News & Politics

Marit Fosso • February 13, 2012

Do you need a perfect beginning to your St. Valentine’s Day celebration? Treat your better half to a romantic breakfast in bed! Pancakes are, of course, a safe bet for any special breakfast, and a portion of chocolate pear pancakes are sure to satisfy any chocolate lover.

Chocolate Pear Pancakes

Cook & Prep time: 35mins

Makes 6 x 20cm/8-inch pancakes (Serves 2)

Ingredients

For the batter

50g/2oz Plain Flour

½ – 1 tablespoon Pure Cocoa Powder

1 Egg

150ml/5fl.oz. Milk

For the pears

2 Pears, peeled, cored and cut into 1cm/ ½ – inch pieces

About 4 tbsp Sugar

1 x 2.5cm/1-inch Cinnamon Stick

Cold water

For the Chocolate Sauce

50g/2oz good-quality dark Chocolate, broken into small pieces

25g/1oz Butter

3 tbsp Honey

Vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Place the flour and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl or large jug, mix well then add the egg and milk and mix until well blended and smooth using a balloon whisk or handheld electric. Set it aside whilst you prepare the pears.

2. Place the chopped pears in a small saucepan together with the cinnamon and sugar and enough cold water to come halfway up the fruit. Place over a medium heat and bring to simmering point, mixing well and continue to cook for about 5 minutes or until soft.

3. Meanwhile, put the chocolate, butter and honey in a heatproof bowl and place over a pan of simmering water and leave until the chocolate starts to melt. Mix well until you have a smooth sauce. Remove the pan from the heat, cover the bowl with a lid or clingfilm but leave it in the pan and set aside.

4. Once the pears are tender, turn the heat off, drain any excess liquid, remove the cinnamon stick then crush the pears with a fork. Cover with a lid and set aside whilst you cook the pancakes.

5. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a small frying pan until very hot, swirling it around to coat the base of the pan. Pour off most of the oil then add one sixth of the batter to the hot pan, tilting the pan so the batter covers the base evenly. Cook for about 1 minute until just set then loosen the edges using a palette knife or fish slice, turn the pancake over and cook for a further 30 seconds or so until lightly browned. Repeat with the remaining batter, keeping the cooked pancakes warm under the grill or in a low oven.

To Serve fold each pancake into quarters, place three on a plate, place the pear mixture over the pancakes then drizzle with the chocolate sauce.

Maybe your soulmate is not into a major sugar kick early in the morning. Instead, treat her or him to a cup of delicious coffee with cute cookies on the side.

“I love you” Cookies

0.5 lb soft butter

0.5 lb powdered sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

4 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 lb. flour

0.1 lb vanilla pudding powder

Preheat the oven to 356F. Run the butter and sugar in a mixer, mix until it is fluffy. Add both eggs, and the sour cream, mix this for two minutes. Stir together baking powder, baking soda, salt, flour and vanilla pudding powder in another bowl. Add the vanilla extract to the butter mix. Mix everything until the dough is ready. Leave the dough in the fridge for at least an hour. Roll out the dough, use extra flour if it’s too sticky. Use heartshaped “Message in a cookie” cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma.

Bake for about ten minutes in the oven. Let the cookies cool before you decorate them. (Recipe from www.passion4baking.com)

Georgetowner •

Appalachian Spring Gift Wrap for Charity

February 10th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | info@appalachianspring.com | Tel: 202-337-5780 | Event Website

Appalachian Spring in Georgetown will be offering gift wrap of your Appalachian Spring Valentine’s Day purchases with a donation to Bread for the City from February 10-14. During store hours.

Bread for the City offers low-income residents of Washington, DC: food and clothing, primary medical care, legal advice and representation, and comprehensive social services.

Address

Appalachian Spring

1415 Wisconsin Ave

Washington, DC 20007

Spy at Night

February 10th, 2012 at 06:00 PM | 14.95-27.95 | vsmanagers@spymuseum.org | Tel: 202.393.7798 | Event Website

Next month, D.C.’s most mysterious museum debuts its revamped Spy at Night experience, providing area residents exclusive, after-hours access to its permanent collection and an evening full of intrigue, deception and cocktails. The first in the re-launched series is a James Bond-themed occasion on Friday, February 10, with future events occurring the second Friday of every month.

