New analysis confirms the danger of climate change

IF ONE body represents the international scientific consensus on global warming, it is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations panel that just released the first portion of its fifth authoritative report on the science. Backers point out that more than 800 authors and 50 editors from dozens of countries have produced a comprehensive and carefully worded analysis of the greatest environmental threat facing the planet. Critics pore over every sentence looking for errors. They even found a few among the thousands of pages in the IPCC’s last report. But the bottom line remains this: The likelihood that human-induced global warming will have severe effects on humanity is far too high to ignore. The report’s headline finding is that “it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” The experts reckon that natural forces and variability might have pushed things one direction or another but not to the degree that human activity has. There is all sorts of evidence. It’s not just that the planet has warmed over the course of many decades, during which people have released massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Among many other things, there is what scientists have called a “human fingerprint” — a pattern of warming in the troposphere and cooling in the stratosphere that is very likely characteristic of human influence. Climate models have improved at matching the observed temperature record since the IPCC’s last report. The scientists admit that they still aren’t adept at modeling short time scales, such as 10 or 15 years, during which various factors can make average temperatures spike and dip. But climate change is a long-term effect, and the decades-long trend is what matters. The authors did not shrink from addressing one of the primary threads that critics have been pulling in their effort to unravel the scientific consensus — the recent flattening of global temperature rise. “Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850,” the IPCC notes. Nevertheless, a detectable slowing of the warming trend between 1998 and 2012 might well have to do with recent volcanic eruptions, which add heat-reflective materials to the atmosphere, a decade-long solar cycle and simple decade-to-decade variability. The scientists also admit that some models might still overestimate the effects of certain human


CIA to call back thousands of furloughed employees

steps but declined to disclose specifics on how many or which categories of employees would be summoned back to their jobs, citing the classified nature of their work. Shawn Turner, a spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., said Clapper had authorized the recall of “some employees” at the National Counterterrorism Center, the National Counterproliferation Center, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive and the National Intelligence Council. The recalls should ease the impact of the shutdown across the nation’s security apparatus. On Monday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel began ordering nearly all of the Pentagon’s 350,000 furloughed civilian workers back to their jobs, citing a reinterpretation of a budget law. Officials said it would take days to determine how many employees would be recalled, and that more would likely be ordered back to their jobs if the budget stalemate continues. The move by the nation’s spy chiefs comes after senior lawmakers expressed dismay, and some criticism, at how many intelligence employees were being considered nonessential under federally issued guidelines. On Friday, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to Clapper accusing him of “a failure of leadership” for failing to protect more employees at U.S. spy agencies from the impact of the shutdown. In a hearing last week, Clapper testified that the furloughs were having an “insidious” effect on intelligence gathering and analysis, making the nation more vulnerable to terrorist attacks and other threats. Alarmed by that assessment, Grassley told Clapper that the decision to furlough so many workers meant that “you either need better lawyers or to make big changes in your workforce.” U.S. officials insisted Tuesday that the decision to recall thousands of intelligence employees should not be interpreted as an indication that too many had been initially furloughed. Instead, officials cited a widespread expectation that the shutdown would only last a few days, and said that it began to have a greater impact on critical functions as the budget impasse dragged on. Brennan said the recall would affect only employees “directly involved in our core missions,” and warned that “there are still important functions that we will not be able to perform.” A CIA spokesman would not elaborate. Officials had previously said that the cuts affected employees across all branches of the CIA, including analysts as well as employees of the agency’s clandestine service, which is responsible for carrying out spying missions overseas.


Obama to meet with lawmakers on shutdown; Pentagon scrambles to ensure death benefits

the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by only 28 percent of Americans, down from 38 percent in September, the Gallup polling organization reported Wednesday. “This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992,” Gallup said. It said the Oct. 3-6 poll showed that 62 percent of Americans now view the GOP unfavorably, a record high, and that 49 percent view the Democratic Party unfavorably. Republicans on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, circulated a memo from one of the nation’s leading credit-rating agencies Wednesday to press an argument that the risk of a U.S. default is not as serious as the administration is portraying it. In the memo, Moody’s Investors Service said the U.S. Treasury Department is likely to continue paying interest on the government’s debt even if Congress fails to lift the limit on borrowing next week, preserving the nation’s sterling AAA credit rating. The memo offered “answers to frequently asked questions” about the government shutdown, now in its second week, and the federal debt limit. Obama has said that, unless Congress acts to raise the $16.7 trillion limit by next Thursday, the nation will be at risk of default. But in the memo dated Oct. 7, Moody’s said: “We believe the government would continue to pay interest and principal on its debt even in the event that the debt limit is not raised, leaving its creditworthiness intact. The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its incoming revenues; it does not prohibit the government from servicing its debt. There is no direct connection between the debt limit (actually the exhaustion of the Treasury’s extraordinary measures to raise funds) and a default.” The memo argued that the situation is actually much less serious than in 2011, when the nation last faced a pitched battle over the debt limit. “The budget deficit was considerably larger in 2011 than it is currently, so the magnitude of the necessary spending cuts needed after 17 October is lower now than it was then,” the memo said. It offered a starkly different view of the consequences of congressional inaction on the debt limit than is held by the White House, many policymakers and other financial analysts. During a news conference at the White House Tuesday, Obama said missing the Oct. 17 deadline would invite “economic chaos.” And over the weekend, economists at Goldman Sachs said


Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel win Nobel in chemistry

Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel are the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work modeling chemical processes using computers. Karplus is affiliated with Harvard University and the University of Strasbourg in France, Levitt teaches at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Warshel is at the University of Southern California. They did the work for which they received the prize decades ago: Levitt told the Associated Press the award recognized him for work he had done when he was 20, before he even had his PhD. See images of the ceremony in the gallery below. Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry for computer models that are used to understand complex chemical processes. The knowledge can help scientists create new drugs. On Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine to James Rothman, Randy Schekman and Thomas Sudhof for their work on how living cells transport microscopic cargo. After receiving the award, they discussed their concerns about funding for scientific research in the United States: Schekman, whose first major grant was from the National Institutes of Health in 1978, said winning the Nobel Prize made him reflect on how his original proposal might have fared in today’s depressed funding climate. “It would have been much, much more difficult to get support,” he said. Peter Higgs and Francois Englert received the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for their theoretical work on the Higgs boson, the elusive fundamental particle that scientists finally located using particle accelerators last year. Others, however, might have deserved the prize equally: Carl Richard Hagen put his cellphone by the bed before he retired Monday night, just in case. The call from Stockholm, if it came, would come before dawn Tuesday. The Nobel Prize in literature will be awarded Thursday, and the peace prize will be announced Friday. The final prize, in economics, will be awarded Monday.


D.C. climate will shift in 2047, researchers say; tropics will feel unprecedented change first

who must respond to the increasing toll of floods, droughts, wildfires and severe weather, experts said. “I think people don’t appreciate the fact that one of the metrics we are most familiar with, and definitely have the most difficulty dealing with, extreme heat, is coming down the track,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University. “The people who are going to be really hard hit are in developing countries,” he added. “But I wouldn’t say the U.S. is exactly safe.” Judith A. Curry, chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Under the best of circumstances, the climate-change milestone worldwide will be reached by 2069, even if nations manage to hold the emission of carbon dioxide to a much lower level, the authors said. Once a location reaches the transition point, the average temperature of its coolest year will be greater than the average temperature of its hottest year for the period from 1860 to 2005, which the researchers set as their base line for comparison. Sea levels will continue to rise and oceans will continue to become more acidic, they said. They also said acidification of world oceans has already changed their traditional climate, in 2008. Mora and colleagues Abby G. Frazier and Ryan J. Longman wrote that because the tropics experience so little variability in climate, it will take less warming there to cause noticeable change, and it will happen sooner. “I am certain there will be massive social and biological consequences,” Mora said. “The specifics I cannot tell you.” In their study, they wrote that “the tropics will experience the earliest emergence of historically unprecedented climates. This probably occurs because the relatively small natural climate variability in this region of the world generates narrow climate bounds that can be easily surpassed by relatively small climate changes.” Tropical species, they added, “live in areas with climates near their physiological tolerances and are therefore vulnerable to relatively small climate changes.” Longman said tropical species affected by climate change will have three choices: Adapt, move or become extinct. “[C]onsiderable changes in community structure and extinction have been shown to have coincided with the emergence of unprecedented climates in the past,” the authors wrote. “In addition, recent short-term extreme climatic events have been associated with die-offs in terrestrial and marine ecosystems, highlighting the potentially serious consequences of reaching historically unprecedented climates.”


