms for processed sugar on food labels. You don’t have to be a slave to potentially toxic sugar. Here are ideas from an expert, Dr. Robert H. Lustig, and his just-published “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease.” This list might sound extreme, but it’s no exaggeration. And it’s not unique to me. Roughly 75 million Americans are on a diet, according to the independent market researcher Marketdata. Many turn to sources outside their own kitchens for help, and the weight-loss marketplace is booming for businesses promising that magic equation of health plus convenience. In 2010, meal-replacement products raked in about $2.65 million while diet food delivery grew into a $924 million industry. But as the supply of weight-loss products grows, so does the problem that has created the demand for them. More than a third of American adults are considered obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and one-third are overweight. For my part, I somehow managed to gain about 50 pounds while dieting, eating what I thought were the “right” foods in the “right” amounts. Each success on the scale was short-lived: I jumped between plans and pant sizes for about 15 years. In hindsight I realize my 13-year-old self was a perfectly healthy size. But in my personal quest to outsmart obesity, I had developed a weight problem. I inadvertently broke this cycle in the fall of 2011. One of my friends said she wanted to try losing weight by “eating clean” — cutting all processed foods — and she needed a buddy for support. At the time, I was fully entrenched in the membership-only Jenny Craig program, which featured a variety of frozen and shelf-stable meals, weekly meetings with a consultant and numerous celebrity endorsements. I had seen great success with the program. I was maintaining a healthy weight, and my cholesterol and blood pressure were “perfect,” according to my doctor. I was running half-marathons and fit into clothes I’d previously only dreamed of. Life was good, all thanks to about 1,200 calories a day and my trusty microwave. I grudgingly agreed to


D.C.’s pastrami Rat Pack

Stachowski’s pastrami sandwich (Deb Lindsey/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) Washington, a pastrami mecca? Taste it for yourself: Over the past year, pedigreed chefs have taken on the challenge of curing, spicing and smoking their own and have been showcasing it on trend-driven menus. At DGS, the new “craft” delicatessen in Dupont Circle, Barry Koslow set out to create a showstopper pastrami. Spike Gjerde serves a Reubenlike sandwich with house-made pastrami at his new Baltimore eatery, Artifact Coffee. Adam Sobel took time out from butter-poaching steaks at Georgetown’s Bourbon Steak to perfect his pastrami and is dishing it up through March, At his eponymous market a few blocks away, Jamie Stachowski stuffs 11 / 2 pounds of his smoked pastrami into a behemoth sandwich. We hit the pastrami circuit to investigate, but first we paid a visit to a Washington institution: Wagshal’s Delicatessen. There, owner Bill Fuchs set the bar years ago, long before pastrami became highbrow. The basic formula for pastrami-making is this: Beef brisket is brined for about a week in a salt solution with sodium nitrite (to preserve color) and pickling spices, such as bay leaf, mustard seed, coriander seed, peppercorns, allspice and cloves. Then it gets crusted with a peppercorn-and-coriander-based spice mix and smoked for hours. After that, the meat is steamed until tender. Some chefs adhere to the formula; others deviate. Some slice it razor-thin; some prefer it a half-inch thick. Adjusting processing times, devising proprietary spice mixes and combining smoking woods are all ways to stamp a brisket as their own. “Everyone has a visceral idea of pastrami from the first time they ate it,” says Stachowski. “So you’re trying to measure up to every . . . person’s memory.” Here are contenders More from Food: Best sandwich shops in the D.C. area Subway sued over short footlong sandwiches Soup and sandwich, now more than ever Recipes: Pastrami and Mussel Chowder Pastrami Hash Pastrami Reuben Gougeres


