The Washington Post National Weekly - March 20, 2016

Worst Week Marco Rubio 3

Politics Obama enters the 2016 fray 4

Food We just can’t give these up 17

5 Myths Ku Klux Klan 23

ABCDE NATIONAL WEEKLY SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2016

For an expectant mother with Zika, there is one overwhelming thought:

‘IS MY BABY OKAY?’ PAGE 12

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KLMNO WEEKLY

WORST WEEK IN WASHINGTON

Marco Rubio

by Chris Cillizza

W

atching a political dream die is bad enough.

Knowing it’s dying and being unable to do anything about it? Even worse.

Marco Rubio knew on March 8 — and probably long before that — that he wasn’t going to beat Donald Trump in the Florida presidential primary on Tuesday night.

And he knew that losing his home state meant that his time as a presidential candidate was over.

But he decided to keep campaigning in the face of that insurmountable challenge — hoping against hope that lightning would strike in Florida on Tuesday.

It didn’t. Trump lapped the field with almost 46 percent of the vote. Rubio was a very distant second with just 27 percent. He beat Trump in only one county in the state — his home county of Miami­Dade.

“America is in the middle of a real political storm, a real tsunami and we should have seen this coming,” Rubio said in his speech that night as he left the race. “While we are on the right side, we will not be on the winning side.”

He probably should have seen it coming. It had been clear for months that Trump was the prime mover in the race and that the only way to the nomination was through or over him. Rubio seemed entirely content to ignore Trump until, suddenly earlier this month, he jumped into the gutter with the real estate mogul.

Rubio took shots at Trump’s face, his urinary habits and his sweat. Voters hated it. By the time Rubio

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CARLO ALLEGRI/REUTERS

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) hugs his family after announcing that he is suspending his campaign for president at an event Tuesday in Miami.

apologized for that strategy, his campaign was already dead. The final week felt like a death march.

By Thursday, Rubio was back in the Senate — a place he had spent very little time over the past 18 months and which he will retire from come November. “Clearly exhausted from a yearlong bid for the presidency, Rubio sighed and took several deep breaths throughout the seven­minute press briefing,” wrote The Post’s Paul Kane.

Marco Rubio, for having to trudge through your own personal political nightmare, you had the Worst Week in Washington. n

This publication was prepared by editors at The Washington Post for printing and distribution by our partner publications across the country. All articles and columns have previously appeared in The Post or on washingtonpost.com and have been edited to fit this format. For questions or comments regarding content, please e-mail weekly@washpost.com. If you have a question about printing quality, wish to subscribe, or would like to place a hold on delivery, please contact your local newspaper’s circulation department. © 2016 The Washington Post / Year 2, No. 23

CONTENTS POLITICS THE NATION THE WORLD COVER STORY HEALTH BOOKS OPINION FIVE MYTHS

4 6 10 12 16 18 20 23

ON THE COVER Ana Guardo Acevedo, 17, is visited by fiance Damian Ferriera Angel, 22, at her home in Cartagena, Colombia.

More than 8,000 pregnant women in Colombia have Zika. Photograph

by DANIA MAXWELL for The Washington Post.

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POLITICS

Hitting the campaign trail one last time SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Obama dives into the 2016 presidential race to help Democrats and defend his legacy BY

J ULIET E ILPERIN

A

s Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton begin to tighten their grips on their respective party nominations, President Obama is plunging into the campaign fray, not only to help Democrats retain the White House but in defense of his own legacy in a political climate dominated by Trump.

“The president has been clear that as we get closer to the general election, it will become even more important that the American people understand what is at stake,” White House deputy press secretary Jennifer Friedman said in an

email.

Obama and his top aides have been strategizing for weeks about how they can reprise his successful 2008 and 2012 approaches to help elect a Democrat to replace him. And out of concern that a Republican president in 2017 — either Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) — would weaken or reverse some of his landmark policies, Obama and his surrogates have started making the case that it is essential for the GOP to be defeated in November.

As a result, Obama is poised to be the most active sitting president on the campaign trail in decades.

“Do we continue to build on the

policies that reward hard-working American families . . . and address challenges for future generations, or do we stop in our tracks, reverse our progress and move in the wrong direction?” Friedman wrote. “This is a choice that the president does not take lightly, and is something he will lay out for the American people with increased frequency in the weeks and months ahead.”

Central to the White House effort to stop Trump — or, under a less likely scenario, one of his rivals — is reassembling and energizing the coalition that propelled Obama into office; that means African Americans, Latinos, young

President Obama is poised to be the most active sitting president on the campaign trail in decades. He is particularly focused on energizing the groups of voters that got him elected.

voters and women.

Speaking at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Austin recently, Obama said that consolidating the gains that Democrats have made over the course of his presidency will depend on ensuring that people are “engaged and working just as hard and just as full of hope as they did in 2008.”

One big worry for Democrats is the level of enthusiasm among the party’s base when Obama is no longer on the ballot.

“There’s a tendency, in the third election in a row for a party, for there to be some sense of complacency,” said former White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer. What

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POLITICS Democrats need to do in the coming months is clear, he said: “The difference between Donald Trump winning or losing is whether Obama’s 2008 coalition turns out in 2016.”

Many Democrats think that if Trump is the GOP nominee, he will help the Democratic Party solve the mobilization problem. They think that Trump’s strident antiimmigrant positions and his controversial comments about women and minorities will help Democrats in the fall.

Latino voters, especially, are receiving the attention of advocacy groups, including super PACs friendly to the Clinton campaign and to Democrats in general.

Liberal investor George Soros is among the backers helping to amass about $15 million for a super PAC devoted to increasing the participation of Latino voters as well as African Americans and women.

Vice President Biden, for his part, is preparing to campaign heavily in the Rust Belt to appeal to the white, working-class voters who may be drawn to Trump, according to aides.

Democratic Party officials say they are taking the threat of a Trump nomination seriously and plan to begin attacking him immediately, on policy and on his temperament. They also vow not to make the mistakes that Trump’s GOP opponents made early in the primary season. They are not assuming that the billionaire realestate magnate will self-destruct, they say.

“We’re ready for Donald Trump,” DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told reporters Wednesday. “We’re not treating him like the laughingstock that Republican establishment folks treated him for far too long.”

Obama in recent days has been in the forefront of those taking Trump seriously. More than once, the president has gone on extended riffs about why he thinks Trump as a political leader is bad for the country.

“The best leaders, the leaders who are worthy of our votes, remind us that even in a country as big and diverse and inclusive as ours, what we’ve got in common is far more important than what divides any of us,” he said in Dallas recently, just as reports about violence at Trump rallies were dominating the news.

JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST

MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST

Increasingly, Obama has been using Trump’s candidacy to talk about what kind of country the United States is becoming. At a St. Patrick’s Day luncheon at the Capitol on Tuesday, Obama again alluded to Trump’s harsh campaign rhetoric.

“In America, there aren’t laws that say that we have to be nice to each other, or courteous, or treat each other with respect. But there are norms. There are customs,” he said. “The longer that we allow the political rhetoric of late to continue, and the longer that we tacitly accept it, we create a permission structure that allows the animosity in one corner of our politics to

infect our broader society. And animosity breeds animosity.”

Clearly, once there is a Democratic nominee, which Obama advisers say they expect will be Clinton, the president will hit the campaign trail on her behalf.

Both Obama and Biden recently endorsed two Democrats involved in contested Senate primaries, former Ohio governor Ted Strickland and U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy (Fla.), and on Thursday endorsed former senator Russ Feingold (Wis.) in his bid to retake his seat.

The president has always been a prolific party fundraiser: He has done 99 events for the DNC since winning reelection and has signed

Top: Supporters cheer as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Orlando this month.

Above: In West Palm Beach, supporters of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton cheer her primary win in the state.

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21 donor appeals for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this cycle already.

And Obama has begun making his case to the Democratic Party’s most dedicated financial backers.

“My main message to Democrats over the course of the next several months — I’m sure I’ll be saying, ‘Write checks,’ because that’s part of the process — but what I’m really going to be saying to people is, ‘Keep your eyes on the prize here,’ ” he said at the DNC fundraiser in Austin. “Change doesn’t happen overnight, and we never get 100 percent of change.”

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in an email that Obama will be “a huge liability” in swing states because he has “job approval numbers that continue to struggle.”

“An overwhelming majority of the people want a different approach than Obama,” Walters wrote. “Polls show Americans are tired of the status quo and want to take our country in a new direction.”

Democrats, by contrast, think the key to winning this year is, in the words of one party strategist, “more about mobilizing your own voters than persuading some rapidly shrinking middle.”

In the latest Washington PostABC News poll, Obama had an overall approval rating of 51 percent, but it was 87 percent among Democrats, 67 percent among voters under 30 and 75 percent among Hispanics. He regularly polls at 91 percent among African Americans.

Several Democratic strategists say they are confident that Obama can boost turnout for their candidates in key states, including Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia. And if Trump becomes the GOP nominee, they say, that could put more congressional seats in play. By contrast, the president rarely made it out on the trail in 2014, when Senate Democrats were running in states such as Arkansas and Alaska.

“These are states growing in population, and they are growing in diversity,” said Guy Cecil, cochairman and chief strategist for Priorities USA, a super PAC supporting Clinton. When it comes to Obama, “he’ll be a terrific validator for Hillary, or whoever is the Democratic nominee,” Cecil added.n

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NATION

A popular new perk for millennials BY

J ENA M C G REGOR

F

orget foosball tables or free snacks. The latest employee benefit for recruiting and retaining young employees is more practical.

On Tuesday, Boston-based Fidelity announced that it had begun offering a perk that would help employees repay their student loans. All full-time employees at the manager level and below can get up to $2,000 a year paid toward their student loan, up to a total of $10,000. Employees still make their own payments, while Fidelity's benefit is sent directly to the loan provider by a third-party vendor and applied to the principal, reducing the overall size of the loan.

The financial services company joins a small but growing number of firms that are helping ease the pain of student loan debt for their growing population of millennial employees — while at the same time offering benefits that aren’t as permanent as a bump up in workers’ salaries. Pricewaterhouse Coopers announced in September it would extend a similar benefit to its workers. Smaller companies such as Chegg and LendEDU offer the perk, and third-party vendors say many more are expected to announce the benefit in the coming months.

A survey by the Society for Human Resources Management from last June said only about 3 percent of companies in its survey offer the perk, but its director of compensation and benefits, Bruce Elliott, expects that number to grow.

The trend is a response, of course, to the fact that for young workers, student loans have become a more burdensome financial problem. Education debt has soared in recent years, nearly tripling since the early 1990s and reaching an average of $35,000 in 2015, according to data from the publisher Edvisors.

After asking employees about their biggest challenges, “we were surprised to learn that student loans were at the top of the list,” said Jennifer Hanson, who leads Fidelity’s “associate experi-

JESSICA HILL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

More companies are trying to lure and retain young workers by helping to pay off student debt ence” and benefits. “It was causing them to put off important things, whether it was buying a house or getting married” — something a financial services firm like Fidelity was particularly sensitive to hearing employees were doing.