Prince George’s and Southern Maryland Going Out Guide

"Moving in Circles," in Greenbelt, is an exhiibt of College Park artist Russ Little’s art quilts. (Credit: Kelly Wargo) ‘Moving in Circles’ 3College Park artist Russ Little’s exhibition of abstract art quilts features large gestural circles that he cut apart, dyed and reassembled. Closes Friday. Greenbelt Community Center, 15 Crescent Rd., Greenbelt. 301-397-2208. russlittlefiberartist.net. Free. THU 10 “Heritage” Twelve artists from the Hyattsville Community Arts Alliance display their works examining history through nature, family or design. Roxanne Ando’s exhibit, “Nature’s Heritage: Past to Present,” will be showcased on the solo wall. Through Nov. 9. Prince George’s Plaza Community Center, 6600 Adelphi Rd., Hyattsville. 301-864-1611. www.hcaaonline.org. Free. “Transverse” Bowie State homecoming “Backyardigans: Into the Deep” “What I Want to Say but Never Will” Burning Bridget Cleary FRI 11 “A Fool Named O” “The Matchmaker” Some Assembly “Quartet” Cavalia’s Odysseo Ron Holloway “Passages Revisited” “Moving in Circles” SAT 12 Patuxent River Appreciation Days Great Big Home Show Cow Pie Bingo and Car Show Montpelier Fall Festival “JumpOFF!” Pumpkin Patch in the Garden Festival Autumn tea Contra dance Comedy Supreme Prince George’s Philharmonic Roadhouse The Stylistics SUN 13 Apple Festival La Plata Fall Festival “Dance Party: The Teenarama Story” Antique Power Parade American Drive University of Maryland Wind Orchestra MON 14 “Fairies in the Garden” TUE 15 Kyle Bauer WED 16 “Artists of the Arc of Prince George’s County” — Compiled by Jillian S. Jarrett from staff reports


Once shutdown ends, Congress to take up several critical bills for technology startups

company, like an Amazon.com, I may have software in place already or the resources to effectively do that without any burden,” Crenshaw said, noting that sellers would be required to collect the correct rate for any number of the nation’s thousands of taxing jurisdictions. “But if you’re a team of three, four or five people, and you just happen to be growing at a rapid rate, like most start-ups are . . . it could be incredibly burdensome.” In the Senate bill, lawmakers exempted online merchants with less than $1 million in annual sales. Goodlatte has insisted that any bill be simple enough to implement that there would be no need for a small-business exemption. USA Freedom Act One of the authors of the Patriot Act, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), has released a draft of a bill that would limit some of the powers the law gave to the National Security Agency, responding to public outcry over news this summer that the agency has been widely collecting phone records and other private communications. Called the USA Freedom Act, the bill would stop the agency’s bulk collection of certain information and require the government to share more details with the public about the way it gathers intelligence. Crenshaw says the bill could help U.S. companies regain some privacy and security-related credibility overseas. “If you have an Internet business or a cloud-based business, basically anything that operates on the Web, and if you’re trying to compete abroad, this is affecting your business,” he said of the fallout from the NSA scandal. “If you have a European competitor, at this point they are going to say that your customers’ information is safer in a European cloud than it is in an American cloud because of the NSA.” One entrepreneur on the panel said her company has already felt some backlash from the NSA revelations. “We’re a cloud company, and I just spent last year in London opening our operations in Europe,” said Leah Belsky, senior vice president at Kaltura, a New York-based software company. Her company is hoping to sell its services to large university consortiums across the continent. “They are starting to pull back, starting to ask us where our data centers are located, and they are in the U.S.,” she said, adding that the company has been forced to consider opening a new data center overseas to appease clients in Europe.


Need to dispose of your cell phone? Your local dump, Whole Foods and even Washington’s National Zoo will take it. (Bigstock) Many of us have a hard time getting rid of once-important documents because we worry about needing them someday or about the security of our data. It can be even worse with old electronics. Do you know how to back up your phone or wipe a laptop clean? And what’s best for the environment: reuse or recycling? This uncertainty often leads to inaction. Disposing of or donating electronics properly does require a few steps, but it’s not difficult once you’re familiar with the process and the options. Here is some guidance that will allow you to part with that old laptop, smartphone and box of tangled cords securely, safely and smartly. Phones All of the data on your old smartphone should be backed up on your computer. After making sure it is, you need to remove all of your personal information from the phone. Many manufacturers allow you to “wipe” your device and clear almost everything from the memory by doing what is sometimes called a “hard reset.” Check the owner’s manual or the Web site of the manufacturer to learn how. Next, remove your SIM and SD cards, because even when you “wipe” your device, the cards might still have information stored on them. Cut your SIM card in half. If your phone is obsolete, there are many places that collect phones for recycling, including your local dump, many Whole Foods stores and even the National Zoo, where you can drop phones and other electronics in a receptacle at the Great Ape House. (The zoo, which was closed at press time because of the federal government’s shutdown, has a stake in electronics recycling because mining for coltan, a material used in cellphones and laptops, poses a threat to the gorilla’s habitat.) If you’re just looking to upgrade, some companies will recycle your old phone and give you credit toward a new one. Apple started a recycling program last month. The company will recycle your iOS device, Mac or PC and give you a gift card that can be used for the purchase of a new Apple product. The Apple Web site has information to help you determine how much you would receive for trading in your product. Computers Computers can be challenging to offload simply because of their


A new book offers a taste of Washington’s restaurant past. Hint: It involved oysters.

late 20th century. John, 53, grew up in D.C.’s Crestwood neighborhood. When he’s not furloughed, he works at the Government Accountability Office, but he’s always been interested in history. In 2009, he started a blog called the Streets of Washington, whose entries were collected in his first book, “Lost Washington, D.C.” Two years ago he started work on this one. "Historic Restaurants of Washington, D.C.," by John DeFerrari, a new book about the history of dining in the District. (Courtesy of John DeFerrari) “Restaurants had appeal because they’re commercial places,” John said. “There’s advertising out there — postcards, matchbooks. You could track them. At the same time, they’re mirrors of the way people were living.” Plus, as far as John could tell, there had never been a book that examined Washington’s restaurant history in depth. So he dove in. He spent a lot of time in the Washingtoniana room of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library downtown looking at old newspapers, and a lot of time scouring eBay for ephemera. When John was a kid, he loved going to the Hot Shoppes on Connecticut Avenue, opposite the old Chevy Chase Ice Palace. “Most people preferred the Mighty Mo, but I loved the Pappy Parker’s fried chicken,” John said. Hot Shoppes — the vanished cornerstone to the Marriott empire — is in his book. So are such old favorites as Ben’s Chili Bowl, Sholl’s Cafeteria, the Blue Mirror (both Grill and Cafe), Duke Zeibert’s and Harvey’s, which, naturally, started as an oyster house. It’s possible John doesn’t mention your favorite restaurant. Thousands have come and gone over the years. He says he touches on around 200, with profiles of about 50 or 60. In the city’s earliest days, African Americans were instrumental in advancing restaurant culture. Men such as Beverly Snow and James Wormley became synonymous with fine dining. In the 1910s and ’20s, tearooms, many opened and operated by women, helped restaurants become more than smoke-filled dens of testosterone. John said he’s not a foodie. Neither, really, were Washingtonians back in the day. Most old newspaper accounts of restaurants barely mention what the food tasted like, focusing instead on the decor and “atmosphere.” That may be because the cuisine was pretty much the same. Oysters were part of a triumvirate of menu items that were common in the 19th century. At a fancy meal, the shellfish would usually be


Labrador retriever runs Indiana half-marathon

Boogie’s four feet were faster than many people’s two in a 13.1-mile race in Indiana. (Denny Simmons/Associated Press) An Indiana dog who crashed a half-marathon last weekend won a medal — and now has a chip so his owner can keep closer track of him. The chocolate Labrador retriever named Boogie ran most of the 13.1 miles in Saturday’s event in Evansville, Indiana. Owner Jerry Butts told the Evansville newspaper that the 100-pound dog slipped his leash Friday night. It was his fourth escape. Butts says Boogie now has a microchip, so he can be identified easily if he strays from home. Boogie finished the race in 2 hours, 15 minutes. That was faster than half of the human runners. Boogie isn’t the first dog to become famous for running in a human race. In 2011, Dozer the goldendoodle slipped through the electronic fence around his house and ran most of the Maryland Half Marathon, a race that raises money for the University of Maryland’s cancer center. Dozer has since gotten a runner’s page on the race’s Web site and has raised more than $20,000 for cancer research. — Wire and staff reports


Nobel science prize winners for 2013

2013’s Nobel Prize winners in science Physiology or Medicine ●James E. Rothman (United States) ●Randy W. Schekman (United States) ●Thomas C. Südhof (Germany, United States) For plotting how cells transfer vital materials, such as hormones and brain chemicals, to other cells, giving insight into diseases including Alzheimer’s, autism and diabetes. Physics ●François Englert (Belgium) ●Peter W. Higgs (United Kingdom) For predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets. Chemistry ●Martin Karplus (United States, Austria) ●Michael Levitt (United States, United Kingdom, Israel) ●Arieh Warshel (United States, Israel) For laying the foundations for the development of computers to understand complex chemical processes from the purification of exhaust fumes to photosynthesis, which helps in the development of drugs. The Nobel Prize in literature will be announced Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the economics prize Monday. — Reuters