Address

International Spy Museum

800 F Street, NW

Washington, D.C.

Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station

Film Screening: HAPPY

February 11th, 2012 at 11:00 AM | $6.00

The film HAPPY is the latest from Academy Award-nominated director, Roko Belic, and is launching discussion about the state of our nation’s ‘happiness’ level in comparison with other countries, including Japan, Bhutan and Denmark. The film won the Audience Choice Award at the Arizona International Film Festival, the Best Feature Film Award at the Costa Rica International Film Festival, and numerous other similar awards.

Address

AMC Loews Georgetown 14

3111 K Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20007

One City Summit

February 11th, 2012 at 09:30 AM | Event Website

Join Mayor Gray at the One City Summit, “Let Your Voice Be Heard” to help the District become a more livable, vibrant and inclusive city for everyone.

Address

Washington Convention Center

801 Mount Vernon Place, NW

Washington, DC 20001

Woo at the Zoo

February 14th, 2012 at 04:30 PM | $11-$22 | Event Website

Woo at the Zoo, a fun-filled event for both singles, and couples, where they can learn about animal mating, dating and reproductive habits in a humorous way.

Address

Smithsonian National Zoo

Alan Caruba •

Back in the 1980s, I have worked professionally with elements of the pest control industry providing public relations services The process of educating the public is necessary because new generations must be informed of the threats pests pose to health and property.

Back when it was still known as the National Pest Control Association, I even received a beautiful certificate of appreciation that hangs in my office. At some point several years ago, it and state organizations changed their name to “Pest Management” presumably to divest themselves of the image of actually killing the creatures that annually spread disease and do millions in property damage.

In past years, environmental organizations devoted a lot of time and money to convince the public that the real problem was the pest controllers, not the pests. If they all changed their profession next Monday, the entire nation would be totally over-run with roaches, termites, rats and mice in a month. The work is not glamorous, but it is utterly essential to society.

A case in point is bed bugs that have emerged in a few short years into a full-fledged pest problem from coast to coast. Thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency, the lack of pesticides registered to exterminate them has facilitated this new plague. There is, I believe, only one.

I have watched as the EPA has, since its founding, insanely strip pest control professionals and consumers of access to pesticides that formerly had protected their parents and grandparents, as well as their homes and businesses.

When you take away the pesticides, all you have left are the pests.

The modern pest control industry had its beginnings in the Middle Ages with the emergence of “rat catchers,” men who had developed a variety of poisons to rid homes and other properties of the ubiquitous rodent. Even the kings and queens of England had a royal rat catcher.

They were such a part of life in those times that the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has been passed down to us. It was, of course, the combination of rats and fleas that spread the Black Plague in the Middle Ages, killing a third or more of the population of Europe.

So why, one must ask, have the burghers of Washington, D.C., responsible for passing the laws, passed the truly insane one titled the “Wildlife Protection Act” that requires pest control operators not only to capture rats in a fashion that does not harm them in any way but to transport them 25 miles away to be set free?

As Don Boys noted in a recent Canada Free Press article, “Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, said D.C.’s new rat law is ‘crazier than fiction’ because it requires vermin not be killed but rather captured, preferably in ‘families,’ and transferred to a ‘wildlife rehabilitator’ ” — presumably living in Virginia.

Here are a few facts about rats:

— Rats have a life span of approximately nine months.

— Rats are ready to breed within three months. Their gestation period is 22 days, and they have an average litter of eight. An average female rat will provide 20 offspring.

— A single pair of rats has the potential, mathematically, of producing 359 million descendents in three year’s time.

— The average overall length of a rat is 16 inches, with a body measuring 9 inches and a tail of 7 inches. The average weight of a rat is 1-1/4 pounds. Their color can range from reddish brown to black.