But the move also comes at a time when employers are increasingly engaging in an arms race to stand out in a tighter labor market, particularly to younger, collegeeducated employees who make up an increasingly larger percentage of their workforces. Last year, millennials became the largest segment of the labor force population, and in response, employers are coming up with benefits that are tailored to their needs. For instance, many are expanding their family leave benefits.

One way Elliott said he knows a trend has legs is that start-ups get founded to cater to the market and act as administrators for the new perks — in this case, verifying that employees have student loans and then handling the logistics of pay-

ing the loans directly on the employer’s behalf. “W hen I start to see businesses enter a marketplace around a benefit, that tells me something is going on,” Elliott said.

Tuition.io, which is administering Fidelity’s program, says it is talking to some of the largest companies in the country. The chief executive of another vendor, Gradifi’s Tim DeMello, says it has 100 companies scheduled to start offering the benefit in coming months, including 19 Fortune 500 companies.

Another company, Student Loan Genius, says it’s seeing interest in a recently introduced platform that helps companies repurpose the money they’ve budgeted as 401(k) matching contributions.

When workers make a student loan payment, it triggers the company to make a 401(k) contribution on their behalf, even if the employee can’t afford to put money into their 401(k) themselves after paying their loans, a common problem for younger employees.

Graduates celebrate commencement at Yale University in 2013. Education debt has soared in recent years, and companies are trying to stand out in a tight labor market.

Millennials’ “eyes are not on retirement, it’s ‘how do we get rid of our student loans, control our debt?’ ” said Tony Aguilar, the founder of Student Loan Genius.

These sorts of benefits, he said, are “for a different generation with different problems.”

Of course, companies could just raise employees’ overall pay, giving workers higher salaries that would let them pay their student loans as well as make 401(k) contributions. But part of the whole appeal to companies of these benefits — beyond the good will they build with employees — is that new benefits are flexible, Elliott said.

“It’s a way to differentiate total compensation without creating an increase in base pay,” he said.

“If revenue is down for whatever reason, it’s easier to cut this type of benefit than it is to cut salary.”

While such benefits may have advantages for both employees and their bosses, they have the potential, at least, to create tensions between employees. Employees whose parents paid for school or who’ve already paid off their loans could feel left out.

“What happens inside these firms at some point with the students who did not take out student loans?” Wharton business school professor Peter Cappelli asked.

Fidelity’s Hanson said the flexibility of the student loan benefit was not a factor in the company’s decision to offer it and sees student loan debt as “a concern across the board” — the company estimates about 25 percent of employees have student loan debt. The program does not have an age limit, and employees who still carry student loan debt well into middle age would benefit from it as long as their position is at the manager level or below. Even employees who don't qualify for the benefit have said “they love it,” she said. “It sets Fidelity apart.”

And that, of course, is exactly what companies want when it comes to benefits like this, Elliott said. He believes “we’re absolutely going to see a lot more innovation on benefits — especially as it relates to this generation.” n

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NATION

KLMNO WEEKLY

When warmth threatens a way of life R YAN S CHUESSLER Fort Yukon, Alaska BY

I

t may sound strange to someone from the Lower 48, but in interior Alaska, 2 degrees Fahrenheit in early March is balmy.

This winter’s record-setting warm temperatures are just the latest in an ongoing string of environmental changes for the indigenous Gwich’in village of Fort Yukon, 10 miles north of the Arctic Circle in northeastern Alaska. In the Arctic, where the impact of climate change is being felt much faster than in the rest of the world, locals have been noticing changes for years: new flora and fauna, weaker ice, and shorter winters, to name a few.

“For the elders in the community, they’ve seen the entire ecosystem change,” said Fort Yukon local Ed Alexander. “A lot of it is a dramatic change. We have a whole other ecosystem here.”

Welcome to Fort Yukon — called Gwicyaa Zhee in the Gwich’in language — which lies on the front lines of climate change. Temperatures in the Arctic are rising two to three times faster than in the rest of the world.

Around 500 people live in the village, which sits at the confluence of the Yukon and Porcupine rivers in the Yukon Flats region of Alaska’s interior. Founded as a Canadian trade outpost in the mid1800s, Fort Yukon is largely made up of traditional log houses set along a once-salmon-rich river. Locals have traditionally lived off the land, catching salmon, hunting moose and caribou, picking berries and growing their own food.

“That’s what we survive on,” said Julie Mahler, who, 30 years ago, homesteaded in the woods more than 200 miles from town, where she raised her six children.

“We don’t hardly see the caribou up there anymore. Very few.”

The caribou have changed their migration routes, Mahler said.

The frozen rivers and lakes are now dangerous, as temperatures rise. She’s seen animals fall through once-solid ice — people, too.

RYAN SCHUESSLER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

In this tiny Arctic town, climate change is quickly upending tradition “We’ve never seen it like this before,” Mahler said.

The salmon, she added, are now smaller and increasingly laden with sores. The rivers are running brown instead of blue, and she’s recently seen strange growths on moose.

“At the time, when we used to get king salmon, they were 30, 40-pounders,” Fort Yukon elder Ronald Englishoe told a delegation of Arctic Council and U.S. State Department visitors to the village this month. “Today, we get fish that aren’t even eight-pounders.”

The officials were visiting while in Fairbanks for the 2016 Arctic Science Summit Week, a series of meetings that brought together Arctic researchers and policymakers from around the world.

“The vegetation is moving north real fast,” said Clarence Al-

exander, the former Grand Chief of the Gwich’in of Alaska. Experienced woodsmen in Fort Yukon are losing eyes as new species of plants have overgrown traditionally clear dog sled trails, he said.

Ed Alexander remembers the first time he saw a cardinal in Fort Yukon, around three years ago.

“When you see a red bird for the first time in your life, you take note,” he said.

Other recent research has highlighted major changes for the spruce forests of the Yukon Flats area. They are burning more often, scientists found last year, and thus releasing more carbon to the atmosphere that was once stored in trees, soils and permafrost.

For the parents of Fort Yukon, the changing environment means their children will experience a different world than their ancestors, with the traditional Gwich’in lifestyle in the crosshairs of a

A Fort Yukon child trudges through the snow along the river.

Frozen rivers and lakes are traditionally used as crossings and transportation routes, but residents report dangerously weak ice after this season’s abnormally warm winter.

changing climate.

“It’s going to be totally different for them. She won’t have moose to eat, or salmon,” said Kelly Fields of her 10-year-old daughter. “We probably won’t have as many gatherings, if traditional foods do go away, which they slowly are.”

“It’s going to be pretty tough, I’d say, 20 years from now,” said Tony Carroll, Fields’s husband.

For Ed Alexander, the prospect of his three daughters inheriting a different world is troubling.

Around 3 million people live in the Arctic worldwide, and the indigenous people of the region are among the first to feel the major impact of climate change, despite having the least to do with its causes.

“We can’t judge how they’re living,” Ed Alexander said of the world to his south. “But we can let them know how it’s impacting us.” n

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NATION

A mission for Jesus in public schools BY

E MMA B ROWN

F

inn Laursen believes millions of American children are no longer learning right from wrong, in part because public schools have been stripped of religion. To repair that frayed moral fabric, Laursen and his colleagues want to bring the light of Jesus Christ into public school classrooms across the country — and they are training teachers to do just that.

The Christian Educators Association International, an organization that sees the nation’s public schools as “the largest single mission field in America,” aims to show Christian teachers how to live their faith — and evangelize in public schools — without running afoul of the Constitution’s prohibition on the government establishing or promoting any particular religion.

“We’re not talking about proselytizing. That would be illegal,” said Laursen, the group’s executive director. “But we’re saying you can do a lot of things. . . . It’s a mission field that you fish in differently.”

Not everyone agrees that it’s acceptable for teachers to “fish” in public schools, where government officials are not allowed to promote or endorse any particular faith.

The nation has been fighting over the role of religion in public education for more than a century, and in helping public school teachers understand — and push toward — the legal boundaries of expression, Laursen and his colleagues are wading into one of the most fraught issues in American life.

Some advocates say the organization urges teachers to invite Christianity into the classroom in ways that might be unconstitutional and that are bound to make some children — and their parents — uncomfortable.

“They appear to be encouraging teachers to cross the line,” said Daniel Mach of the American Civil Liberties Union, which fought the Christian Educators Association in a 2009 court case over Florida teachers’ religious expres-

DUSTIN FRANZ FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Organization shows Christian teachers how to share their faith without breaking the law sion at school. “Decisions about the religious upbringing of children should be left in the hands of parents and families, not public school officials.”

Others say that there would be outrage if teachers of any other faith were being encouraged to express their beliefs in the classroom, legally or otherwise — particularly at a time when antiMuslim sentiment is on the rise and some parents have complained that academic lessons about Islam can amount to religious indoctrination.

“What this really amounts to is a privileging of the majority,” said Katherine Stewart, a journalist whose questions about Christianity in her children’s public school led her to write a 2012 book, “The Good News Club,” about evangelical Christians’ efforts to reach students in school. “If a Wiccan, Muslim or Satanist public school teacher were to try to put their sacred texts on their desk . . . they

would likely be shut down.”

Laursen said he believes teachers of every faith have — and deserve — the same constitutional protections as Christian teachers when it comes to expressing religion at school.

He and some other Christian educators say the culture in many public schools feels particularly hostile to Christianity compared with other religions, making it intimidating to admit a relationship with Jesus. And they say that by explaining the law in concrete terms, the Christian Educators Association has empowered them to express their faith with new boldness.

The organization is a nonprofit with broad goals that include supporting Christian teachers and “transforming public schools through God’s love and truth.” It is a professional association that serves as an alternative to traditional teachers unions, offering its approximately 6,000 members lia-

Victoria Tomasheski, a middle school teacher in Garfield Heights, Ohio, first attended a Christian Educators Association International training in 2012. She says she follows the First Amendment earnestly and hopes that living according to biblical principles creates a nurturing environment and sparks questions that allow her to share her faith.

bility insurance and other benefits.

Although the Christian Educators Association is small, it is at the center of a pending Supreme Court case that has the potential to substantially weaken public sector unions in more than two dozen states. The association is a plaintiff in the case, Friedrichs v.

California Teachers Association, which challenges the right of teachers unions to collect dues from nonmembers.

The other plaintiffs are 10 individual teachers, eight of whom are members of the association; they argue that they should not be forced to support a union that uses their dues to promote policies — and politicians — with which they fundamentally disagree.

The association, founded in 1953, also publishes a journal, produces a podcast and organizes prayer groups. It began its training program six years ago, and since then hundreds of teachers across the country have participated.

During weekend-long seminars in hotel conference rooms, the group teaches teachers that they have a right to pray with colleagues during breaks or at lunchtime. They may lead beforeand after-school religious clubs for students. They can honestly answer students’ questions about their beliefs, and they may even pray with students outside work hours.