How the federal government shutdown affects travelers

The government shutdown was supposed to be a non-event for travelers, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. When a gridlocked Congress shuttered vast sections of the federal government on Oct. 1 and furloughed 800,000 workers, its decision touched tourists in unexpected ways, from abruptly canceling a camping trip in a national park to foiling a destination wedding. It drained visitors from popular attractions, causing hotel occupancy rates to plummet and hurting other travel-related businesses. Along the way, many travelers have discovered the important — and often underappreciated — part that the federal government plays in travel. Without the government, they learned, some of the most interesting parts of the travel industry simply wouldn’t exist. “People haven’t been as aware of the government’s role in travel,” says Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute. On paper, the shutdown didn’t look like much, at least from a travel point of view. Both federal Transportation Security Administration screeners and air traffic controllers remained on the job. America’s embassies and consulates stayed open, and passport applications were still being processed. But in practice, it turned out to be a significant event. Travelers were unprepared for the closing of America’s 401 national parks, which included all monuments along the Mall, the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo. “People wanted to know, ‘What does any of this have to do with the issues in Washington?’ ” says John Reynolds, a former deputy director of the National Park Service. “The answer is: ‘It has absolutely nothing to do with it.’ They were absolutely appalled.” Count Kristy Michael among them. She was camping in Grand Teton National Park on Oct. 2 when a park ranger at Gros Ventre Campground ordered her and her husband to pack up their Airstream and leave the facility within 48 hours, a day earlier than planned. “Our original plan was to head south from Grand Teton and visit Arches, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks in southern Utah,” she adds. “Of course, with the shutdown that won’t be happening.” This is possibly the worst time of year to close a national park, particularly in the Western United States. “Because temperatures here in the desert are starting to cool down, this time of year is incredibly important to us,” says Robert Richardson, who runs a recreational gear review site in Las Vegas. “To have these parks close during


according to Cara O’Donnell, a spokeswoman for Arlington Economic Development. “It’s a mix of meetings of government business and contractor events that are being canceled, school groups and leisure travel,” she says. “It’s really hurting us.” Travelers, meanwhile, are quick to blame their travel problems on the shutdown, even when the connection is tenuous at best. Don Fairley, a retired marketing executive from Long Beach, Calif., says that he endured a 1½-hour wait at customs in Houston after flying in from Frankfurt, Germany. “It was a total mess,” he says. Helene Ward and her husband were returning to Washington Dulles International Airport from Athens on Oct. 2 when they were met with “inordinately long lines” at customs. Ward believes that their two-hour delay was a direct result of the shutdown, even though customs officers aren’t supposed to be affected by the furloughs. “There was only one customs officer,” she remembers. “It was bad enough for Americans to see how dysfunctional our government is, but shameful for foreigners to see us at our worst.” While these problems, both real and imagined, may pale in comparison with the disaster that some predict will occur if the U.S. government defaults on its debt — a possible result of the legislative brinksmanship — I can’t help adding my own tale of woe. I’m scheduled to start a three-week tour of America’s Western national parks, including Yellowstone and Grand Teton, on Monday. Even if all the parks reopen, Reynolds says that it will take weeks for them to be fully up and running smoothly. I don’t know how to break it to my kids, ages 6, 8 and 11. Maybe I should start by telling them a little bit about how our government works — or doesn’t work. There’s no substitute for a closed museum or park. You can’t replace a visit to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, because there’s nothing on Earth like it. Thanks to the closings, our trip, and many others, could end in disappointment. Perhaps the only real solution is to let Congress know how unhappy you are about your foiled travel plans. An e-mail or phone call would do the trick, but experts agree that the best opportunity to express your disapproval may be at the ballot box. E-mail Christopher Elliott at chris@elliott.org. More from Travel: Government shutdown: A consumer guide Impact of a government shutdown Travel Guide


Readers write about their shutdown frustrations

an immediate call for elections to fill all seats of the House and Senate. Certainly they should receive no pay or benefits if they allow the government to shut down. This is outrageous! Graphic How long do you think the government shutdown will last? Submit your response. — Roy Glover Petone, New Zealand Change focus I’m a senior analyst who has been working in the intel community for 38 years. I appreciate the sentiment in your column: “Federal workers also start facing a furlough of morale.” But did you have to list shutting down the parks and preventing veterans’ benefits from being paid as the two outcomes of the shutdown? What about weakening our national security? I and a lot of my intelligence community colleagues who are — or were — working to protect the nation, were forced to go home. To me, this isn’t about parks closing. And, while I want vets to get their pensions and benefits, I also want to go back to work and help keep America protected and safe. Tell us your story Please stop focusing on parks and put the focus where it belongs. Thanks for your excellent columns. — John Riehl Laurel Shut it all down This reader responded to a column that said not all government services close during a shutdown by saying they all should close to make an impact. It’s precisely that so many major government functions continue in a shutdown that people don’t even notice, and therefore don’t care or think it’s okay or at least not so bad. If the government is going to shut down, shut it all down, even those aspects affecting life, death and security. Only then will most people notice or care. — Bob Dardano Washington Navy Yard Before the shutdown, our attention was fixed on the Washington Navy Yard killings that left 13 dead, including the shooter. An Arlington retiree has a clear answer to this question asked by the Federal Diary last month: “Should profit-driven firms be doing background checks?” ABSOLUTELY! Or, perhaps we might turn over the process to the Veteran’s Administration, and that organization can use as its business model the quarter of a million backlogged requests for assistance sitting in the inboxes of “federal employees whose obligation is to serve the people and their government.” Yes, private, for-profit firms conduct background investigations. And I’m sure that process can be


U.S. shutdown makes an easy target, as diplomats gather in Washington

it is approved by Congress as part of a spending bill, and U.S. budgetary politics have become so complicated that it has slipped far down the priority list. U.S. officials made their apologies in advance. “With nearly 80 percent of Treasury staff furloughed, there are disruptions,” a Treasury official said this week. “Global leaders should not mistake this momentary episode in American politics for anything less or anything more than a moment of politics.” Bank and IMF officials say the United States has not been missing in action from the dozens of work meetings that take place during the annual gathering of world finance ministers and central bankers. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew met with African officials on Wednesday in a separate session, for example, to discuss the Obama administration’s effort to extend access to electricity on the continent. For those in the room, however, the cost of U.S. unpredictability is real. Borrowing costs for some African nations have jumped as much as half a percentage point in recent months simply because Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank might decrease the size of its monthly bond purchases sometime soon. The Fed hasn’t acted — yet money suddenly became more expensive, said African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka. “We are not insulated,” Kaberuka said. “Clarity, stability, for us is important.” But Lew did take a pass on what had become a sort of tradition — the pre-meeting harangue of Europe or China or whomever the United States thinks is causing the most economic trouble. Like a high-end high school reunion, the annual gathering is partly about the formal event but equally about the door knocking, policy panels, think-tank speeches and bilateral lobbying that take place. President Obama missed a similar gathering last week in Indonesia, possibly setting back U.S. trade discussions there; U.S. officials also canceled trade talks scheduled for this week in Europe. The impact of absence is impossible to calculate — meetings can always be rescheduled and the outcome quite probably can turn out the same. But “it may mean fewer meetings on the agenda, or fewer issues pursued in these meetings. Either way, the shutdown comes at a cost to the U.S. agenda,” Scott Morris, a former Treasury official who served as a liaison to the World Bank, wrote in a recent essay for the Center for Global Development. And then there is credibility. Former


Ahead of Nobel Peace Prize, a list of possible contenders

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday. The Nobel Committee does not reveal the identities of any of the nominees, and information about them is sealed for 50 years. But the committee did report a record number of candidates this year: 259, of which 50 are organizations. The previous record was in 2011, when there were 241 candidates. The deadline for submitting nominations was Feb. 1. Despite the secrecy, rumors and speculation always produce a list of favorites — though the choice of last year’s winner, the European Union, raised eyebrows around the world. For 2013, the names being mentioned include: Denis Mukwege, a pioneering doctor from Democratic Republic of Congo founded a clinic for rape victims. (AFP/Getty Images) DENIS MUKWEGE, Congo The Congolese gynecologist has dedicated his life to treating women raped by militias and soldiers in Congo. In 1999, he helped found the Panzi Hospital, a facility in the eastern city of Bukavu that has been a refuge for thousands of women. He was the target of an assassination attempt last year, forcing him to flee into exile in Europe. But the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to two Africans in 2011: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, along with Yemeni journalist Tawakkol Karman. All three were recognized for their struggle for the “safety of women and for women’s rights.” The committee could decide to honor someone working in a different field. Prominent human rights activist Hu Jia has most recently appealed for the release of Chinese dissidents and advocated for the rights of Tibetan people. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images) HU JIA, China The dissident and human rights activist became involved in environmental protection while in college, then rose to prominence as an AIDS activist, helping expose a coverup of an AIDS epidemic caused by unmonitored blood transfusions in Henan province. Since then, he has taken on even more sensitive subjects, including appealing for the release of other dissidents as well as members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, and advocating for the rights of the Tibetan people. He was sentenced to 31 / 2 years in prison for subversion on April 3, 2008, and released in June 2011. But his chances of winning this year seem slight, because another famous Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, won the prize three years ago. After being shot by the Taliban, Pakistan's Malala


Local museums, arts centers reeling in visitors left scrambling during shutdown

The Gate With the Smithsonian Institution and all other federally funded parks, arts and culture spots closed because of the government shutdown, other local museums and arts centers are picking up the slack. Some are offering free entry or discounts on group tickets to help lure visitors. Others are simply getting the word out that they are open for business and full of interesting exhibitions. 3 Days’ notice given to Strathmore from a desperate bride and groom who needed to relocate their Glen Echo Park wedding. Strathmore accommodated the couple and this month is tentatively hosting two other weddings that were to take place at Glen Echo. 4 Large tour groups that booked with the Hillwood Museum, to replace their Mall tours, during the first week of the shutdown. The number of general visitors also increased more than 100 percent Tuesday and Wednesday. Visitor numbers last Saturday were up more than 20 percent compared with last year, and there was a similar increase in patrons at the museum’s shop and cafe. 4 Times the normal number of visitors who walked into the Newseum on the second day of the government shutdown. 30 Percent increase in the expected number of visitors to the Spy Museum on Oct. 2, during the first week of the shutdown. On Oct. 5, the first Saturday of the shutdown, the museum had about 2,500 visitors; the forecast had been for fewer than 2,000. 1,300+ Federal employees visited the National Geographic Museum during the first week of the shutdown. The museum has four exhibitions open, of which two are free to the general public. 1,800 More people — twice the usual number — visited the Phillips Collection last Saturday and Sunday. With this weekend’s opening of “Van Gogh Repetitions,” officials expect the numbers to swell even more. — Lonnae O’Neal Parker


Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.)

states — had some meetings yesterday — and the E.U., it seems weekly now, and they have new creative terms for what we’re doing, some of them very creative. . . . And most of that information is based on misinformation. So we spend most of our time walking through what we don’t do on these programs. So if you sense a degree of frustration, it’s because we do spend so much time in the oversight process. Now, here’s how we can make it better, and I think that’s where the president was coming from, and we agree. Can we do some things that improve transparency? Are there some things we had classified that maybe we could declassify at some point to give the broader public a sense that there is true oversight? I think the answer is yes. . . . [We are] trying to find these confidence builders that we think can address the public concerns and still protect these programs. If you’ve noticed, the Europeans got real quiet after the first hubbub when they realized A) what was happening and B) the value of the information to their nation-states and the sheer number of counterterrorism cases that it disrupted in their own nation-states. The U.S. network is different than other countries’ about how much we control or don’t. If you look at China and Russia, they control completely those networks. Over 80 percent of our networks are private-sector networks. Can industry and government work together? Twelve leading national security experts and corporate executives offer their views on cyber risk and defense. When you try to look at battle damage assessment, if you will, of what happened [as a result of the Snowden leaks] , it’s significant and, in many cases, irreversible. We have seen certain al-Qaeda affiliates already changed the way that they communicate. That means now we have a gap that we’re going to have to try to fill. And during that gap — and as you have seen in Nairobi and other places — the planning has not stopped. Somebody gets up today that is an al-Qaeda corps or al-Qaeda affiliate whose job it is to plan the next attack. This is a very dangerous time for us. Our threat matrix is on the rise. The arms race in cybersecurity After leaks, NSA struggles for trust Fort Meade transforming from Army base to cyber city


Craig Mundie

chief executive, Microsoft I remember back around 2000, which was before 9/11, the pendulum at that time had clearly swung to privacy and, in fact, Bill Gates and I embarked on creating this Trustworthy Computing initiative at Microsoft because we not only thought we had to support the privacy issues that people had as the Internet was emerging, but it was clear that we had these cybersecurity problems that were also emerging. And then along came 9/11, and poof — the pendulum just moved from one side to the other. And then we got things like the Patriot Act and other things to support all that intelligence. And for more than a decade, countries outside the United States and businesses outside the United States have been worried about, well, what did this Patriot Act really mean? So all the companies had to be able to explain to people what the reality of those things was as opposed to the mythology of them. And I think we all continue to embark on that. At this point, we’ve had another stimulus, the Snowden leaks. Frankly, the success that governments around the world have had in fighting back some of the threats has given people a sense of comfort and security. And they say, “Well, maybe it’s okay to move it back,” and the Snowden leaks bring that discussion to the fore again. I think you’re always going to see a tension between the privacy question, both domestically and globally, and the security question. Can industry and government work together? Twelve leading national security experts and corporate executives offer their views on cyber risk and defense. I think people need to understand that really in the last 12 months, there’s been a qualitative change where the threats really are moving to destructive types of attacks. And, unlike conventional weapons, every time anybody in the world shoots one of these weapons, all the bad guys get to observe it, and they all immediately figure out how it works and how to clone it. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re a bunch of hacktivists or two guys in a bunker somewhere that are disenchanted or nation-states. This capability escalates globally very rapidly, and that’s a property that we haven’t seen in weapons in the past. The arms race in cybersecurity After leaks, NSA struggles for trust Fort Meade transforming from Army base to cyber city


Truly damaging cyberattacks are rare

and amateurs will acquire it as well. This has been the pattern for weapons since the start of the Industrial Revolution and it still holds for cyberattacks. Perhaps nations will agree on limits to govern offensive cyber-capabilities — although until this year, there wasn’t even international agreement that the laws of armed conflict could apply to cyberattacks — but no one will give them up. Offensive cyber-operations give the United States a military advantage, but opponents also can carry them out. The nation leads the world in cyber-offense, but its defenses are weak and it is beginning to lag behind other nations. U.S. policy is troublingly incongruent. Strengthening offensive cyber-capabilities is a military program with wide support, but strengthening defensive capabilities runs counter to strongly held ideologies and commercial interests. Our defenses have not kept up in the face of growing foreign capabilities. Cyber-deterrence is a non sequitur — words that people have strung together in lieu of thought — because in cyberspace, a strong offense is not the best defense. We may have the best offensive cyber-capabilities on Earth, but when it comes to defense, the United States depends on the kindness of strangers, because despite years of noisy discussion, if somebody decides to attack us, we are in no way ready to protect ourselves in cyberspace. Lewis is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Cybersecurity 2013: A special report After leaks, NSA struggles for trust Fort Meade transforming from Army base to cyber city 46 Countries with military cyber-programs, according to publicly available information. 4 Countries acknowledging offensive cyber-capabilities in 2011. 12 Countries acknowledging offensive cyber-capabilities in 2012. by James Andrew Lewis Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can launch a cyber “attack,” even though the skills and tools needed to do real damage are still in short supply. The Internet was not built to be secure and will not become secure anytime soon. Networks are vulnerable. This explains why cyber-espionage and fraud are so easy. Economies depend on the Internet and a growing number of services and devices — factories, electric power plants, airplanes, cars — are connected to it, making it an irresistible target. Crash the computers that run these systems and things stop. Power grids, financial networks, communications, public utilities and transportation systems are all targets for cyberattacks. But truly destructive attacks are hard to pull off. Cyberattacks


TRANSCRIPT: Jack Lew’s testimony on debt ceiling

and credit of the United States. President Reagan wrote to Congress in 1983, and I quote, “This country now possesses the strongest credit in the world. The full consequences of a default, or even the serious prospect of default by the United States, are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets,” closed quote. If Congress fails to meet its responsibility, it could deeply damage financial markets, the ongoing economic recovery, and the jobs and savings of millions of Americans. I have a responsibility to be transparent with Congress and the American people about these risks. And I think it would be a grave mistake to discount or dismiss them. For these reasons, I have repeatedly urged Congress to take action immediately, so we can honor all of our country’s past commitments. The Treasury Department has regularly updated Congress over the course of the last five months as new information has become available about when we would exhaust our extraordinary measures. In addition, Treasury has provided information about what our cash balances will be when we exhaust our extraordinary measures. As our forecasts have changed, I’ve consistently provided updates in order to give Congress the best information about the urgency with which they should act. And last month, I met with the full membership of this committee to discuss these issues. Treasury continues to project that the extraordinary measures will be exhausted no later than October 17, 2013, at which point the federal government will have run out of borrowing authority. At that point, we will be left to meet our country’s commitments with only the cash on hand and any incoming revenues, placing our economy in a dangerous position. If we have insufficient cash on hand, it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, payments to our military and veterans and contracts with private suppliers for the first time in our history. At the same time, we’re relying on investors from all over the world to continue to U.S. hold bonds. Every week we roll over approximately $100 billion in U.S. bills. If U.S. bond-holders decided that they wanted to be repaid rather than continuing to


Charities furlough employees, brace for the worst

services. The furloughed staff, which includes senior leaders, will continue to work as volunteers until the shutdown ends and funding resumes. “I’m so depressed. It’s so sad,” said Lori Kaplan, president of the youth center. “The center means so much to so many people, and this is hard on a lot of people.” The Columbia Heights nonprofit group, which offers youth development services to 5,000 children each year, will stop some programs that promote job training and education. The group is also in the process of piloting a program that offers mentors available round-the-clock for troubled youth. Kaplan said the mentors will now work part time. Services to homeless and foster-care youth will remain in operation. Mary’s Center, a federally funded health facility, is struggling to make its October payroll and to continue serving more than 30,000 patients, according to a statement. The D.C.-based charity was scheduled to receive nearly $600,000 from the District Health Department on Oct. 1. Those funds are on hold until the shutdown ends. On Wednesday, Maria Gomez, chief executive of Mary’s Center, spoke at a news conference held by Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) at the Capitol to highlight the local effects of the federal shutdown. The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington and a host of charities are lobbying on Capitol Hill this week, urging Congress to come to a budget solution. “This shutdown is senseless,” Diana Leon-Taylor, president and chief executive of the Nonprofit Roundtable, said in an e-mail. “It is not simply furloughing government staff, but devastating our business and nonprofit sector.” Volunteers of America Chesapeake expects to lose $1.2 million and furlough 160 employees if the shutdown doesn’t end within 30 days. Since the shutdown began, the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence has seen an increase in requests for food and transportation assistance, the group said in a statement. But if the shutdown continues, the 12-member agency, which receives 60 to 90 percent of its budget from government funds, may reduce services, and employees will go unpaid, the statement said. Children’s National Medical Center is awaiting $11 million it receives in Medicaid funding each month and is expected to announce this week how the delay will affect its services. “During the recession, banks were being bailed out . . . but the nonprofit sector hasn’t gotten any help,” said Kaplan, of the Latin American Youth Center.


