VRE advances plan to buy new rail cars

maximum VRE wanted to pay. According to agency documents, the company was the sole bidder. VRE chief executive Dale Zehner asked board members to approve the recommendation, which would deplete the agency’s capital reserve fund of $1.5 million to pay the higher price. The contract requires the approval of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission. Zehner said that VRE officials hoped to find a company that could handle the entire process within the United States but that there were no takers on what was considered a relatively small order. The weakness of the American dollar compared with the Japanese yen was one factor that forced the cost up, he said. Although the cars will be built in the United States, much of the engineering work will be done in Japan, he said. Board member Chris Zimmerman, an Arlington County supervisor, questioned the increase in price and whether VRE officials tried to “piggyback” on larger orders from others around the world. Zehner said that VRE could not find another company that made trains to the agency’s specifications and whose timeline coincided with VRE’s desire to have the cars delivered by February 2014. Board member Paul Milde, a Stafford County supervisor, said the cost overrun is problematic because of VRE’s looming “800-pound gorilla” in meeting increasing demand. “Our bigger problem here is accommodating increased ridership . . . and adding capacity to the new system,” Milde said. The railway’s average ridership was up 10 percent over December 2010 to 18,379, new statistics show. Milde also directed Zehner to again look into having WiFi on trains, an amenity more riders have come to expect. Zehner said in a Web chat this month: “While I was optimistic for WiFi in 2011, in 2012, the priority for WiFi is dropping. During our last survey, most riders said they wouldn’t use it if it wasn’t free. Also, I am not convinced that we can provide uninterrupted service at this time.” Zehner said Friday that he’s still not convinced. “Is it really necessary?” he asked. He said that WiFi comes with a high price tag and that more devices, such as tablets, connect by cellular phone signal. Milde said, however, that Stafford County residents often can’t connect in the more-rural area. Zehner said he would look at options and give the board a more detailed plan in the next few months.


Why high-speed rail is just the ticket

The financial uncertainties facing California’s high-speed rail project should not be read as an indictment of such rail development in America [front page, Jan. 16]. High-speed, inter-city passenger rail can be successful, even profitable — as proven in France. SNCF, the French national passenger rail system, wrote a check for 230 million euros ($299 million) to the national government just before Christmas and has returned 600 million euros ($780 million) to the government over the past five years. Congestion is choking our metropolitan areas, costing Americans $110 billion a year in lost productivity and wasted fuel. We must invest in a passenger rail alternative. The longer we wait, the less livable our cities will become and the more expensive the alternatives will be. The French have proven that the concept can succeed. We should follow their lead and not give up on inter-city passenger rail. James L. Oberstar, Potomac The writer, a Democrat from Minnesota, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1975 to 2011. He chaired the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure from 2007 to 2011.


Costco drives deeper into Washington area

Demolition was under way in December at the site of an empty Hecht’s at the Westfield Wheaton mall. A Costco is planned for the site. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) Discount retailer Costco Wholesale is making greater inroads into the Washington area with plans for a new store on a 12-acre tract in Alexandria, one of three locations in the works in the region. Costco stands to gain grocery market share, albeit marginal, at a time when traditional players, like Food Lion and Superfresh, struggle to compete in a changing industry. Drug stores and big-box chains are muscling in on supermarkets with a wider selection of groceries. Value-oriented merchants, such as Costco, still hold a profitable stake in the industry and are finding room for growth. Compared to Wal-Mart, which is opening more than a dozen new stores in the Washington area, Costco’s local expansion might seem minor. But given the sheer size of a Costco, at an average 148,000 square feet, and some of the locations, the growth is significant. Costco, for instance, struck a deal in December to open its first location in the District at the Shops at Dakota Crossing, a 42-acre retail destination in Northeast. At the Westfield Wheaton mall in Montgomery County, Costco is slated to open a location in the latter half of this year. Meanwhile, the Alexandria store has a target opening of spring 2013. The new additions will bring Costco’s total portfolio of stores in greater Washington to 19, up from 16. According to David Ward, president of brokerage firm H&R Retail, which represents Costco locally, the retailer is scouring the market for additional sites. He declined to disclose locations. Ward said Costco’s chairman, Jeffrey Brotman, is involved in all of the site selections, and is very deliberate in his choices. Costco looks for locations that can accommodate plenty of parking spaces as its bulk-buying customers typically drive out to its stores. “It’s difficult finding the real estate that can accommodate the footprint of the stores,” Ward said. “If you look at the stores Wal-Mart is planning [in D.C.], they’re all in Northeast and Southeast, where they can find larger parcels of land.” The average annual household income for shoppers at Costco is $96,000, and. Costco is coming off of a banner year. Its December same-store sales, for instance, jumped 9 percent year over year to $10 billion.


Contractors vie for edge in cybersecurity race

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta vowed to protect and potentially increase the government’s spending on cyberspace capabilities. Booz Allen’s new network of cyber centers, all of which have their own focus, includes four sites in Maryland, four in Northern Virginia and one in New Jersey. A Fort Meade site specializes in cyber, forensics and malware analytics, while a Red Bank, N.J., center focuses on mobile response and modeling and simulation, among other areas. Booz Allen “wanted to have a cyber center that was responsive to our client needs and requirements but also that would be a bit different from what we have seen some of our competitors do,” said Joseph W. Mahaffee, chief information security officer at Booz Allen. “Candidly, we haven’t seen anyone else try to create this type of networked environment that involves many centers.” Mahaffee said the company plans to expand the network to a larger number of sites. General Dynamics last week opened a 28,000-square-foot facility, which will house 100 cyber employees — some new and some drawn from other locations. The office is in the same development as an Annapolis Junction facility, opened in 2002, that focuses on cyber work. Nadia Short, vice president of strategic planning for General Dynamics’s advanced information systems business, said the company’s cyber facilities in Annapolis Junction, which is near Fort Meade, are also linked to other company facilities across the country. Other cyber competitors too said last week that they are not limited by their brick-and-mortar cyber facilities. Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin has two local cyber-focused centers, but also depends on virtual connections, said Charles Croom, vice president of cyber security solutions in Lockheed’s information systems and global services unit. “It’s not about whether it’s physical or virtual, it’s about what you do with it,” he said. He and Larry Cox, general manager of Science Applications International Corp.’s cyber and information solutions business, said physical centers have proven effective in attracting government officials. Cox of SAIC, which opened its own cyber center near Fort Meade in late 2010, said the facility also brings together cybersecurity-focused employees and interns in a collaborative environment. The heightened interest in cybersecurity from a whole range of companies comes as no surprise to Short, who said General Dynamics reaps about $2 billion annually in cyber-related revenue. The government’s focus on funding the area “brings more competition,” Short said. “It’s just kind of how the world works.”


Red, the color of the lunar new year, draws Post photographers’ eyes

Red, that brash, bleeding color of stop signs and bullfighters and aspirational lipstick shades women are always not quite pulling off — that one’s a bit too orange, love — is a hue that draws attention, sometimes the kind of attention one later regrets drawing. See: humanity’s biological red, the blush. ¶ It’s the color of luck in Lunar New Year parades, which will unfurl in the D.C. area this week, and the color of the countryside in places such as Liberty, N.Y., where the landscape is dotted with old wooden barns in various shades of red, in various stages of decay. ¶ In the District, red is officially coded in the the 1000 color block of the Federal Standard 595. In 1956, Washington, city of obscure regulations of obscurer domains, set about making order of the color palette. Fed-Std-595 was the military’s way of standardizing its paint and its supplies and its signage and whatnot, and over the years the Federal Standard has grown to include 650 federally recognized colors, including some 60 federally sanctioned reds. Which is thoroughly beside the point of red. The point of red is its unbridledness, its pertness, its sauce. One cannot wade through a feminist studies class without tripping on Hester Prynne and her big red A, Scarlett O’Hara and her big red dress, Eve and her big red apple. What does red mean? the professor asks, and it always has to mean something. Post-heartbreak, nobody puts on Taylor Swift and dances around her apartment in her sweats, boldly painting a wall beige. “It’s very recent in evolution,” this color thing, says Jeremy Nathans, a Johns Hopkins molecular biologist who studies why we see colors the way we see colors — which really aren’t colors at all. What we’re seeing is wavelengths of light, less than 1 percent of all light wavelengths in existence. Red exists at the longest visible wavelength, hovering around the 700 range. Dogs can’t see it, mice can’t, cows can’t — at least not the vibrant way that we do. Bees can, because they need the color variation to pollinate. And primates can. We primates need to see color variation to help us pick the unspoiled fruit from the spoiled, and to send each other garish heart-shaped chocolate boxes on Valentine’s Day. The images in this collection by Washington Post photographers, who spent weeks exploring the color, represent red


places such as Liberty, N.Y., where the landscape is dotted with old wooden barns in various shades of red, in various stages of decay. ¶ In the District, red is officially coded in the the 1000 color block of the Federal Standard 595. In 1956, Washington, city of obscure regulations of obscurer domains, set about making order of the color palette. Fed-Std-595 was the military’s way of standardizing its paint and its supplies and its signage and whatnot, and over the years the Federal Standard has grown to include 650 federally recognized colors, including some 60 federally sanctioned reds. Which is thoroughly beside the point of red. The point of red is its unbridledness, its pertness, its sauce. One cannot wade through a feminist studies class without tripping on Hester Prynne and her big red A, Scarlett O’Hara and her big red dress, Eve and her big red apple. What does red mean? the professor asks, and it always has to mean something. Post-heartbreak, nobody puts on Taylor Swift and dances around her apartment in her sweats, boldly painting a wall beige. “It’s very recent in evolution,” this color thing, says Jeremy Nathans, a Johns Hopkins molecular biologist who studies why we see colors the way we see colors — which really aren’t colors at all. What we’re seeing is wavelengths of light, less than 1 percent of all light wavelengths in existence. Red exists at the longest visible wavelength, hovering around the 700 range. Dogs can’t see it, mice can’t, cows can’t — at least not the vibrant way that we do. Bees can, because they need the color variation to pollinate. And primates can. We primates need to see color variation to help us pick the unspoiled fruit from the spoiled, and to send each other garish heart-shaped chocolate boxes on Valentine’s Day. The images in this collection by Washington Post photographers, who spent weeks exploring the color, represent red doing all of the sorts of things that red does best. It punctuates a statement — the statement being a white faux-fur jacket, the belt being the exclamation point. It adds whimsy to a place of work, and it adds drama to a flag made to celebrate the Day of the Dead. The brake lights reflected on an otherwise empty street illustrate how the roads of life are more interesting with a touch of something bright and bold.