Obama orders voluntary security standards for critical industries’ computers

loss of sensitive corporate data or even physical damage and deaths. In his speech, Obama also called on Congress to pass legislation to give government greater ability to deter attacks. In the works since last summer, the order also calls for greater sharing of cyberthreat information by the federal government with the private sector to better detect risks. The president’s executive action follows a failed effort by Congress to pass a law calling for voluntary standards. The order does not create regulations or authorities. Rather, it directs the Commerce Department to work with industry and federal agencies to craft a framework of standards within a year. The standards would apply only to sectors regulated by federal agencies, such as banking and electric power. “This is not designed to be a one-size-fits-all approach,” said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an order before Obama announced it. The standards would affect only the most critical functions within sectors, such as computers that run financial trading systems or electric power generation. Computers that operate a bank’s Web site, for example, would not be subject to the standards. Although the administration is stressing the program’s voluntary nature, it left open the possibility that regulators may use their authority to enforce the standards. “So . . . this actually does have some teeth to it,” the official said. The effort has drawn criticism from some business interests as a backdoor to burdensome regulations. The executive order is “likely to be only marginally effective in enhancing cybersecurity,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former Department of Homeland Security official who is now a security consultant. “In the absence of liability protections and other incentives, most private sector actors will choose not to participate.” The order calls for agencies to review incentives that could be offered to induce compliance. But one of the biggest — protection from lawsuits — can come only from Congress. Some experts say the executive order eventually could create a “standard of care” that companies would be encouraged to observe to avoid being sued. “And that’s a good thing,” said Jacob Olcott, a cyber expert with Good Harbor Security Risk Management. The order also directs agencies to increase the flow of cyberthreat data to companies, including warnings that they are being targeted. They will share malware, not people’s personal information, one official said. “It’s not about content,” he added.


American wrestlers vow to fight IOC decision to drop sport from Olympics

After waking up to the stunning news that International Olympic Committee leaders had voted to drop wrestling from the Summer Games beginning in 2020, the U.S. wrestling community responded as young grapplers are taught: It girded for challenge. In this case, the playing field isn’t a mat, but the tricky political terrain of the IOC, whose business is largely conducted by secret ballot behind closed doors. That’s how it came to pass Tuesday morning in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the IOC’s 15-member executive board voted to drop one of the oldest Olympic sports from its list of 25 “core sports” while retaining newer additions such as modern pentathlon and taekwondo. Rich Bender, executive director of USA Wrestling, voiced surprise and disappointment over a decision that caught wrestling’s national and international governing bodies off guard. He vowed that USA Wrestling would take the lead in an international effort to persuade IOC officials to reverse course, stressing wrestling’s central role in the original Greek Olympic Games and the sport’s present-day global reach. Closer to home, veteran college coach John McHugh, 77, who nurtured wrestling programs at Catholic and American before taking the reins at the University of Maryland for 25 years, had trouble digesting the news. “I’m shocked,” McHugh said. “Some of the other sports they have, like fencing — how many people in our country fence? Very few. I believe there’s going to be so much of an uproar, they’ll meet again and reconsider this.” Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, was equally shocked when the first e-mail appeared on his phone during his Tuesday morning Rotary Club meeting. “What’s so stunning is how a decision of this magnitude could be made without any forewarning,” Moyer said. “You’d like to think the Olympics would be more inclusive than exclusive. But this decision absolutely impacts wrestling at every level all the way down the grass-roots level.” By Tuesday afternoon, Maryland wrestling Coach Kerry McCoy, who competed in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics and served as a U.S. wrestling coach at the 2008 Beijing Games, was well on his way to galvanizing support for the sport’s future in the Games. “The nature of our sport is to be in battle,” said McCoy, whose Terrapins have won the last two ACC championships. “When somebody says a wrestler can’t do something, he’s going to prove them wrong and find a way to


Apple, Intel get nods in State of the Union

Shapiro commended the president for his remarks and said that current policies are “locking out the next generation of brilliant innovators.” Current bills in Congress, such as the Immigration Innovation Act, are aimed at making it easier for doctoral and Master’s degree graduates in science, technology, engineering and math programs to remain in the United States and increase the number of H1-B visas, which are employer-sponsored visas for skilled workers. Several consumer tech company executives, including Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith who sit on the Technet Executive Council, have called for immigration reform on their own and through the lobbying group TechNet. As for encouraging a home-grown crop of innovators, Obama also announced an initiative focused on increasing STEM courses to prepare high school graduates for a “high-tech” economy. Obama also spent time discussing the need for development of alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and natural gas. But the tech issue that got the most play in the speech was cybersecurity and the rhetoric was backed up with an executive order that establishes voluntary standards to bolster the security in computer networks in key industries. As The Washington Post reported, the order directs the Commerce Department to work with federal agencies and industries such as banking and electric power to come up with standards for sharing cyber-threat information. Obama said that the executive order was not enough, however, to address the problem fully and called on Congress to continue working on cybersecurity legislation. Obama also made a quick mention of completing negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade agreement that some Web activists have flagged as having restrictive IP regulations regarding copyright, fair use and other issues. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, has a running petition asking Congress and the White House to be more transparent about these discussions. Analyst Maira Sutton, a global policy analyst for EFF, said that the negotiations have “completetly shut out public itnerest groups” and questioned Obama’s assertion that the agreement will “level the playing field” in Asia. “Based upon what we know from leaked drafts of the TPP, U.S. trade delegates continue to push for provisions that would protect copyright and other private content industry interests at the expense of Internet users and innovative new companies in the US and around the world,” she said. Related stories: Apple’s Cook calls Greenlight suit ‘silly sideshow’


