Make A Loan, Change A Life

I just made a loan to a cattle farmer in Azerbaijan. All it took me was a few clicks. For Nadir Asadov, this will help him buy another cow for his breeding stock. I used a neat website called Kiva. I'd heard about Kiva a while ago, and it's stuck in the back of my mind for a while. My godson is graduating 8th grade tomorrow, and it occurred to me that a Kiva gift certificate would be a nice way to get him interested in philanthropy. Kiva takes the concept of microcredit (as popularized by Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for it last year), and uses the Internet to enable microlenders. The concept of microcredit is that there are a great many people in the developing world for whom a modest loan (say between $500 and $1500) could enable them to start or expand a small business, making a huge difference in their lives. Normal banks wouldn't touch such loans, but Yunus found that such loans can have a very high repayment rate. So he created the Grameen Bank that focused on making microloans to women in Bangladesh.

Kiva elaborated on this concept to harness Internet microlenders. For as little as $25, you can go onto Kiva's website, survey budding entrepeneurs all over the world, and pick one to make a loan to. Kiva bundles your loan with other microlenders, until your chosen borrower has met his target. You then get periodic progress reports on how your borrower's business is doing, and eventually your money gets paid back. At the end, you can take your money back, or you can loan it to someone else.

You too can become a microlender, and can help out a produce seller in Ghana or a storekeeper in Ecuador. Check it out!

Earth Bananas

I like to have a banana most mornings with my breakfast, and I also generally like to buy local or at least organic when I can. For bananas, local is out, since we're not really the right climate for it. (While some people here do have backyard banana trees, nobody grows enough of them to turn up at the farmer's market.) And at Whole Foods, the organic bananas on offer never looked that great, so I resigned to regular old Chiquita bananas from Gelson's. That is, until a few months ago, when I noticed a new display of "Earth bananas" at Whole Foods. The display explained that these Earth bananas were the product of a venture called "Earth University" in Costa Rica that was all about researching organic, environmentally-friendly farming. Not only had Earth University succeeded in growing bananas organically (which is more difficult than most other fruits due to the climate), but they had pioneered new techniques for improving their water efficiency and making more use of their by-products. And not only do these bananas look just as good as the regular Chiquitas, they actually taste better. I had never thought about much difference in the taste of bananas until I tasted these. They are noticeably richer and fuller in banana flavor. And verging on too good to be true, these bananas cost the same or less than the others. They do ripen (and thus perish) a bit faster than the regular bananas. But then real food is like that.

Score One For Credit Unions

In today's LA Times, a consumer watch article warns that using ATMs abroad may incur nasty surprise fees, sometimes more than $5 per transaction. They write: "A sampling of banks in the Los Angeles area found that each had its own fee structure for foreign ATM withdrawals. Bank of America charges $5, plus 1% of the withdrawal. City National Bank charges $1.50, plus 3%. Wells Fargo charges a flat fee of $5. Washington Mutual charges 1%, with no flat fees."

The article neglected to point out that there are better alternatives than the big banks, such as credit unions. In our travels to Spain, Scotland, and England in the past year, we made many ATM withdrawals in those countries, and were not assessed any fees at all by our credit union. On top of that, we got a consistently better exchange rate on the ATM withdrawals than we paid on our credit card transactions. (In Spain last month, a euro averaged about $1.35 from ATMs, but $1.40 on my MasterCard.)

I continue to wonder why anybody keeps their checking accounts at the fee-heavy big banks when there are much more thrifty alternatives. We keep our checking account at the Western Federal Credit Union, where we have no monthly fee, free online bill-paying, and plenty of other services. Here at home, I have access to the Co-Op Network of ATMs fee free, which includes most credit unions, and is never far away.

Writing An "Unbreakable" Code

In Dan Brown's Digital Fortress (see my review), the plot centered on the fact of the NSA having a secret massive super-computer that could try every possible combination of even very large digital keys in a matter of minutes, and thus crack any code. While it's mathematically true that any clear-text message encoded using public key encryption could eventually be cracked given enough time, that presupposes that you started with a clear-text message. In the universe of Digital Fortress, the super-computer (called "Translator") tries every possible key until it finds one that results in clear-text. Presumably it recognizes clear text by doing a dictionary check and looking for recognizable words (which, being a massive super-computer, it could also do very quickly). But what if the originally encrypted content wasn't "clear"? Suppose I had a message I didn't want anyone, including the NSA, to see. I could simply write the message in Double-Dutch, then use standard 128-bit public key encryption, and even the mighty Translator wouldn’t be able to crack it, because it wouldn't recognize when it had succeeded. Even when Translator tried the right key, it would read:
thibisibismibysibecribetmibessibage
which would just look like gibberish, so it would zoom right past it and keep on trying other keys. Brown is aware of this problem, but seems under the misconception that it's very difficult to do.

Technically, Double-Dutch would be a poor choice. The huge preponderance of I's and B's would call attention to themselves and quickly get recognized as noise (even if the cryptographer hadn't learned Double-Dutch in grade school). But you could do something only slightly more complicated, like this:
thinisthismebysegecrinetmniessngage
I took the Double-Dutch algorithm of adding two fill characters before each vowel, but instead of always using "ib", I used letters drawn from another text (e.g., the Bible). Try reading it this way:
thINisTHismEBysEGecrINetmNIessNGage
This is grade-school simple, and yet it's actually very sophisticated in that it doesn't follow any inherent cycle. The fill characters don't repeat, and their insertion points vary with the original text rather than following any set pattern. This would probably be quite enough to bring Translator to its knees. For good measure, you could compress your input using a program like "zip" before encrypting it.