A large, Tokyo-based multinational company should receive a more than $20 million contract for new Virginia Railway Express passenger cars, the railway’s Operations Board recommended Friday. The board also asked rail system officials to reexamine options for how it can provide WiFi service to riders. The passenger-car contract was awarded to Sumitomo Corp. of America, a New York-based subsidiary of the Japanese corporation, for an amount not to exceed $23.1 million. The company will build eight new rail cars as part of an effort to replace aging “legacy” cars, more than 40 years old, in VRE’s fleet. The VRE has already approved a plan to replace 20 of its aging cars at a price of $36 million over the next four fiscal years, with the bulk of the funds coming from the state and federal funds, and $2.5 million from VRE. The contract to Sumitomo is $2 million above VRE officials’ asking price. But, according to agency documents, VRE officials had little choice: The company was the sole bidder. Chief Executive Dale Zehner asked board members to approve a recommendation that would deplete the agency’s capital reserve fund of $1.5 million to pay for the higher price. Zehner said VRE officials hoped to find a company that could handle the entire process within the United States, but there were no takers on what is considered a relatively small order. The weakness of the American dollar when compared with the Japanese yen, among other factors, forced an increase in price, he said. Although the new cars would be manufactured in the United States, much of the engineering work would take place in Japan, he said. He also said that pouring money into the aging fleet wasn’t a good idea and that there is a demand for the new cars. “You feel like you’re back in the ’50s or ’60s,” Zehner said of the aging rail cars. The cost overrun is problematic because of VRE’s looming “800-pound gorilla” in meeting ever-increasing demand as costs go up, said board member Paul Milde, a Stafford County supervisor. “Our bigger problem here is accommodating increased ridership . . . and adding capacity to the new system,” Milde said. New statistics show that the railway’s average ridership was up 10 percent over December 2010, to 18,379. December was also a good month for the train service, with 96 percent of trains on time. Board member Chris


Drug laws are no joking matter

Regarding Al Kamen’s Jan. 18 column “ ‘Reefer Madness’ for the YouTube Generation”: This article is consistent with my hypothesis that the rules of professional conduct of journalists or some style manual require that articles about drug policy include a joke about chips, brownies or junk food. Can reporters and editors be so humor-deprived that they always have to joke about laws and policies that every year put hundreds of thousands of cannabis users in handcuffs, give them a criminal record and cost hundreds of millions of dollars on pointless police overtime. Ha, ha, ha, “pass the chips”; I’m dying with laughter. Eric E. Sterling, Chevy Chase


Global warming would harm the Earth, but some areas might find it beneficial

anyone benefitting. Changes in precipitation patterns and volume could undermine the temperature benefits, and the warmer winters could open the area to new pests and invasive species.” When you talk to climate scientists about winners and losers, a few words come up over and over again: could, might, maybe. According to University of Arizona environmental economist Derek Lemoine, local climate-change patterns are difficult to predict because uncertainties in the global model “are compounded when considering smaller scales.” For this reason, it’s very hard to pin down climate scientists on local effects. Klaus Keller, an associate professor of geosciences at the Pennsylvania State University, is working to develop strategies to manage the effects of climate change. I posed a simple question to him: If the leaders of Russia or Norway asked whether their countries would be better off in 50 years if the temperature increased by a few degrees, what would you say? “We don’t know,” he replied. Keller chafes at the notion of climate-change winners. “It’s one thing that, on average, the yield of a few cultivars can increase,” he says. “But heat waves increase mortality, increased drought makes life less enjoyable, and extreme weather events can be quite damaging.” Keller argues that adaptability is the more important factor in determining how countries will fare. The most obvious and tragic cases of adaptability have to do with elevation. Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, has been among the most vocal proponents of climate-change mitigation, arguing that rising sea levels could leave his island nation underwater. But in most cases, adaptability largely comes down to money. India and the United States provide a stark example of this. Michael Greenstone, a professor of environmental economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his colleagues have pored over death records for the past several decades in those countries to see how changes in temperature affect national death rates. He found that hotter days have only a modest effect on the U.S. mortality rate. In rural India, however, changing just a single day from a comfortable low 70s to a stifling low 90s increases the annual mortality rate by more than 1 percent. That’s from just one day of additional heat. The scary part of the research is that most climate models predict a far more dramatic change than that, with 30 or more additional days of extreme heat in India by the end


To spy a black hole, astronomers will build a virtual globe-spanning telescope

It’s time for a black hole to shine. A dozing monster of a black hole lies at the heart of our galaxy, and a global group of astronomers wants to snap its picture. They expect to see a ring of hot plasma swirling around a blank spot, the death dance of gas clouds getting sucked into a sphere of no return, the so-called event horizon. “The thing we will actually see is light just barely escaping from the black hole,” said Dan Marrone, a University of Arizona astronomer involved in the new project, called the Event Horizon Telescope. Astronomers call black holes the most baffling objects in the universe. The powerful gravity of these collapsed stars sucks in everything around them. And no one has ever taken a picture of one. The reason: No single telescope is powerful enough to spy one. The black hole at the center of the Milky Way is as wee in the sky as a baseball on the moon. To see it, astronomers will synchronize a network of telescopes into an Earth-size super-telescope. Once the network is assembled, dozens of radio dishes from California to the South Pole will simultaneously peer at the Milky Way’s center, each recording a bit of whatever’s there. Computer disks from each station will then be flown to Massachusetts, where a supercomputer at MIT’s Haystack Observatory will collate the data and build an image. This picture won’t reveal the core of the black hole, as nothing — not even light — can escape it. But the picture should reveal never-before-seen details of the action swirling around it. The image will also test Einstein’s theory of gravity. Called general relativity, the theory, published in 1916, has withstood every challenge thrown its way. It perfectly predicts how gravity bends light around stars, for instance. But near the black hole, which astronomers call Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A-star”), gravity grows enormous. That’s because the object is as massive as nearly 4 million suns. (In astrophysical parlance, it’s “supermassive.”) As a result, the predictions made by general relativity might break down. If Einstein was correct, the ring of gas around the black hole should appear almost perfectly circular. But if he was wrong, the ring might be squished. The image might help solve another mystery: why Sagittarius A* is such a skimpy eater. It nibbles gas even though astronomers would expect it to be


Administration looking into repatriating non-Afghan detainees at U.S.-run prison

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. A small number of detainees may be deemed to pose a terrorist threat, requiring their continued detention or close supervision by their home country if released from the Afghan prison, officials said. Additionally, a number of them are Yemeni, complicating their possible repatriation. President Obama has suspended the transfer home of their fellow nationals from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because of concerns about the security situation in Yemen. The largest single group of foreign detainees at the prison is Pakistani, and there are up to two dozen Arabs of various nationalities, according to administration and foreign officials. Among the first detainees likely to be transferred home is Yunus Rahmatullah, a Pakistani national, whose release has been demanded by a British court. Rahmatullah, a suspected extremist, was picked up by troops with Britain’s elite Special Air Service in Iraq in 2004 and handed over to U.S. forces. The CIA subsequently flew him to Afghanistan without informing the British, according to press reports and court papers. Attorneys for Rahmatullah, 29, argued in the British courts that the transfer violated a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and British militaries, and was a grave violation of the Geneva Conventions because it involved the removal of a civilian from the war theater. Last month, a British court granted a writ of habeas corpus and ordered the British government to get custody of Rahmatullah. The court noted that a 2010 Detainee Review Board hearing of military officers at Bagram cleared Rahmatullah for release. The British Court of Appeal said that if the British foreign secretary and defense minister failed to secure Rahmatullah, it would “be moved to commit you to prison for your contempt in not obeying the said writ.” The court set a deadline of Feb. 14 for Rahmatullah’s release. The British government has appealed the decision, but it has also asked the United States to arrange for Rahmatullah’s swift return to Pakistan, which would satisfy the court and his lawyers. “It would make no sense for the Obama administration to ratify this Bush-era war crime,” said Cori Crider, legal director of Reprieve, a London-base human rights group that is representing Rahmatullah. “Under the Geneva Convention, Yunus Rahmatullah is Britain’s responsibility and should never have been sent to Bagram in the first place. The man is cleared, his family are waiting,


Music review: American Youth Philharmonic

Conductor Daniel Spalding led the American Youth Philharmonic in a splendid concert at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts on Sunday. The event was free for people 18 and younger (although the parking fee was increased). Aside from Spalding’s opening commentary and pieces geared more toward adult listeners (the concert hall was only one-third filled), the afternoon gave the 129 student musicians opportunities to be featured either as soloists or as part of an individual orchestral section. And they did beautifully. The program opened with two works of recent vintage: Miguel del Aguila’s “The Giant Guitar,” a busy yet beguiling essay curiously echoing Bernstein’s “West Side Story.” The percussion section seemed to have the most fun with a multitude of instruments reflecting the composer’s South American upbringing. The group’s hard work also paid off in Mark Adamo’s “Four Angels,” a concerto for harp and orchestra, and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39. Dotian Levalier, principal harpist of the National Symphony Orchestra, starred in the concerto, as she had in its 2007 premiere with the NSO under Leonard Slatkin at the Kennedy Center. Adamo intended to reverse the traditional harp-orchestral role (the orchestra as central and the harp as decorative tracery) and have the harp lead, with the instruments only accompanying. To this end, Levalier summoned an unbridled impressionistic effect with a quiet luminosity pervading the orchestral texture. Adamo’s goal, however, was basically lost, for the orchestra favored fortissimos rather than playing second fiddle. To cap things off, the Philharmonic tackled Sibelius’s lumbering war horse of a symphony — an appropriate teaching piece, for it exposed the young musicians to stylistic reminders of Wagner (Siegfried’s “Rhine Journey”), Dvorak (“Slavonic Dances”), and Beethoven (the 9th Symphony finale) all delivered in one package. The strings showed an amazing sense of ensemble and intonation. And Sae Hashimoto was a fabulous timpanist. Cecilia Porter is a freelance writer.