Teachers are told it’s okay to keep a Bible on their desk and teach about it in class, so long as it fits within the curriculum. And they are urged to witness for Jesus by acting in a godly manner, in part so that others might be provoked to wonder — and ask — why they have so much kindness and compassion.

If bringing nonbelievers to Jesus can be compared to growing crops, then “the part that a teacher in public school can do is till the soil and plant the seed,” said Laursen, a former teacher, principal and superintendent. “Very often, they’re not personally involved in the harvest.”

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NATION Daniel Weekends California high school math teacher Harlan Elrich said he was inspired by the training he attended several years ago. He sends out prayers and inspirational verses to an email list of like-minded colleagues, and sometimes they pray together in person.

He plays Christian music in his classroom before and after school and sometimes during tests, if students request it. He keeps a Bible on his desk.

When a student asked him recently about the meaning of life, Elrich felt free to answer, saying that “in my view, the meaning of life is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Elrich said he would be “thrilled” to lead a student to Jesus, but he is careful to stay within the bounds of the law and does not proselytize at school.

As he put it: “I’m not going to ask a student, ‘Do you want to become a Christian?’ unless we have had a full conversation about it and they have expressed it as a possibility.”

An elementary school teacher in rural Kentucky, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid drawing attention to his community, said that after attending a weekend training session, he started scheduling weekly meetings of a Fellowship of Christian Athletes club. Students gather in the school gym just before class begins — a time when they are normally socializing and eating breakfast.

Most weeks, at least 75 percent of the school’s students participate, listening and praying as guest speakers and other students offer prayer and testimony. “I feel overly blessed with how much I’m able to do with students as far as faith,” the teacher said.

The trainings are dubbed “Daniel Weekends” for the Old Testament figure who was saved by God after he was thrown into a lion’s den. Daniel was said never to have lost his faith despite decades of exile in Babylon, where he lived among nonbelievers.

As the Christian Educators Association sees it, Christian teachers in public schools are “modern-day Daniels,” working in schools that are hostile to their faith.

“God sent Daniel, He sent Jesus, He’s sending you and me to be the light of the world,” a presenter told about two dozen teachers last

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stopped herself from sharing her faith — unnecessarily. “I’m really limiting the way that the Lord can use me and my school,” she said.

“I’m really excited to see what He is going to do now.”

DUSTIN FRANZ FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

month at a Daniel Weekend in Louisville. “God has a plan, a good plan, for why he has planted you where you are.”

The association allowed a Washington Post reporter to observe the final half-day of the Louisville training, declining a request to attend the entire session amid concerns that a reporter’s presence would make teachers uncomfortable and less open.

The Post also interviewed 10 teachers who have participated in Daniel Weekends; most spoke on the condition of anonymity, some out of fear of provoking backlash against their schools and others because they didn’t have supervisors’ permission to speak publicly.

From Friday night until Sunday afternoon, they discuss the ins and outs of the First Amendment and how to confront the challenges they face as Christian teachers.

They talk about how to communicate more openly and how to build relationships with colleagues and students. They sing together, and they pray.

Victoria Tomasheski, a middle school teacher in suburban Cleveland who first attended a training in 2012, said the weekend was both personally and professionally rejuvenating. She said that she was grateful to learn about the First Amendment and that she follows the law earnestly.

She also hopes that living according to biblical principles creates a nurturing environment and

sparks those around her to ask questions. “When they ask: ‘Why are you so positive? Why do you always find a silver lining?’ It’s, ‘To be honest with you, it’s because of my faith,’ ” she said.

A teacher in a suburban Kentucky school said the Daniel Weekend he attended several years ago helped him shed his grouchy disposition and recommit to treating his students with patience and love. “That weekend sort of took me back, made me think about why I got into teaching to begin with. I wanted to be a role model for kids,” he said.

As the weekend draws to a close, teachers create plans to transform their schools — and their students — with what they characterize as God’s love and truth.

In Louisville last month, teachers were at times emotional and tearful as they explained the weekend’s impact.

Some said they were newly committed to seeing their students as children made in the image of God, deserving of love and capable of greatness. Some said they took to heart the message to be positive — to “stop whining and start shining” for Jesus. Others said they were grateful to realize that they were not the only Christians wrestling with how to be true to their faith while working in a public school.

A music teacher said that she had realized how often she

A cross hangs from a cabinet in Victoria Tomasheski’s classroom. As agents of the government, teachers cannot inculcate religion at school.

But they also are private citizens with rights to free speech.

“The First Amendment does not exclude religion from public schools.”

Charles C. Haynes, a First Amendment expert at the Newseum Institute’s Religious Freedom Center

Not religion-free zones Charles C. Haynes, a First Amendment expert at the Newseum Institute’s Religious Freedom Center, gives the Christian Educators Association high marks for its efforts to help teachers understand the law and how it applies to their lives in the classroom.

Many people believe that public schools should be religion-free zones, but that’s simply not the case, Haynes said. While the Constitution says that government cannot establish religion, it also says that the government cannot inhibit religious freedom — a provision that allows students — and to a lesser degree, teachers — to express their faith in school.

“The First Amendment does not exclude religion from public schools,” said Haynes, who cowrote guidelines on religious expression in schools that have been endorsed by dozens of groups from across the political and spiritual spectrum, including the Christian Educators Association.

“It gives us the ground rules for how religion comes into public schools.”

As agents of the government, teachers cannot inculcate religion at school, so they cannot lead students in prayer during class.

But they also are private citizens with rights to free speech — so they can, for example, pray with students at church on Sunday.

Sharif El-Mekki, a Muslim principal of a Philadelphia charter school, said he believes that children can learn powerful lessons when they see that teachers of different faiths are able to treat all of their students with equity.

But he said that teachers who are open about their faith also must be ultra-sensitive to ensuring that all students feel included.

El-Mekki, who goes to the same place of worship as some of his students, said he thinks often about how to make sure that other students don’t feel slighted.

“How do I make sure that my Christian student, my atheist student, feels respected and honored?” he said. “At the end of the day, that’s my North Star.” n

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H UGH N AYLOR Riyahd, Saudi Arabia BY

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audi Arabia goes to notorious lengths to prevent unsanctioned romance. So citizens of this conservative kingdom are increasingly turning to social-media networks to pursue relationships and plan forbidden rendezvous, people here say.

In a country with strict gender-segregation rules, unmarried men and women who mingle can face harassment or worse from religious police. Although Saudis have long cautiously challenged their society’s rigid traditions by using the Internet to flirt and chat, many say social-media networks give them a relatively safe place to pursue flings and even find potential spouses.

“All my friends are talking to boys on social media,” said a 23year-old woman who described meeting a former boyfriend through Facebook.

Their relationship evolved into secret excursions in his vehicle and steamy encounters, she said.

Because of the sensitivity of the topic, she and other people interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Even though her mother has tried to introduce her to men in more traditional ways, she prefers courtship on social media. It’s more intimate, she said. “I don’t want to be pushed into a relationship with a stranger.”

Constrained by the state’s adherence to a particularly austere form of Sunni Islam, Saudis have long used stealthy tactics in pursuit of love and lust.

Before the Internet era, men would hang for-sale signs displaying their telephone numbers on their vehicles with the actual intention of propositioning female callers. More recently, Saudis used wireless Bluetooth technology to connect with people in their immediate vicinity.

But social-media networks offer far more opportunities and greater anonymity. Smartphones seem ubiquitous among almost all age groups and income levels. Surveys have shown that Saudi Arabia, a nation of 22 million citizens, has one of the world’s highest rates of Twitter and YouTube users.

Abdulrahman al-Shuqir, a sociologist at the Ministry of Higher Education who writes about the

Love, Saudi Arabian style

ISTOCKPHOTO

history of sexual relations in Saudi Arabia, said private communication channels available on socialmedia networks help foster meaningful relationships. That in turn, he said, has led to an apparent rise in physical encounters between unmarried people.

If caught engaging in unsanctioned romance, people — especially women — face social stigma and harsh punishment from families. They must also contend with religious police, who monitor not only malls and coffeehouses but also online forums.

Ahmad al-Ghamdi, a former chief of the religious police in the city of Mecca, said the force feels threatened by social media because “it makes it harder to supervise people.” He said he resigned from his position in protest of abuses committed by members of

the religious police, which is tasked with enforcing Islamic law.

Many Saudis say the religious police have increasingly resorted to sting operations, blackmail and beatings in public.

“They’re getting crazier and crazier,” said Turki, 35, an employee at a government ministry who accused the religious police of using a woman to set him up on social media.

Despite being married, he began flirting with the mysterious woman on Snapchat a year ago and was later detained by the police after attempting to meet her, he said. His wife of nearly a decade and mother of his two young daughters eventually asked for a divorce over the incident, said Turki, who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used.

Saudis largely avoid Tinder and

Many Saudis are using social media to pursue flings and find potential spouses

other formal dating apps popular in the West, preferring less conspicuous wooing techniques.

Find someone interesting on Instagram? That’s when a Saudi might try to grab that person’s attention by liking photographs and then sparking a private conversation in WhatsApp, an onlinetexting app.

Starting to feel comfortable with a virtual flame? That’s when Saudis might start exchanging pictures on Snapchat.

“You know you’re getting serious if you’re on Snapchat,” said Dima, 19, a university student in Riyadh, the capital.

At the food court of a popular mall in the capital, she donned the hair-concealing garment required of women here as she described juggling three men whom she met recently on Twitter and Instagram.

Dima has taken particular interest in one of them, who has invited her for a ride in his vehicle.

But she expressed anxiety over what could happen if she did.

Her friend Sarah, an 18-yearold university classmate, encouraged her to consider it.

“We shouldn’t have to feel ashamed of what is normal behavior everywhere else,” said Sarah, who glowed in eyeliner and blush.

Both women spoke on the condition that only their first names be used.

Hassnaa al-Kenyeer, a writer on women’s issues who lives in Riyadh, said the empowerment of women is partly responsible for the popularity of online dating and the apparent rise in physical encounters that can result from it.

Women have made gradual yet significant advances in education and workforce participation, even though they are still forbidden from driving and require permission from a male guardian to do such things as obtain a passport and travel abroad.

“Women are more connected to the outside world, and they’re feeling more confident,” Kenyeer said.

She said that also has made the role of traditional matchmakers less important.

In the era of social networks, traditional matchmaking can seem superfluous to young Saudis such as Muhammad, 25, a resident of Riyadh who works at a government agency.

“Why would you pay money for a matchmaker,” he said, “when you could just meet girls online?” n

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Going for more than the gold BY

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iven the ongoing violence in Syria and the resultant refugee crisis, Azad alBarazi feels even more strongly that he should swim for Syria at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

As the conflict intensifies in the country of his parents’ birth, alBarazi — who lives in the United States and holds dual citizenship — wants to offer a symbolic gesture of strength to Syrians through competing in the August Olympic Games.