Alternatively, who says that my "clear text" is even text? I could handwrite my message, scan it to a JPEG image, and then encrypt that. Or I could speak my message and capture the audio in a WAV file, zip it, and then encrypt it. Good luck to Translator trying to figure that out. It doesn't take a supercomputer to generate something that a supercomputer would be unable to solve. It just takes a little creativity.

BOOKS: Digital Fortress

Thanks to my new iPod nano and audible.com, my commute was sped along this past week by listening to Dan Brown's Digital Fortress in audiobook format. Digital Fortress, published in 1998, was Brown's first novel, and initially didn't make much of a splash. His earlier novels have enjoyed a renaissance since his fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, put him on the map big time. I had thoroughly enjoyed Angels and Demons (his second novel) as much as The Da Vinci Code, and looked forward to Digital Fortress. Though I don't think his first novel equals the other two, the man knows how to twist a plot, and I often found myself lingering in my car even after I'd arrived at my destination, just to hear a bit more. This book is more "techie" than the other two, and while there was a European travel element, it lacked the rich (pseudo)historical detail that gave the other two added dimension. (He did still leave me wishing to see Sevilla, but then I'm a very easy sell on European travel. He didn't create the same intensity of desire as DVC left to see Paris, London, and Edinburgh, or as A&D left to see Rome.) In retrospect, it's easy to see this book as a warm-up to his later works, an early working out of characters, motives, and plot twisting.

The one real distraction for me, as a software engineer, was the inaccuracies, not only in many minor details, but in two major plot premises that sorely tested my willing suspension of disbelief. While Dan Brown is clearly fascinated with cryptography, he also has a lot to learn, and clearly didn't do his homework on this one. (Tom Clancy sets a high bar when it comes to accurate detail.) The premise of the book (and I'm not giving much away, as this comes out very early on), that the NSA has a secret massively multiprocessor computer that can break any code by trying all the possible keys, is quite farfetched. The massive super-computer isn't totally unimaginable, but the notion that it would be so hard to write an "unbreakable code" is loopy. And another key point (again not giving much away), that the NSA's most top secret computers are connected to the Internet, such that their top cryptographers can send and receive Internet email from the most top secret computer, well that's just flat-out ridiculous. Frankly, it's easier for me to believe that Christ might have had a wife and children than it is to believe that the NSA's top secret computers are Internet-accessible.

Despite these large flaws, and the fact that I was often several steps ahead of the characters (NSA's top cryptographers miss an obvious anagram?), I never had it all figured out, and Brown still had interesting surprises in store. From the very first, he knew how to write a rollicking roller-coaster of a tale.

Windows Vista Pain and Agony

I'm no fan of Macs (twice the money for half the performance, and if their interfaces are intuitive, then I've got a defective intuition), but recent experiences with Microsoft do lend some credence to their appeal. (And their amusing ads sure do hit home.) I recently bought my husband a new PC, because apparently 256Mb of RAM was no longer sufficient for someone who basically just uses AOL and IE. These days, what with Vista and all the bloatware that Windows drags along and the pervasive-ware of Windows apps (is there no such thing as a simple app anymore? must every little thing install itself into my system tray, plug itself in to my explorer toolbar, and start as soon as my system boots?), it seems a hi-speed Pentium-4 processor with 1Gb of RAM is a minimal configuration for your most basic home user. I was curious to see what Vista was like. As I expected, it's got a few cool new gadgets, but it's impossible to find anything because they've rearranged all the menus, control panels, and even the way the explorer looks and works. There's nothing compellingly better about it, it's just different for the sake of being different. (Fortunately, there's a "classic view" option on the Control Panel, at least.)

I did get it set up without too much pain, and aside from the fact that Vista is still bleeding new, and Vista device drivers aren't available for everything yet, it's been running well enough for the first month. Until today. This morning my husband calls me in a panic, saying he can't log in because it's giving him a message saying "Invalid product key - Windows activation required". Vista has a thorough security feature that helps Microsoft stop pirated copies of Windows. They spin it as a protection for the user ("you'll know you've got an authentic copy of Windows"), but of course it's really all about protecting Microsoft. For the user, all it is is something else to go wrong, and when it does, it's a royal pain in the butt to sort out. OEMs like HP/Compaq pre-install Windows and pre-activate it (which entails entering absurdly long strings of digits), sparing their customers a tedious out-of-the-box experience. Unfortunately, Vista has a bug where installing certain software or turning the machine off at the wrong time or various other innocent actions can cause Vista to lose its factory-installed product key, and to think that it's a pirated copy, locking down your computer. Microsoft recognizes this bug and offers a patch for it on their support site. Which would be nifty, except that Microsoft doesn't allow your computer to download anything from its support site unless you're running a "genuine" copy of Windows. So in other words, the only computers that will be able to download the patch are the ones that don't have the bug. How brilliant is that? We tried an option to manually re-enter the product key (a 25-character code found on a sticker near the back of the computer), which failed. So we tried an alternate option to get a "confirmation code" by speaking a 54-digit(!) code into a voice response system. That too failed, and we ended up speaking to a live Microsoft technician. After two more failed attempts, and several reboots, he was able to give us a correct 54-digit code that enabled the computer. (You think a 16-digit credit card number is easy to mix up over the phone, try a 54-digit number!) If we ever have to go through this ordeal again, I will scream.