Valentine’s Day in the animal kingdom

their courtship displays. Really, Don says, I should talk to Sara Hallager about this. “It’s designed to get the whole flock into synchrony,” Sara says when I get her on the phone. That means on the same page, reproduction-wise. “In the wild, that’s important,” says Sara, a biologist in the Bird House. “Eggs need to come at a time when environmental conditions are the best, when there are adequate food supplies and the right conditions to make mud nests.” Right now at the zoo, the flamingos are dancing and squawking. “It’s really loud,” Sara says. “They don’t care what else is going on. They’ve got one thing on their minds: to bring the flock into synchrony.” Hey, baby, we may not be endangered, but it’s time to bring the flock into synchrony. Some of the zoo’s flamingos are approaching 60 years old and have been in committed relationships for years. Others, Sara says, “change off. Why some change from year to year and others stay monogamous, we don’t know.” According to Don, the wild cranes are also courting. “They’re dancing and courtship calling, all in preparation for nesting,” he says. “The act in birds is called the cloacal kiss. . . . It’s a kiss, but on the other end.” So, birds are doing it. But bees are not. Bees are hibernating, and Don says the zoo’s observation hive is empty. Animals may feel lust, but can they feel human emotions such as love? “We stayed away from emotions for a very long time,” Don says of the animal behaviorist community. But now the work of a scientist named Jaak Panksepp is making researchers take a second look. (“He’s the guy who’s really famous for tickling rats as a form of play,” Don says.) Panksepp has identified seven emotions in vertebrates. One is what we’ve been talking about: lust. There’s also fear, panic/grief and rage. And there’s seeking, care and play. Combine those last three and you get the sort of bonding relationship a mother has with a child, whether human or animal. Maybe it’s love, and maybe it even crosses species. “I have a Lab, and when she rolls over, she likes me to rub her in her armpits,” Don says. ”She seeks me out. I care for her. Is there love there? I don’t know. I want to think there is.” Twitter: @johnkelly For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.


Medal will honor troops engaged in cyber ops, drone strikes

Reeling from the cost, mixed results and unintended consequences of protracted ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration has come to rely heavily on drones to carry out the targeted killing of suspected extremists worldwide. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP) Among its most valued warriors, the Pentagon now counts U.S. troops whose operations entail the click of a mouse or the remote piloting of unmanned vehicles. But how does the government bestow honor upon those who do their work thousands of miles from the front lines? In what probably was his last move as defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta on Wednesday announced the creation of a new type of medal for troops engaged in cyber-operations and drone strikes, saying the move “recognizes the changing face of warfare.” “I’ve seen firsthand how modern tools, like remotely piloted platforms and cyber-systems, have changed the way wars are fought,” Panetta said during his swan-song news conference at the Pentagon. “They’ve given our men and women the ability to engage the enemy and change the course of battle, even from afar.” Reeling from the cost, mixed results and unintended consequences of protracted ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration has come to rely heavily on drones to carry out the targeted killing of suspected extremists worldwide. It also has stepped up efforts to sharpen the country’s capabilities in cyberspace in the face of threats that officials say are growing and pose direct danger to U.S. national security. The Pentagon’s most prestigious awards will still go to “those who display gallantry and valor in actions where their lives are on the line,” Panetta said. The new honor is called the Distinguished Warfare Medal. It will be awarded to a few warriors who make exceptional contributions, officials said. At the news conference, Panetta, a former congressman, said he lamented the deterioration of the relationship between Capitol Hill and the executive branch. “We need to find solutions,” he said. “We can’t just sit here and complain. We can’t just sit here and blame others. We can’t just sit here and point fingers at each other.” The remarks appeared to reflect frustration about the searing opposition his presumptive replacement has faced. Former senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) got a lashing Tuesday from Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee as the panel, which is dominated by Democrats, narrowly supported his nomination in a party-line vote. The full Senate