“It kind of gives me a bitter taste in my mouth when I see the Syrian flag next to my name, but I’ve gotten over it — it is what it is,” he said. “I’ve told people: ‘I’m not swimming for the president, I’m not swimming for the country — I’m swimming for the people.’ I feel like the Syrian people need to see me swimming.”

He realizes he can perhaps inspire hope in those facing turmoil.

“The way I swim, the way I represent Syria could help that future kid,” al-Barazi added. “My message — just up there, being on that block, training — could affect someone.”

A lifeguard working for Los Angeles County since 2007, the 6foot-6, 235-pound al-Barazi is a gregarious surfer dude known as “EZ-A” to his friends.

But he carries a heavy responsibility that comes with his lineage.

The al-Barazi name, after all, still means something in Syria. Muhsin al-Barazi, his grandfather’s cousin, became prime minister in 1949 but was killed a month later during a coup d’etat that Col. Sami al-Hinnawi instigated. Some 14 months later, Hersho al-Barazi, the swimmer’s grandfather, murdered alHinnawi as revenge and remained exiled in Lebanon for 20 years. The patriarch of this intellectual Kurdish-Syrian family instilled in al-Barazi an appreciation of his heritage, especially given his years of estrangement from the country.

On his family’s land, Hersho, who died at age 96 in December, famously bred Arabian racing horses. Juan Barazi, another relative, was a noted racecar driver

ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE VIA GETTY IMAGES

This California lifeguard wants to become beacon of hope to regular Syrians during the Olympics who competed in the Le Mans Series. There seems to be a need for speed in the family, al-Barazi said — a legacy he’s continuing in the pool.

“Maybe that whole racing mentality comes into our genetics,” al-Barazi said. “You just want it.”

Of course, al-Barazi is no stranger to Syria. While growing up in Saudi Arabia — he was born in Riyadh and raised in Jeddah — he would visit the birthplace of his parents when the family stopped in Syria on the way to vacation in the United States. His father, who worked for processor companies associated with IBM, relocated the family to the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1996.

After transferring from Santa Monica College to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, al-Barazi graduated in 2010 with a degree in kinesiology, the study of human movement (one of his final papers dealt with the biomechanics of swimming strokes).

At the prodding of his college

swim coach and family, he contacted the Syrian Olympic Committee about competing in the London Games. First, he needed to become a citizen — paying a fine for a military exemption and handling paperwork while visiting his father’s home town of Hama — then meeting with the Olympic Committee in Damascus. He enjoyed the six weeks he spent staying with family but didn’t think much about the geopolitics. Of course, times were different.

“That was before the revolution and this whole chaos that’s going on right now,” he said.

The landscape has, indeed, changed with the Syrian Civil War and the rise of the Islamic State.

Many Syrian athletes have faced danger, injury or death. As a result, al-Barazi is careful to stay tightlipped.

“It’s definitely tough with what’s happening right now in Syria,” he said. “I have my views, and I usually keep them to myself.

The main reason why is I have

Azad al-Barazi, who lives in the United States and has dual citizenship, is expected to represent Syria in the 100- and 200meter breaststroke at the Rio Games in August.

family still out there. . . . I just don’t want any conflict. I’m on tiptoes all the time.”

After the 2012 Games, al-Barazi toyed with the idea of hanging up his Speedo for good. He took classes at Santa Monica College and UCLA’s extension program to earn the prerequisites to pursue a physician assistant master’s degree. But after 16 months, he realized he missed swimming and found that the intensifying situation in Syria compelledhimtoreturntothepool.

He has been training with some 30 swimmers as part of the Trojan Swim Club at Southern Cal under Coach Dave Salo and predicts half of those slogging it out with him in the pool will medal in Rio. It will take continued discipline to separate himself from the pack when he competes in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke in Rio. Beyond the physical exertion, it’s a psychological battle. Bolstering that mental toughness may be his belief that he has a responsibility to the people of Syria.

“I love getting up in the morning and swimming,” al-Barazi said.

“Something about the water – it’s just you, your thoughts. You’re not worried about anything. All you hear is you, your thoughts, and your breathing, and water running through your ears.”

“Of course, I try to keep up with the Syrian news as much as I can, and every time I read something it drives me more,” al-Barazi said.

“Listen, what these guys are going through, they’re pretty much killing themselves to get across countries, to get somewhere else to have a better opportunity. And that fuels me.”

Perhaps it would be easier not to take on the responsibility, but al-Barazi is all-in to embrace his heritage and inspire others to stay strong in the face of oppression.

“Let’s say I medal at the Olympics,” he said, “and these refugees that left Syria, they’re in Europe right now, and they’re watching the Olympics and they see me swimming the 100-meter breast, and they see Syria and they see my name — they’re going to have something. It’s going to affect them in some way or another.” n

Ana Guardo Acevedo, 17, who was infected with Zika, and Damian Ferreira Angel, 22, are expecting a baby soon.

PHOTOS BY DANIA MAXWELL FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

AMID FEARS ABOUT ZIKA, AN AGONIZING WAIT FOR PREGNANT WOMEN

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BY MARY JORDAN In Cartagena, Colombia

verywhere she goes, Ana Guardo Acevedo, 17 and seven months pregnant, has a worried look on her face and a folder full of medical tests in her hands. ¶ Three months ago, when her baby bump was still barely noticeable, the rims of Ana’s eyes turned red and a rash crept across her stomach, down her arms, over her face. Doctors in the emergency room first suspected chickenpox but then told her she was infected with a virus she had never heard of before, Zika. ¶ Then, suddenly Zika was everywhere. On TV, Ana saw babies in Brazil with deformed heads born to mothers with Zika. She read about brain damage, blindness, paralysis — all linked to Zika. The Colombian government started sending fumigation trucks through neighborhoods to kill mosquitoes carrying Zika, and health officials warned women not to get pregnant. ¶ For tens of thousands of women in three dozen countries, it was too late. Just in Colombia, there are more than 8,000 pregnant women infected with Zika. Ana is one of those waiting to see what damage Zika has done.¶ “Is my baby okay?” That question has taken over her mind. ¶ Doctors keep telling her it’s too early to know, that chances are her baby will be fine, but those thin assurances don’t chase away her fear. She saw what it did to her eyes and skin. What was it doing inside of her? ¶ Unable to control Zika, she tries to organize it by stuffing every piece of paper related to the virus and her baby into the plastic folder. continues on next page

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COVER STORY The sonogram from months ago in her folder is fuzzy and tiny, and her baby has grown so much. Just two more days and she gets another look.

from previous page

Protein and blood in urine: Traces. Glucose: Negative. And the result she looks at again and again: Sonogram: Repeat later in term.

Now, on a Wednesday morning, she carries her folder on a crowded bus to JuanFe, a two-story oasis on the outskirts of town that provides health services and job skills to low-income teenage mothers. A high school graduate, she is taking cooking and computer lessons and hopes to get a job as a hotel chef.

“How many of you have had Zika?” a volunteer asks a classroom of 33 young women. Seven hands shoot up.

Ana notices one of them is carrying a baby.

“How old is your baby?” she asks her after class.

“Just 15 days,” the new mother says, rocking her sleeping son under a soft blanket with little red stars.

“Can I look?”

Ana gently pulls back the blanket. It’s not the boy’s black hair or fat cheeks that grab her attention, but the size and shape of his head: perfectly normal.

“He’s so healthy!” she says. “I can’t wait for the moment I find out if my baby is okay, too.”

In her Zika folder on her lap is a handwritten note with the time and date of her next sonogram. She will be nearly 30 weeks pregnant, and doctors would have a better look at any sign of microcephaly — a condition that results in an abnormally small head and, very often, brain damage. A scan could ease her mind, or devastate her.

It’s scheduled for 12:30 Friday. Just two days away.

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ater Wednesday, Ana walks into her parents’ home, where her worries all started when a mosquito with whitish legs bit her on her arm. That was the one, she thinks, that caused her to boil with fever and ache in her bones.

“No! A mosquito,” Ana shouts, smacking a bug on her mother’s leg.

Their concrete-block house has no air conditioning, no screens on the windows, no way to keep out the insects spreading Zika.

“I want my baby to be fine,” she tells her mom. “I am not the only one dealing with this.

But sometimes at night when I can’t sleep, it feels like that.”

“The baby can withstand this,” her mother says.

“I hope,” Ana says, taking a liter of Pepsi out of the refrigerator and then, reconsidering, opting to drink water.

Zika zeroes in on young, poor women.

Across Latin America, where the epidemic is centered, women often have babies in their teens. And, while insect repellant and air conditioning keep mosquitoes away from the wealthier, millions cannot afford those protections.

In an unusually pronounced class system, the Colombian government categorizes neighborhoods into six “strata”: 1 is the poorest, 6 is

the richest. That ranking determines the price people pay for electricity and water. The vast majority of Colombians live in the three lowest classes.

Ana grew up in Strata 1, in a house painted bright green with a row of flowerpots outside.

Her mother, Berleys Acevedo, sells detergent, diapers, aspirin and other basics from her front porch. She stocks no bug repellant, which costs about $4 — a sum that buys many people their food for days.

“But it’s much better now since the truck came through,” said Ana’s mother, describing how it drove slowly down her rutted street two weeks ago showering pesticide.

Ana’s father fumigated inside the house, too, with a spray a government worker left at their door.

“It’s soooo hot. I’m so hot,” Ana says, picking up a few sweets for friends from her mother’s store, as she heads back to class at JuanFe. She glistens with sweat and struggles with short breaths in the humidity, a short-sleeve top stretched over her growing belly. “Oh, the baby just moved,” she says, suddenly smiling.

Damian Ferreira Angel stocks crackers at the supermarket where he works in Cartagena. He makes $10 a day at the job that will pay for his wedding to Ana Guardo Acevedo and for their baby.

arly Thursday, Ana wakes in so much abdominal pain, her aunt takes her by taxi to the hospital. She signs in at 6 a.m, the 13th woman to arrive since 3 a.m. at the Rafael Calvo Maternity Clinic.

Now, she sits in the busy emergency room, perched awkwardly on a plastic chair, her head against the wall. Her pain sharpens.

She listens to the nurses talking to other pregnant women about preeclampsia and bladder infections. She hears them asking another pregnant woman if she knows whether she had Zika. Down the hall, doctors have been huddling after delivering a baby with microcephaly.

“It hurts!” Ana keeps saying, tears streaming down her face.

A nurse tells her to breathe, calm down.

Early labor is not that uncommon, she tells Ana, as she wheels her into a windowless second-floor hospital room and moves her into the fourth, and last, bed shoved up against the wall.

She lies there in pain. All day. All night.

Friday morning, Ana curls left, then right, still seeking comfort on the blue, plastic mattress.

“I can’t take this anymore! I can’t! I can’t!”