Alice Munro: Her subject is ‘simply life itself’

Alice Munro, “a master of the contemporary short story,” receives the prestigious award from the Royal Swedish Academy. The Canadian is the 13th female literature laureate in the 112-year history of the Nobel Prizes. In describing Alice Munro, the Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood once wrote: “She’s the kind of writer about whom it is often said — no matter how well known she becomes — that she ought to be better known.” Atwood’s dictum is about to be put to the test: Munro, the revered 82-year-old Canadian writer, has just won the Nobel Prize. In awarding her the prize — which comes with 8 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.2 million — the committee has made official what Munro’s legions of fans have been saying for years: She is the master of the contemporary short story. Fans won’t be surprised to hear that Munro, famously modest, responded by asking that the attention be immediately shared. “When I began writing there was a very small community of Canadian writers and little attention was paid by the world,” she said. “Now Canadian writers are read, admired and respected around the globe. I’m so thrilled to be chosen as this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature recipient. I hope it fosters further interest in all Canadian writers. I also hope that this brings further recognition to the short-story form.” In recent years, the Nobel Prize in Literature has become an occasion, at least in North America, for sheepish shrugs and head-scratching. Herta Müller, Mo Yan, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Cl éz io — for many of us, the Nobels have become doubly educational: We simultaneously learn of an author’s existence and find out that we ought to have been reading him or her all along. This year, then, came as something of a relief. Those rumored to be under consideration — Haruki Murakami, Philip Roth, Munro — were all household names, more likely to be found on our bookshelves than in our crossword puzzles. And even among those authors, none inspired quite the reverence among readers — and writers — that Munro does. Mention to a serious bibliophile that you like her and the conversation will shift to a solemn, almost embarrassingly private register, as if you’d interrupted cocktail party chatter to reveal a family secret. This love seems always to be revealed with a certain hesitancy. This has mostly to do with the fact


Book review: ‘Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist’ by Bill McKibben

his case the appeal of the apiary was “not just or even mainly intellectual.” Acknowledging that it’s not for everybody (he mentions more than once that Webster was never able to find a wife), he extols the virtues of a quiet existence that’s more in sync with the cycles of the natural world than with the rhythm of e-mail and politics. There are a lot of bee analogies in “Oil and Honey.” There are the expected ones about the “pollination” of a movement and the promotion of durability through “squat, hardy colonies,” but the most interesting one is darker and more complicated. Likening fossil-fuel companies to bees, McKibben observes that they are able to “gather resources from great distances, carry them exactly where they’re needed, and combine various skills to produce something of great value from crude raw materials.” But fossil-fuel companies and bees are also “simple,” McKibben argues, in the sense that they are “single-minded” about production — it’s what they do, and the more the better. “If you want honey, you need a hive of bees,” he writes. “But if you were trying to decide if making honey was a good idea, bees would be the last creatures to ask. You know what their answer is going to be. In fact, if you get in their way they’ll be a little perplexed for a while. . . . And if you persist in getting in their way, they’re eventually going to get mad and sting. That’s just how it works.” So it is with fossil-fuel companies, McKibben has learned, conceding, somewhere along the line in his engaging memoir, that he’s actually afraid of bees. Thankfully, though, he is not afraid of fossil-fuel companies, and he is not asking them whether they think more oil production is a good idea. He’s asking the public. McKibben insists again and again that he “wasn’t cut out to be a leader,” but his story of how he became one seems genuine, revealing the difficult choices and sacrifices that he made on the road from writer to activist. Neither an acerbic screed against modern industry nor a naive vision of some bucolic utopia, his book is simply an enjoyable tale of one man’s decision to fight for a world with less oil and more honey. Curtis Brainard OIL AND HONEY The Education of an Unlikely Activist By Bill McKibben Times. 255 pp. $26


Shutdown looms large over telecommunications conference

With the government on hold, so are many critical tech industry discussions and proceedings. The Capitol building stands behind a fence in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, April 6, 2011. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg) The thinned speaker list was one of several examples of how the government shutdown has been affecting the tech world at a major industry conference this week in Washington. The shutdown made no-shows of acting Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Mignon Clyburn and Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), who were scheduled to speak Wednesday during the annual Telecommunications Industry Association conference. The same was true of National Institute of Standards and Technology director Patrick Gallagher and the State Department’s Daniel Sepulveda, who also cited the shutdown in their regrets to the TIA. And it peppered the comments of policymakers and officials who did attend, including Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who opened her tech policy speech Wednesday with a long condemnation of the political stalemate that has furloughed 800,000 federal workers and significantly curtailed or suspended government services. “We are in the middle of a government slowdown right now because of the stubborn refusal of the White House and our colleagues in the United States Senate to work with the House,” said Blackburn, before moving on to issues such as cybersecurity and telecommunications regulation. Those walking past booths and pockets of conversation at the event, found it hard to go more than a few steps without hearing mention of the shutdown. And though lobbyists joked that there was no one around for them to talk to in the past week, the mood was heavy, as several firms complained that the shutdown has put the brakes on important company and industry-wide projects. “It’s already hurting companies,” said Grant Seiffert, the president of the TIA, whose organization sets industry standards and counts a wide range of device and networking companies such as Cisco, Dell, Apple, and Nokia Solutions and Networks, as members. He said TIA member companies have told him that holdups at federal agencies have delayed equipment approval and, consequently, companies’ ability to send things to the market. “Especially going into the holidays, it’s a big deal,” Seiffert said. “And customers may not want to wait for the catch-up.” The shutdown has also put the operations — and Web sites — of agencies critical to the tech industry, such as the FCC, largely on hold. Companies, often already frustrated with pace of


Political showdown jeopardizes people who need help

When Dan Davis pulls the big Sasha Bruce Youthwork van up to Benning Park on Thursday nights, at least one kid afraid of dying asks for his help. Davis, a 30-year-old youth outreach worker, has been at the park in Southeast Washington every Thursday night for several years now. If the teens are hungry, he gives them food. If they’re cold, he gives them blankets. And if they’re afraid that the violence and vengeance that make up the cruel reality of their lives is closing in on them, he’ll find them a safe bed to spend the night. But not this past Thursday. You can thank the great minds in Congress for that. This is what your political gamesmanship looks like in real life, elected leaders. Ten days into the government shutdown, as federal workers are beginning to count their pennies and the grass is growing high around the memorials that Citizen Lawn Mower Man hasn’t gotten to, the nonprofit agencies that help provide our social safety net are beginning to feel the ripple effects of this selfish, cocky showdown. Dozens of after-school programs in the District are coming up snake eyes. No cash. Job programs and health clinics are choking. D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) is striding across the U.S. Capitol lawn to bust in on news conferences and let these clowns who come in from all over the country know how badly they are hurting Our Town. Seriously, Congress. You can stir our unremarkable, phlegmatic mayor into strong, leaderly actions, but you can’t figure this shutdown thing out? Ridiculous. Sasha Bruce Youthwork has been helping homeless, runaway and otherwise at-risk teens in the District since 1974. It operates the city’s only short-term, emergency shelter for young people. On the eve of his inauguration as president in 2009, Barack Obama helped paint a room at the shelter to encourage community service. Now Sasha Bruce is in crisis. Founder and executive director Deborah Shore had to furlough 46 employees Thursday. “It is hard enough that the federal government does not deem services for runaway and homeless youth as essential,” Shore said. What’s worse is that D.C. government cash is also locked up by the federal shutdown. And hypothermia season is around the corner. That’s the deadly season for kids living on the streets. The nonprofit group already faced one big cut this year. And as a result, it had


Marriage counselor offers Beltway’s budget battlers a guide to kissing and making up

troubling effect across the pond in London, where a lavish cocktail party on tap this week for new U.S. Ambassador Matthew Barzun has been postponed. The party at the tony Connaught hotel, sponsored by Tatler, a Condé Nast publication, promised “many pyramids of Ferrero Rocher” — a superb chocolate, we’re told — to welcome Barzun to town. The former Obama 2008 campaign finance chair and mega-bundler left his ambassadorship in Sweden to come back to run fundraising for the 2012 campaign and then assumed his duties in London at the end of August. “Ambassador and Mrs. Barzun are no longer able to attend on Tuesday, so sadly we are postponing the event,” said Jennifer George of Condé Nast, according to the Evening Standard. “Sorry for any inconvenience. We will let you know when we have a new date.” An embassy official advised us that Barzun thought attending the Oct. 8 event would not be appropriate in light of the shutdown and asked that it be postponed. Seems embassies, during the shutdown, have been asked to reduce activities that were not considered essential, apparently even when no government funds were involved. This event, being a private — not official — party, fell into that nonessential category. Perhaps when the shutdown is over? The chocolates surely can keep for a while. Dear Diary: It’s quiet Like one of those diet advertisements with dramatic before-and-after pictures, here’s a stark illustration of the impact of the government shutdown: Wednesday’s edition of the Federal Register, essentially the diary of everything the government did the day before, was a mere 12 pages. The Federal Register, with its seemingly endless parade of regulations, meeting notices and solicitations for comment, typically runs in the hundreds of pages. It’s hardly riveting reading, but if you want to know, for example, about the dog management plan for the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, it’s your go-to. It’s hard to pin down an exact figure, but a back-of-the envelope calculation using annual data shows that in 2012, the average Register clocked in at more than 300 pages. The sudden slimdown of the Federal Register is an obvious consequence of the shutdown, yet an interesting (at least to us geeks) measure of its effect. And perhaps some could see this as a silver lining to the shutdown — think of the trees being saved! With Emily Heil The blog: washingtonpost.com/intheloop. Twitter: @InTheLoopWP.