BOOKS: The Audacity of Hope

I didn't really know much about Barack Obama, aside from the general buzz about his great speech at the Democratic convention some years ago, about how he's a "walking hope machine", and the petty controversies over whether he's "not really black" or was educated in a madrasa. But having read his latest book, The Audacity of Hope, I have to say, this guy really does give me hope. He is a remarkable combination of idealism and pragmatism. His idealism, as expressed in the title, is the hope that our politics is not inevitably doomed to a downward spiral of partisanship and corruption, that there are enough fundamental American values that bind us together as a people and that just might be channeled into support for some common-sense policies to address our real problems. His pragmatism shows in a healthy humility (what sharp contrast to our current Decider and his inner court!) combined with an openness to crossing partisan lines to seek practical solutions. His book was not packed with specific policy prescriptions, but when he did discuss policy ideas, he reminded me of Matt Miller (author of the brilliant book "The Two-Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love"), genuinely listening to both sides and suggesting reasonable compromises that might actually get something good done. The book was less full of policy prescriptions than it was about how Obama sees our nation, its people, and our problems, and about the personal history that lead him to see things as he does. He is a refreshingly authentic voice, a clarion call in our current political wilderness. I am impressed and genuinely excited about him, and even though I may disagree with him on a number of specific policies, I would feel very comfortable having such a reasonable man in the White House.

Continuing the Conversation with Hillary

"The Conversation" has been a recent theme of the Hillary Clinton campaign, and despite my initial skepticism, it seems that she actually may be listening as well as talking. In response to the demoralizing comments of General Peter Pace last week that "homosexuality is immoral", Clinton was asked whether she agreed that homosexuality was immoral, and responded:

Well I'm going to leave that to others to conclude. I'm very proud of the gays and lesbians I know who perform work that is essential to our country, who want to serve their country and I want to make sure they can.

Which of course is the old political side-step. She was called on it by numerous bloggers and community leaders, and a couple days later, made this statement:

Well I've heard from a number of my friends and I've certainly clarified with them any misunderstanding that anyone had, because I disagree with General Pace completely. I do not think homosexuality is immoral. But the point I was trying to make is that this policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is not working. I have been against it for many years because I think it does a grave injustice to patriotic Americans who want to serve their country. And so I have called for its repeal and I'd like to follow the lead of our allies like, Great Britain and Israel and let people who wish to serve their country be able to join and do so. And then let the uniform code of military justice determine if conduct is inappropriate or unbecoming. That's fine. That's what we do with everybody. But let's not be eliminating people because of who they are or who they love.

I was delighted to read this. These words are right and they are unequivocal, and I'm glad to see you owning them by putting them on your website in text and on YouTube in video. So, in the spirit of continuing The Conversation, I'd like to ask a follow-on question. You say you're opposed to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and you have called for its repeal. Me too. As an ordinary citizen, I do what I can, which is to talk it up in my blog, to support the outstanding advocacy of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, and to write to my Congressman and Senators, urging them to take action by co-sponsoring the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (HR 1246). The bill to repeal DADT has been introduced in the House, and has 114 co-sponsors (including my Rep, thank you, Mr. Becerra!). Alas, it has yet to have a champion in the Senate. Say, Senator Clinton, aren't you on the Senate Armed Services Committee? Ahem. Your words are great, now let's see the action. What are you waiting for?

General Pace Violates Uniform Regulations

Righteous indignation greeted Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace's recent remarks that homosexuality is immoral and should not be condoned by the military. A group of seven high-ranking and highly-decorated gay military veterans demanded to know, "Does General Pace believe we are immoral, or that our service was unacceptable? Does he appreciate the sacrifice and dedication of every patriot in our armed forces, regardless of their sexual orientation?" Surely his remarks have done more to undermine the morale of the 65,000 gay and lesbian troops on active duty than any alleged morale damage that their presence could cause. It is absurd that at the same time as the military is granting a record number of waivers for admitting felons and other convicts into military service, Pace can make comments like this: "The U.S. military mission fundamentally rests on the trust, confidence and cooperation amongst its members. And the homosexual lifestyle does not comport with that kind of trust and confidence and therefore is not supported within the U.S. Military." While Pace later apologized for expressing a "personal opinion", too little has been made of the fact that to express his personal opinion in a public forum while in uniform is a violation of military code. Would it be unreasonable to formally discipline General Pace for such a technicality? So long as it is a dischargeable offense for a servicemember to wear their uniform to a gay pride parade, it would be outrageous not to discipline Pace for expressing his opinion in uniform.