Iranian buying spree raises concerns about major expansion of nuclear capacity

guidance systems. The purchase order for the magnets — copies of which were obtained by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security and shown to The Washington Post — suggests that a vastly larger expansion could be just over the horizon. The specific dimensions spelled out in the order form match precisely — to a fraction of a millimeter — those of the powerful magnets used in the IR-1, a machine that spins at supersonic speeds to purify uranium gas into an enriched form that can be used in nuclear power plants. With further processing, the same machines can produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. With two magnets needed per machine, the order technically could supply Iran with enough material for 50,000 new gas centrifuges, although some of the magnets would probably have been reserved for repairs and spare parts, said David Albright, ISIS president and a former IAEA inspector. “It implies that they want to build a lot more centrifuges,” he said. The magnets are made of an unusual alloy known as barium strontium ferrite and were ordered from a Chinese vendor in late 2011. The order was placed by an Iranian businessman, who said the magnets were needed for a “great factory” engaged in a “new project” inside Iran, according to the online order. U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment on the specifics of the magnets case. One official who closely tracks Iranian procurement efforts said Iran still actively seeks banned technology from a variety of foreign vendors, often using front companies and cover stories to conceal the intended use of the materials it buys. According to the ISIS investigation, the company that placed the order had been previously linked to Iranian efforts to acquire sensitive technology. The Canadian government placed the firm under sanctions late last year because of unspecified proliferation concerns. Independent nuclear experts who reviewed the magnets case generally backed the ISIS conclusions. Olli Heinonen, who led IAEA nuclear inspections inside Iran before his retirement in 2010, said the type of magnet sought by Iran was highly specific to the IR-1 centrifuge and could not, for example, be used in the advanced IR-2M centrifuges that Iran has recently tested. “The numbers in the order make sense, because Iran originally told us it wanted to build more than 50,000 of the IR-1s,” Heinonen said. “The failure rate on these machines is 10 percent a


Metro: Miscommunication complicated Green Line chaos last month

Park. Compounding the crisis were concerns about a powerful thunderstorm that was about to hit the area. “Customers were alarmed,” said Lynn Bowersox, assistant general manager for customer service, communications and marketing. “That sense of alarm led them to self-evacuate.” Sarles told the safety committee that having passengers on the tracks is “one of the worst situations we face” and that, in this instance, the self-evacuation prolonged the service disruption because power could not be restored until everyone was out of the tunnel. Sarles said he wasn’t sure that announcements asking people to remain on the trains would have helped, given that some passengers waited only 15 minutes before leaving. The operator of Train 507 had a confrontation with a man who was followed off the train by other passengers because they thought they were being led by a Metro employee, Bowersox said. Officials said the operator then directed an off-duty Red Line operator who happened to be on 507 to accompany the passengers through the tunnel. Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn said the situation was further complicated because the stuck trains couldn’t communicate with the command center without being interrupted by other trains on the radio system. He said Metro is trying to “explore enhanced radio communication” channels to use in emergencies. The report said the operator of Train 512, which was closest to the Anacostia station, had been on the job for only seven months. That operator and other Metro officials on the scene “failed to make their presence known to customers” and made “inadequate announcements” to riders about the situation, the report said. Sarles said Metro did not intend to discipline any of the employees involved but would retrain them. Riders reported confusion and chaos once they reached the Anacostia and Navy Yard stations. They said there was no information about shuttle buses that were provided to take them to other locations. Some riders were driven home by transit police officers, and U.S. Park Police had a helicopter fly over Anacostia Park to make sure no passengers were left behind, Metro officials said. Metro promised to review how the operations control center and transit police communicate in emergencies and to run training drills bringing together Metro departments. The Tri-State Oversight Committee, which monitors Metro safety, is looking at the transit agency’s handling of the situation. Sarles said the Federal Transit Administration might also look into the incident.


