Dan the Man Traverses Truxton

Among the many cartoon characters with whom I attended elementary school was a certain Dan R. From the age of perhaps seven, Dan insisted that he be called "Dan the Man," and signed all of his homework sheets "DTMR," which he often proudly exclaimed phonetically -- "Ditmer!" -- upon confirming that he had, in fact, gotten a perfect score on his long division problems.

Dan's intellect would have been far more impressive had he even the slightest shred of modesty in him. But he was determined to flaunt his gifts, however compromised their effects may have been by his habit of wearing ill-fitting sweatpants, tightly laced shoes, and t-shirts promoting various Texas sports teams. When he got really excited, he often grabbed and pinched himself at the groin, betraying his desperate need to urinate. It was difficult to afford him the hero cult he so anxiously sought.

When Dan's parents wanted him to be able to travel to school by subway unattended, they first insisted that he memorize the entire system, line by line and stop by stop. He accomplished this feat without difficulty, and became the first member of my fourth grade class capable of explaining the intricacy of transferring from the F to the 6 at Broadway-Lafayette. In fifth grade, he wagered a large sum (perhaps $20) that he could beat a female classmate in a game of one-on-one basketball. When he was shut out in a game to 21 points, it seemed clear that the myth of Dan the Man had been rendered meaningless.

Given my past experience with DTMR, I was unfairly cautious about Dan the Man's Teriyaki and Subs. On my first visit, I quickly put my bias behind me when I learned that delivery to my Eckington roost was considered feasible. I also knew that proprietor Dan deserved more of a chance to demonstrate his prowess than I had given him by ordering a sandwich.

So this time around, I decided to be a bit more adventurous, sampling the Bool Gogi, Yaki Soba, Gyoza, and spicy chicken wings. All of the above were excellent. The Soba was neither soggy nor dry and the vegetables were fresh. The glaze on the chicken wings was perfect, both sweet and tangy with enough kick to justify the dish's name. The Gyoza, while salty, were a perfect starter. The Bool Gogi was tender, mildly sweet, and generously portioned.

For a moment, it seemed as though the delivery driver had become lost in the tangled web of streets at Truxton Circle. But he emerged unscathed, swinging around past the KFC and finding me without much difficulty. Still, the cartographic confusion was enough to remind me of DTMR, and to be glad to have found at last a Dan the Man worthy of praise.

FOOD: 88
SERVICE: 92

In the Footsteps of History

When Halfz and I saw the facade of Yenching Palace, we had no idea of exactly what we might find inside. We had already been around the block once, as Halfz unsuccessfully sought out a suitably secluded spot in which to relieve himself. He rejected each of the half dozen chain restaurants we passed, so when we found ourselves in front of Yenching for the second time, it seemed clear that we were being given a sign from on high.

The interior of the Palace is, indeed, palatial. The space is bisected by a sturdy masonry wall cut with shallow arches, and could comfortably seat perhaps 250 people. The surfaces are covered by a dizzying array of materials -- mirrors etched to resemble marble, crumbling vintage wallpaper, and enough faded red vinyl to outfit a small army in stiff, syrupy capes. Museum-style display cases house various artifacts of untold value, and at the center of the room in which we were seated is a large sculpture of an ornate boat, made of what we guessed was either beeswax or the tusk of an enormous elephant.

The atmosphere created by this decor was nearly overwhelming -- we had to resist the urge to cut and run, thinking we had trespassed into some part of the notorious Cleveland Park underworld, in which outsiders are unwelcome and killed for sport. It was only upon seeing the menu that the explanation for the bizarre room began to come into focus. Stamped in gold on the inside cover was the following:

"Throughout the years, the Yenching Palace often has shared a page of history with the United States. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the Yenching Palace was one of the meeting sites of the personal intermediary of President John F. Kennedy and the Emissary of the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. It was at the last of these meetings held at the Yenching Palace that final terms were agreed upon which ended the crisis and avoided war.

"The ABC television hour-long documentary, "The Cuban Crisis," was filmed and narrated by the distinguished reporter, John Scali (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. in 1974), at the Yenching Palace. Then, in 1971, when President Nixon initiated rapprochement discussions between the United States and the People's Republic of China, the Yenching Palace had the honor to be chosen the site for diplomatic and social exchanges between Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger, and high-ranking representatives of the Chinese delegation to Washington, D.C., in their efforts to normalize relationships between the two countries."

So there it was; we were following in the footsteps of history, and I had no doubt that not a single thing about the restaurant had changed since 1971. What had seemed a vaguely creepy rendezvous point for middle aged gay men was actually a veritable salon of late 60s charm, untouched by the likes of Philippe Starck chairs, laser-etched plexiglass, or modern lighting. It was as though one might turn around to find Jack Kennedy himself seated in a corner booth with Marilyn. Halfz ordered a Dewar's and soda, and the choice was so appropriate I had to make mine the same.

A friend ended up joining us as our appetizers were arriving, so the three of us squeezed into a booth intended for two. Our hosts graciously offered to move us to an adjacent semicircular booth of the sort one associates with floor shows in Las Vegas, but we decided we were comfortable enough. To move would have deprived us of our close-range view of the peeling wallpaper, which I at least was not ready to part with.

The food was nothing terribly special, though it came promptly and certainly met our expectations. The pork dumplings were better than average, and served on a bed of lettuce that was not at all tired or droopy. While it's true that some 35 years have passed since the crack staff last served dignitaries during tense negotiations, they've clearly been keeping themselves razor sharp on the offchance that Li Zhaoxing will walk in one day and request "Stir-Fried Two Kinds" and a stiff Manhattan.