Newt Gingrich’s troublesome lack of prudence

and require “fundamental change.” Opposing views are “fundamentally a lie” and “fundamentally alien to American tradition.” Only the biggest ideas are sufficient to his self-regard. So Gingrich diagnoses the genuine threat of terrorism and radical Islam. Then he calls for a federal law against sharia, which would address a nonexistent crisis while stigmatizing an entire faith. He makes a strong case for early work experience in low-income communities. Then he goes further to dismiss child labor laws as “truly stupid” and urges the employment of students as assistant janitors. Gingrich acknowledges the problem of climate change — or at least he once did. But he proposed to combat it through geoengineering — the risky manipulation of the planet’s environment by pumping nitrogen into the oceans or deflecting the sun’s rays with vast mirrors. Gingrich’s proposals for fundamental change The former speaker’s challenge to judicial supremacy is a case in point. As usual, Gingrich diagnoses a real problem. Judges are perfectly capable of serious overreach. They have sometimes encroached on legislative functions or imposed an intolerant theology of public secularism. Also as usual, Gingrich presses several steps too far in both rhetoric and policy. Judicial activists are “grotesquely dictatorial” and “radically anti-American.” They should be subpoenaed by Congress and compelled by marshals to testify. The president should have the right to ignore their rulings and abolish circuit courts entirely. Gingrich cites the example of Thomas Jefferson, who eliminated a number of circuit courts created by John Adams during the last days of his administration. It is a poorly chosen precedent. Jefferson was undoing his predecessor’s executive power grab, not targeting specific judges who made undesirable decisions. If President Gingrich simply eliminated, say, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, it would leave a large portion of the country unserved by a federal appeals court. If he subsequently filled the vacancies, it would undermine the constitutional principle of life tenure. As former attorney general Michael Mukasey has argued, America would become a “banana republic, in which administrations would become regimes, and each regime would feel it perfectly appropriate to disregard decisions by courts staffed by previous regimes.” When Gingrich was called out by conservative legal scholars on the radical implications of his proposal, his response was both typical and alarming. He doubled down. After all, he said, “I taught a short course in this at the University of Georgia Law


YouTube Space Lab finalist turns to snowflakes for cosmic answers

The International Space Station can be seen at the center of the frame with the payload bay of the space shuttle Endeavour in the foreground as the two spacecraft prepare to dock in this photograph provided by NASA and taken May 18, 2011. (NASA/REUTERS) This post has been updated to clarify the nature of Bresnahan’s experiment. When most people think about the science of snowflakes, they tend to bring up that old standby that no two snowflakes are alike. But for Emerald Bresnahan, a 17-year-old from Plainville, Mass., snowflakes hold a much more interesting scientific concept — one that could provide clues to how galaxies are formed. In an experiment proposal she submitted to YouTube as part of its Space Lab competition, Bresnahan said that galaxies form similarly to how snowflakes form from the inside out. She believes to have found possible evidence that the hexagonal formation of a snowflake relates to other aspects of the universe — a shape that’s also seen on the north pole of Saturn. Last week, YouTube announced Bresnahan is one of 60 finalists in its Space Lab competition, a global contest for young scientists to have two submitted experiments performed on the International Space Station. From these 60 finalists, people can vote for six finalists — two each from the Americas, Europe and Pacific Asia — to be judged by a panel of space and science experts. Bresnahan, a freshman at Wheaton College (she skipped the 10th grade) worked on her project alone for about a month after seeing an announcement about the contest on YouTube. After finishing some preliminary work, she consulted her astronomy professor on incorporating her research into a class project. “He supported what I was going to do and wanted to see what would happen,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post. She said that YouTube and other large forums like it can help inspire young people to get motivated about their own research and ask big questions. Because of that potential to share knowledge, she wasn’t shy about sharing her ideas on the site. “I really believe in my research and I wanted to share it with people,” she said. “It’s always great to get younger people involved, especially in science. It’s an important topic that should be looked into by everybody, and sharing it could help find answers,” she said. Many people would be shy about


For export-dependent Japan, a trade deficit

recent months, the bank noted, Japan’s economy had been handcuffed by a strong yen, whose appreciation makes Japanese products more expensive overseas. In October, the yen hit a record high against the dollar, and it traded Tuesday at roughly 77 against the dollar, compared with more than 85 in April. The yen’s strength does carry some advantages — it gives Japanese companies more power to purchase and acquire overseas assets, for instance — but it has also encouraged those same companies to relocate entirely. Politicians now speak about the potential for a “hollowing out” of Japanese industry, with manufacturing giants maintaining only modest bases in Japan while building factories in Thailand, China and Vietnam. This process, already in progress, makes it all the harder for Japan to recover its export dominance. Signs of the shift to foreign markets can be seen particularly in the auto industry. According to figures by J.P. Morgan Chase, Japanese companies will produce roughly 75 percent of their cars abroad by 2014, compared with 67 percent last year. In recent years, Japan has sharply increased its trade volume with China, but only in 2009 did China overtake the United States as the largest buyer of Japanese exports. Trade pressures could push Tokyo even closer to Beijing, using China’s usually reliable growth to make up for tightening markets in the West. Japan remains the world’s largest net foreign creditor, so its income balance still outweighs its trade deficit. That net surplus is critical, allowing Japan to keep borrowing costs among the world’s lowest. But if Japan cannot maintain that surplus, borrowing will become more expensive, raising fears about a European-style crisis. Japan’s debt is more than twice the size of its GDP. Investor confidence in Japan could be rattled if the country cannot raise its consumption tax, the linchpin of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s strategy to prevent a Greece-style crisis. Noda appeared in parliament Tuesday and emphasized the need for Japan to raise the tax from the current 5 percent to 10 percent by 2015. “As global financial markets continue to dominate, once ‘national credibility’ is lost it cannot be undone,” Noda said. “This is manifestly apparent in the current situation in Europe.” More world news coverage: - Muslim Brotherhood adopts caution on economy - Libya government faces growing frustrations - In Pakistan, coup looms but does not strike - Read more headlines from around the world


In D.C.’s brewing renaissance, every palate wins

cooks and brewers, filled with locally foraged herbs, spices and other ingredients. As for the beers themselves, Engert envisions constant experimentation and an ambitious barrel-aging and sour-beer program. He also says the brewery will team up with renowned brewers around the country to brew collaboration beers, which will help form the basis of the brewery’s distribution strategy. NRG wants to send its beer — mostly kegs and limited runs of 750-milliliter bottles — nationwide almost immediately. For sheer hipness, though, it might be hard for NRG to top the brewpub whose working name is “Right, Proper”: a partnership between Thor Cheston, formerly of Pizzeria Paradiso and Brasserie Beck, and Nathan Zeender, a home-brewer with a knack for dry, yeasty Belgian-inspired ales and barrel-aged sour beers reminiscent of Belgian lambics. Whereas NRG’s brewery will have a modern, glass-filled aesthetic and undoubtedly will be swamped by stadium-goers, Cheston and Zeender are aiming for an intimate neighborhood vibe inspired by the Baltimore brewpub Brewer’s Art. “Both myself and Thor have a pretty overdeveloped sense of place,” Zeender says, adding that they’ve been looking at historic buildings in and around the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest. The beers, too, will have a “revivalist” feel, gesturing to numerous global traditions. Before the tentative opening date — a year or more from now — Zeender hopes to bulk up his recipe book by interning at breweries in Belgium, Scandinavia and Quebec and throughout the United States. Of the four new brewing ventures, the one that most closely resembles what D.C. residents have already seen is Hellbender Brewing, which initially will focus on placing kegs in local bars, as DC Brau, Chocolate City and 3 Stars have done. Founder Ben Evans hopes to open by this summer and eventually sell cans to retailers, too. Still, Evans, a microbiology researcher who is overseeing Hellbender with congressional staffer Patrick Mullane, says his offerings won’t taste much like the competition’s. “For instance,” he says, “rather than coming out with a pale ale, we decided to come out with a Kolsch,” a hoppy, gold-colored German ale. “I’ve been working on that for many years, and we thought that would be a more unique addition to our lineup.” In the D.C. brewing world, that kind of thinking is now business as usual: Be good — but, maybe more important, be different. Fromson, a freelance writer, lives in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @dfroms.