Shutdown doesn’t stop Cameristi della Scala from leading a stroll through Verdi operas

Is it perverse to celebrate the Verdi bicentennial year without singers? Excerpts of Wagner’s operas are performed in symphonic format all the time, so perhaps a precedent has been set. Cameristi della Scala, a chamber orchestra made up of musicians from the orchestra of Milan’s most famous theater, went one better on Wednesday night by performing other composers’ instrumental fantasies on themes from Giuseppe Verdi’s operas. The musicians had the bad fortune to arrive in Washington during the government shutdown, which has canceled the free concert series at the concert’s intended venue, the Library of Congress. Happily, the Italian Embassy saved the day, offering its small auditorium for this performance, part of the ongoing festivities of the Italian Year of Culture. The selections, all by Italian performer-composers whose bread and butter included this sort of solo fantasy arrangement of popular arias, were quite charming. All selected freely from the many possible tunes in each opera, meaning that your favorite pieces might not be included but also that a listener familiar with the opera can relive, quite vividly, his or her memories of the score. Violinist Francesco Manara and cellist Massimo Polidori handled the virtuosic solos with operatic panache, supported ably by five string players, four winds and one horn. High points included Antonio Bazzini’s fantasia for violin on “La Traviata” and Luigi Mancinelli’s fantasia for cello on intense themes from “Don Carlo,” with the double bass player covering a triangle part at one point. Originally accompanied by piano, all the pieces were orchestrated byone of the group’s members, violinist Gianluca Scandola, who outdid himself on the opening work, a slapstick and iridescent fantasia on themes from “Falstaff,” in which the French horn imitated the knight’s cries of pain in the fairy scene. Downey is a freelance writer.


Government shutdown’s effects ripple out to more than the federal workforce

said. “It’s extremely frustrating.” The fall fishing season normally closes near the end of October, and so it’s now all but ended and people are staying away. Gregory Bloom is worried about people staying away, too. As president of Seal Science in Irvine, Calif., a small business that works on design and engineering for NASA’s Orion, America’s next manned spacecraft, Bloom is seeing how uncertainty in Washington makes it harder to attract talent. “Trying to get the best and the brightest to come join a company that specializes in national defense or NASA-supported activities and not being able to tell them that they’re going to have a job in six months is a real tricky challenge for us,” he said. One senior engineer already left because of the uncertainty, Bloom said: “What keeps coming back to us is ‘why go work in national defense or aerospace when we can go to Google and know that we’re going to have a job?’ ” Similarly, at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Michael Joyner, the former associate dean for research, has a list of researchers who were about to get grants from the National Institutes of Health but now have been left in a purgatory that could drive them into careers that don’t rely on uncertain federal funding. The paralyzed projects include one examining cognitive function in older people and one on why people regain weight after diets or weight-loss surgery. “Multiply this all over campus and all over the country, and you get the picture,” Joyner said. “If this drags on, you’re going to really gum up the scientific and research apparatus of the country. . . . If this goes on for very much longer, you’re going to have kind of a lost generation of scientists.” Not much attention is being devoted to such long-term impacts of the shutdown, however, because more immediate effects pop up every day. This weekend’s scheduled semiannual roundup and health check of the Chincoteague ponies, made famous by “Misty of Chincoteague,” the 1947 novel about the Virginia herd, has been canceled because the shutdown closed the wildlife refuge where the 130 ponies live. The Facebook page of the local fire company that announced the cancellation said it was “due to the childish, idiotic actions of our government.” Michael Alison Chandler, Brady Dennis, Darryl Fears, Ashley Halsey III, Sari Horwitz and Lisa Rein contributed to this report.


Details: Linz, Austria

details GETTING THERE Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa offer one-stop flights from Washington Dulles to Linz, Austria. WHERE TO STAY Hotel am Domplatz Stifterstrasse 4 011-43-732-77-30-00 www.hotelamdomplatz.at Sleek, contemporary hotel facing the “new” cathedral, in the center of town. Rooms from $135. Spitz Hotel Fiedlerstrasse 6 011-43-732-73-37-33 www.spitzhotel.at Design boutique hotel across the Nibelungen Bridge, close to Ars Electronica and the Danube. Rooms from $120. WHERE TO EAT Wirt am Graben Graben 24 011-43-732-77-29-75 www.wirtamgraben.at Farm to table foodie/hipster joint where I enjoyed some of the best food in town. If the weather allows, relax in the leafy back yard. Entrees start at $12. Das Anton Am Volksgarten 1 011-43-732-761-19-50 www.dasanton.at At the opera, enjoy Wiener schnitzel and aged grass-fed beef in the elegant dining room or at the busy chef’s counter of this restaurant. Entrees start at $14. Verdi Restaurant Einkehr Pachmayrstrasse 137 011-43-732-73-30-05 www.verdi.at It’s a 10-minute drive among rolling hills to Verdi, a Michelin-starred gem, where entrees start at $34. At Einkehr, the casual cafe next door, entrees start at $14. BEST LINZER TORTE k.u.k. Hofbäckerei Pfarrgasse 17 011-43-732-78-41-10 www.kuk-hofbaeckerei.at Most beautiful cafe and pastry shop in Linz. Baker Fritz Rath is as sweet as his torte. $3.50 for a slice. Konditorei Jindrak Herrenstrasse 34 011-43-732-775-258 www.linzertorte.at Six locations in town to ensure that you’re never far from the supposedly original Linzer torte. Fabulous array of cakes. A slice is $3. WHAT TO DO Linz Opera (Musiktheater am Volksgarten) Am Volksgarten 1 011-43-800-218-00-01 www.landestheater-linz.at The new opera offers year-round performances of opera, operetta, musical theater and dance. Ars Electronica Ars-Electronica-Strasse 1 011-43-732-72-72-51 www.aec.at This innovative museum explores the connections between art, technology and society. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday; 10.a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. About $11. INFORMATION www.linztourismus.at/en S.B. More from Travel: Travel Guide Ski Guide Caribbean Guide


The shutdown shows that Americans ordinarily do extraordinary things

LAST SUNDAY, Rapid City, S.D., was reeling from a blizzard of historic proportions, as The Post’s Capital Weather Gang reported. The meteorologist-in-chief at the National Weather Service’s office there, David Carpenter, was on the job, though he wasn’t being paid, in a city paralyzed by snowdrifts and fallen trees. He and two other forecasters had been at work continuously since Friday. The government shutdown, and the threat of government default, are an embarrassment and a disgrace. But there is a silver lining: Americans are being reminded of how much we depend on government — and on federal employees, such as Mr. Carpenter, who do extraordinary things in the ordinary course of their days. When Congress failed to fund the government 10 days ago, the executive branch ordered most employees to work, because they are essential to the preservation of life and property. But hundreds of thousands were furloughed and many more contract employees sidelined, and the absence of these supposedly less essential workers quickly became a burden. When an outbreak of salmonella sickened hundreds, the experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had to be recalled. The inability to access government data began to gum up the housing market. At the National Institutes of Health, Michelle Langbehn, a cancer patient with a daughter born last year, was turned away from a clinical trial that might save her life. “It would mean the world for me to see my daughter grow up,” she told The Post’s Sarah Kliff. As injustices surface, generous Americans fill the gap. The Fisher House Foundation offers to pay death benefits to families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. A wealthy couple, Laura and John Arnold, donate $10 million to keep some Head Start programs operating through the month. Chris Cox, an artist from South Carolina, tries to mow the lawn around the Lincoln Memorial, until police chase him away. Much of the harm being done, though, won’t surface in the media. The babies who are getting insufficient nutrition because the Women, Infants and Children program has been suspended — they won’t feature in newspaper stories. As the Head Start philanthropists said, “We sincerely hope that our government gets back to work in short order, as private dollars cannot in the long term replace government commitments.” Maneuvering in Washington on Thursday focused on the nation avoiding a default on its debt, and a default would be


Shutdown leaves federal charity with uncertainties; Pentagon with hat in hand

manner.” Fortunately, there are initial signs that an end to this madness might be approaching. House Republicans are backing away from their destructive, dead-end strategy. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Thursday gave the Republican Party its lowest rating since the Journal began polling in 1989. Sanity does not yet prevail, though, and the CFC remains in limbo. “We’re not sure how it’s going to turn out,” said Cindy Campbell, a Fisher House spokeswoman about donations this year. The Defense Department promised to reimburse the organization. But will employees continue to donate during a period of perturbation? That uncertainty is an issue for all CFC charities. The CFC money they are spending now in most cases comes from federal employee payroll check donations. The shutdown, however, has interrupted those checks. On Friday, many employees will be paid just half their regular amount, according to Steve Bauer, executive director of the Federal Employee Education & Assistance Fund, a CFC charity that provides financial assistance to feds in need. His office has been inundated with calls from federal workers who he said are “in desperation of how to pay their bills.” But FEEA can’t provide as much help as it did previously because it is largely tapped out as a result of this year’s sequestration budget cuts. They forced many feds to take pay cuts through unpaid leave days. For the first time in 27 years, FEEA has placed restrictions on the federal employees it helps because it too is in financial distress. Of some 200 people who applied for assistance since Sept. 1, FEEA has helped 12. The current situation, Bauer said, is “a nightmare of gigantic proportions for folks and for us.” The longer the shutdown, the greater the impact on CFC. Donations are generated through charity fairs and other workplace events held at agencies to encourage giving. The solicitation period runs from Sept. 1 through Dec. 15, but it is suspended during the shutdown. “It’s a real problem. It’s a serious issue,” said Kalman Stein, president and chief executive of EarthShare, a federation of environmental and conservation charities. EarthShare also administers the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area for 2013. The local effort is the nation’s largest CFC and one of the largest workplace giving operations anywhere. “We’re in suspension,” he said. “We’ve been told not to do CFC activities.” Though “federal employees are incredibly generous