“You need to hold on to the baby — it’s too early to deliver,” a nurse warns her. She adjusts the IV line in Ana’s vein, telling her the medicine will strengthen her baby’s lungs. “If the baby comes now, he will be put in an incubator.”

“Incubator?”

Ana bursts into tears.

“Why is all this happening?”

Ana’s blood pressure is rising and the nurse returns with two pills that Ana swallows.

“I want to give myself a Caesarean!” she yells, exhausted and desperate. Her aunt, Alba Luisa Acevedo, who has been sitting beside her nonstop, has run out of ways to try to distract her.

A nurse carries in a lunch tray and Ana sees what time it is: Friday, almost 12:30. The time her sonogram is scheduled at the JuanFe clinic a few miles away. In this crowded public hospital, with more need than money, ultrasounds are not routine.

With a sinking feeling, she realizes she is going to miss it.

“I want to get out of this hospital. But I am too scared to leave,” she tells her aunt, who keeps stroking her forehead.

Ana closes her eyes, upset that she won’t have a new black-and-white outline of her baby to add to her folder, to ease her worry. Or to help her prepare for a baby with a birth defect.

She rests her head on a rolled-up towel. In her rush to the emergency room she forgot her pillow. Patients are supposed to bring their own.

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riday evening, Ana’s fiance, Damian Ferriera Angel, 22, arrives and leans over her hospital bed, wraps her in his arms and tells her how sorry he is that she’s in pain.

“Everything will be okay,” he whispers.

For a minute, Ana stops crying.

It’s not visiting hours, but Damian persuaded a security guard to give him 10 minutes; he had to work all day.

He tried to get in yesterday with no luck, but now he hands Ana the baby wipes she asked for on the phone.

She wants to be ready in case the baby comes early and puts the wipes with diapers and baby outfits on top of her Zika folder at the foot of her bed.

Only last year, Ana and Damian, like so many couples, would spend romantic nights walking along Cartagena’s old fortress walls.

They were excited when they found out they would have their first baby, never thinking love and hope would feel so different a few months later.

A busy nurse walks in and shoots Damian a stern look. There are no men anywhere on the floor. He feels he should go.

“Being in here makes me feel sick,” Ana tells him. “I don’t know what is going to happen next.”

“You can do this,” he says. “It’s all going to be fine.”

As Damian walks out, he sees a Zika flier that warns staffers to seal all containers that hold water — even toilet tanks — to stop mosquitoes from laying eggs. He says aloud in the quiet hallway, “One more worry to add to all the other worries.”

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hree days later, Ana’s still in the hospital, still no baby, still no sonogram, and Damian is back at the job that will pay for their wedding and baby.

“Where are the crackers that are on sale?”

“Which ones are healthy?”

Customers at this supermarket in a middleclass neighborhood — Strata 4 — keep interrupting his thoughts of Ana as he works Aisle 14.

Six days a week, eight hours a day, he restocks salty crackers and sweet cookies.

He scoops saltines off the floor after a customer messed up his handiwork and counts the minutes until he can go buy a surprise for Ana.

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he loves it when he plays his guitar and sings “Dueña de Mi Corazón” — “Owner of My Heart” — a song he wrote for her.

But he has another idea of how to make her smile.

“Can we go buy a new bed for Ana today?” he asks his mother, Mery Angel, when his shift is over and he can use his phone. Before her trip to the hospital, Ana had begun staying at her aunt’s home, bunking with a cousin or sleeping on the couch.

If Ana sleeps better, it’s good for their baby, too, he tells his mom as they board a bus that pulls up right near the almond tree in front of

Ana Guardo Acevedo winces from early contractions while being treated at a hospital in Cartagena. Now eight months pregnant, Ana was diagnosed with the Zika virus at four months.

their home.

The windows of the old bus are covered with blue curtains to block the harsh sun. It’s stuffy and slow. Folk music is blaring from the radio, and Damian taps his leg. No news this hour, just music. Sometimes on his rides, Damian catches the latest on Zika: the rising number of cases, the U.S. doctors arriving to help investigate what they are calling a global health emergency.

They get off in front of side-by-side mattress stores, and he walks through aisles of beds, looking for one he can afford on his $10-a-day salary.

He and his mom are asking for a better price for a mattress marked at $100 when her phone rings.

“They let Ana out of the hospital!” she tells him.

“What? She’s out?”

“Yes! She’s waiting for you at her aunt’s house.”

Hurrying now, he stops haggling, waves down a taxi, helps the driver tie the mattress to the car roof and speeds off to find Ana.

KLMNO WEEKLY

ou’re better?”

Ana answers Damian by burying her head in his chest. “Yes! I’m okay!”

She looks at the mattress wrapped in plastic, a hand across her mouth. “I had no idea!” She talks excitedly about later taking it to their own place, but Damian wants to know why she was suddenly allowed home.

Her pains stopped and she felt well enough to sit up and eat, she tells him. She was actually well enough to think about happy things like “the big, big wedding dress” she wants to wear at their December wedding.

She sits back in her rocker. “The doctor said no walking around,” she says. “I can’t go to class. I can’t do anything for a while.”

Taking her folder off the table next to her, she puts it on her lap and says, “I have all the notes here.” One tells her to see a doctor in 10 days. “29.5 weeks pregnant” is typed on another.

Doctors hope she can hang on close to full term — two more months. In May and June, thousands of the babies whom doctors are watching for Zika effects are due.

Damian sits on a plastic chair inches from Ana. She kicks off her flip-flops and says she has more to tell him.

She was by herself this morning when a nurse appeared and wheeled her down the hallway into a new room. She thought it would be yet another exam by a doctor feeling her hardening belly with his hands, saying the very low position in which she was carrying the baby was causing her pain.

But instead, a doctor stared at a screen and a nurse smeared her stomach with a cold gel, preparing her for a scan of her baby.

“I was so nervous, I could barely breathe.”

“What?” Damian says. “You had an ultrasound?”

She nods, describing how she closed her eyes, afraid and praying, as the doctor’s wand glided over her belly.

“What did it show? What happened?”

“The baby is really strong,” she says. “The doctor said, ‘The baby’s heartbeat is really loud.’ He said he never heard a beat that loud, that it sounds like the heart of an older person!’”

“What else did he say?” Damian asks, leaning closer to Ana, wondering why she isn’t saying anything about the baby’s head.

She tells him she wished she had gotten a glimpse of the computer screen the doctor was looking at, or a printout of the scan, but the doctor assured her: “All looks good with the head, the brain. The baby looks normal.”

Damian repeats the word.

“Normal.”

That’s all he wanted to hear.

“I’m calmer now,” Ana says, rocking and smiling, holding Damian’s hands in hers.

“Even if something is wrong with our baby, we will take care of him forever.”

Both of them understand: One sonogram can’t detect all the problems Zika can cause.

But in this moment, in this time of Zika, both of them feel less afraid. n

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HEALTH

The rhythm is gonna get you BY

D EBRA B RUNO

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he noise of the drums is a low, deep rumble, like the sound of an approaching train. It begins just outside the National Cathedral in Washington and grows — and grows — as a crowd of hundreds files into the church. Each person takes a seat in the concentric circles of chairs that fill the long nave, pounding on the drums they hold between their legs or banging on their tambourines.

Now, the noise is deafening.

A drum circle inside a cathedral feels a bit like a witches’ coven at a baptism or a tie-dyed shirt at a state dinner. Yet on this night, it hardly matters. It’s hard to worry about propriety when you’re focused on matching the dum-dumdum-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum reverberating all around you.

Forget the Deadheads and Occupy Wall Street protests. The drum circle has gone mainstream.

These days, you’re as likely to find a drum circle at a Delta Air Lines team-building workshop, in a prison or at an elementary school as at a hippie gathering. Drum circles are featured at weddings and funerals, or they’re used to help seniors with dementia.

In the Florida Gulf Coast community of Nokomis, retirees sit on the beach in folding chairs, sipping cold drinks as they watch the sun set to the rhythmic beat of drums.

Even Kate Middleton has gotten into the act; Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge joined a drum circle at a children’s mental health facility in December.

The guru of drum-circle facilitators is 69-year-old Arthur Hull, who started the first facilitators’ workshop in Hawaii in 2000 and has since taught, by his count, at least 10,000 people worldwide how to lead “rhythm-based events.”

His goal, says Hull in a phone interview from his base in Santa Cruz, Calif., is to “get to the point where people realize it’s not just about drum-circle facilitation. You can facilitate community.” His facilitators “end up being elders in the communities that they helped build.”

One of his protégés is Jonathan

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

Drum circles have gone mainstream, popping up at corporate training and wellness programs Murray, founder of FunDrum Rhythm Circles, based in Columbia, Md. Murray says his drum circles offer a cornucopia of benefits for the workplace: team building, diversity training, morale building, stress relief, employee burnout intervention, and celebrations to recognize achievement. He has led circles for Delta Air Lines, Beam Suntory and Johnson & Johnson. He also offers drumming wellness programs that purport to boost the body’s immune system, as well as community programs to help build children’s confidence or revitalize a church community.

Murray’s latest project is working with Maryland social workers on stress relief and team building.

Social workers are “really on the front lines,” he says. “They’re exposed to so much trauma.” The drum circles offer them “very powerful outcomes.”

Nellie Hill, 66, co-author with Arthur Hull of the “Drum Circle Facilitators’ Handbook,” runs

Playful Spirit Adventures, which organizes monthly community drum circles in Maryland as well as circles for schools, homeschooling groups and special-needs children.

“It used to be that drum circles were people getting together and just banging at drums,” she says.

Now she thinks people better understand the benefits, “not only for team building, but for health and wellness, for helping people get back into society. There are a lot of different purposes.”

On a sunny morning at the Old Capitol Pump House on the Anacostia River in Washington, the Earth Conservation Corps — a circle of sleepy-eyed young men and women — slouch behind their djembes.

“You don’t need to know anything,” leader Jim Donovan, the author of “Drum Circle Leadership,” tells them. “If you feel you messed up, just smile and keep going.”

Within seconds, the circle is following an increasingly complex

Wendy Harper joins a drum circle in Washington, D.C. Drum circles are gaining popularity, being featured at weddings and funerals or used to help seniors with dementia.

drumming pattern. “Don’t think, just drum,” Donovan coaches.

Many of the participants are employees of Access Green, an energy efficiency contractor whose chief executive, Joe Andronaco, discovered drum circles when he was in recovery for drug and alcohol abuse. His workers, Andronaco says, often come from tough backgrounds, marked by singleparent homes, incarceration and substance abuse.

A drum circle “is a way to address trauma and provide coping skills,” he says. “We’re trying to rewire the brain waves to say, ‘You’re not a horrible person, you’re not supposed to be on this negative side of life. You can engage in a positive way.’ ” As the sun streams into the old pump house, the drummers relax, looking at each other and smiling.