The results of Week VIII and Week 617 of The Style Invitational

see he likes to steal looks at males -- a lot. That makes me a little skittish. Is he a sham? Is this all a mammoth mistake? I’ll talk to Mimi. She’ll tell me. [Tom takes a hike.] (Chris Doyle) Neil Armstrong: Not long ago, I’m in a sim trainer going nine G’s. Imagine it, nine G’s! -- I’m a man’s man! So, I tell ‘em I’m raring to go, again. Not so smart, see. Later on, all alone, I lose it in a latrine! Still, I’m as eager as a sailor on a rising sea, so NASA treats me to a mission to man’s largest satellite: Moon. I’m game. . . . It’s nearing T-time, so I settle in, set toggles, test signals, ignite engines. In no time at all, I’m going, going, gone! I soar among a million stars. It’s great! Time goes on. I see I’m almost in range, so I ease Eagle, in slo-mo, settling in a mare (”sea” in moon lingo). In a rare moment, it’s all me, so I start orating, “One small . . . one giant . . .” Rats! I’m losing it -- senior moment. Google it. Gotta go, it’s Geritol time. (Kyle Hendrickson, Frederick) Paris Hilton has all that hair, is tall, thin, a porn star (sorta). Still, Paris isn’t all that hot. (Russell Beland, Springfield) James Dobson, the conservative minister: O God, omens bode bad mojo, so end dames’ boob, abdomen and nose jobs, bobbed manes and jeans on demon bods. Ban moans on beds, Onan men and Sodom sods. And damn Bob Jones. Amen. (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly) Alfred Kinsey: Kinky freaks, randy elders, desireless ladies, afraid fairies, self-diddlers -- I seen all kinds. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills) Arnold Schwarzenegger: A rare ego, a shrewd career. A lecher, he ogles gals galore, and lewd hands anger gals (careless!). Gals endanger win; so he does Leno: Leno endorses, enhances news angle. Snares win: Arrogance rewarded. (Jane Auerbach, Los Angeles) Testimo, zestimoAlan M. Dershowitz,Shrewd and remorseless, aWizard-at-law.SentimentalitiesAren’t in his arsenal.Hammers the witnesses,Win, lose, or draw. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.) Gwyneth Paltrow: New year. Pregnant. What now, “Pear”? (Judith Cottrill, New York) Terri Schiavo: The harsh rhetoric, the “Save Terri” services, the rosaries, the crosses, the “she sees”/”she hears” theories, the tests, the irate voices, the threats, the hoots, the cheers, the chaos, the sheer theatrics, the heartache, the horror. These are


Maryland House offers mea culpa for locking out reporters

Members of the Maryland House of Delegates sit at their desks on the first day of the 2013 legislative session in Annapolis, Md., Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. (Patrick Semansky/AP) This time, locking out reporters appeared to be an honest mistake. Maryland’s House of Delegates unanimously approved two pieces of legislation on Thursday, as reporters and members of the public were locked outside the chamber. The bills — one making aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft a misdemeanor, and another classifying abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult as Medicaid fraud — likely wouldn’t have drawn headlines had the public been allowed to watch. But that was not the case with reporters outside tweeting pictures of the chamber’s locked door and lines about it being a bad day for democracy. Aides to House Speaker Michael E. Busch said the snafu appeared to be the result of a clerks’ attempt to multitask while not knowing the chamber was still locked for a lawmakers class picture. It was unfortunate timing for Busch (D-Anne Arundel) who has come under fire from open government groups and some fellow lawmakers for choosing to hold a series of private hearings on gun-control. In contrast to a public hearing in the state Senate that drew 1,000 people last week, Busch and 16 lawmakers key to the legislation’s fate in the House have been meeting daily in a conference room off limits to the public. The chamber does not hold it’s first public hearing on Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) proposed gun-control legislation until March 1. Alexandra M. Hughes, Busch’s deputy chief of staff, said neither the Speaker nor the clerks who began calling the bills realized the doors were still locked. “It was an oversight on our part,” Hughes said. “The public and fourth estate should always have access to the proceedings on the floor of the House of Delegates.” Reporters had been told to wait in the House lounge during the set-up for a panoramic photo shoot. They could still hear the vote taking place over an internal public address system, but some members of the public denied access to the visitors’ gallery had little knowledge of the vote.