— A rat’s sense of smell is excellent, as is its sense of taste. They are particularly suspicious of food. This results often in “bait shyness.” Rats will leave a poisoned bait untouched for almost a week. Other members of the pack will avoid food not eaten by other members and often warn other rats away by sprinkling it with their urine or feces.

— Rats can gain access to virtually any structure. They can climb 15 feet up a rough, surfaced vertical wall. They can jump vertically one foot from a flat surface and they can easily traverse telephone wires and ropes. They are, in addition, good swimmers.

Virginia and other states near Washington, D.C., do not want the District’s rats. They have plenty of their own. They also have a complete host of other rodents and wildlife that require the ministrations of pest control professionals.

There are a host of very good reasons why every American city and town has extensive laws regarding the control of insect and rodent pests, as well as wildlife that includes raccoons, opossum, squirrels, turkeys, coyotes, deer and bears.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that rats must be killed to protect people and property, but not the members of the District Council who were more intent on protecting the rats than their constituents.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

A past contributor to these pages, Alan Caruba also posts daily commentaries at “Warning Signs” .

Michelle Kingston • February 8, 2012

Did you have any trouble accessing your favorite sites last Wednesday? Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Wordpress.org, TwitPic, Good Old Games and a couple of handfuls more shut down on Jan. 18 to participate in the largest online protest in history.

You were unable to Google these guys as they blacked out to demonstrate what the future could hold for the internet world if SOPA and PIPA were to be passed.

No, we are not talking about the Middleton sisters, but in fact, two bills that could potentially change the way we surf the net. The Stop Online Piracy Act and its sister, the Protect IP [Intellectual Property] Act, are designed to secure the problem with foreign-based sites selling pirated movies, music and more.

Many have argued that the bills undermine free speech and make it possible for the government to take down any site that includes links to pirated content. They also give the Justice Department more authority to stop U.S. companies from providing funding to the foreign sites. It would also block access by making it impossible to type in web addresses to these sites or by requiring Google and other search engines to disable links to the pirated pages.

The way the House bill is written is so broad that SOPA and PIPA opponents fear that some of the most visited online sites, such as Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter that rely heavily on content uploaded by users which can then be pirated, could be targeted.

Thanks to our favorite pages turning their lights out, the public was alerted of the seriousness of the bill, showed us all how our lives could potentially be affected, and the bills were tossed to the trash — for now, anyway.

On Jan. 20, Congress shelved the bill. SOPA and PIPA were supposed to be debated and voted on, but after the protest, the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, released a statement explaining that they would be postponed. Pheeew.

Michelle Kingston •

Despite the Controlled Substances Act that makes cultivating, selling and distributing marijuana illegal, the nation’s capital will be welcoming weGrow, a full service hydroponic superstore, in March.
This place is a one-stop shop for everything necessary to start a garden. Commonly referred to as the “Wal-Mart of Weed,” weGrow has the largest showroom of hydroponic equipment sure to help medical marijuana cultivators and indoor harvesters but does not sell actual plants in stores.
“This is a great step forward for medical marijuana patients in Washington, D.C., and nearby states,” Wong said. “WeGrow will be here to work with medical marijuana growers to ensure the safest indoor growing practices are being followed to produce the best quality medicine for patients.”

Under a new D.C. law, doctors in the area can write medical marijuana prescriptions for patients with chronic ailments like cancer and HIV/AIDS. The law also lists 10 sites that will soon be authorized to grow the plant and five distribution centers where the medical marijuana can be picked up by patients.
The weGrow store is set to open its 2,500-square-foot store at 1522 Rhode Island Ave., N.E., near the only Home Depot in D.C. and just a few blocks from the Rhode Island Avenue Metro stop.

Michelle Kingston •

The Trust for the National Mall announced today that it has received a $7.5 million donation from David Rubenstein, Co-Founder of The Carlyle Group. The gift will provide the funding required to repair the Washington Monument, which suffered extensive damage from a 5.8 magnitude earthquake on August 23, 2011.

