Imperialism

One thing is clear about that secret undisclosed location to which Vice President Dick Cheney repairs from time to time: It's somewhere above the law. Or so Mr. Cheney seems to believe. His decision to delay as long as possible telling the press about shooting one of his hunting partners Saturday suggests he hoped the incident might somehow escape attention. A natural human impulse, but one only an official as removed and remote from his fellow Americans as Mr. Cheney might imagine he could pull off. Probably the most powerful vice president in history, Mr. Cheney has also been the least accountable to the public.

In the past three months, the information flow from the bureaucracy of Carroll government -- never a torrent -- has diminished to a trickle. Inquiries about the most innocuous of state grants, tourism statistics and environmental and planning matters are routed to department and bureau directors or not returned at all.Strangely, the behavior of the bureaucrats contrasts with the county's commissioners, who are accessible and, so far, have made a genuine effort...

LONDON -- Bill Clinton's first foreign policy action when he became president was to bomb Iraq. Now, five years on, perhaps he is going to end up bombing Iraq again. With a military whose firepower has no peer, supported by a budget more than the military budgets of all the other industrial nations of the world combined, the temptation to work outside of U.N. authority and deliver a quick one is obviously difficult to resist. The job of U.S. president comes with the burden of 200 years of America's twin aspirations -- to be invulnerable and to be able to realize its imperial ambitions.

THE GOP-controlled Congress cried, "Stop me before I spend again!" when it voted overwhelmingly to give the presidency unprecedented power.Frustrated that they cannot garner the votes to balance the budget or to stop their own pork barrel legislation, members of Congress have decided they don't want the job anymore -- despite the fact that the Constitution puts that responsibility in their hands."

Kaye White of Bloomington, Minn., was looking for the recipe for the Crab Imperial that was served at the now-closed Olney Inn in Olney. Interestingly, I received two versions claiming to be the Olney Inn crab imperial recipe from readers. The only difference between the two versions was that in one the crab was topped with an egg white and mayonnaise meringue and garnished with a mashed potato piping around the outside of the dish. The crab imperial itself was identical in both versions.

"The Magician's Wife," by Brian Moore. Dutton. 230 pages. $23.95.It was the merest of historical footnotes: In 1856, Napoleon III sent Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, Europe's most famous magician, to Algeria to help France subdue the Arab population there. But that fact was all the spark Brian Moore needed to ignite this exquisitely crafted novel, a fast-paced story of psychological, romantic and geo-political intrigue.In "The Magician's Wife," the real Robert-Houdin (a name later exploited by Houdini)

Cream, butter, egg yolks and cheese can inflate the fat and calories in a recipe faster than any other ingredients. When all four combine in one recipe -- watch out.Reader Ellie Ramsey discovered this when she clipped a recipe for linguine imperial from the "Creme de Colorado Cookbook" published by the Junior League of Denver.The original seafood recipe had a whopping 929 calories and 62 grams of fat per serving -- more fat in one dish than a person on a 2,000-calore-a-day-diet should consume in an entire day.The streamlined recipe, lighter linguine imperial, reduced the fat by more than half and also sliced off 510 calories, but retained the original creamy, cheesy flavor.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- The last time I'd paid my respects to Czar Nicholas II was in a vacant lot at the Siberian city of Sverdlovsk. There was nothing to mark the spot but a listing Orthodox church cross.That's the site where the czar and his family were murdered by Bolsheviks, in the cellar of a farmhouse in 1918.The house was later demolished by a local communist chief, by the name of Yeltsin, for fear the site might become a shrine. Later he would say Brezhnev made him do it.I was there in the early 1990s.

Martha Nielson of Trenton, N.J., was hoping someone would have the recipe for a Crab Imperial dish similar to the one she and her husband used to enjoy on their trips to Maryland. It was served at Busch's restaurant in Cape St. Claire. The restaurant closed several years ago and though she has tried many recipes for Crab Imperial, none has come close to the light and fluffy one with a cheesy topping that was served at Busch's. Unfortunately, we did not receive any responses from our readers for a Crab Imperial with a cheese topping.