Why you should grow garlic chives

I sometimes wonder why garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) are not as commonly grown as regular chives (Allium schoenoprasum). They are hardy perennials and just as easy to grow. Like regular chives, they can spread and become too much of a good thing. But more likely, they’re just less familiar and slower to creep into our kitchens. Both plants grow in grass-like clumps, but while the common chive foliage is tube-shaped and grass-green, a garlic chive is a flat, blue-green blade. And its flavor is more garlicky than oniony, though not as strong or harsh as a raw clove of real garlic. Snip the leaves just as you would chives, as a seasoning and as a garnish, but be more liberal with them. These are larger, more robust plants, more vegetable than herb. You’ll find garlic chives most often in Asian cookbooks; in fact, they are often called Chinese chives or Chinese leeks. Uses range from the meticulous, as in stuffed dumplings, to the ultra-simple, as in broths into which the leaves, cut an inch or two long, have been dropped and briefly simmered. Even the flower stems can be softened in cooking. Heat mellows the garlic taste as well. The flowers themselves are another great reason to grow garlic chives. Where the familiar chive sends up small, rosy-purple globes in late spring, this one makes larger white star-shaped florets in late summer and early fall. Both blossoms are fabulously attractive to bees, butterflies and other pollinators, and both make pretty and pungent garnishes in salads. But those of garlic chives are much longer-blooming, on strong, straight, two-foot stems that are great for picking when so many other garden flowers have gone by. With both plants, leaves start to turn brown when the plants begin to flower, but because garlic chives are a late-season herb, the decline isn’t as much a drawback, ornamentally. You can cut the plants back any time you like to produce fresh leaves. Garlic chives are late, lovely bloomers (Alan Buckingham/GETTY IMAGES) Start garlic chives with fresh seed in spring, or acquire a clump or two and divide them each year to increase your supply. Those of you who are laughing riotously at that sentence know that this may not be necessary. I don’t know why garlic chives spread so rampantly in some gardens and not in others. Mine have stood their ground in a tidy grid,


State of the Union 2013: President Obama’s address to Congress (Transcript)

their elected officials cause another. Now... (APPLAUSE) ... most of us agree that a plan to reduce the deficit must be part of our agenda. But let’s be clear: Deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan. (APPLAUSE) A growing economy that creates good, middle-class jobs, that must be the North Star that guides our efforts. (APPLAUSE) Every day, we should ask ourselves three questions as a nation: How do we attract more jobs to our shores? How do we equip our people with the skills they need to get those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living? OBAMA: A year-and-a-half ago, I put forward an American Jobs Act that independent economists said would create more than 1 million new jobs. And I thank the last Congress for passing some of that agenda; I urge this Congress to pass the rest. But... (APPLAUSE) ... tonight I’ll lay out additional proposals that are fully paid for and fully consistent with the budget framework both parties agreed to just 18 months ago. Let me repeat: Nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime. It is not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth. (APPLAUSE) That’s what we should be looking for. (APPLAUSE) Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing. After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three. Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan. Ford is bringing jobs back from Mexico. And this year, Apple will start making Macs in America again. (APPLAUSE) There are things we can do, right now, to accelerate this trend. Last year, we created our first manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio. A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3-D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything. There’s no reason this can’t happen in other towns. So tonight, I’m announcing the launch of three more of these manufacturing hubs, where businesses will partner with the Departments of Defense and Energy to turn regions left behind by globalization into global centers of high-tech jobs. And I ask this Congress to help create a network of 15 of these hubs and guarantee that the next revolution


Going Out Guide for the District of Columbia, Jan. 26-Feb. 1

The Chinese Lunar New Year Parade is Sunday. (Matt McClain/for The Washington Post) THU 26 Cowboy Mouth H Street Karaoke Championship Roy Ayers Basile FRI 27 Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam “On the Lakeshore . . . and Other Stories: Photographer Iris Janke” SAT 28 Renwick anniversary party The gallery celebrates its 40th anniversary with games, talks, crafts, cake and the unveiling of its winning anniversary postcard design. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Renwick Gallery, 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. 202-633-1000. www.americanart.si.edu. Free. Elia Kazan double feature The Chariots “Double Dare Ya” “Gabarron’s Roots” “I Love Lucy: An American Legend” “Reverb + Echo: A Haitian Landscape” SUN 29 Chinese Lunar New Year Parade “Into the Wild” “Powerplay: China’s Empress Dowager” MON 30 Joao Kouyoumdjian “Men in the City” TUE 31 “La Cage aux Folles” WED 01 Happy Birthday, Langston Hughes “Voices Out Loud: A Celebration of Bayard Rustin” ReelAbilities Disabilities Film Festival — Compiled by Carrie Donovan from staff reports Chinese Lunar New Year Parade 3Welcome the Year of the Dragon, lunar new year 4710, at this colorful parade sponsored by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. Organizers expect about 40,000 people to attend. Sunday 2-4:30 p.m. Parade starts at Sixth and I streets NW, goes west on I Street, follows the perimeter of Chinatown and ends at Sixth and H streets NW. Free.


After earthquake, Japan can’t agree on the future of nuclear power

TOKYO — Nearly a year after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi facility, Japanese decision-makers cannot agree on how to safeguard their reactors against future disasters, or even whether to operate them at all. Some experts say this indecision reflects the Japanese tendency to search for, and sometimes depend on, consensus — even when none is likely to emerge. The nation’s system for nuclear decision-making requires the agreement of thousands of officials. Most bureaucrats and politicians in Tokyo want Japan to recommit to nuclear power, but they have been thwarted by a powerful minority — reformists and regional governors. The stalemate comes with heavy consequences, especially as reactors are idled, leading to record financial losses for major power companies and economy-stunting electricity shortages in manufacturing hubs such as Tokyo and Osaka. Those shortages are likely to mount, as more reactors are shut down for required maintenance. After the shutdown Wednesday of Unit 5 at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant in northwestern Japan, the country is now operating just four of its 54 reactors. By the end of April, those last reactors are due to be idled for testing, and Japan, once the world’s third-largest nuclear consumer, could be nuclear-free, if it is unable to win approval from local communities to restart the idled units. For decades, Japan’s nuclear policies received little public scrutiny and generated little opposition. The country established an elaborate network of hand-holding, with Tokyo passing subsidies to host communities and utility companies forming de facto partnerships with nuclear manufacturing firms such as Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Since the March 11 accident, just enough has changed to stall that cooperation. Two-thirds of Japanese oppose atomic power. Politicians in areas that host nuclear plants are rethinking the facilities; they hold veto power over any restart. A few vocal skeptics have emerged in the government, and in the aftermath of the accident, Japan has created at least a dozen commissions and task forces for energy-related issues. The broad attempt to seek opinion might sound like a welcome change, but according to some panel members, it leaves Japan with a system that impedes reform. “Oh, there are so many panels,” said Tatsuo Hatta, an economist who sits on three of them. “I’m sorry it’s so complicated.” A debate over safety The most immediate question is whether to restart the reactors, which once supplied almost a third of Japan’s power.


Japan losing hope for its pricey ‘dream reactor’

its costly resource-scarcity problem, which necessitates fuel imports from across the world. “It was supposed to be the dream reactor, powering Japan for 100 or 200 years,” Satoru Kondo, director general of Japan’s fast breeder program at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview this week. “I never thought it would take this long.” Japan’s only prototype fast-breeder, a 280-megawatt reactor known as Monju, sits in this coastal town, roughly 250 miles west of Tokyo. The reactor is idle, and officials here say they have no control over whether it will operate again. Wasteful spending That decision will come from Tokyo, where a government with the world’s highest debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio is trying to eliminate wasteful spending. Based on recommendations from a panel of cost-cutting specialists, officials in December slashed Monju’s $275 million annual budget by roughly 20 percent. They also removed all money reserved for operation of the reactor in 2012. Some politicians say that even with those cuts, Monju is receiving too much, particularly at a time when Japan should be adding safety measures for existing reactors. “We’re not going to get the fast-breeder reactor,” said Taro Kono, a Japanese parliament member and a critic of nuclear power. “We spend billions of yen every year just to maintain Monju. It’s crazy. We spend so much money just to keep things not running.” Monju has turned into an easy target for ridicule because of its tormented history. Japanese engineers began work on the fast-breeder technology in the 1960s. They wanted the breeders to be commercially viable by the 1980s. Now the hope is that Japan can create commercial fast breeders by 2050. But critics and nuclear watchdog groups describe Monju as Japan’s most dangerous reactor because it uses plutonium fuel, even more deadly than uranium, and because it cools its reactor with sodium, which can explode if it comes into contact with water. The United States and other countries abandoned their fast-breeder development efforts decades ago because of safety and price concerns, but Japan remained committed, even after a 1995 fire caused by a sodium leak. That accident — coupled with an attempted coverup by the plant’s officials — caused a 14-year freeze on operations. Three months after the reactor restarted in May 2010, a 3.3-ton piece of machinery fell into the reactor vessel, causing another delay. The device has been removed, but Monju hasn’t operated since. Reform


Obama’s military strategy should focus on troops, not technology

does not stop the development of technology useful to the military, though it is an unwise and dangerous strategy. Indeed, every major war of the past hundred years has prompted, in months, technological innovations that in peacetime would have required years. Even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — which were not supported by any significant technological or industrial mobilization — spurred the rapid fielding of systems and vehicles to counter improvised explosive devices, the primary technological challenge to our soldiers. It is easier, of course, to build mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles than an F-35 fighter jet. But it need not take two decades to build a stealth fighter or even to refurbish an aircraft carrier, if the equipment is urgently needed. There is, on the other hand, no way to accelerate the fielding of good military leaders. Certainly soldiers can be recruited rapidly and their training courses shortened. Junior officers can be swiftly promoted, skipping the career steps and educational requirements of peacetime. More senior officers can be drawn from reserves and staff positions. During World War II, entire divisions were recruited, trained and deployed within a year. But the brigade and battalion commanders in those divisions did not know how to command brigades and battalions. The company commanders might not have seen combat. They learned awfully fast in North Africa, Europe and the Pacific — at a very high price in lives. The development of military leaders cannot be accelerated beyond a certain point without seriously degrading quality. People can learn, adapt and assimilate experiences only so rapidly. Good software or other distributed learning tools help individuals master enormous amounts of information, but there are innate limits. Military leadership is more than knowledge and technique. It requires fundamental changes in personality, patterns of thought and perception, emotional control and interactions with others. That is as true for fighter pilots as battalion commanders. Inexperienced leaders panic when seasoned veterans would calmly carry on; unseasoned commanders leap to conclusions where salted warriors comprehend the entire situation. Advanced technology generally exacerbates these problems by flooding hastily promoted officers and noncommissioned officers with information as they fight to retain or regain emotional balance and rational perception. And there can be no real preparation for the loss of soldiers under one’s authority except to live through that horrible experience. The U.S. military is overwhelmingly composed of officers and noncommissioned officers who have developed these