“David Rubenstein is a true patriot, and we are grateful for his significant and generous contribution to restore the Washington Monument, one of America’s greatest treasures,” said Caroline Cunningham, President of the Trust for the National Mall. “David’s leadership demonstrates how the public/private partnership of the Trust and the National Park Service will successfully drive the restoration and enhancement of the National Mall, home to the hope, history and heroes of the America.”

“America has been very good to me and I am humbled to be able to honor the father of our country in this way,” said Rubenstein. “Reopening the monument as soon as possible will help ensure that many people get to learn about American history and the unique role that George Washington played in the birth and life of our great nation.”

According to a report released by the National Park Service, inspectors found numerous cracked and chipped stones, including six large cracks that extend through the marble exterior of the Monument’s pyramidion, that have left the 127 year-old structure extremely vulnerable. The Monument also suffered missing mortar, the displacement of components of the lightning protection system, and damage to the elevator counter weight frame.

Congress recently allocated $7.5 million to repair the Monument with the expectation that the National Park Service in partnership with the Trust for the National Mall would raise an equal amount in private donations. David Rubenstein’s generous contribution meets that objective.

“Millions of people have seen the dramatic video of chunks of mortar and limestone raining down on visitors in the monument as the quake rocked the east coast last August,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “While no one was hurt, the damage to this iconic obelisk was substantial and it has been closed to the public ever since. Thanks to David’s gift and the support of the American people, the National Park Service will once again welcome visitors to the Washington Monument and share the story of our nation’s first President.”

The National Park Service expects to award a contract to repair the monument by this August; work is expected to take 10-12 months.

The Trust for the National Mall is the official non-profit partner of the National Park Service dedicated to restoring and improving the National Mall. For more information on the Trust for the National Mall and the work that is being done to restore America’s Front Yard, please visit www.nationalmall.org.

Robert Devaney •

The transformation of Georgetown’s land along the Potomac River was completed four months ago. After years in the making, Georgetown Waterfront Park now stands as a stupendous achievement for this town and the District of Columbia. It had many advocates, including our beloved Sen. Charles Percy, who died four days after its official National Park Service dedication ceremony in September. Along with private contributions, the federal and District government stood behind it. Throughout all of this, the local non-profit, the Friends of Georgetown Waterfront Park, never took its eyes off the prize.

The $24-million, 9.5-acre park was a project of the National Park Service, the Friends of Georgetown Waterfront Park and the District of Columbia government. Designed by Wallace Roberts & Todd of Philadelphia, it is the largest park created in D.C. since Constitution Gardens was completed on the National Mall in 1976.

Once the land of old Georgetown’s wharves and then factories, the riverside had deteriorated into parking lots and empty land. In 1985, the District of Columbia transferred the waterfront land to the National Park Service. In the late 1990s, the Georgetown Waterfront Commission made the long push for completion, bringing together volunteers, residents, the rowing community, local leaders and the National Park Service. That group morphed into the Friends of Georgetown Waterfront Park.

The park features pathways, granite artwork that tells the story of Georgetown as a port, a labyrinth, and a bio-engineered river edge, along with a pergola, fountain and river stairs.

While we salute contributors, private and public, and the National Park Service, it is the Friends of Georgetown Waterfront Park—its members and main officers, Robert Von Eigen, Jonda McFarlane, Barbara Downs, Robin Gilbert, Ann Satterthwaite, Grace Bateman, Gretchen Ellsworth, Corinne Bronfman and Roger Stone — that earned the accolade: Georgetowners of the Year 2011. All of them have given us back our river and made “America’s best idea” even better.
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Gary Tischler •

Gay marriage is a hot-button issue among what’s left of the sorry lot of Republicans running for President. Alongside the debates and elections is the touring production of the successful 2010 Broadway revival of “La Cage Aux Folles,” the 1980s mega-hit musical of gay glitter, glam, romance and divas. This musical brings with it an aura that’s part eager-to-please and part pixelated nostalgia that has settled in at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater.

This “La Cage,” maybe any “La Cage,” does not prove the show biz and social buzz of everything old is new again. This “La Cage” is what it is, or as its true star and diva, Zaza, famously sings, “I am What I Am.” The musical is plenty dazzling, even if the production often seems like a visitor from the past.