What's Wrong With American Idol

Tonight's American Idol results show had us spitting at the TV with disgust. I was still smarting a bit from last week when AJ got booted off and Sanjaya went forward. AJ's "Feelin Good" was the bomb, and it's unfathomable how Sanjaya's uninspired "Steppin' Out With My Baby" was favored. No offense to Sanjaya, who's got a decent voice but not an Idol voice, and is way outclassed here. This week, it was apparent on his face that Sanjaya was expecting to go home, so he was shocked, the judges were clearly shocked, and we were all shocked when he went forward again, denying a seat to the far more deserving Sundance, whose "Jeremy" rocked. And on the girls' side, we thought it was pretty clear cut which two should be going home, and one was as expected, but our jaws hit the floor when Haley took the spot that totally should have gone to Sabrina. Her jazzy, powerful "Don't Let Go" was so far and above Haley's pallid "If My Heart Had Wings", it's just so wrong.

As I stewed over this gross miscarriage of justice, I started thinking to myself, what's wrong with American Idol. And for some reason, I started musing "what would Steven Levitt think?" Pondering the incentives and the system, it occurred to me why it is flawed. For starters, of course, it's not explicitly a search for singing excellence, otherwise it would be determined by qualified judges and not by 37 million Americans voting by phone. But beyond that, even assuming that all of the voters were honestly voting for the best performers (as opposed to the best looking, most popular, favorite song genres, etc, which is a big assumption), the one-person-one-vote system could be expected to determine the top performer, but should not be expected to determine a qualified rank order for the rest. In these earlier weeks, we're being asked to vote for the best, but the decision being made is who are the worst. Think of it this way. Suppose that 75% of the voters have reasonable taste and judgment, and 25% don't. The 75% of the voters who do have good judgment will have put their one vote toward those who truly are the top performers. But in these weeks, those votes don't matter. What matters is who got the most votes among the bottom half of the class. And those are being determined by the 25% who lack judgment. Thus, one would expect that in these intermediate winnowing rounds, the decisions of who gets sent home are going to be rocky and spurious. And so they have been.

A better system for these elimination rounds would be for people to vote for the bottom rather than the top. Or if that seems too mean-spirited (what? Idol mean-spirited?), each person should get to vote for as many contestants as are going forward.

I also think there's some amount of game theory that enters into it. I'm suspecting that an appreciable chunk of voters may vote based on song choice and genre, as there are a variety of genres being represented. For instance, there are probably a good number of country music fans watching the show (see Carrie Underwood for proof), and perhaps a lot of them don't have an appreciation of other genres, and may not have appreciated Sabrina's sophisticated rendition of an En Vogue R&B tune. Perhaps they voted for Haley just because they prefered a country song. I'm not slamming country here. I appreciate country music, and I really like the Faith Hill song. Which was all the more reason Haley was a disappointment. She's a pretty girl and she can sing decently, but we need more than decent here. Her interpretation was uninspired, a bit fast yet lacking drive, and when she got to the chorus, where the song just wants to soar, well, Haley's voice just didn't have wings. And yet she'll be back and Sabrina goes home. So wrong.

In honor of Paula, I'll find something nice to say about American Idol. Kudos to them for the highlight on charity that they announced tonight. The money that they will probably be giving toward the needy in Africa and here at home is admirable, and the attention they will be bringing to charitable efforts will be invaluable. Looking forward to hearing more about that. Charity is sweet music indeed.

BOOKS: Real Food

My friend Anne recently loaned me the book Real Food by Nina Planck, subtitled "what to eat and why". The book was a happy convergence of two interests I had been developing in recent years: shopping for food more responsibly (e.g., local produce from farmer's markets, cage-free chicken and eggs, pastured beef) and cooking and eating more healthily (with a particular eye on cholesterol and blood pressure). Thus I eagerly devoured the revelations contained in this book.

Planck's main message is that nearly everything we (Americans) thought we knew about healthy eating -- avoiding butter, eggs, and red meat, opting for skim milk and skinless chicken breasts -- is wrong. Her positive prescription is to eat "real food", concurring with Michael Pollan's advice to not eat anything your great-great-grandmother would not have recognized as food. Her diagnosis of why modern Americans suffer from so much coronary disease, arteriosclerosis, diabetes and other maladies is the large-scale replacement of "real food" with industrialized food: refined vegetable oils, trans-fats, cattle and poultry raised in unnatural crowded conditions with unnatural diets and pumped up with antibiotics and steroids, and dairy products with most of their nutrients blasted out of them and then anemically added back in.

I devoured the book, mostly because I was hungry for what she had to say. I think she makes a convincing case for most of her main arguments, with explanations suffused with the depth of her research but plainly stated so that anyone can understand them. Numerous references to medical and scientific studies give credence to some of the controversial claims, where it was helpful to know that she's not alone in making them. The footnotes and the biochemistry and leavened with pieces of her personal food journey (grew up on a farm, tried to live a "healthy" diet, but ended up with improved health when she came back to "real food"), and anecdotes of the politics of how some of our misguided conventional wisdom developed.

The frustrating part is that it's not nearly as easy as it ought to be to find "real food". You've got to hunt around for pastured beef, and "raw" dairy products are even illegal in some states (though not in California). And even with our blessings of farmers markets and Whole Foods, Anne and I are wondering where we could possibly find Planck's ideal poultry - not just free-range, but raised on a combination of grass, grain, and grubs. But we'll keep looking. Planck has got me convinced it's the right thing for my health and for the planet's.