Man pleads guilty to Catonsville military recruiting office bomb plot

A Baltimore man pleaded guilty Thursday to trying to blow up a Catonsville military recruiting station. Antonio Benjamin Martinez, 22, was arrested on Dec. 8, 2010 after he attempted to detonate what he believed to be explosives at the armed forces recruiting station near Baltimore. According to Martinez’s plea agreement, he was a recent convert to Islam when he began planning an attack against a military building. He confided those plans to an FBI confidential source, saying Muslims were being unjustly killed by the American military. He said he wanted to kill American soldiers until the country stopped its “war” against Islam, according to the plea agreement. He also posted militant beliefs on his Facebook page. After he unsuccessfully tried to involve several people in his plot, the FBI source connected Martinez with his fictitious “Afghan brother,” who would help with the operation. The brother was an undercover FBI agent. After meeting with him, Martinez said the brother was the “answer to his prayers,” according to the plea agreement. On the day of the planned attack, Martinez had the FBI informant record him on a camcorder saying he would continue to fight those who waged war with Islam, according to the plea agreement. At the recruiting station, Martinez then tried to detonate a fake bomb given to him by the FBI, authorities said. Martinez later told authorities that the bomb was intended to kill military service members who worked in the building. “We are catching dangerous suspects before they strike, and we are investigating them in a way that maximizes the liberty and security of law-abiding citizens,” said Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. Martinez, who pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against federal property, faces 25 years in prison when he is sentenced April 6. “This is an example of another successful prosecution that resulted from outstanding partnerships between the Muslim community and law enforcement,” said Richard A. McFeely, FBI special agent in charge.


Clarinetist Joerg Widmann shows off his composing skills with National Symphony

You get to be young for a long time in the classical music world. Joerg Widmann has been a wunderkind in Germany for years — as a clarinetist who regularly plays with the world’s leading musicians and as a much-feted composer. Although he’s been on the scene for a couple of decades, he’s still younger than 40, and it was with his wonted boyish mien — albeit belied by a sprinkling of gray hair — that he took the stage of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Thursday night to introduce himself to the National Symphony Orchestra audience in both musical capacities simultaneously. He was preceded by his piece “Armonica,” a 16-minute feast of what appeared to be sound effects, built on the ubiquitous idea of a musical work growing from nothing into a cascade of sound and dying away again. The idea here had a visual echo in the solo glass harmonica at center stage. In appearance, it was an elongated cone of glass; in the hands of the soloist Christa Schoenfeldinger, though, it produced eerily artless melodies — like a song sung by a long-dead child — that were supported by the bevy of percussion, wind sounds and even a solo accordion player around it. “Armonica” was Widmann’s contribution to the Mozart year, citing an instrument for which Mozart wrote but using it here in an eminently un-Mozartean manner. There was nothing classical about the piece apart from the sound of the instrument rising out of it like a recorded sound from an era before recording. Widmann’s physical entrance filled the negative space that his piece had created by bringing both composers — himself and Mozart — front and center. In Mozart’s clarinet concerto, he showed himself as an elegant, slightly cerebral soloist who plays a mean clarinet, with subtle phrasing, crack fingerwork and a certain amount of moxie. Conductor Christoph Eschenbach and the orchestra offered robust accompaniment that was, if not exactly classical either, at least hearty. The audience received Widmann with deserved raptures. It’s not every day that you encounter a musician who is equally good at two different forms at the same time. Widmann also happens to be breaking into conducting — he’s recently become principal guest conductor of the Irish Chamber Orchestra — but on this occasion, he left the podium to Eschenbach. The evening showed Eschenbach in many ways at his best as


Runner Brooke Curran is on a global marathon campaign for Alexandria

the city’s cobblestone streets when she moved there in 1994. They reminded her of Richmond, her childhood home. So far, Curran has run 43 marathons in 32 states and five continents and raised more than $90,000. Her cause has brought her to the coastal monoliths of Easter Island, finish lines on China’s Great Wall and the quiet roads of Pocatello, Idaho. By summer, she’ll have run in Austin; St. Louis; Fargo, N.D.; Antarctica; and Kona, Hawaii. If she runs on schedule, she will finish in Des Moines in October 2013. But Curran has no plans on stopping once she’s met her goal. After Des Moines, her first plan is to complete a full Ironman triathlon in Florida the following month. And after that? She wants to start 100-mile marathons and jump out of an airplane. “I’m looking for that thing that will totally break me down,” she said, “a challenge that brings me into a black hole, and I’ve got to claw my way back out.” Curran plans to expand her fund with her endeavors; RunningBrooke Fund will most likely become a regional and national organization with models for other communities that want to follow suit. To train, she runs about 70 miles a week through Old Town and jogs the stairs of the Masonic Temple in the early morning. When it comes to races, she prefers the small-town marathons to the ones that draw thousands. “The small ones remind me why I love to run,” she said. “I wake up in my hotel, cross the street and go. That’s when my mind and body really sync up.” She pays her own way to every race and occasionally brings along one of her daughters: Clare, 19; Katherine, 17; and Caroline, 14. Her husband, Christopher, a lawyer in the District, mans the house when she’s away. Curran insists that although her journey sounds glamorous, it isn’t always fun. “There are days when it’s hard to even look at my sneakers,” she said, “but that’s why the cause is so important. It pushes me to take a deep breath and lace up.” On Sunday, Brooke Curran is taking a day off from running to host a Zumba Explosion at the Carlyle Club in Alexandria. Proceeds from the event, which includes two dance classes, a silent auction and fitness tips, will be divided among the charities she supports. For information, go to www.runningbrooke.com.


Popular magnets pose risk if swallowed

safety commission to spread the message that the magnets should be kept from children. “We don’t sell to stores that sell exclusively children’s products or toy stores,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to make sure it’s not getting to children.” Brookstone, one of many retailers that carry the magnets, says they are a popular item. A boxed set of 125 Buckyball magnets sells for $24.99. A company spokeswoman said new product training includes warnings that they are for adults only. ‘My favorite’ gift Meredith said she likes Buckyballs because “you can use them for fake piercings on your ear, your nose, lip or tongue.” On braces, too. The magnets are also very strong, she said, “so you can make different stuff out of them.” Many friends had them, so she was excited to get a set for Christmas. Her siblings, 11 and 13, also each got a box. She didn’t read the warnings about not putting the magnets in her nose, mouth or ears. “I just opened it,” she said. “It was probably my favorite of everything I got until I swallowed it,” she said of the magnets. On Jan. 17, a Tuesday, she was in the library at Oak View Elementary School, checking out a book with a friend. The two magnets were in her pocket. After she swallowed them, Meredith, at her friend’s urging, told the school nurse. The nurse sent Meredith back to class, but as a courtesy, notified Meredith’s mother, Helen DelPrete. DelPrete called her pediatrician, Gary Bergman, as a precaution and was told to take Meredith to the emergency room immediately. Luckily for Meredith, the two magnets had connected in her esophagus, making the situation less dangerous, doctors said. For four days, doctors monitored the movement of the magnets in Meredith’s body. She was not allowed to eat. They maneuvered the magnets to her appendix after they became embedded in her large intestine. Helen DelPrete said her husband bought the magnets for the children and didn’t notice the warning labels. She said she wasn’t aware of the concerns until after Meredith was hospitalized. “It’s etched on the plastic container [holding the magnets], but you can’t even read it — it’s the same color as the plastic container,” she said. So far, Meredith’s hospital charges are about $22,000, DelPrete said, but when the individual doctors’ charges are added, the total cost could be


Book World: ‘Fug You,’ by Ed Sanders, a look back at the ’60s band

A Fugs performance in 1966 at Astor Place Playhouse (Credit: Ed Sanders Collection/Credit: Ed Sanders Collection) In 1967, I drove with several other leading radicals (i.e., Johns Hopkins grad students who wanted a day off from school) from Baltimore to Washington to levitate the Pentagon. As we parked and began walking, a flatbed truck crowded with bearded, longhaired guys and gals with pots of Day-Glo paint stopped for us, so we climbed on board. “Who are you guys?” asked one of my friends as the women painted our faces. “We’re the Fugs!” was the reply. So my pals and I ended up levitating the Pentagon with the Fugs, or at least I’m pretty sure we did. Meanwhile, as Ed Sanders points out in his detailed, casually compiled and often wistful memoir, “the Vietnam War went on for another seven years.” To say those were momentous days is an understatement. As I read“Fug You,” I wondered how often we’re going to hear the phrase “50th anniversary” in the next few years. Nov. 22, 2013, will be the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The Beatles appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on Feb. 9, 1964. That same year, Muhammad Ali defeated Sonny Liston and became a global icon. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk, the Birmingham church bombing, Freedom Rides, the Watts Riots, the war in Vietnam, LSD, Woodstock, psychedelic rock, Chappaquiddick, the Voting Rights Act, “Easy Rider” and the first six James Bond movies: These and a hundred other phenomena not only collided but reached critical mass, setting off chain reactions that shape our lives today. Like a hippie being hustled into a paddywagon by a couple of overeager cops, Sanders’s sentences often lurch and struggle for footing. He begins by saying, “As the years in this book whizzed by, I believed most fervently that the roots of revolution were going to lift the concrete away from the field of truth, after which Bread and Roses and the utopian place I called Goof City would grow up afresh in a warless world — Goof City on the hill, Goof City in the Lower East Side, Goof City shining.” This awkwardness may be due to Sanders’s difficulty in dealing with his late-life realization that much of what he called “Total Assault on the Culture” turned out to be a series of exercises in self-indulgence