“What we just experienced is an example of what we will be doing through the day — using music and sound as a transformative force,” Donovan says. “Going from ‘My mind is going a million miles an hour’ to ‘I’m fully present.’ ” Back at the cathedral, the joint is jumping. It feels like a cross between a religious revival and a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. (Yes, there have been Sanders-themed drum circles.)

It’s so loud that bright orange earplugs are handed out, and, even then, the beat still permeates.

People are dancing in the aisles.

In the center is drummer Kristen Arant. Her powerful arms work a djembe as she dances, keeping the beat moving.

Arant runs a group called Drumming Up from Poverty, which aims to improve the lives of street children in Ghana, as well as the Washington-based Young Women’s Drumming Empowerment Project, which encourages self-esteem and “creative self-expression.”

She sees drum circles drawing people from all backgrounds. In a circle, “there is one language happening, and that is rhythm,” she says. “In this extremely divisive time, there is humanity in the world.”

Plus, it’s just plain fun. n

SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2016

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FOOD

KLMNO WEEKLY

The meat everyone can’t stop eating The U.S. has exported its love for burgers, and the food’s popularity keeps growing

BY

R OBERTO A . F ERDMAN

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n the heart of what might be the most celebrated cuisine in the world, a curious thing is happening: People are clamoring for an unglamorous American food. “Le hamburger,” as it’s called in France, has bombarded restaurants in the country otherwise known for much fancier food, becoming one of the most popular dishes. The love is such that three-quarters of all food establishments now sell at least one hamburger, and 80 percent of those say it’s their best-selling item, according to a recent study.

But France’s hamburger fixation is hardly unique. Rather, it’s emblematic of what has proved to be a common affair.

Just ask those who live in Australia, where people ingest nearly three times as many hamburgers per capita as they do in France (albeit with strange things on top). Or the British, who, let’s face it, have pretty questionable taste in food but still appreciate hamburgers more. Even the Russians appreciate them at least as much.

Or better yet, look to the hamburger's birthplace, where the sandwich has been defying major food trends for quite some time.

Ever since the mid-1970s, beef consumption has been tumbling in the United States, falling from a peak of 94 pounds per person per year in 1976 to 54 pounds in 2014, according to government data.

Over the past 15 years alone, per capita beef consumption has dipped by 20 percent (and meat consumption has fallen off a cliff).

But hamburgers have done just the opposite, gaining in popularity even as Americans lose their taste for the broader beef and meat categories. A stroll through the archives uncovered a 1979 article by the Associated Press, which cited significantly lower per capita hamburger consumption than the 30 hamburgers per capita observed today, according to NPD Group. This is what it said: “According to industry and government estimates, there will be 17.2 pounds of hamburger produced this year for every person in

Who is the hungriest of them all for hamburgers?

NPD GROUP WAPO.ST/WONKBLOG

the country. In 1978, there was 20.5 pounds of hamburger per capita; in 1976, there was a record 23.9 pounds per capita.”

The year 1976 is a nice marker, both because of what happened then (it was, at the time, a record year for hamburger and beef consumption) and what has happened since (the two have clearly diverged). Today, we eat much less beef but many more hamburgers — about six extra burgers per person, or roughly 30 percent more than we did back then.

There are other ways in which hamburgers seem to move against the stream. In recent years, for instance, they have shown resilience despite a tempered interest in sandwiches. In 2014, restaurants sold 2 percent fewer sandwiches than they had the year before, but 3 percent more hamburgers, according to a report by NPD Group.

“Americans simply love their burgers,” Bonnie Riggs, who is NPD’s restaurant industry analyst, explained at the time.

The appeal of the hamburger owes to many things, the first of which is that it is a delicious meal. “It took the apple thousands of years to become the most widely distributed fruit tree in the

world, whereas the hamburger established itself within half a century in almost every capital city,” Louise Fresco explains in his 2015 book “Hamburgers in Paradise: The Stories Behind the Food We Eat,” alluding to the hamburger’s near ubiquitous appeal.

The fact that hamburgers can be reproduced effortlessly and without compromising quality has helped too, propelling its rise, at the very least. This, Fresco touches upon, too: “What made McDonald’s, Burger King, Jack in the Box, the once ubiquitous White Castle, and their like such successful companies was not the hamburger itself, nor the franchise system that has enabled it to penetrate all markets, but the systems and technology used to ensure that identical hamburgers would roll off production lines all over the world to be served to a public that knew exactly what to expect.”

The hamburger has also shown resilience because it is malleable. While its base components — lettuce, tomato, ground meat, and bread — are simple and cheap, it has thrived because of how adaptable it is to change. This has proven particularly important as of late, as the enthusiasm

for chains like Shake Shack has supplanted the long-held allegiance to less-shiny establishments like McDonald’s. More expensive versions of the hamburger, meanwhile, have become staples on restaurant menus, incorporating different meats and adding pricier accoutrements.

In Fresco’s words: “The history of the hamburger is the story of a continual quest to reinvent a food item by sophisticated means, leaving the end product apparently unchanged and therefore completely dependable for the consumer while almost invisibly introducing one innovation after another.”

Vegetarians and non-beef eaters can likely attest. They have found themselves with a plethora of alternatives to satisfy their hamburger cravings.

Perhaps the most important selling point for hamburgers, however, at least today, is that they require little time to make and eat.

They are convenient.

This is true in the United States, where people gladly drink worse but more efficient coffee, shun breakfast foods that require even the most modest forms of cleanup, and increasingly rely on delivery. But it’s also true in France, where a tradition of long, drawnout meals appears to be dissipating. Forty years ago, the French spent an average of roughly an hour and 20 minutes on each meal, but today that’s down to less than half an hour, according to data from French food consultancy Gira Conseil.

No matter the reason, the resilience of the hamburger is something to behold. If not because the otherwise unremarkable American creation has earned the appreciation of one of the most storied culinary cultures there are, then because of this: The hamburger has not only given life to itself but also to the french fry. Per capita consumption of french fries (as measured in servings), is very nearly the same as hamburger consumption per capita for the countries listed above. A coincidence? Unlikely. n

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BOOKS

Beware America’s crumbling roads N ON-FICTION

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REVIEWED BY

M ICHAEL U PCHURCH

S THE ROAD TAKEN The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure

By Henry Petroski Bloomsbury. 322 pp. $28

ometimes the infrastructure of the United States seems to be hanging by a thread — or by a muchneglected girder. Average citizens, looking to Europe or Japan, can’t help but marvel at the bullet trains, the sleek transit systems and the bridges and highways that don’t seem to be crumbling quite the way ours are.

They also can’t help wondering: What are we doing wrong?

Henry Petroski provides welcome background to our problems and a prognosis in “The Road Taken.” As the title suggests, he frames his book around lines from Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” concerning the choice an uncertain traveler has to make about the route he will take.

A professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University, Petroski has written books on engineering feats that range from the minuscule (“The Pencil”) to the magnificent (“Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America”). He has a clear eye, a mellifluous prose style and a knack for spicing deep research with personal anecdotes.

Our national dilemma, Petroski says, is that the United States now has 4 million-plus miles of increasingly congested roads and bridges, many of them built for an earlier time and in a poor state of repair.

“Potholed and traffic-jammed roads mean that it takes commuters longer to drive to and from work; it takes truckers longer to deliver raw materials and goods from mine to plant to supplier to factory to warehouse to store; and it takes everyone longer to pay off repair bills for wheel alignment and damaged suspension systems.” As far back as 1988, the National Council on Public Works Improvement stated, “Our infrastructure is inadequate to sustain a stable and growing economy.”

Not much has changed.

Over the past two decades, Petroski notes, the American Society of Civil Engineers has given our

SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

The Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis collapsed in 2007, plunging vehicles into the Mississippi River.

infrastructure (roads, bridges, rail corridors, water supply, energy grid, etc.) an average D or D+ rating. Headline-making structural failures — Petroski focuses particularly on the Interstate 35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007 — haven’t been quite the wake-up call you’d think they would be.

While Petroski sounds Cassandra-like alarms, he also offers informative pleasures. He gives a terrific account of a cross-country road trip young Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower made with the military in 1919. It left him painfully aware of the nation’s lack of a decent road network — an awareness heightened later by his experience of German autobahns during World War II. Hence his strong push for the creation of our interstate highway system after he was elected president in 1952.

For the non-engineers among us, Petroski offers lucid explanations of why roads, bridges and other infrastructure essentials

eventually wear down.

If anything, he slightly understates how frequently structural collapses occur in the United States when he speaks of “one major failure every thirty years.” Along with the I-35 collapse, he mentions the destruction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in a 1940 storm, the failure of an Interstate 5 bridge north of Seattle in 2013 and the earthquakeinduced collapse of part of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1989.

To Petroski, the source of these problems is obvious. “Infrastructure does not take care of itself,” he writes. “Infrastructure demands vigilance.”

The trouble, he says, is that we’re usually oblivious to infrastructure until something goes wrong with it. And even when we’re aware of the problems, the political will and the necessary funding to fix them can be difficult to raise.

Petroski highlights the tangled

nature of the interactions between government agencies and publicworks projects without providing any clear remedy for their sometimes counterproductive results.

He’s more optimistic about technical advances that may improve matters. Those include “self-healing” asphalt and concrete that could eliminate potholes before they happen, wireless monitors that could track bridge deterioration at a reasonable cost and, less convincingly,theadventofcomputer-navigated cars that, if universally deployed, could save infrastructure costs by eliminating the need for stop, yield and other road signs.

Want to cross that rusty bridge without a driver at the wheel or any traffic lights to guide you?

It may be a brave new world, in more senses than one, that’s coming our way. n Upchurch, author of the novels “Passive Intruder” and “The Flame Forest,” is the former book critic for The Seattle Times.

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KLMNO WEEKLY

A stylish spy tale in postwar Berlin

A Roosevelt son like his father

F ICTION

N ON-FICTION

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REVIEWED BY

P ATRICK A NDERSON

t’s a shame that John Lawton has ended — or at least suspended — his brilliant series about Inspector Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard. Luckily, however, Lawton has started another about a British spy known as Joe Wilderness. Lawton’s fans may find these books as essential as the Troy books.

Both series benefit from the excellence of Lawton’s writing, but they offer different protagonists and locales. Troy came from a prominent London family and was an upstanding citizen, as a Scotland Yard official should be.

However, his job largely confined his adventures to England.

Joe Wilderness, by contrast, was born into poverty. His father, when he turned up, beat him. His mother died during the Blitz. Joe, at 13, went to live with his grandfather, “a complete rogue and an habitual criminal,” who taught the boy the finer points of robbery and safecracking.

Throughout his youth, Joe remained an avid reader, and in 1945, when he was called into the Royal Air Force, his life changed forever because he scored 169 on an IQ test. An aristocratic intelligence officer named Alec BurneJones, seeing Joe’s potential, sent him to Cambridge to learn Russian and German and channeled his smarts and criminal skills into the life of a spy. Joe’s good looks and charm caused women to play an increasingly central role in his life. His real name was Joe Holderness, but an early lover thought Wilderness better captured his wayward ways, and that stuck.