Much Ado About Cloning

I really don't get what all the fuss is about over cloning cows in the food supply. In December, the FDA made headlines when a team of scientists delivered a 678-page report concluding that the meat and milk from cloned cows was indistinguishable from that of non-cloned cows, and the FDA issued an official preliminary finding that meat and milk from cloned animals was "safe". What surprises me is that anyone was surprised by this. Cloning is just a technique for creating something that sometimes occurs naturally: twins. Can you imagine anyone going around saying "I'd be afraid to eat the meat of a cow that was a twin. The FDA should force farmers to label such things. I want required labels that say 'This meat comes from a steer that had an identical sibling.'" Anyone who espoused such views would be considered a bit nutty, and rightly so. And cloning is different how, exactly?

Almost as long as humans have been farming, they have been seeking techniques for manipulating their stock to select for superior qualities. Selective breeding, artificial insemination, and various other assisted reproduction technologies have been employed for ages with nobody caring nor needing to care. And even cloning has been used for ages on plant stock. When it comes to our fruits and vegetables, people have long been eating clones. Surprise! Nobody noticed (except perhaps to notice the increased availability of superior produce).

I understand that some people may be ethically squeamish about animal cloning, but that shouldn't cloud objective judgment over whether such food is safe. And even ethically, the only rational argument I've heard against animal cloning is the "slippery slope" concern that it's a step too close to human cloning. In response to that, I would note that we seem to manage fairly well keeping a bright line between animal husbandry and human ethics, otherwise cannibalism and eugenics would be equally viable worries. The reproductive technologies routinely employed in agriculture would surely boggle the mind if one were to take on the misguided exercise of trying to analogize them to human practices and human ethics.

Thus I was bemused to read in today's LA Times of the spectacle of some of LA's top culinary stars gathered around a table for a double-blind taste test of cloned vs non-cloned beef, and of these otherwise very sophisticated people expressing "ick" reactions to the notion of cloned beef that one would normally expect from some country rube confronting escargot for the first time. Kudos to chef Mark Peel of Campanile for hosting the event, and to those who joined (even if with reservations). Some notable foodies refused to even have anything to do with it (the Times article names some names). In the end, none of the gastronomical luminaries were able to distinguish the cloned from the non-cloned beef. Quelle surprise.

I can understand epicures concerning themselves with distinctions between cattle raised on corn versus those raised on pasture, or cattle treated with growth hormones versus those not. Those are certainly distinctions that may have an actual effect on the resulting meat (or milk). But whether an animal is cloned or not, there's simply no basis for expecting any difference. And as the old saying goes, a difference that makes no difference is no difference.

Army Welcomes Felons and Drop-Outs, Anyone But Homosexuals

Glancing at the New York Times today, an infuriating article caught my eye. "Army Giving More Waivers in Recruiting", read the headline. It should be well known to anyone that our armed forces are stretched thin with all the international operations we are supporting, with the National Guard having to be deployed overseas, and with active duty members being asked to extend and repeat tours of duty beyond what anyone ever expected. So the Army is going to lengths to staff up, and as this article tells, it is going to new lows, too. Age and weight requirements have been relaxed, minimum scores on aptitude tests lowered, and even high-school drop-outs are being recruited. In the past, a criminal record was a disqualification for military service, but last year, the DoD granted waivers to accept over 8,000 recruits with criminal records, including nearly 900 felons. So it seems the military's "unit cohesion" can tolerate thieves and felons in its midst, but just not any homosexuals. It's hard to imagine what could better underscore the sheer stupidity of the ban on gays in the military. Highly talented, motivated, and decorated servicemembers are being pointlessly discharged for being homosexual, and criminals recruited to replace them.

It's high time Congress came around to the conclusion of former Joint Chiefs Chairman John Shalikashvili, who once supported the ban, but last month publicly declared that it's time to reconsider. As he sees and says plainly, "we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job." Too bad even some of our supposed friends like Hillary Clinton (who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee) aren't doing anything about this. Fortunately, at least 123 House members have signed on to the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would do away with this senseless ban.

Farm-Fresh Dining in DC

On a business trip to Washington DC last week, I had the pleasure of sampling some of DC's top restaurants featuring farm-fresh food (a welcome new trend). My first night, my friends Don and Harv took me out to the Blue Duck Tavern, a recent arrival in the Hyatt on M and 24th St NW. The menu demonstrates their commitment to fresh ingredients, changing daily, and with the provenance of each item listed, typically from farms in nearby states. My entire meal was delicious, from the delicate artichoke soup, thru the tender and juicy pork chops (from pastured Pennsylvania pigs) in a bourbon peach glaze, accompanied by a sweet winter squash puree, to an impeccably fresh cheesecake with sour cherry compote. Bites exchanged with my companions proved their dinners equally superb preparations of the freshest ingredients. All this was complimented by a marvelous Chateau Souverain cabernet selected by Don. The only detraction was a rather uninspired selection of whisky and several fumbles getting the bar order right. But it was a top-notch meal, and I would certainly be happy to return.