45 years after America’s first space tragedy, lessons linger

CAPE CANAVERAL — Faulty wiring probably sparked the blaze that killed Roger Chaffee, Virgil “Gus” Grissom and Ed White, according to NASA and congressional investigations. The fire spread quickly in the pure-oxygen environment. The tragedy is still etched on the space agency’s collective psyche. The agency held its annual day of remembrance last week. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery, and a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center visitors center honored the three Apollo heroes and the 14 astronauts who later died in space shuttle disasters. When the 1967 tragedy happened, NASA’s first news director, Jack King, was in the blockhouse, the heavy concrete launch room near the pad. He’s got a sharp memory and can still rattle off figures for how many pounds of thrust each of the early NASA rockets delivered. A former Associated Press reporter, King was on site the day of the fire to type up the news of a successful test and get it out to reporters: another small step toward the moon, welcome fodder for a press corps eager to trumpet the nation’s triumphs in the accelerating quest to beat the Soviets to the moon. King, now 80, took a reporter out to the site of the tragedy, Space Launch Complex 34. It’s on Cape Canaveral, on Air Force land, a quick jog up from the beach. A weathered four-legged concrete stand — which supported the Saturn IB rocket — sits surrounded by grass and weeds. The blockhouse is still there, a squat, heavy mound of tan concrete a hundred yards or so west of the launch stand. When asked what he remembered about that day in 1967, King lighted a cigarette and wiped the corner of his eye under his glasses. “It’s something you never forget,” he said. There were a lot of problems with the early Apollo capsule, King said. Before the test, Grissom had been complaining about communications issues between the capsule and the blockhouse. King recalled Grissom saying, “How could we go to the moon if we can’t even talk to each other?” King stopped talking. He stood in the sun and stared at the blockhouse. “I was locked in there for 10 hours,” he said. Donald “Deke” Slayton was the chief astronaut at the time. Slayton left the blockhouse and climbed up to the capsule to confirm what everyone feared. The trio was dead.


A dangerous shift in Obama’s ‘climate change’ rhetoric

deployed, and people setting policy agendas know this well. In 2002, Republican political strategist Frank Luntz issued a widely cited memo advising that the Bush administration should shift its rhetoric on the climate. “It’s time for us to start talking about ‘climate change’ instead of global warming. . . . ‘Climate change’ is less frightening than ‘global warming,’ ” the memo said. Luntz was not alone in wanting to change the terminology. The nonprofit group EcoAmerica issued a report in 2009 arguing that the terms “global warming” and “climate change” both needed rebranding. In their place, the group recommended the phrase “our deteriorating atmosphere.” But what do we lose when global warming and climate change get repackaged as clean energy? We wind up missing a thorough understanding of the breadth of the problem and the range of possible solutions. To start, talking only about clean energy omits critical biological and physical factors that contribute to the warming climate. “Clean energy” doesn’t call to mind the ways we use the land and how the environment is changing. Where in the term is the notion of the climate pollution that results from clear-cutting Amazon rain forests? What about methane release in the Arctic, where global warming is exposing new areas of soil in the permafrost? “Clean energy” also neatly bypasses any idea that we might need to curb our consumption. If the energy is clean, after all, why worry about how much we’re using — or how unequal the access to energy sources might be? And terms such as “carbon pollution” ignore that climate change isn’t just a carbon issue. Some greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide, do not contain carbon, and not all carbon-containing emissions, such as carbon monoxide, trap heat. When the president moves away from talking about climate change and talks more generally about energy, as he did in the State of the Union, calling for “an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy,” the impact is more than just political. Calling climate change by another name creates limits of its own. The way we talk about the problem affects how we deal with it. And though some new wording may deflect political heat, it can’t alter the fact that, “climate change” or not, the climate is changing. boykoff@colorado.edu Maxwell T. Boykoff Read more from Outlook, friend us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.


What would Mitt Romney’s offshore account filings show?

offshore holdings have become an issue in the Republican primary campaign. “We’re not going to beat Barack Obama with some guy who has Swiss bank accounts,” rival Newt Gingrich said in a Florida appearance Thursday. The Romney tax returns showed that he and his family held investments abroad in such places as Luxembourg, Ireland and the Cayman Islands. At least one of those investments, an account at the Swiss Bank UBS held in a blind trust for Romney’s wife, would have triggered the FBAR requirement. The Swiss bank account and other offshore holdings were left out of a separate, public financial disclosure required of presidential candidates that Romney filed last year with the Office of Government Ethics. The Romney campaign has said it will amend the ethics disclosure. In a Jan. 24 conference call with reporters arranged by the Romney campaign, R. Bradford Malt, a Boston lawyer who is trustee of the Romney family trusts, said he set up the Swiss account in 2003 and closed it in 2010. He said it held approximately $3 million and generated income. “The tax is fully paid just as if this were a U.S. bank account,” he said. Malt was asked during the briefing whether Romney “filed any and all required FBARs in a timely fashion.” In response, Malt said: “The people required to file FBARs are Mrs. Romney and myself, and we have filed all FBARs.” The Treasury Department requires U.S. taxpayers to file the FBAR forms, whose full title is “Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts,” to help the Internal Revenue Service make sure that people are not dodging taxes by stashing money overseas. UBS in 2009 agreed to pay the U.S. government $780 million to settle civil and criminal charges that it helped thousands of Americans evade U.S. taxes. The U.S. government said the bank allowed Americans to hold money in Swiss accounts that were concealed from the IRS. Both the bank and the clients were supposed to make disclosures to the U.S. government about the accounts. Against the backdrop of the UBS case, the IRS has offered leniency to U.S. taxpayers for belatedly disclosing offshore accounts. Stephen Hudak, a spokesman for the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, said FBARs are exempt from public disclosure under open records laws. The Treasury Department will neither release any such forms nor confirm or deny that they have been filed, he said.


Iceland sharply divided on joining E.U. amid debt crisis

it’s going pretty badly.” Taxi drivers. Tattoo artists. Barbers. Baristas. Nearly everyone has an opinion, and very often a strong one. “It’s a very hard topic; it’s very divisive,” said Baldur Thorhallsson, a political science professor at the University of Iceland. “It’s about national identity, and that’s why the debate is so heated. It’s a question of where we belong.” There is an irony hanging over the debate, of course. Three years ago, Iceland’s European neighbors, along with much of the world, looked on in dismay as the island’s once-booming economy imploded, the result of a banking system that had grown far too large and far too reckless. Now, as Iceland shows glimmers of recovery and Europe finds itself wrestling with a debilitating debt crisis, many Icelanders look at the situation with alarm and disdain. And Iceland is not alone. On Sunday, Croatians voted to join the E.U. next year despite reservations among many citizens about a loss of sovereignty and the debt troubles in the euro zone. Here, those who favor joining the E.U. — a group that includes Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir — argue that Iceland would benefit from a larger community, primarily by gaining much-needed stability in its currency. Iceland’s krona has long suffered from precipitous booms and busts and has little appeal outside the country, especially after the recent crisis. Those against joining the E.U. — a group that includes former prime minister Geir Haarde — note that the euro has done little to stave off instability in Europe and argue that allowing the krona to fall in value helped hasten Iceland’s recovery by making its exports cheaper. Many critics also note that Iceland could lose control over the policies that govern fishing off its coasts, a particularly sensitive issue because it involves one of the country’s chief exports. Ossur Skarphedinsson, Iceland’s foreign minister and a longtime member of Parliament, ticks off a list of reasons he thinks the country should join the E.U. Among them: long-term currency stability, an opportunity to expand the number of industries in Iceland and the potential to attract more foreign investment. “I am absolutely convinced that they will do whatever it takes to save the euro,” he said of his counterparts in Europe wrestling with the debt crisis. “I am looking further ahead. In the end, Iceland would lose its competitiveness compared to Europe [if it doesn’t join]. We would


Obama ally suggests administration is undermining Endangered Species Act

Bush administration proposal that was later ruled illegal, redefines what constitutes a “significant portion of its range” for a given species. It says that a plant or animal deserves listing only if its disappearance from one area threatens the entire species’ survival. It also defines a species’ range as its current distribution, as opposed to its historic one. When the agency issued the policy Dec. 8, Ashe released a statement: “This proposed interpretation will provide consistency and clarity for the services and our partners, while making more effective use of our resources and improving our ability to protect and recover species before they are on the brink of extinction.” In the proposal, which is subject to public comment until Feb. 7, the agency predicted that it would lead to the additional listing of species, but “only under limited set of circumstances.” Markey questioned the agency’s assessment, saying that under the proposed approach the bald eagle would not have qualified for protection in the 1970s because the bird was faring better in Alaska than in the Lower 48. “This proposed threshold for protecting species is simply too high under the ESA,” Markey wrote. “Even during the worst era of DDT-pesticide usage, healthy populations of eagles lived in Alaska, meaning that, even if the eagle had completely disappeared from the lower 48 states, the ‘viability’ of the species was never in doubt.” The policy the Bush administration put forward was even more limited, saying that if a species was found to be threatened in a part of its range, federal protections would only be extended to the area where the species was in trouble. Noah Greenwald, who directs the endangered species program for the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity, called the Obama administration’s move a “regulatory sleight of hand” that undermines the Endangered Species Act. The act “allowed for species to be protected if they weren’t at risk everywhere,” said Greenwald, whose group successfully challenged the Bush policy in federal court. But in a statement, Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Chris Tollefson said the new policy “will make it possible to protect species before they are at risk of disappearing everywhere.” “We can act on the basis of threats in only a portion of the range of a species, but only when that portion is so important that without it, the species would be in danger of extinction everywhere,” he added.