Fish exposed to anxiety medication show altered behavior, study finds

A European perch. In an experiment, scientists gave the fish a concentration of drugs similar to those found in the waters near densely-populated areas in Sweden. (Bent Christensen/American Association for the Advancement of Science ) What happens to a fish on drugs? If it’s a wild European perch exposed to a popular anxiety medication, chances are it’s antisocial, wanders away from the safety of its group and devours food more quickly than its peers — all behaviors that could have profound ecological consequences, according to a forthcoming report in the journal Science. In a study The result? “Normally, perch are shy and hunt in schools. This is a known strategy for survival and growth. But those who swam in oxazepam became considerably bolder,” ecologist Tomas Brodin, lead author of the article, explained. They “lost interest in hanging out with the group.” Brodin told an audience at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston on Thursday: “We think it’s working through stress relief on the fish. It removes the fear of being eaten.” He said that researchers conducted a “boldness test” on the perch, opening a door that would allow them to swim from a small box into a much larger water tank. The fish with no drugs in their system remained timid and “didn’t come out at all,” he said, while those on oxazepam did. The researchers said those behaviors, coupled with the tendency to scarf down food faster than normal, could alter the composition of the species and lead to ecological changes in the real world. For example, if they consumed more plankton, it could lead to an increase in algae. Although Brodin and his colleagues focused on oxazepam in their research, they noted that residue from a “veritable cocktail of drugs” can be found in waterways worldwide. Past studies have confirmed that an ever-growing cocktail of pharmaceuticals and other pollutants — including shampoos, perfumes, heart medications, painkillers and birth control pills — exists in waterways across the globe. There has been scant evidence thus far that the chemical traces pose any dangers to humans, but researchers have plenty to learn. The Environmental Protection Agency has conducted or funded a growing body of research aimed at better understanding the sources and types of drugs that wind up in wastewater and in fish. The agency also has studied drug disposal practices in hospitals, hospices and other


Calling all beer lovers

The winner of The Washington Post's 2012 Beer Madness Bracket is revealed, and the judges voice their opinions on the brew. The Washington Post’s seventh annual Beer Madness is fast appproaching, and you know what that means: We’re in need of a few tasters. This year, the bracketed taste-off will feature 32 all-American craft brews. Neighborhood Restaurant Group beer director Greg Engert will help and host once again, and our tasting panel will include experts and readers. So take your best shot, and do it promptly. Send an e-mail to food@washpost.com with BEER MADNESS in the subject line. To be considered for one of the four reader-designated slots, you must be able to attend tasting sessions on two evenings during the week of March 4 (at ChurchKey in Logan Circle). Other requirements: ■ Describe your qualifications and your passion for beer in a single, tightly constructed sentence. Humor is appreciated. ■List your three favorite domestic craft beers. Greg Engert, Beer Director of the Neighborhood Restaurant group, breaks down the judging process for Washington Post Beer Madness 2012. The deadline for submitting your panel bid is Wednesday, Feb. 27. More from Food: Maui Coconut Porter, the 2012 champ in a can Final four of 2012 includes local favorite Beer Madness 2012 Beer Column


Smart Mouth: Hot dog! Chicago sausages worth waiting for.

is the foie gras-and-Sauternes duck sausage with truffle aioli, foie gras mousse and fleur de sel. It earned Sohn national coverage when he refused to kneel to the 2006 Chicago foie gras ban. As the first restaurateur in the country to be fined for such rebellion (the ban was later repealed), Sohn is extremely proud of the fact that the $250 fine earned him more publicity than he could ever actually buy. About a half-hour into my lunchtime wait, a shiny silver Jeep Cherokee pulls up out front, and the driver, a man with painstakingly arranged long hair, gapes at the line. “Is it really that good?” he calls out, seeking judgment from the Hot Doug devotees, some of whom have arrived fresh from the airport, toting luggage. It’s a reasonable question. Especially considering the crop of encased meateries that have opened following the popularity of Hot Doug’s. Right now, this very second, I could venture just a few miles away and visit Franks ‘N’ Dawgs, where they fold an array of sausages with ingredients and toppings just as fancypants as Sohn’s into a buttery roll of Texas toast. But I’ve tried the Dutch Bomber — a house-made brat, caramelized beer onions, pork belly, Gouda cheese and crispy pig ears. And I’ve eyed the Urbanbelly Chix — Vietnamese chicken sausage, pickled green papaya, curry mayo, crispy shallots, Thai basil gelee and lime. And still, I’m willing to wait at Hot Doug’s. Or I could head over to Chicago’s Dog House to sample buffalo sausage, lamb sausage and alligator sausage. (I’ve tried to order the elk sausage with fried onions, sharp cheddar and spicy mayo in the past, but they were out.) Or there’s Westminster Hot Dog, with its Philly Steak sausage, bacon sausage, elk beer brats and duck sausages. And yet, here I stand, my stomach rumbling for the duck-fat fries, which are served only on Fridays and Saturdays at Hot Doug’s. Chicago has a rich history with hot dogs. Legend has it that the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and Columbian Exhibition helped popularize the easy-to-eat European creation. According to Chicago-based Vienna Beef, the Chicago-style hot dog was born during the Great Depression, when the salad-topped sausage sold for only a nickel. Today, you’ll find more than 1,800 hot dog stands/sausage incarnations across the Windy City: snappy red hots, Coney’s, corn dogs, char dogs, Chubby Wieners, Superdawgs. There’s even a