The two Wilderness novels — “Then We Take Berlin” and “The Unfortunate Englishman” — allow Lawton to shift his geographic focus. The books have scenes in London, Paris, Moscow, New York and Vienna, but their primary locale is Berlin, a city of endless conflict and intrigue in the postwar years. Joe is there as the city is divided into British, U.S., French and Russian zones, and for the 1948 Russian

blockade that sought to isolate the city — and the U.S. airlift that defeated that effort. He returns in the 1960s when the Berlin Wall goes up, and he witnesses the tense 1961 meeting in Vienna between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

Soon after the war ends, Joe joins a Russian officer and an American officer to carry out a huge black-market operation that steals scarce goods such as coffee, cigarettes and whiskey from U.S. stockpiles and sells them to the highest bidder. Later, Joe applies his illicit skills to the dangerous task of spiriting an atomic scientist out of East Berlin and on to Israel, using the same tunnel he had once used to smuggle goods to East Berlin.

In “The Unfortunate Englishman,” Lawton introduces a brilliant Russian spy who rises high in the British intelligence agency MI5 but is finally caught. He is contrasted with a feckless British spy in Moscow who blunders into a “honey trap” involving two sisters who bed him and then turn him over to the authorities. It falls to Joe to arrange a swap of the jailed spies.

Both novels portray Joe’s romance with Nell, a young German first seen ministering to survivors of the liberated Bergen-Belsen deathcamp, peopleoftenincapable of speech until teenage Nell talks, listens and wins their trust. By 1963 Nell has risen to prominence in West Berlin politics and plays a role in Kennedy’s celebrated “Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”) speech.

All these adventures arrive giftwrapped in writing variously rich, inventive, surprising, informed, bawdy, cynical, heartbreaking and hilarious. However much you know about postwar Berlin, Lawton will take you deeper into its people, conflicts and courage. Both novels — and they should be read in order — are spy fiction at its best. n Anderson reviews mysteries and thrillers for Book World.

Q THE UNFORTUNATE ENGLISHMAN A Joe Wilderness Novel

By John Lawton Atlantic Monthly. 349 pp. $26

THE GOLDEN LAD The Haunting Story of Quentin and Theodore Roosevelt

By Eric Burns Pegasus.

200 pp. $26.95

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REVIEWED BY

D EL Q UENTIN W ILBER

uentin Roosevelt was a fighter pilot who was killed battling the Germans in World War I. What else can be said of a man, even a war hero, who died at the age of 20, nearly 100 years ago — a life too short to amount to much consequence, even if he was a son of a former U.S. president?

To me, the question is a personal one. Quentin is my middle name, and it is a direct link of sorts to the daring pilot and his larger-thanlife father. The name was given to my grandfather, and then my father and then me. Family lore suggests that my great-great-grandfather had hunted with Theodore Roosevelt. (I have not been able to confirm this, and my grandfather was a teller of tall tales.) At the very least, my grandfather was given the middle name to recall the sacrifices of a son and a famous father.

Eric Burns, a former NBC News correspondent, has taken on the difficult task of reconstructing the young man’s life by placing it in the context of his overachieving and history-making father. His book, “The Golden Lad,” is at once fresh and illuminating, a fast-paced read that focuses on President Roosevelt’s private life and his role as a husband and father, and on a young man inspired by the Rough Rider to fight and die for his country. It is the kind of biography that more authors should embrace: concise and lively.

The book, which relies extensively on the Roosevelts’ trove of correspondence, starts in 1897 with Roosevelt, then Navy secretary, agitating for combat in the Spanish-American War just as his youngest of six children, Quentin, was born. The boy turned out to be a lot like his father and, like Dad, was sickly as a child.

The elder Roosevelt wasn’t just a war hero. He served as New York police commissioner, secretary of the Navy and governor of New York before being tapped in 1900 to run as vice president with President William McKinley. When an

assassin killed McKinley in September 1901, Roosevelt became president and brought his family to the White House. There, the commander in chief played with his boys and was known for engaging in a bit of mischief himself.

Quentin earned a reputation for roughhousing and causing trouble. Burns writes that Quentin once barged into a meeting between his father and the attorney general — with a large snake wrapped around his body.

Roosevelt immediately sent the youngster, who also had snakes clutched in each hand, to entertain waiting congressmen.

In Burns’s telling, Quentin was Roosevelt’s favorite child, and they shared a bond. When the nation entered World War I in 1917, Quentin joined the U.S. Air Corps, becoming a pilot (his three brothers fought with the Army).

Their father, who had vocally called for America’s entry into the conflict, could not have been more pleased by his sons’ service.

In France, Quentin shot down at least one German plane, perhaps two, but his own end came just four months after he was sent to the front lines. On July 14, 1918, he crashed and died, most likely after being shot down in a dogfight.

Burns writes that Quentin’s death sped the demise of his father, a man already weakened from a near-assassination and a torturous journey into the Amazon. “His sorrow,” Burns writes, “overwhelmed all other emotions,” except perhaps his guilt.

At the age of 60, he died, just six months after Quentin was killed.

“For Quentin’s death was not just another loss: it was the loss,” Burns writes, “the ultimate tragedy for Theodore Roosevelt, an occurrence that called into question everything for which he had stood in his life.” n Wilber is a reporter for Bloomberg News and the author of “Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan.”

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OPINIONS

Almost everything we buy is killing the rain forest ALLIE GOLDSTEIN is a senior associate at Forest Trends, where she researches climate and forest finance.

I’m an environmentalist, and I try to make green choices.

I take public transportation, recycle and program my thermostat. But the care and keeping of our forests always seemed far removed from my urban self. At least, it did until I visited a coffee farm in the Ecuadorian rain forest. There, I saw firsthand the way copper miners and loggers are destroying the natural environment.

Forests cover 30 percent of the Earth’s land, but they’re disappearing fast. Companies and governments are converting green space into farms and developments; loggers are hacking away trees. Each year, about 50,000 square miles of tropical forests are cleared, the equivalent of 48 football fields a minute. If we continue at this rate, the rain forest will disappear within a century.

Deforestation contributes to biodiversity loss, threatens clean water sources and infringes on the rights of the 1.6 billion people who depend on forests for their livelihoods. It may also cost us important products — as varied as Brazil nuts, the rubber used in condoms and the ingredients for half the prescription drugs we take today. And it’s one of the biggest causes of climate change, responsible for about 15 percent of the carbon to the atmosphere.

As I began researching this problem, I realized that I played a role, since many products lurking in my refrigerator, kitchen cabinets and even shower contained traces of tropical forests that once were. Globally, commercial agriculture drives 71 percent of tropical deforestation, and its major bounties — palm oil, soy, cattle and timber (or pulp), the “big four” — are ubiquitous in household products and everyday foods. Many goods that I buy regularly, from cereal to shampoo to mascara and toilet paper, are potentially tied to deforestation.

I wanted to get a handle on the scope of the problem and my contribution to it. So I decided to buy only products made without ingredients tied to deforestation for one month. I quickly realized that it’s hard to figure out which products are safe — and that it’s nearly impossible to cut deforestation out of your life.

My first task was sorting out what I could and couldn’t buy.

Since there’s no special label or branding for “deforestation-free” products, I decided to avoid anything that contained one of the big four commodities.

Paper was the easiest. I defined “no-deforestation paper” as 100 percent recycled, because that meant no forests were newly cleared to make it. I also allowed myself to buy paper products with the Forest Stewardship Council certification, because that label requires that the product be clearly traceable to a sustainably managed forest. It wasn’t hard to find toilet paper and printer paper that were marked. (It also didn’t cost me any extra — the certified toilet paper I found was actually less expensive than some noncertified brands.)

I also stopped buying food in cardboard packaging because it was too difficult to determine the source of the cardboard. This eliminated a lot of options, including some of my favorite snack foods: cereal, crackers, cookies and macaroni and cheese.

But it also introduced me to the bulk-food aisles at natural

JUAN KARITA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A monkey carries her baby in a rain forest in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Tropical forests across the world are at risk because of deforestation.

grocery stores, where I found rice, pasta, nuts and candied ginger, all without cardboard packaging.

Soy was harder. I didn’t think I consumed a lot of soy until I realized that most land-dwelling animals we eat are fed soybean meal. My mom raises chickens at my childhood home — about as cage-free as they come — and even they eat pellets made of soy.

So for the month, I mostly ate like a vegan, except that I didn’t eat soy-based dairy alternatives or tofu (though some tofu brands are produced in the United States and are deforestation-free). I drank milk from grass-fed cows because it came in a returnable glass bottle and the cows lived nearby. And I ate locally raised, grass-fed beef on two occasions, because it came from a farm that emphasizes sustainability and grows food for its animals on-site. Other than that, my major source of protein over the month was three jars of peanut butter.

Palm oil was by far the most tedious to avoid, especially since it’s the go-to replacement for oils containing trans fat. It’s also the cheapest vegetable oil to produce and has a high melting point, making products that contain it smooth and easily spreadable: useful qualities for both margarine and lotion. To make matters more complicated, palm oil goes by hundreds of different names and is often behind innocuous-sounding ingredients such as “vegetable oil” and “natural flavors.” I began grocery

shopping with an A-to-Z list of 224 alternative names for palm oil open on my phone, so I could cross-check. One fateful evening, I read the ingredient lists of every laundry detergent brand at the grocery store and found zero that were palm-oil-free.

Avoiding deforestation-related consumption wasn’t easy. Aside from food and essential hygiene products, I didn’t buy anything new during the month. But even with my limited purchases, I found myself scouring labels aisle by aisle — a chore that accounted for countless hours.

At the end of my month, I was ready to go back to shopping like a regular person (though I did resolve to eat more locally and minimize packaging waste). I’d proved that a no-deforestation life was possible, but it was painstaking. I was tired of carrying around a long list of things to avoid and frustrated by the way this experiment limited my socializing. I was also ready to stop carrying around my own toilet paper.

Additionally, I realized that I shouldn’t focus my consumer activism on reading labels and trying to guess which products are or aren’t sustainable. More important is urging businesses to publicly commit to sourcing deforestation-free commodities.

Broad, global action is needed to stop deforestation. But just like I learned during my deforestation-free month, every little bit helps. n

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OPINIONS

KLMNO WEEKLY

TOM TOLES

My autistic son has the right to vote SUSAN SENATOR is author of “Autism Adulthood: Strategies and Insights for a Fulfilling Life.”

A while back, someone at a conference told me that intellectually disabled people with guardians could not vote. I believed it and stuffed away thoughts about taking my severely autistic son, Nat, to get registered. It was one more stinging “no” in his life. I should be used to it by now, but I’m not.