Another evening, I took my colleagues to Restaurant Nora near Dupont Circle, one of the first restaurants committed to organic food. I had enjoyed a meal there years before, and my return did not disappoint. Here too great care is taken in finding the freshest, wholesome organic ingredients sourced mostly from small local farms. Muscovy duck, raised on pond and pasture by an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, made a double appearance in my meal, first in a duck liver pâté studded with pistachios and intriguingly complimented with apricot chutney and watercress, and then in a roasted duck breast, fanned out over a cornucopia of fresh vegetables cooked just enough to be bright, crisp, and flavorful. A savory cream of broccoli and ginger soup kicked off the affair, and a nice selection of hand-crafted cheeses wrapped things up in style. (Our otherwise competent server was not quite as knowledgeable about the cheeses as she should have been, but then I'm spoiled after Patina with its maître frommagier.) Not only does Nora take great care in sourcing her meats and vegetables, but she applies equal discernment in putting together an extraordinary whisky selection, offering a variety of thoughtfully chosen malts representing a variety of regions and styles, sourced from small distilleries. She sure knows how to make a good impression on the likes of me!

A Surge Without Content or Context

Listening to the House of Representatives debate the non-binding resolution of no confidence in the President's "surge" strategy gave proof to Jonathan Chait's analysis in Sunday's LA Times. Chait surveyed the arguments in support of the President's plan, and found none that had any specific content or context. They are all generic, abstract arguments that could apply to any war, making no reference to this specific situation. As Chait sums it up:

So, there you have it, the case for supporting Bush: Trust the commander in chief, don't undermine the troops, withdrawal equals defeat. These aren't arguments to support Bush's strategy, they're generic pro-war arguments. Change a few details and these lines could support Napoleon's invasion of Russia or the Crusader occupation of Jerusalem or almost any war. Generic pro-war arguments may be trite, but that's what you turn to when you've given up on reality.

If you doubt this, just listen to the arguments of the President's supporters on the House floor and ask yourself this key question: what change in the facts on the ground would take the wind out of their argument? If your argument is merely the abstract "withdrawal equals defeat", the facts of the situation in Iraq don't even really enter into it. One might infer (as Chait does) that the pro-surge crowd are making vacuous arguments since they haven't any specific fact-based arguments to make. Though having also read Nicholas Goldberg's "Confessions of an ex-pollster" in the same pages, a more cynical person might wonder whether the pro-surge supporters do have fact-based arguments to make, but just don't think they would poll as well as the generic slogans. But I'm ultimately more impressed with arguments against the surge, grounded in specific context, such as that put forward by Zbigniew Brzezinski. A withdrawal is not a great option, but at this point, it's looking better than the alternatives.

FOOD: Christy's Ristorante

After the concert, Bill and Leo took us to a very nice dinner at Christy's Ristorante in Long Beach's Broadway Corridor, where we met up with their friend Kate. It was our first time at the restaurant, but they'd been there many times before. We thought we could waltz in at 6:30pm on a Saturday night and get seated, but even at that early hour a reservation was needed. The restaurant, spread out over several rooms, was buzzing. So we hunkered down in the bar, and ordered some cocktails and appetizers, visiting and letting the time pass. The bar displayed an interesting collection of libations, and I spied a whisky I'd never heard of, a 16-year-old Tomintoul. Having been stomping around Aberdeenshire recently, I knew where Tomintoul was, a gateway village to the Speyside region, so I figured it had to be tried. It turned out to be light and very aromatic, not unlike a Dalwhinnie. Off to a good start, shortly confirmed by the arrival of our appetizers. An architecturally arranged pile of diver scallops, lightly scented with cumin, with carmelized cippolino onions, was perfectly cooked. And the shrimp skewer came with a delicious very lemony butter sauce. Fortified by these, we settled in to the back room of the bar, where a homey couch and chairs arrangement allowed us to visit and sip comfortably. A table turned up sooner than promised, and the dinner that ensued was every bit as good as the beginning promised. The menu was Italian, with a nice balance of pastas and meat and fish dishes. I had some New Zealand lamb chops that were tender, juicy, and a perfect medium-rare, roasted with rosemary (and presented with a aromatic sprig to enhance the effect), and complimented with a sweet pinot noir and pomegranite reduction. I couldn't resist picking up the bones to get every last bit of that delicious meat, and then licking my fingers. Bill and Leo both had a hazelnut-encrusted sea bass with tomato-basil risotto and asparagus, of which no evidence remained when they were done. Nor was there anything on George's plate, which had contained king salmon roasted on a cedar plank (on which it was also served), adorned with a mango salsa, sauteed broccolini and also the tomato-basil risotto. And Kate, who claimed to be not a big clam fan, nonetheless ate up her linguine con vongole. This feast was finished off with some sorbets (they had some interesting fresh fruit flavors, including pomegranite and mango), a gluten-free creme brulée for George, and a deliciously rich chocolate banana bread pudding with five spoons. We will be glad to visit Christy's again.