I often wish that for just one day I could be transported back to New York circa 1965, to take in some of the forgotten minutiae I have glimpsed in movies of that era. Yenching Palace is without a doubt the closest I have ever come to time travel. Even the bathroom seemed like a place where one might find a pistol taped inside the toilet tank; indeed, all three of its urinals were out of commission, and it is not implausible that this has been the case for three decades.

FOOD: 79
SERVICE: 84
ATMOSPHERE: 89

Keep On Rollin'

Today, Slate is running a Presidential Speech contest. The rules are simple:

1. Say where W. should give his address tomorrow night

2. Predict where he actually will give it

My answers:

1. He should speak from the banks of the Mississippi, with the river (and no identifiable buildings or infrastructure) behind him. The river would have a soothing effect, reinforce the notion that Mother Nature is able to heal wounds over time. Lights reflecting off the water would be a bonus.

2. He probably will speak from a site overlooking the river, but with some ridiculous prop or banner behind him ruining and cheapening a potentially powerful image. Some possible candidates:

- Hospital ship Comfort (barely used in relief effort because it arrived so late), if it's still around. Nothing like a big white ship with a red cross on its side.

- A banner reading "Time Will Heal All Wounds" or "Making a Concerted Effort." "Your Government in Action." You get the idea.

- The Harlem Boys Choir, softly humming "Amazing Grace" as he gives his speech.

- A giant video screen showing dirty rescuers in tears, acrobatic helicopter crews, and U.S. soldiers handing water to tiny babies.

FINAL ANSWER:

- Any combination of above items. Boys choir singing on deck of U.S.S. Comfort, in front of video screen showing both photos AND a cloying motto. A flyover of stealth bombers would be pretty sweet, too.

Do you recall what was revealed?

There are a number of things I might say about the situation in New Orleans and not one of them is funny. I am reluctant to make any comments on a story so deeply upsetting, but I am equally reluctant to make comments about anything else.

First, I know I am not alone in my shock at how these events have unfolded. As I made my way to work on Monday, reports seemed to indicate that while it had been hit hard by Katrina's high winds and heavy rains, the city had been spared the catastrophic damage it would have suffered if there had been a direct, full-force hit.

It was eerie, then, as reports began to emerge of a steadily worsening situation -- a situation that, it seems, still hasn't improved as much or as quickly as one would hope. Even if some 80% of the city's half million residents had the means to evacuate ahead of time and were able to do so, some 100,000 did not. Of large U.S. cities, New Orleans has the fifth-highest percentage of black residents (67.3%), and the per capita income among blacks there ($11,332) is about a third of what it is among whites. (By comparison, New York's per capita income among blacks is $15,294, or roughly half of the average white income.)

It has been especially interesting to watch the media tip-toe around the unpleasant fact that nearly all of those who remain stuck in the city -- many without adequate food, water, or basic sanitation -- are poor and black, and many of them simply lacked the resources to arrange for accommodation or even to leave the city. The stories of rampant looting and lawlessness -- and the unimaginable horror found inside the Superdome after several days without full electricity or working plumbing -- have a distinct theme that can be brought across without the media needing to say anything: these people are black, and poor, and now desperate.

For the Bush administration, Katrina and her aftermath come at an especially interesting moment. Yesterday's news of nearly a thousand deaths in a Baghdad stampede -- fully a third of 9/11, in terms of loss of life -- was buried by circumstance beneath the equally horrific stories coming out of our own Gulf region. It was also yesterday that the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus released a report showing that the war in Iraq is costing the U.S. $186 million per day -- or roughly $2,000 per second. This news likewise took a backseat to the flooding damage, which by current estimates will take $30 billion and 16 weeks to repair -- that translates to about $268 million per day.

It is reassuring that there still seem to be enough troops on U.S. soil to respond to the relief effort, but one cannot help but wonder how much more readily they might have reached New Orleans had so many of them not been training for -- or returning from -- service in Iraq when the call came. The number of Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard troops diverted to Iraq is especially troubling; it is hard to fathom what they are feeling now, unable to assist at home where they are desperately needed because they are far away, busy being unable to assist where they are not even wanted. But I digress.

What I found most shocking about the last few days was that it was widely understood that a direct hit from a major storm would place the city in jeopardy, as levees and pumping stations proved inadequate to protect the basin from the higher waters surrounding it. Why was the Army Corps of Engineers so slow to respond? Why was no plan in place to quickly repair them when the worst case scenario slowly turned into reality?

Well, as it turns out, hundreds of millions of dollars of improvements to the levees and pumps had to be put on hold so that we could "rebuild" Iraq. This has been well documented. Our Commander-in-Chief has cut short his vacation to oversee relief efforts from Washington -- after his administration had repeatedly insisted that his faculties in Crawford were in no way compromised by its out-of-the-way location. If you can run a war from Texas, why can't you run a relief operation, too? (Crawford is 550 miles from New Orleans).

While President Bush assures us that we can and will rebuild (a message that by now sounds shrill and vacant, no matter what city, foreign or domestic, he happens to be discussing), his people tell us the economic impact of Katrina will be limited. Yes, it will: limited to a few miserable black folks on the bayou, and to the gasoline that will cost us $6 a gallon by the end of the Labor Day weekend. And those terrorists whom we are "fighting abroad, so that we don't have to fight them here"? It turns out all they had to do to hit us hard was drive their Chevy to the levee -- no one was even watching it.