Recently, however, I noticed the Twitter hashtag #CripTheVote, which is a rallying call to political candidates to take note of this huge constituency. As a disability rights advocate, I retweeted dutifully. The shadow of sadness for Nat never quite cleared, though, and one day I found myself angry about it: Why couldn’t Nat vote? Who was to say that he couldn’t make such decisions for himself?

But the objections, the whispers, the doubt in people’s eyes. I imagined a Town Hall bureaucrat skeptically appraising Nat with lidded lizard eyes. Or that other kind, the overly helpful person who treats Nat like a child.

I imagined everyone thinking: He can’t possibly understand the issues. He’ll need assistance in the booth. The voting volunteers will hassle him. You’re really doing this so you can vote twice.

So I asked other autism parents on Facebook what they did. Most had, in fact, registered their sons and daughters to vote.

It was definitely legal in my state, Massachusetts, but no one seemed to feel completely

comfortable with it. One mom LOL’d about how her son just votes the way she does. Another scoffed at “Ouija board voting.”

Another talked about how she just did not feel right about the whole thing since she couldn’t tell whether her daughter was really interested. She would not force voting on her.

Damn them all, I thought, now determined to make this happen.

But I did wonder how much Nat knew about the presidency. I tested him the first chance I had, when we were in the car together.

The quiet of our drives always helps him find his words, which so often seem to float tantalizingly out of reach. I blurted out: “Nat, who is our president?” And right away he answered, “Barack Obama.” A crazy happiness leaped inside me,

that uncontrollable, giddy hope I get when Nat surprises me. Hey, this really is possible, I thought.

And I could feel my angry advocate muscles start to flex. He was going to vote, and no one was going to get in our way.

But first I had to get him registered. I was almost shaking as I parked the car. Town Hall was just around the block, a building so ugly my husband says it looks as though they took the building and left the box.

Nat strode right in, way ahead of me, either unaware or unconcerned about what he’d encounter there. We waited only a moment or two before the worker behind the glass looked our way. A few minutes later, we were seated at a small table poring over the white form. I did my best to reframe the questions for Nat so he could understand them. They were simple, for the most part: address, birth date.

The question of party stumped me. I had not yet figured out how I would teach him about the different sides. I’d probably create a simple booklet for him, picking a few issues that would affect him, such as health care and anything disability-related. I figured I’d write something like “the Democrats want everyone to have a good doctor like Dr. Reuter (Nat’s pediatrician).” I’d get my

Republican friend Andrew to write the other side. (He suggested: “Republicans believe that the each person is the BEST person to say where and how all of the money they make is spent.”) But we had time for that.

In the end, I said, “Nat, we will take more time to figure out who you want for president, so right now we can say ‘Unenrolled.’ ” Then he signed at the bottom, in his sticklike print, and just like that, he became a voting citizen. I wanted to take a picture of him in Town Hall for the Facebook autism moms, but in my nervousness I’d left my phone in the car.

We walked back to the car through a brown, winter-weary garden lined with little American flags. I was surprised by my calm.

Usually Nat’s achievements feel like such a big deal, another sparkly win for the forces of good.

Yet when I think about it, I’m kind of happy with how unremarkable the whole 10 minutes were and how friendly everyone was. Because maybe that’s how it should be, that we can take this incredibly important act for granted. Just another day at Town Hall. Except now a guy like Nat, so outwardly quiet, but with so much going on inside, can be heard, just like everyone else. n

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KLMNO WEEKLY

BY OHMAN FOR THE SACRAMENTO BEE

BY LUCKOVICH FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

How to resolve encryption debate ADAM SEGAL AND ALEX GRIGSBY Segal is the director and Grigsby is the assistant director of the digital and cyberspace policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Segal is author of “The Hacked World Order.”

Since the 1990s, U.S. law enforcement has expressed concern about “going dark,” roughly defined as an inability to access encrypted communications or data even with a court order. Silicon Valley companies are rolling out encrypted products that allow users alone to access their data, and in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attacks, law enforcement officials argue that their fears are being realized. The FBI is engaged in a public battle with Apple over access to data stored on the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino attackers and cautions that encrypted messaging apps could hinder the organization’s ability to uncover terrorism plots.

To prevent future attacks, law enforcement has urged U.S. tech giants to build in “back doors” or “front doors” to their products — essentially, the technical ability to decrypt communications pursuant to a warrant. Silicon Valley and computer scientists argue that any solution allowing someone other than the data’s owner to decrypt communications amounts to a flaw that could be exploited by criminals and state actors and thus weakens security for everyone. Despite the technologists’ claim of the intractability of the problem, U.S. officials insist there is a technological workaround and have sought to compel tech companies’ assistance to break

into encrypted devices.

The debate has been dominated by absolutists. Some cybersecurity experts and privacy advocates are loath to concede that “going dark” is a problem at all, while many in law enforcement are scornful of what they see as decisions motivated by business interests and remain adamant that anything less than a real-time, on-demand decryption capability is unacceptable.

It does not have to be like this.

There are solutions that allow law enforcement to gather the evidence it needs without introducing encryption back doors. Here are three worthy of consideration: First, Congress could empower law enforcement to exploit existing security flaws in communications software to

access the data it needs. Put simply, law enforcement should have the ability to hack into a suspect’s smartphone or computer with a court order, such as a warrant.

It’s no secret that software is riddled with security flaws. As some prominent computer security experts have argued, such lawful hacking would allow authorities to use existing vulnerabilities to obtain evidence instead of creating new back doors. Tight judicial oversight would ensure that lawful hacking is employed responsibly, much like the restrictions that already apply to wiretapping.

Second, the executive branch should explore the possibility of developing a national capacity to decrypt data for law-enforcement purposes. The challenge of “going dark” affects state and local law enforcement the most: They are the least likely to have the resources and technical capabilities to decrypt data relevant to an investigation.

Creating a national decryption capability, housed within the FBI and drawing upon the expertise of the National Security Agency, would provide assistance to state and local law enforcement, similar to what the FBI provides for fingerprint and biometric data.

Third, and most important, law

enforcement needs to improve its tech literacy. Law enforcement was confronted with a problem akin to “going dark” when, in the 1990s, organized-crime suspects started using disposable phones that hampered wiretaps. Nevertheless, law enforcement adapted its procedures, and arrests and prosecution of organized-crime suspects continued.

Running into an encrypted communication does not necessarily mean an evidence trail will go cold. Encryption can occur on a device, as the data are transmitted and when they are stored in the cloud. Encryption in one avenue doesn’t necessarily mean the other two avenues will also be encrypted. For example, Apple can access the content of an encrypted iPhone if it has been backed up to iCloud, Apple’s cloud storage system. Recognizing how and when encryption occurs, and the different security offerings of the more popular service providers, may help law enforcement access data.

These three proposals will not be fully acceptable either to technologists or to law enforcement. Nevertheless, a onesize-fits-all solution isn’t likely.

The debate has been going on in one form or another for more than 20 years. It’s time to consider some realistic solutions. n

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FIVE MYTHS

The Ku Klux Klan BY

D AVID C UNNINGHAM

Donald Trump’s recent refusal on CNN’s “State of the Union” to dis­ avow Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has reignited debates over the Klan’s role in national politics. Its long history has been marked by ris­ es and falls, from its terrorist origins in the aftermath of the Civil War to its revival as a nativist movement in the 1920s and its refashioning as a brutal anti­civil­rights vigilante squad in the 1960s. While the KKK’s white hoods, flowing robes and fiery crosses remain resonant symbols of racial terror and white supremacy, misconceptions abound.

1

The KKK is too weak to pose a real threat today.

It’s true that today’s Klan is really dozens of different, mostly disconnected groups. Last month, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project identified 190 active units spread across 31 distinct organizations.

Membership in these groups is relatively small and factionalized, with overall participation estimated at fewer than 10,000.

(At its peak in the 1920s, Klan membership exceeded 4 million.)

But this very marginalization can breed unpredictable acts of violence. The KKK’s lack of an overarching structure can encourage plots by “lone wolves” or isolated cells. An increasing presence on the Internet exacerbates this tendency, with sympathizers such as alleged Charleston, S.C., church shooter Dylann Roof easily able to access materials promoting and encouraging terrorism in the name of white supremacy.

2

The KKK’s primary support is in the rural South.

While the original KKK was a distinctly Southern movement, developed and led by Confederate veterans, the revived Klan’s 1920s heyday featured a national and predominantly urban base, with the Midwest, Southwest and Eastern Seaboard emerging as powerful Klan centers.

During the civil rights era, Klan activity again became

concentrated in the South, and much of the KKK’s most brutal violence took place against Southern civil rights forces. But the group’s strongholds were not in rural locales. They were in and around cities.

In the ensuing decades, the KKK’s geographic reach has again broadened. Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s comprehensive “hate map” locates active KKK units in 34 states, from New England to the West Coast.

3

The KKK operates largely in secret.

At times, KKK members have used hoods to protect themselves and create symbolic cachet. But more often, Klan groups have behaved like public organizations, trumpeting their presence and civic contributions.

In 1925, KKK leaders showed off their burgeoning membership and political influence by organizing a Klan parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The event drew more than 40,000 unmasked members. During the 1960s, KKK outfits staged nightly “street walks” in Southern cities, with hundreds of members marching, unhidden, through local business districts to drum up attention for nearby rallies and to underscore members’ open presence in the community.

In the 1970s, David Duke upped the ante, exchanging robes for three-piece suits in an effort to

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

A KKK parade is seen in Washington, D.C., in 1925.

enhance his group’s respectability and appeal.

4

The KKK enjoyed public support from segregationist politicians in the civil-rights-era South.

Despite bold proclamations from Alabama Gov. George Wallace and Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett about segregation, the alliance between Klansmen and politicians was very complicated.

Like a number of his Jim Crowera counterparts, Wallace tolerated the Klan, courted its membership’s votes and at times leveraged KKK influence to shore up his segregationist flank. But segregationist politicians stopped short of publicly promoting lawlessness or otherwise validating the Klan’s brand of organized terrorism. The Klan polarized the Southern white electorate. While an overwhelming percentage supported segregation in the 1960s, a significant contingent was repelled by the KKK’s violent extralegal means.

5

The KKK’s damaging impact has been limited to its terrorist activities.

Klan vigilantism has harmed

communities in less-direct and more broadly corrosive ways as well. Even today, 50 years after the height of the KKK’s civilrights-era violence, communities where the Klan once thrived exhibit higher rates of violent crime than neighboring areas.

Such effects demonstrate the power of a movement that flouts established authority and weakens the bonds of respect and order within a community.

The KKK’s durable influence also extends to electoral politics.

A recent study found that the KKK served as a major driver of the South’s pronounced move toward the Republican Party.

While support for Republican candidates has grown throughout the region, the increase has been significantly more pronounced in areas where the KKK was previously active.

While this shift from blue to red may not be problematic, the damaging effect of the Klan’s role resides in the divisive nature of that transition, which continues to be reflected in our polarized political system. n Cunningham, a professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, is the author of “Klansville, U.S.A.”

SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2016

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