MUSIC: Claudia Calderón at the Museum of Latin American Art

Yesterday afternoon we met our friends Bill and Leo down in Long Beach for a concert by Venezuelan pianist Claudia Calderón. We knew nothing about her, but the concert was being put on by the Da Camera Society, who arrange chamber music concerts in interesting sites (churches, architecturally significant buildings and private homes), and whose taste is impeccable. This concert was at the Museum of Latin American Art, a museum I'd always been interested to check out, but never had. We got there early to check out the museum before the concert. There was a special exhibit called "UnbrokenTies: Dialogues in Cuban Art", featuring paintings and photographs. Some of them pointed out contrasts (a pair of photos showing a government official's house and a similarly styled citizen's house, the first immaculately maintained and the second one falling apart -- at first glance it looked almost like "before and after" pictures of a renovation), while others pointed out similarities (a pair of photos showing a group of old men playing dominos in Havana, and a group of old men playing dominos in Miami). And of course many had poignant symbols of the "bolseros". One painting titled "Saltida de Temporada Alta" (something like "high season for leaving") showed two figures carrying a flotation life-ring, decorated with compass points, some pointing to success and some pointing to death. The permanent collection had many interesting paintings, photographs, sculptures and other media, but two paintings in particular stayed with me. "Exodo" (exodus) by Mexican-trained painter Arnold Belkin, portrayed a man and woman in the foreground of a crowd of people, the man looking forward with grim determination etched on his face, and the woman holding his arm while looking back with a face full of sorrow and loss. The emotions were vivid, and the style made me think of Van Gogh or Munch as much as the Mexican muralists who Belkin had studied under. "Vendedora de Ayote" (woman selling squash) by Nicaraguan painter Sergio Velasquez had a voluptuous woman (think Gaston Lachaise proportions) with some large gourds, and the most amazing light in it. The woman literally had a glow coming from within her that was so powerful that I looked around to see if it were being aided by an external light source.

The museum was a nice prelude to the concert, which was phenomenal. Claudia Calderón is a pianist and a musicologist who has studied extensively the musical styles of Latin America, particularly the plains of Venezuela and Colombia, a style called joropo. (In introducing her, the director of Da Camera called her the Bela Bartok of Venezuela.) She has taken this music and arranged it for piano, accompanied by a trio of traditional and modern instruments: the cuatro, the maracas, and a double-bass. The joropo music typically has a fast lively beat, that Calderón compared to galloping on a horse. It was true: as they performed, I felt transported to the Orinoco plains, galloping across the free open spaces, wind and sunshine on my face. It is ambiguous whether the piano is a string instrument (it has strings) or a percussion instrument (the keys cause hammers to hit the strings), but under Calderón's hands, it was clearly a percussion instrument. Her hands flew vigorously over the keys, striking percussive beats while bright melodic notes flew. I wondered how so much sound could come from only two hands. Her band were all incredibly talented, and they played with the feel of a longtime jazz combo. You could see the communication among them, as they watched one another, exchanging looks, and feeding off one another's musical energy. And like a jazz combo, the focus would shift from one to another as they took featured riffs and solos. Like Calderón's piano, the cuatro (a small Venezuelan guitar) played by Henry Linarez was as much a percussion instrument as a string one. This small instrument produced a prodigious amount of sound, as he strummed and picked the strings, while tapping the resonant body. José Alberto Pérez was masterful on the maracas, producing a surprising variety of rhythmic patterns, a rattlesnake one second and instantly silent the next, then clearly articulated triplets the next. Roberto Koch played his double-bass like a lover, sometimes tenderly and sometimes pumping hard. The rhythms were thrilling, with much syncopation, and even one merengue piece in 5/8 time, with alternating twos and threes energetically driving the music. This ensemble produced such music that the audience was rapt, and leapt to our feet at the end. And then stood in line to buy a CD.

I've Been Tagged -- Five Fun Facts

My friend and college roommate Hal Stern has "tagged" me in a blog meme game, where he has revealed five little-known facts about himself, and has tagged five others to do the same. So I'm supposed to reveal five things here, and then tag five others, and so it goes. This was a bit of a struggle for me, as I am a very open person, and there's little about me that I haven't published in some form. (Just Google me and you can assemble a fairly comprehensive picture of my interests, hobbies, views, and professional career.) Heck, I was blogging on the Internet since before the word was coined, and my old personal website (created before I met my husband) included a fairly complete chronology of my lovelife and other adventures. But taking all that off the table, here are five fun tidbits that might actually surprise some people who know me.

1. I played intramural hockey in college. To those who knew me before college, when I was completely athletically inept, and to those who knew me later, when my chosen athletic outlets were more typical yuppie sports like bicycling and skiing, hockey may seem an unexpected choice. But this is a hat tip to Hal, who was responsible for encouraging me onto the rink, where I actually had a lot of fun, at a time in my life when I was just discovering that I wasn't so athletically inept after all. I actually played for a year on an amateur league here in LA in the 1980s, and even once attended a coaching session with Luc Robitaille and Rob Blake. But didn't have the exclusive passion for it that would motivate me to go to weeknight games and practices at the absurd late-night hours that were the only time we could get ice time. Now, alas, with bicycling and snowboarding as well as hockey, I'm a "former great" (as my friend Ann Marie would say). My primary athletic achievement these days is walking three-quarters of a mile each way to Starbucks in the afternoons.