Puerto Rican food, beyond rice and beans

Fresh local fruitsand vegetablesare becoming abigger feature onrestaurantmenus. (Stacey Hocheiser /STACEY HOCHEISER) It seems like an unlikely place to go for a salad: a warehouse in the middle of car repair shops on a San Juan side street, where few tourists venture. But this warehouse is the home of El Departamento de la Comida — the Department of Food — an organic produce vendor that doubles as a restaurant serving dishes such as rice pilaf with squash and tortilla española with plantains and cilantro. It fills at lunchtime with people looking for what constitutes rare food in the Puerto Rican capital. Healthy fare is plentiful in most major U.S. cities. But it’s still hard to come by in Puerto Rico, where the majority of restaurants still serve the familiar staples of rice, beans, fried plantains and some kind of meat, usually chicken or pork, often fried and sometimes on a stick. Vegetables, if they even make it to the plate, are also often fried and may come from Costco. Details: Puerto Rico But things are definitely changing in the U.S. island territory. Puerto Rico has been undergoing something of a restaurant renaissance, with a handful of eateries adopting elements of the local food movement that has flourished on the mainland. “In terms of the food scene, things have gotten much, much better. People are starting to catch on,” said Tara Rodriguez, who started El Departamento de la Comida just over two years ago, initially to deliver organic produce to people’s homes. “We’re about 10, 15, 20 years behind everybody else in some things.” Fortunately, the best new places are not as out-of-the-way as her warehouse in Santurce. But they’re not exactly easy to find, either. A popular San Juan restaurant called Jose Enrique, which specializes in big plates of fish suffused with tropical flavors, has no sign in front of the residential space it occupies a block from the Plaza Mercado farmers market; Verde Mesa, a vegetarian restaurant, is on a quiet back street of colonial Old San Juan; Abracadabra, a lively cafe, is in a neighborhood that hasn’t quite lost its sketchiness despite several new apartment buildings and shops. One thing that these and several other relatively new entrants into the market have in common is a more sophisticated approach to the island’s cuisine, said Giovanna Huyke, executive chef at Mio restaurant in Washington and the author of two


First U.S. artificial retina approved; device could restore some sight to blind

from the technology, either now or in the future. “I think this could lead, in a very few years, to a fundamental revolution that will end many forms of blindness as a disability,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, 59, a Washington banking consultant who has a type of retinal degenerative disease and relies on a guide dog to navigate the city. Petrou still has some sight and isn’t eligible yet to have the new implant in her eye, but like others, she hopes that she could benefit if the FDA approves wider use of the device. She said an artificial retina has the potential to “reach not just the limited class of the totally blind, but across the spectrum of many people with different types of blinding disorders.” Elias Konstantopoulos, 74, a retired electrician who lives in Glen Burnie, said he was 99 percent blind before he had the artificial retina implanted in 2009 as part of a clinical trial. The biggest difference it has made for him, he said, is allowing him to detect motion. If someone is standing in front of him, he can now tell if the person is moving to the right or to the left. “I can tell something is moving and see which direction,” he said. He can also see the shape of a dark door against a white wall. “When you have nothing, it’s something. So it’s a lot of hope,” Konstantopoulos said, although he hopes the technology will improve enough to let him see things in more detail, such the face of his 31 / 2-year-old grandson. An FDA blog post Thursday shared comments of other patients. One person was able to see the crosswalk lines on Manhattan streets. Another man could see a glimpse of his 17-year-old son. “I mean, how happy that made me, not only to see the silhouette of my son, but to hear that voice coming and saying: ‘Yeah, it’s me, Dad. I’m here, and I love you.’ ” The device costs about $100,000 in Europe and is covered by insurance plans there, said Greenberg, who began developing the artificial retina in the 1990s while studying at Johns Hopkins University. He said he expects that the device will be priced higher in the United States when it becomes available this year. The company also is asking Medicare to cover the device. The surgery to implant the device takes