For CIA family, a deadly suicide bombing leads to painful divisions

comments. Click here to read a summary Then, in October 2010, the CIA released results of the agency’s internal investigation into the Khost attack, fueling another round of stories that Matthews was partially responsible. Matthews and her team, the report concluded, failed to follow the agency’s procedures for vetting informants. One of Matthews’s severest critics was her uncle, Dave Matthews, a retired CIA official who had helped inspire his niece to join the agency. Now Anderson and other relatives who once agreed not to speak with the media are breaking their silence to talk about Matthews’s life and death and about how her promotion to a perilous CIA posting has divided them. On the surface, Anderson, a chemist and devoted churchgoer, accepts his wife’s fate even as he continues to mourn her death at the age of 45. “I loved being married to her,” he said. “She was a great lady.” But underneath, Anderson, 50, is seething. He’s angry with the teachings in the Koran that he believes incited the suicide bomber to kill Americans; he’s upset with the CIA for failing to realize that a prized informant was a double agent willing to blow himself up; and he’s hurt by the legion of critics, including Matthews’s uncle, who have questioned her qualifications for the job she was doing. “The suicide bomber was a bad guy, but at the time, nobody could clearly see it,” Anderson said. “I think the agency prepared my wife to be a chief of the Khost base, but not in terms of preparing for this asset. This guy wasn’t vetted.” And the mother of his three children is dead because of it. * * * From the start, Dave Matthews, 74, tried to talk his niece out of going to Afghanistan. He had served during the 1960s in the agency’s secret war in Laos and didn’t think that Matthews, whom he says he loved like a daughter, had the training for a war-zone posting. But she wouldn’t listen. Jennifer Matthews hadn’t always aspired to be a CIA operative. In 1986, she graduated with degrees in broadcast journalism and political science from Cedarville University, a small Christian college in Ohio where she met Anderson. Back then, she was an avid runner with auburn hair who believed deeply in God but also reveled in arguing about theology and politics. “There were a lot of submissive types there,”


quality of life and the dosage and side effects of the medications they take. The information is compiled in detailed charts and graphs that are updated each time a patient adds information. The company has even done a clinical-trial-type study based on the experiences of patients on its site who used lithium to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). “The more you share, the easier it is to find other patients like you,” the site says. Heywood created the company in 2004 with his brother Benjamin and longtime friend Jeff Cole. Five years earlier, another Heywood brother, Stephen, had been diagnosed with ALS. The family’s quest to help him inspired the Web site. Stephen’s profile is still on the site. He died in 2006. The firm makes money in part by selling trend information to pharmaceutical companies, who invest billions of dollars a year in research. “By selling this data and engaging our partners in conversations about patient needs,” Heywood said, “we’re helping them better understand the real-world medical value of their products so they can improve them.” iTriage Peter Hudson and Wayne Guerra, co-founders of Healthagen, developed a free smartphone app called iTriage based on their work as emergency room doctors. The technology aims to help people sort through all sorts of decisions when time is of the essence. “Most people don’t experience something and say: ‘I have appendicitis,’ ” Hudson said. “They experience something and say: ‘I have lower abdominal pain.’ Then the next question is: ‘What is causing it?’ and then, ‘Should I be worried? Where should I go?’ ” The app tries to offer answers by enabling people to look up information about their symptoms, find possible causes, determine the type of care they need (emergency room? urgent care? specialist?) and then find the closest provider. In some markets, users can check out waiting times or check-in ahead of arrival. Aetna bought the company in September for an undisclosed sum, though it remains an independently run subsidiary that’s available to all consumers. Health-care providers pay the company for the ability to share certain types of information with patients who use iTriage, such as waiting times. Treato Gideon Mantel, an Internet entrepreneur for two decades, says he sees value in building on top of what’s already available online. Five months ago, his company launched Treato, a Web site that scans social media sites all over the


Stargazing in the nation’s defense

a star can’t be used for navigation. (Ellen Perlman) “We tell them this star is too much of a mess,” said Bill Hartkopf, also an observatory astronomer. “There might be three or four or five or six stars in complicated motion.” The earth also speeds up, slows down and wobbles from the effects of snow and ice, the tides and other factors that change rotation rates, Hartkopf added. Star observations like those undertaken by Mason are used over time to make minor corrections to GPS positions. The federal government purchased the observatory’s “Great Equatorial Refractor” telescope in 1873, the largest at the time, for $50,000, including the dome. Larger telescopes, such as the observatory’s 61-inch telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona, are better at separating close pairs of stars into two distinct points of light. Washington’s telescope seems both antiquated and awe-inspiring. While it might seem time for an update, the lens can’t be made any better than it already is for a 26-inch piece of glass. Mason controls the telescope using simple switches on a “hand paddle” that is a little larger than a television remote. To stargaze, he rotates the dome, opens a slit to reveal the sky and swings the telescope around to aim it through the opening. The floor of the 40-foot diameter room rises so his eye reaches the viewfinder. “I’ve been told it’s the largest elevator in D.C.,” he said. Some nights, depending on his schedule, Mason bunks in a small bedroom in Building 3, a short walk from the telescope. One of the job’s hardships is shifting from working nights to days and back again, he said. Light pollution, a problem for local amateur astronomers, isn’t much of an issue for Mason. “The fact we can only see bright stars means the work is kind of right in our wheelhouse for Navy purposes,” he said. When looking at a relatively tiny patch of sky, the sky tends to be dark anyway, he added. Mason wasn’t planning to be an astronomer. The declared journalism major needed to take a laboratory science and found astronomy to be “pretty cool.” He graduated with a physics degree, teaching high school physics for five years before returning to school for a Ph.D. in astronomy. In addition to observing duties, Mason runs an internship program and chairs a history committee that is collecting and categorizing past astronomers’ papers for the National


Military leadership will surmount troop cuts

In his Jan. 27 Washington Forum commentary, “Troops, not technology,” Frederick W. Kagan vastly overstated the impact of President Obama’s new defense strategy on military leadership. Mr. Obama’s proposed reduction of 92,000 troops in Army and Marine Corps personnel is not that significant. It will bring the ground forces back to where they were in 2005, and the reductions will be done between now and 2017. Therefore, the reductions can be made primarily by lowering recruitment quotas over the next five years. Moreover, since about half of the officers and noncommissioned officers who reach 20 years will retire, many of those developed leaders will leave of their own accord, regardless of the size of the force. Finally, many of the best and brightest, who have borne the brunt of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, have already left because of the strain of back-to-back deployments, allowing promotion rates to captain and major to skyrocket. Mr. Kagan also exaggerates the impact of the post-Cold War drawdown on our ground forces. It was this force, created by President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton, which marched to Baghdad in three weeks and chased al-Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan in four. The problem was not the military leaders (think Gens. David H. Petreaus and Raymond T. Odierno) but their civilian leaders who did not have a clue about what they were asking our troops to do. Lawrence Korb Sr., Alexandria The writer, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, served as assistant defense secretary from 1981 to 1985.


Consumer Reports Insights: Unexplained fevers can be signs of serious illness

bacteria turned out to be resistant to the antibiotics available at the time and would have killed the former first lady even if her illness had been diagnosed promptly. That may have helped ease the conscience of those involved in her care. Fevers of unknown origin are always worth investigating because they can be caused by many conditions, including serious ones. First, think infection One would think that with our current sophisticated diagnostic techniques, FUOs would be less common than in years gone by. Instead, the number has increased, and no one is sure why. Infections are the cause of about one in five unexplained fevers. They include endocarditis, or an infection of the heart valves, as well as such infections as cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus and toxoplasma, a parasite. The early 1980s surge of immunocompromised people with HIV/AIDS was associated with an increase of previously obscure and hard-to-diagnose viral and fungal infections, all capable of causing weeks of fever. Today, of course, we know to look for those conditions, which have become less common in the United States with the steady improvement in treatments for HIV/AIDS. Cancer accounts for about 20 to 30 percent of FUOs, and that hasn’t changed over the last half- century. Lymphomas, especially of the Hodgkin’s disease type, are the most common cancer-related cause of a prolonged fever. Kidney and colorectal cancers are also frequently to blame, even when they’re small and therefore more difficult to pin down. Long-lasting fevers can also be due to disorders marked by the inflammation of connective tissue, the glue that binds cells together. Rheumatic diseases such as polymyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus can cause temperature elevation long before more recognizable symptoms appear. The same can be true for inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and regional ileitis. Medication, too, can cause FUOs, even after people have been taking them for a while. Among the more common culprits are sulfa drugs, phenytoin (Dilantin and its generic cousins), allopurinol (Zyloprim and generics), methyldopa (Aldomet and generics) and isoniazid. Finding normal temperature Since fever can be a marker for many problems, it’s important to know what constitutes a significant elevation in body temperature. The most accessible site that reflects true internal body temperature is the rectum. Rectal temperature can vary from an early-morning low of 97.9 degrees to a late-afternoon high of 100.4. Oral, armpit and ear temperatures are less accurate and


February Checklist: Caulk tub, change filters and prepare a garden

harder, which adds to your energy bill and makes the system run noisier. While you're basking in the furnace's warmth, also spend a few minutes planning for those days when the temperature is too hot. Have your air-conditioner serviced now, when technicians aren't booked up. Get ready to bike Has your bike been sitting in the garage gathering cobwebs all winter while the tires slowly leak air? Tune up your bike so you're ready to ride on the first glorious days of spring. Drop it off at a bike shop, or sign up for a class and learn to do it yourself. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association has links to area classes. Get a head start on a garden Consider starting your own tomato seedlings this year. If you plant seeds in pots indoors in mid-month, the seedlings will be ready to transplant into the garden after the last spring frost, which is typically the first or second week of April in the D.C. area. While you're waiting for warm summer days and ripe tomatoes, get a head start on a spring vegetable garden. To make sure soil isn't too soggy to work, squeeze a handful. If no water oozes out, it's safe to proceed. Dig in some compost or well-rotted manure and begin planting. Collards, peas, radishes, spinach and turnips can go in any time this month. Wait until the last week of February to put in potatoes. Smother the bugs If your fruit trees, roses or shrubs were damaged by insects last year, you can kill the next generation of pests by spraying an oil emulsion now, before buds swell. Ask at a garden center for horticultural oil, also known as dormant oil, which controls aphids, scale, whiteflies, fruit moths and mites by killing the eggs or the overwintering adults. The oil is sold as a concentrate. Mix it with water in a tank-type sprayer, or attach a container of the concentrate to a hose. Pick a clear, calm day when the temperature is between 40 and 70 degrees and when freezing temperatures aren't expected for three or four days. Because the oil works by smothering, not poisoning, it's considered a nontoxic pest control. However, you still need to make sure the spray doesn't hit certain plants that can be damaged if they are slicked with oil. Check the label to see what other plants might be susceptible.