“La Cage” has had so many incarnations and identities that it’s a wonder Leonardo DiCaprio hasn’t been in one of them. It started out as a French comedy and became very successful in the United States. This show features a pair of gay men, one being Georges, a stylish, elegant owner of “La Cage a Folles,” a popular nightclub where men dress spectacularly as women and put on a nightly vaudeville/musical show. His partner, Albin, is insecure, emotional and often hysterical, who transforms himself nightly into Zaza, the blinding star of “La Cage.” Together, they’ve managed to raise a son whom Georges acquired as a result of a youthful fling with a Parisian showgirl long ago. Now, sunny boy is in love with the daughter of a virulently homophobic politician who’s coming to visit with his wife. Voila-le situation.

Out of this material, the writer-actor-playwright, Harvey Fierstein, and big-time Broadway composer, Jerry Herman, brought forth a hugely successful musical which starred the growly-voiced Fierstein as Albin and, oddly, Gene Barry of television’s “Bat Masterson” as Georges. The show ran as forever as you can on Broadway and then reappeared in a not quite successful revival in the early 2000s. A second revival, which originated in the West End in London, was again a big hit, as was its Broadway version which would feature Kelsey Grammer in his Broadway musical debut as Georges in 2010. The production, now at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, has George Hamilton starring as Georges and Christopher Sieber as Albin.

“La Cage” was the crowning glory of Herman’s career, which was preceded by “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame,” both spectacular musicals and vehicles for diva-type actresses and anthem songs. Both seemed to be part of a journey for which “La Cage” and Albin/Zaza seemed to be the final destination.

A few years back, Mike Nichols directed an American non-musical film version called, “The Bird Cage,” which starred Robin Williams (playing Georges) and Nathan Lane as his partner, as well as Gene Hackman in a remarkably funny turn as a blustering right-wing senator.

But now we have “La Cage” right in our own backyard. For mysterious reasons, although it often operates in a kind of vacuum where no time has passed at all, it’s almost irresistible for its sheer entertaining sincerity and pink-and-white-feather, scene-stealing and changing show. In spite of its not-so-middle-of-the-road setting, it has an old-style Broadway razzle-dazzle and — it should be said — sentiment. It’s all about love, romance, enduring affection, great big hearts and, what do you know, family values. In “La Cage”, nobody argues about gay marriage, but the idea of family is sentimentally self-evident, especially in the song, “Look Over There,” which extolls Albin’s constancy and maternal qualities. With great, slapdash humor, the show also manages to get across the point that the home of Albin and Georges — colorful and eccentric though it may be — is 1,000 mega-watts more normal and loving than that of the politician, who treats his wife like a beast of burden not allowed to speak.

It is 2012 after all, and this show still bowls you over as in the past with eye-candy costume, terrific dancing on the part of the gentlemen and lads who perform as “Les Cagelles” (Angelique, Bitelle, Chantal, Hanna of the Whips, Mercedes and Phaedra), and also includes a house warm-up act, a kind of sit-down comedian in drag.

The part of Georges — a stylish, but low-key, pragmatic sort — has often been played in the past by a Hollywood leading-man type, somewhat asexual except for the red smoking jacket. It has included the likes of Barry, Van Johnson and Hollywood Squares host, Peter Marshall. Hamilton, while a little slow afoot at age 72, still had that old Hollywood, wavy hair magnetism, but he had something even better. At first blush, Georges and Albin have always appeared as an odd couple, a relationship that runs like a roller coaster going down most of the time. But Hamilton lets you see by singing “The Best of Times” and looking at Albin with hapless, hopeful, can’t-help-myself love just how deep the feelings run between these two men.

You might cringe a little here and there throughout the production since it remains squarely rooted in the 1980s: the politicians are hurling words like “homosexual,” as if they were saying “serial killer” and the events taking place at “La Cage” are seen as scandalous and shocking. Time has done its work, as it always does, but it’s taken none of the fizz off this enduring and legendary musical.