2. I proposed marriage to a woman, but was turned down. Back in the 1980s, I grew very close to a woman who might well have been the "right one" if I weren't gay. She is Chinese, and a national of Malaysia, and it troubled me to see the outrageous bureaucratic obstacles our government throws in the way of persons who are honest, hard-working, productive and in every respect the sort of immigrant we ought to be encouraging. Not to mention employers who sponsor immigrant employees on a temporary work visa and then take advantage of them because they know they have them over a barrel. So I proposed a marriage of convenience as a path to citizenship for her. I cared for her very much, and was willing to live in a "real enough" marriage for enough years to get her citizenship. But she had more integrity than that, and turned me down. (I'm glad to report that she's now happily married, has two great kids, and works for the World Bank where national status isn't an issue.)


3. I've rapelled down a waterfall. To those who know me well enough to know that I'm afraid of heights, this will be impressive. This came toward the end of hiking and splashing our way down a deep river gorge in the Blue Mountains of Australia, where we had to grab a rope and step backwards off the top of a 150-foot waterfall. I'm afraid of heights, but am also thrilled by them (like a moth to a flame, one might say). I've also jumped out of an airplane from 13,000 feet, but more people know about that one.


4. I almost had a bar mitzvah. My (a)religious upbringing was a mostly-secular hodge-podge. Our family had no religion at all (we celebrated Christmas and Easter, but it was about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny). I sang in a Methodist church choir as a boy, because our neighbors (one of whom was my piano teacher) attended there. I also inherited a bit of Jewish identity from my mother, even though she was never religious, and was herself was the product of an unreligious mixed marriage. But Judaism is more than just a religion, it's an ethnic identity. It's about a way of talking, a way of thinking, a way of eating, and much more. My inherited Jewish identity came from Mom hand-in-hand with my sense of being a second-hand New Yorker. So when I went off to college, I fell in with a Jewish circle of friends, started attending Friday night Sabbath services regularly, studied Hebrew, and nearly went through with a bar mitzvah at age 18. (College turned out to be harder than high school, and I didn't have the extra time I'd have needed to fully prepare to go through with it.)


5. I've eaten whale meat. Friends are well aware that I'm adventurous in my eating. I eat pretty much anything I'm served, and generally enjoy it. And if there's something strange or unusual on a menu that I've never tried before, I'm all over it. (Much to my husband's horror, who is inclined to stick with tried and true.) When people ask me the strangest thing I've eaten, the bee larvae that I ate when trekking thru the jungles of northern Thailand is usually the first thing that comes to mind, so a lot of people have heard that story. I also ate iguana on the same trek. But I seldom think to mention the whale meat that I ate when visiting Norway. That one should score points not only for the ewww-factor, but also the un-PC factor. Whale meat, in case you're curious, tastes nothing like chicken. It's much more like beef liver.

So hopefully you learned something interesting about me. Now, I hereby tag: good friends Chris and Thommy because they're both thoughtful bloggers who should have some interesting things to reveal; Dave and Robert who are also good writers but whose blogs are a bit stale and need prodding; and Kip, who always has lots of interesting things to say about politics, and only recently has been revealing a bit more "inside the vault".

Stimson Should Be Sacked And Disbarred

I'm a day or two late to the outrage party on this one, but I'll add my voice to the chorus of people suggesting that Charles "Cully" Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, should be sacked for demonstrating profound and dangerous ignorance of the American legal system. Making comments during an interview with a Washington DC radio program, Stimson expressed dismay that lawyers at some of the nation's top law firms were defending Guantanamo detainees on a pro bono basis. Stimson suggested that he'd like to publish a list of these law firms, and that business clients should consider boycotting them. This is simply outrageous. A vigorous defense in an adversarial trial system with defendants presumed innocent until proven guilty is at the very heart of our American legal system. The tradition of pro bono work on the part of American lawyers is an essential part of insuring that quality representation is available to all. It's vital to the system to mount a proper defense, for the integrity of the system, otherwise the process becomes a mockery of justice. Even Saddam Hussein got some top lawyers defending him, which was as it should be, so that the process of the trial is demonstrably fair. To be sure, some of the detainees at Guantanamo may well be dangerous threats to our nation, but that remains to be proved. The government should make its case against those people, and they should be entitled to a quality defense. To suggest that it is somehow "un-American" for lawyers to volunteer to defend detainees is to fundamentally misunderstand the American legal system. And to suggest that law firms supporting such pro bono work should be targeted for boycott is actively hostile to the integrity of our legal system. Having demonstrated such reckless contempt for our legal system, Charles Stimson should not only be immediately sacked from his government appointment, he should also be disbarred.

Final Surge? Or Staging For Iran?

Some of the beltway tea-leaf-readers are seeing dark signs. The "surge", they warn, is really just about keeping our foot in Iraq as a stepping stone to going into Iran. The evidence? For starters, there were some stern words for Iran and Syria in the President's speech the other night. Then the very next day, we appear to have attacked what some are claiming was an Iranian consulate in Iraq, and captured several Iranians. Meanwhile, when Secretary Rice was asked whether the current war authorization would extend to going into Iran, she clearly dodged the question, refusing to say no. And then there's the announcement that we're sending a second aircraft carrier group and several Patriot anti-missile batteries into the Persian Gulf. This was casually dropped into the President's speech, as if it were connected to our efforts in Iraq. But how exactly does an aircraft carrier group or an anti-missile battery help in Baghdad or Anbar? No mistake, that move is aimed at Iran. It seems there are still some glassy-eyed neocons impervious to reality who think that escalating the current debacle into a wider regional conflict would be a good thing. Frightening.