In Florida Everglades, pythons and anacondas dominate food chain

pythons are causing the decline of native mammals in the Everglades. When researchers struck out to count animals along a main road that runs to the southernmost tip of the park, more than 99 percent of raccoons were gone, along with nearly the same percentage of opossums and about 88 percent of bobcats. Marsh and cottontail rabbits, as well as foxes, could not be found. The Obama administration recently banned the import and interstate commerce of Burmese python, two species of African pythons, and the yellow anaconda. But under pressure from the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, trade of the world’s longest snake, the reticulated python, and the boa constrictor were allowed to continue. The reptile trade is a $2 billion business in the United States, according to the Humane Society. About 11 million reptiles were kept as pets in 2005, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. More reptiles are imported here than anywhere else in the world. “Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America’s most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,” Marcia McNutt, director of the USGS, said in a statement. “The only hope to halt further python invasion . . . is swift, decisive and deliberate human action.” But officials do not yet know what can be done to slow the migration of pythons to other areas in Florida, and north to Georgia and Louisiana. “We need more research into methods to limit the population spread,” said Michael F. Dorcas, one of the authors of the study, Severe Mammal Declines Coincide with Proliferation of Invasive Burmese Pythons in Everglades National Park. Researchers collected data through repeated night road surveys, traveling 39,000 miles for eight years ending in 2011, counting live animals and road kill. They compared the data with findings of similar surveys conducted in 1996 and 1997, according to a statement by the USGS. Andrew Wyatt, president of the Reptile Keepers, which advocates on behalf of snake importers, dismissed the study. “They play fast and loose with facts and make big jumps to conclusions,” Wyatt said. The authors contradict prior studies showing that mercury in the water has played a role in the deaths of small mammals, he said. Wyatt also said pythons can only survive in southernmost Florida and that they would perish in extreme cold. Dorcas, who participated in several studies of pythons and cold weather, said it’s not simple. Hundreds of


Smarter Food: The flexible CSA box

site offered, among other things, three varieties of apples, pea shoots and lettuce from the greenhouse, Jerusalem artichokes, eggs, mushrooms, jams and jellies. Entrepreneurs are building similar models. Richmond-based Farm2Family has a multi-farm CSA that offers meat, dairy, bread and soy products, such as tofu in winter, plus vegetables during the warmer months. There’s no official start date. Customers can sign up for a season at any time (the fees are prorated) and pick up biweekly at Eastern Market or Maret School in Northwest. Similarly, Brooklyn’s Nextdoorganics, offers a winter CSA that serves locally made bread, cheese and pantry items such as jam and granola. Customers can choose what and how much goes in their box, put orders on hold for vacation or cancel at any time. Nextdoor also offers home delivery for a fee. (It’s New York, after all.) Traditional CSAs “are not a sustainable business,” says Kris Schumacher, the company’s co-founder. “We try to make it as easy as possible because we want people to switch from the stuff in the supermarket.” One of the most innovative models is Kansas City’s Good Natured Family Farms. Customers commit to pay $25 each week for 18 weeks. But they pay only when they show up and get their box, which might include bison meat, milk, squash, tomatoes and zucchini bread. Pickup is on Saturdays at Hen House Market, a local grocery chain, where they can shop for whatever else they need to go with their CSA allotment. Moreover, every item has a certain number of points associated with it. So if a customer doesn’t like beets, for example, they can trade them in for cucumbers or something of equal value. The CSA, which sources from more than 150 farms, now has more than 700 members. But when it launched in 2006, the scheme had lots of critics, says Otavio Silva, Good Natured’s director of sustainability: “A lot of people said it wasn’t a CSA. And I said, ‘Why not?’ ” It’s not your perceived idea of granola bars and work on the farm. But there are many ways to create community.” And, I might add, to build a better CSA. 2012 list of Washington area CSAs Black, a former Food section staffer, is a Brooklyn-based food writer who is working on a book about one West Virginia city’s struggle to change the way it eats. Follow her on Twitter: @jane_black.


District Taco will soon deserve its name

NAME RINGS TRUE: “I knew Douglas, and I was like, ‘I want that space when it becomes available,’ ” Wallace recalls during a hard-hat tour of the future District Taco at 1309 F St. NW, the partners’ second bricks-and-mortar restaurant since launching as an Arlington food cart in 2009. Wallace and Hoil eventually got that space; in fact, they’ve had it since last spring, when the partners signed a lease. They couldn’t take possession of the spot, however, until the previous tenant, that health-conscious restaurant and organic liquor spigot/lounge known as FunXion, concluded its proceedings in bankruptcy court. “We’re in here months later than we wanted to be,” says Wallace, who hopes to open by March or April with the same hours and menu as the Arlington-based restaurant. “But we’re rockin’ and rollin’ now.” CORE, the District-based design group, has plans that call for a grill station, a salsa bar and an elevated mezzanine area that will seat about 26 people. Demolition crews were working to exterminate the lounge-lizard vibe, stripping walls down to the terra-cotta brick, removing anything that glows and otherwise preparing the space for a casual taqueria that balances American and Yucatecan influences. The authenticity at any District Taco, Hoil notes, is completely dependent on the customer, who can choose between flour and corn tortillas, not to mention a variety of meats and toppings. “It’s up to you whether you want to make it very original,” Hoil says. “Or it’s up to you whether you want to make it very American.” The co-owners are on the prowl for a third location, perhaps in Dupont Circle or Capitol Hill. “We probably want to do a third one in D.C. before we do another one in Virginia, so we can get rid of people saying that we’re not District Taco, we’re ‘Arlington Taco,’ ” says Wallace.


D.C. news in brief

Bandalongs use natural water currents to trap trash and debris and keep it from reaching the river’s mainstream. The devices are considered safe for fish, waterfowl and other aquatic wildlife. The traps were installed at Watts Branch near the District-Prince George’s County line and an outfall near the James Creek Marina in Southwest. An earlier 2009 installation at the mouth of Watts Branch has since collected more than six tons of trash and debris. Funds from the Anacostia River Clean Up and Protection Fund, the 5-cent bag tax, were used to pay for the installations. For information, go to ddoe.dc.gov. Electricians offer free work to churches, seniors The nonprofit D.C. Electrical Association is offering free, small electrical work for churches, senior citizens homes and children’s recreation centers in all wards this month. The work is in honor of Black History Month. In previous years, the journeymen electricians have done volunteer electrical work for the Covenant House, So Others Might Eat and Catholic Charities. Possible jobs include replacing smoke detectors, exit signs, light fixtures, wall receptacles, switches, ceiling fans and fluorescent light tubes. All work will be performed by union-trained electricians, along with supervised apprentices. For information, call 202-534-6905. Housing agency plans rent control seminar Feb. 21 The D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development is having a seminar on rent control rules at 10 a.m. Feb. 21 at its office, 1800 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE, first-floor conference room. The session will cover the registration process and rent adjustment procedures for tenants, landlords and real estate agents. To register, call 202-442-7251 or e-mail dhcd.events@dc.gov by Feb. 20. D.C. students prepare for annual Blacks in Wax The sixth annual Blacks in Wax, presented by the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, will feature portrayals of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and Eartha Kitt by D.C. school students, ages 7 to 17. Students research the people they will represent and will speak about their subject’s life and achievements. The free performances will be from 1 to 3 p.m. and for the general public from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 24 for school groups and seniors at the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center, 701 Mississippi Ave. SE. Students will also perform from 5 to 7 p.m. March 3 at the Kennedy Center. For information, call 202-645-6242 or 202-678-7530. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


Prince George’s County Animal Watch

prince george’s county The following cases were received by the Prince George’s County Department of Environmental Resources Animal Management Group. Call 301-780-7200 for directions to the county animal shelter, hours of operation and adoption and licensing procedures. The shelter’s Web site is at www.princegeorgescountymd.gov/der/amg. Cat trap: Trespassing dog: Raccoon stuck on trash truck: Overstaying welcome: Beagle mix follows girl home: Vaccination clinic Sunday The Prince George’s County SPCA/Humane Society is sponsoring a low-cost shot clinic for dogs and cats from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at 8210 D’Arcy Rd., Forestville. Rabies shots are $8; distemper shots are $12. Microchip IDs are $25. Only cash and credit cards are accepted as payment. Animals must be on a leash or in a carrier. Owners should bring an up-to-date rabies certificate. For information, call 301-262-5625. — Compiled by Jillian S. Sowah