Worried about default? How to fortify your finances as the markets reel

All the talk about the federal debt ceiling might remind you of Charlie Brown’s teacher. Remember her from the animated television specials based on the “Peanuts” comic strip, created by Charles M. Schulz? All you hear when the teacher speaks is, “Waa, waa, waa, waa.” That might be what you hear when politicians talk about the fight to raise the debt limit, except that you aren’t laughing because you’re too worried about what it all means for your own financial situation. A deal might be struck soon, but I wanted to help ease some of your fears. I asked a number of experts to address some of the questions you may have. Q: Should I be worried about my money? A: Stephen Brobeck, executive director of Consumer Federation of America: “At this point, I don’t think it’s productive for consumers to worry greatly about their personal funds. Big investors around the world are concerned, but I still think House Republican leaders will act to avoid default. And consumers should remember that the key financial services regulatory agencies, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and its insurance funds that protect consumer bank deposits, do not depend on federal funding. However, even if default is avoided, consumers should be very concerned about the impact of continued congressional use of default, and government shutdowns, on their incomes and investments. The resulting erosion of investor and consumer confidence could well halt our slow recovery from the Great Recession.” Q: Really, the money in my bank account is protected? Even in the event of a government default? A: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.: “Yes. Deposit insurance will continue to protect the insured deposits of bank customers. In close to 80 years of operation, no one has ever lost a penny of insured deposits. “The FDIC commitment to pay 100 percent of all insured deposits remains in place. We always encourage bank customers to understand deposit insurance coverage. To learn more, visit www.fdic.gov.” When you go to the site, search: “Are my deposits insured?” Q: Should I be doing something different with my investments? A: Chris Horymski, associate editor for Consumer Reports: “We’ve been advising the same, long-term passive investing approach as always, precisely because of events like these. Staying diversified among asset classes, which means owning both stocks and bonds, and not trying to guess the outcome of whatever happens in Washington, is usually the


McLean Youth Lacrosse beats government shutdown in court; Langley Fork Park reopens

Fed up that the federal shutdown was keeping them off their practice fields, a group of young lacrosse players in Northern Virginia challenged the government in court. And at least for now, they won. A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the National Park Service to immediately reopen Langley Fork Park in McLean — which was closed Oct. 1 — and allow the boys and girls of the McLean Youth Lacrosse organization back onto the fields. The judge’s order was not final. Attorneys are scheduled to return to federal court in Alexandria on Oct. 18 — provided the courthouse is still open and judges are still hearing civil cases — to hash out a more permanent resolution. But until then, Langley Fork Park will be open for the hundreds of kids in the youth lacrosse group, which sued the Park Service, and for anyone else who might want to use it. “It’s a major relief,” said David “Bucky" Morris, McLean Youth Lacrosse’s executive director. “I’m not sure how long it goes for, but, hopefully, it’s long enough that it goes through the government shutdown.” A spokeswoman for the Fairfax County Park Authority, which manages the park, said officials removed the temporary barriers at the park Thursday morning after receiving the Park Service’s permission. Where U.S. is feeling the shutdown Read about people's experiences with the shutdown across the nation. “I can tell you this much: We’re glad it’s open for business. That’s the good news,” said Judy Pedersen, a spokeswoman for the Park Authority. She declined to comment on the lawsuit. McLean Youth Lacrosse’s lawsuit does not affect other closed national parks and monuments across the country. Still, it might be somewhat embarrassing to federal officials, who have been accused of closing facilities unnecessarily to exaggerate the shutdown’s impact. And it might inspire similar legal actions. According to local officials and the lawsuit, Langley Fork Park sits on federal land, but it is managed and maintained by the county Park Authority as part of an agreement with the National Park Service. When McLean Youth Lacrosse received a permit to use the fields there this fall, they paid the Park Authority — not the Park Service — $5,000, according to the lawsuit. Morris, 50, of McLean, said he initially gave little thought to local officials’ warning that the two lacrosse fields at the park would be affected by a government shutdown. He


Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons wins 2013 Nobel Peace Prize

A look at the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winners and other recipients throughout the years. MOSCOW — “The news of the Nobel Peace Prize was really overwhelming,” said Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of The Hague-based agency. “I see it as a great acknowledgement of a success story.” Until minutes before the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee revealed its choice in Oslo, speculation had centered on Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban a year ago for defending education for girls. But just as it did last year when it selected the European Union,the committee took the world by surprise. “We are now in a situation in which we can do away with a whole category of weapons of mass destruction,” Thorbjorn Jagland, the committee’s chairman, said. “Of course this is a very important message.” On Aug. 21, a sarin gas attack in Syria killed more than 1,000 civilians, a reminder to the world of the horror chemical weapons visit on their victims. An estimated 100,000 people have died in the 21 / 2-year conflict. OPCW inspectors were in Syria as part of a U.N. team at the time of the August chemical attack and subsequently investigated it, despite coming under sniper fire at one point. The team later produced a widely acclaimed report that documented the use of sarin in the attack and that indirectly implicated the Syrian government. OPCW inspectors returned to Syria http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/chemical-weapons-officials-say-coordination-with-syrian-government-has-been-efficient/2013/09/29/48ed7fce-294f-11e3-b139-029811dbb57f_story.html">at the beginning of October. About two dozen inspectors are there, attempting to find and oversee the destruction of an estimated 1,000 tons of chemical weapons — in the middle of a civil war, accompanied by unarmed U.N. guards, with security entrusted to a Syrian government that doesn’t control the entire country. Jagland said the committee hoped the prize would have implications beyond the Syrian conflict, including encouraging signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention such as the United States and Russia to step up destruction of their stockpiles. “The crisis in Syria highlights the need to do away with these weapons,” he said. “This is about disarmament, which goes straight to the heart of Alfred Nobel’s will.” Nobel, the Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, left the Nobel prizes as his legacy. The ceremony for this year’s Peace Prize, worth $1.2 million, will be held on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. Although the OPCW was an unexpected recipient,


In Malala Yousafzai’s Pakistani home town, disappointment and relief in Nobel decision

MINGORA, Pakistan — Once a tourist destination, the industry collapsed in recent years as thousands of Taliban fighters roamed the valley, attempting to impose a rigid interpretation of Islamic law and blowing up some 400 schools in a campaign to prevent girls from getting an education. Some residents, including a teenager named Malala Yousafzai, refused to be bullied. On Friday, one year after a Taliban fighter shot Yousafzai in the head after she insisted on going to school, residents huddled around televisions sets waiting to see if her brave stance would be recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize. Yousafzai, 16, was considered a favorite to win for her efforts to call attention to the plight of girls in Pakistan. If she had, she would have become only the second Pakistani in history to be awarded a Nobel Prize. When news broke that the prize had instead gone to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, some Pakistanis were crushed. “There is disappointment, no doubt,” said Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, a moderate political leader from northwest Pakistan who has also been targeted by the Taliban. “There were a lot of expectations.” But in Mingora, a town of about a half-million residents on the Swat River, residents who know Yousafzai best appeared relieved. Mahmood Hassan, Yousafzai’s cousin and the principal of a school that she attended before her family sought refuge in England, said a Nobel Peace Prize would have only increased the risk to Yousafzai and her former school. “We are glad to see her speaking on education for girls, and that is worth more than an award,” Hassan said. “I was worried for Malala as a Nobel Peace award-winner, because it would have attracted more threats.” Pakistan’s army launched bloody operations to regain control of the Swat Valley in late 2007 and again in 2009. But security in Mingora remains perilous. On Tuesday, a Taliban spokesman warned that the group would continue to target Yousafzai unless she gave up “her secular ideology.” Despite the threats, even Mingora’s youngest residents were eager Friday to talk about Yousafzai and her accomplishments, including winning the European Union’s prestigious Sakharov human rights award on Thursday. Rashid Iqbal, a journalist and local politician in Mingora, said Yousafzai has helped to rebuild the spirit of the town, even without a Nobel Peace Prize. “Swat had been known for militancy and the Taliban,” Iqbal said. “But


Government shutdown: ‘Essential’ isn’t quite the right word. (Neither is ‘shutdown.’)

The Oct. 3 news article “ Who will get hurt the most” referred to “the 1.3 million ‘essential’ civilian employees who will keep working during the shutdown.” The proper term for these employees is “excepted,” not “essential.” There is no distinction in the law between “essential” and “nonessential” federal employees. OMB Circular A-11, Section 124 explains that five categories of employees are excepted from furlough during a lapse in appropriations (a more accurate term than “shutdown”). While one of these categories is employees who are essential specifically to the protection of human life or property, there is no general exception for employees who are considered “essential.” And the employees who continue to work under the four other categories have not been deemed “essential” at all. For example, many of them are funded by fees or a carryover of appropriations from prior years and are thus not affected by the lack of an appropriation for fiscal year 2014. Finally, it is not correct to state that the 800,000 furloughed federal employees (I am one) have been deemed “nonessential.” Rather, their agencies determined that they did not meet any of the five legal exceptions, and thus they are called “non-excepted” employees. All federal employees’ work is essential to meet some purpose, at least in theory, but the actual standard is narrower than that. John Thompson, Bethesda How troubling to read more about a couple who had to change their wedding plans because of the shutdown [“For jilted couple, closure opens doors,” Style, Oct. 5] than about the non-federal hourly workers who are not “furloughed” but instead laid off as a result of the closure. When the National Zoo closes, what happens to the staff at the Panda Overlook Cafe who are making minimum wage as they wash dishes or prepare burgers? There is talk about paying for the “panda cam,” even as the cafe is closed and its staff cannot earn a living. How about the concessionaires at the ice cream stands or hot dog stands? Why not profile a couple, living paycheck to paycheck, who would be serving meals at the Smithsonian cafeterias if they were open? No one seems to be telling their stories. They are the ones who are being jilted. Diane Wood, Washington