Just don’t expect to see Rick Santorum sitting next to you.

“La Cage Aux Folles” runs through Feb. 12 at the Eisenhower Theater.
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Gary Tischler •

Rhythm and blues — the musical category sometimes infused with soul, jazz and rock and roll—seems like an oxymoron, as if saying “I’m so sad and depressed I wanna shake it all around with the whole dang mess of it.”

But then, the genre has always been a crossroads for all sorts of feelings and characters. It’s where the heart multitasks its pain and jubilation. It’s where Elvis Presley soaked up Beale Street. It’s where Billie Holiday brought a smoky blues to jazz. It’s where song-writers from everywhere made people get off their behinds and do everything from the glide to the hand jive to sultry, slow dancing.

It’s where the son of Greek immigrants and a woman whose life and music all but embodied a steady saunter on the dark, sad, wild side, which she turned into the most soulful of troubled blues. And somewhere in there, the two crossed paths, one discovering the other.

These two — Johnny Otis, 90, born Johnny Alexander Aliotes and sometimes called the “Godfather of Rhythm and Blues,” and Etta James, 73, who translated her own trouble life of sad romance and loss into powerful blues-filled music — died within three days of each other.

Otis, a multi-tasker in his own right was a bandleader, club owner, musician and, most influentially and importantly, songwriter and talent scout. He embraced African-American musical forms with gusto. He loved jazz, rhythm and blues, the blues themselves and soul music. And he discovered James, by way of his Barrelhouse Club and Revue in the Watts section of Los Angeles when she was a teenagee, as was Esther Phillips, the dynamo jazz singer also discovered by Otis.

The life of Otis criss-crosses genres and was fueled by a strong melting-pot passion, an avid love of African-American culture as muse and part of the great American mosaic. In his times, everybody crossed his path including the great blues singer Big Mama Thornton, who did the original version of “Hound Dog,” a song which later became a part of Elvis’s early success. Last, but not least, Otis was the author of the hugely popular song “Willie and the Hand Jive.”

Etta James was now and forever known for “At Last,” the stirring, heartbreaking (when sung by James) ballad of utter love, loss and triumph, which Beyonce sang to the Obamas at one of their inaugural balls, stirring up some controversial anger on the part of James.

She needn’t have worried. Although, ironically, Beyonce played James in a dramatized account of Chess Records called “Cadillac Records,” “At Last” was her song, every last emotion-packed line and vowel. She was one of those gifted singers and musicians — Charlie Parker and Billie were others — who struggled throughout her life with various well-documented addictions. The troubles — money, drugs, lovers and husbands — draped all over music, she brought, like Billie, the blues to jazz and added her own voice and style.

Born Jamasetta Hawkins, she met Otis as a teen in the 1960s. He guided her career for a number of years and also dubbed her Etta. Back then she wrote “Roll With Me Henry,” a raccous, sensual song, somewhat later, became “Dance With Me Henry,” a sanitized hit for Georgia Gibbs — because “roll” connoted sexual activity.

By all accounts, James was one-of-a-kind on stage: dynamic, dramatic, raunchy, powerful and moving. It’s the kind of concert stuff from which legends are built.

She told one reporter that when she sang the blues, she sang life. Her life, to be sure, but that’s what all the great blues and jazz singers and musicians do: singing life, living songs.

Lisa Gillespie •

This is the Year of the Dragon, which will be quite evident at the Chinese Lunar New Year Parade, taking place on Sunday, January 29, from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm, on H and I streets, between 6th and 8th streets in Chinatown.

The Chinese community in the Washington metropolitan area will celebrate the New Year with local residents and visitors at the annual Parade and accompanying festivities, featuring traditional Chinese dragon and lion dances, musical bands, including a local high school Marching Tribe, a cultural exhibition, and the giant firecracker—an all-time favorite that explodes at 3:45 pm.

The festivities also will include programs and activities at the Chinatown Community Cultural Center. Revelers can participate in face painting, live music and performances, and raffles from noon to 5:00 pm. The Parade attracts more than 20,000 people annually and is sponsored by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Washington, DC.