An innovative new restaurant, and two bright red tomatoes

I saw this article in the Washington Post on Friday and it made me instantly hungry.  Tucked in with a Lowest Price gas station near U Street is, apparently, a delicious restaurant.  Fast Gourmet was founded by brothers Juan and Manuel Olivera.  They picked the gas station site because they didn't have the money to rent a more conventional space.  It's an entertaining, feel-good article and, as the someone interviewed for the story points out, is something you would expect more from a place like Brooklyn than D.C.  Hopefully an indication of more great things to come from the D.C. food scene.  I rarely visit the U Street area, but this might just be a good reason to plan a journey.

Another note on food - I walked to the farmers' market for the first time in at least a month today and was pleasantly surprised by the bustle of activity.  In addition to the year-round staples and the holdover apples from last fall, there were herbs, lettuces, and strawberries everywhere.  I bought some garlic scapes - spindly green stalks that grow out of the top of garlic bulbs - with which I plan to make some pesto.  I'm seemingly incapable of visiting the farmers' market without buying goat cheese and a baguette, but today I augmented those old stand-bys with a tub of sugar snap peas, a pint of fresh chocolate milk, and two tomatoes - the reddest, most enticing I've seen since, well, last summer.  Phenomenal.

Chasing elusive victories

Last night’s announcement was as unexpected as it was momentous.  After a lazy Sunday spent watching movies and eating Chipotle and chocolate chip cookies, I was sitting in bed, minutes away from going to sleep, when Sarah sent me a gchat message: “something ridiculous is about to go down, I think.”  Turning on the TV around 10:30, I soon became aware of two things, only one of which was a new revelation: Osama bin Laden was rumored to be dead and Wolf Blitzer is best viewed on mute.

Leading up to and immediately following Obama’s brief, confident speech, many – both on TV and among my friends – began to speculate about the implications of the strike, for al Qaeda, for national security, and for the 2012 presidential election.  The latter, to me, seems particularly silly to contemplate, since that circus is more than a year and a half away.  All of the rest will become clearer with time.

Also interesting to me has been the joyous reaction to this news.  I remarked to Maggie last night, after seeing video footage of the giddy mob gathering outside the White House, that I thought it would be fun to be down there.  She thought it might be kind of strange to be celebrating someone’s death, which I agree with, to an extent.  Andrew Sullivan pointed me toward a nice piece by Russell Arben Fox, capturing pointedly the moral dilemma that bin Laden’s death presents.

The moral plane of the universe is not somehow improved by the killing of a man. “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he is overthrown”–the author of Proverbs had it right.

I believe all that….but I still think he deserved it.

I agree wholeheartedly.  Osama bin Laden was a malevolent mass murderer.  He directly and brutally attacked our country on 9/11 and has continued to orchestrate appalling acts of terrorism all around the world.  Aside from callously ripping apart thousands of families, his actions have baited our country into two quagmire wars, provoked reprehensible and inexcusable backlashes against Muslims, and severely battered our national psyche.  That that monster is dead should be a cause for celebration, if only of the fact that he can no longer wreak such suffering on the world.

Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post powerfully evokes his memories from 9/11, and makes a similar argument.

Triumphalism and unapologetic patriotism are in order….

In the days to come, there will be time to consider the nuanced implications of Osama bin Laden’s demise at the hands of the CIA. Will anti-American anger threaten to send unstable Pakistan out of control? Will al-Qaeda’s younger, more decentralized leadership feel not bereft but empowered? In a few days or weeks, I might care. But not now….

We got the son of a bitch.  Well done.

In these times of unconventional warfare, we have few signature battles with which to define our progress.  We always win, because no group or nation can match our military power, yet we also perpetually lose, because it is close to impossible to defeat an ideology, embodied by a shadowy, decentralized network of radical extremists.  Iraq and Afghanistan have featured a decade of murky skirmishes and offensives, and neither conflict will end cleanly with the surrender of a rival, as in World War II.  True victory is elusive.

This is why yesterday’s raid was so important.  In a way, Osama bin Laden was the sole-remaining, widely recognized face of our enemy.  Killing him may or may not ultimately make our country safer, but it has been enormously cathartic for the American people.  Crowds in DC and New York and around the nation took to the streets last night because we are not going to get the euphoria of a VJ Day, and everyone knows it.  So if shooting a diabolical terrorist brings even a small sense of closure to some of the cruel injustices of the past decade, I consider that a worthy cause.