The shutdown gives museum-goers a chance to stretch their legs

on the front lines, explaining such an unpleasant change to visitors, made me aware of my own selfishness. Out of an increased awareness, and perhaps a twinge of vengeance for every visitor who complained to me about having to pay, I became determined to visit some of these museums with entrance fees. And guess what? I much preferred those experiences over battling crowds at the attractions on the Mall. I felt comfortable moving at my own pace, stopping to fully absorb a piece of art, study an artifact or engage with an interactive display without the anxiety of having many people behind me waiting to take my place. And there are almost always staff or volunteers who can answer questions or, lo and behold, even offer information without being asked. In my 15 or so visits to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, finding someone to answer my questions about the museum could be more time-consuming than digging for dinosaur bones. Don’t get me wrong: I love what the federally funded attractions offer. I frequently attend films at the Freer Gallery and lectures at the National Archives, and despite my background in the sciences, my favorite Smithsonian museum is the American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery because of their interdisciplinary exhibits and programs, which provide context to the art. But the Smithsonian Institution, the Mall and the federally funded sites are not the be-all and end-all of the D.C. tourist scene. Go see the National Geographic Museum, the Newseum, the National Building Museum, the Koshland Science Museum, the Textile Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Corcoran, the Phillips Collection, the National Cathedral, the Franciscan Monastery, the German-American Heritage Museum, or Hillwood Estate, Museum and Garden. Then venture farther out to the College Park Aviation Museum, Brookside Gardens, Mount Vernon or the museums of Alexandria. The best of the rest may not be as large or conveniently located, but they are just as engaging, just as relevant and frequently offer a more personal experience. Many will cost you, some more than others, but that money is part of what allows them to stay open when all the federally funded attractions close. A shutdown will ruin your vacation only if you let it. This is the perfect opportunity to better get to know your nation’s capital, a city that I only grew to love after realizing that its


Mark Kelly gives an astronaut’s view of ‘Gravity’

Howard achieved the effect of zero-gravity flight by filming in NASA’s zero-gravity airplane, the “Vomit Comet.” Cuarón took a different approach. He and his cinematographer created something they called “the Cage” and relied on lights and the emotions of the actors to bring viewers to a realistic approximation of space. The actors floating around in spacesuits seemed equally convincing. As astronauts, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney captured the intensity and horror of their situation — essentially, a fight for survival in space. However, it is very unlikely that two crew members would not know each other well, as was the case in “Gravity.” Training to repair the Hubble Space Telescope takes years. As the commander of the mission, you would certainly know where your crew members are from. It’s true that astronauts have fun, but we are there to do a very serious job. You would never see the commander of the mission flying around Hubble in his Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) like he was a kid riding his first bike around the driveway. If we still used the MMU, and we don’t, it would be flown carefully and methodically. The commander would not fly next to the $2.5 billion space telescope that we really care about, nor would he goof off outside in the vacuum of space. During my time in space, our fun was kept inside the spacecraft: We would throw a football in zero gravity — not so easy — and usually watch it head straight to the ceiling, not to our intended target. Calling all movie fanatics and music lovers: Washington Post critics Ann Hornaday and Chris Richards make their picks for this season’s can’t-miss movies and must-hear crooners. Of course, I would fail you as an astronaut and an amateur film critic if I did not touch on the big misconception of “Gravity.” A key plot point involves a space station falling out of orbit because it was hit by debris. But that just doesn’t happen. Likewise, blowing up stuff in orbit makes a big mess, but it doesn’t send a giant field of shrapnel hurtling at high velocity toward a spacecraft that is circulating Earth in an entirely different orbit. I can say this with confidence, because I’ve dealt with my fair share of space junk. In January of 2007, China intentionally targeted and destroyed one of its satellites, and it made a big


David Ignatius: What ‘Gravity’ and the shutdown have in common

has noted, the garrulous characters are really just trying to fill the terrible reality of silence. It’s like watching cable TV while the federal government goes off a cliff. None of the pundits has a clue what’s happening, but they keep up the chatter. For a sense of how “Gravity” marks a distinct cultural moment, compare it to another iconic film about the cosmos, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That movie was also about being lost in space. Keir Dullea played an astronaut on a mission to Jupiter when the computer running his ship, known as “HAL,” takes control. Dullea’s character also finds himself adrift outside his capsule in the blackness of space, but he’s drawn into a cosmic apotheosis that is a fable of rebirth and infinite life. A collection of cartoons from around the country. Kubrick’s film was released in 1968, as American culture was heading over the lip of a waterfall. It was a time of political upheaval — the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the sudden withdrawal from the presidential race of Lyndon Johnson. Back then, outer space was still a blessed escape from all the terrestrial turmoil. The year after Kubrick’s film was released came Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon. Things felt pretty crazy on Earth in 1969, but the cosmos was friendly. Astronauts had round-trip tickets; they got home. The world of 2013 is different: We don’t even attempt manned space programs anymore. They are too expensive, and what’s the point? Thank goodness for the plucky little Voyager I probe, which has just left the solar system, 36 years after it was launched, carrying sounds of Earth, including a baby crying, a whale’s song and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” But our sodden political dysfunction is tuning out the cosmos. Among the casualties of this month’s government shutdown were many of the world’s largest radio telescopes, operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Turned off because of a lack of funds, they stopped listening for electromagnetic signals from other galaxies and planets. “We’re really at a dead halt,” the observatory’s director, Anthony Beasley, told Science magazine. The only aggressive space program these days, not surprisingly, is China’s. The Chinese plan to launch this year a lunar rover, called Chang’e 3, that would be the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the moon’s surface in 37 years.


The shutdown is a meaningless exercise, but we can learn from it

to go on record as being for the reopening, piece by piece, of some of the most popular parts of government, including our national parks, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Still, every day brings news of how supposedly “non-essential” services and employees are important for our country’s well-being. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recalled furloughed disease detectives to address a major foodborne illness that has broken out. More than 315 cases of illness related to chicken contaminated by salmonella have been reported in 20 states. Thankfully, the lab work to combat this outbreak will not have to wait until the CDC fully reopens. Second, the economic ramifications of government shutdowns are significant. Using OMB figures, the Pew Research Center concluded that the 26 days of shutdown during the winter of 1995-96 cost the U.S. economy more than $1.4 billion. That’s $2.1 billion in 2013 dollars. The economic consulting firm IHS Global Insight projects that the current shutdown is costing about $300 million a day and $1.6 billion a week in work not done. This loss comes amid the economy’s fragile recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. The unemployment rate for September could not be computed because the Bureau of Labor Statistics had to furlough its economists. But it’s well established that the economy is less prepared to withstand shutdown shocks today than it was in 1995-96, when the unemployment rate was less than 6 percent. Third, a shutdown is the worst course of action if the goal is for government to operate more like the private sector. No business would tolerate the uncertainty and needless costs imposed by a shutdown. And though federal employees probably will, eventually, be paid for their lost work, millions of dollars were wasted in planning for this shutdown and will be incurred for starting back up. Questions remain about what happens to work in process, time and schedule commitments and orderly planning. Just as this is no way to run a business, it is no way to run a government. Read more about this issue: The Post’s View: Federal workers deserve better than Congress’s disregard Eugene Robinson: Boehner is playing to win Charles Krauthammer: The way out E.J. Dionne Jr.: Obama can’t cave in the face of extremism Dana Milbank: The shutdown’s enforcer in chief The Post’s View: House Republicans are failing Americans


Interior allows almost a dozen iconic national parks to reopen with state funding

operate it for 10 days. All five states will likely seek reimbursement from the federal government once the shutdown ends, but such payments would have to be specifically authorized by Congress. While the Park Service had originally resisted the idea of accepting donations from outside groups or individual states to reopen sites, the Interior Department reversed course as the shutdown dragged on and state and local leaders warned that their economies were in peril. Five Utah counties declared a state of emergency after the parks’ closures. On Thursday, Jewell discussed park operations with Herbert and three other governors: Arizona’s Jan Brewer (R), Colorado’s John Hickenlooper (D) and South Dakota’s Dennis Daugaard (R). “The Interior Department has begun conversations about how to proceed as expeditiously as current limited resources allow,” Interior spokesman Blake Androff said in a statement. “We continue to call on Congress to act swiftly to enact appropriations for the entire government so that we can re-open all 401 national parks for the American people.” Earlier in the week, some local officials were preparing for combat. Utah’s San Juan County commissioners threatened to remove the barricades at Natural Bridges National Monument themselves. Washington County commissioner Alan Gardner — whose county includes part of Zion National Park — convened a meeting of a dozen Utah and Arizona county officials in an effort to pressure Obama to reopen the park system. “I guess I’m the culprit there,” Gardner said. Springdale Mayor Pat Cluff, whose town abuts Zion, said she was “elated” when the park began to reopen Friday morning and hoped that word was getting out to thousands of tourists who had been canceling visits during a traditionally busy season for her town’s hotels, restaurants and art galleries. The mayor said the town has lost 40 to 60 percent of its business during the government shutdown. A typical October day brings 10,000 visitors to the park, usually a more affluent group than during the hot summer months, she said. The town of 527 year-round residents has 950 hotel rooms just outside the park. During the last series of federal shutdowns in 1995 and 1996, only one national park — Grand Canyon — was allowed to reopen after then-Gov. Fife Symington (R) mobilized the state National Guard and threatened to physically take over parts of the South Rim. Bruce Babbitt, then the Interior secretary, negotiated an agreement under which Arizona raised state