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1574265_1 | China Tries Again to Curb Independent Press in South | damage related to the huge Three Gorges dam project and have celebrated repeated scoops over the outbreak, cover-up and then recurrence of the SARS virus. If the newspaper's leaders lose their judicial appeals, journalists from the Southern media group, Chinese intellectuals and colleagues from other publications say, the embattled newspaper will have also exposed the limits of free expression and political reform in their country. In an unusually bold petition, dozens of prominent journalists and academics have decried the prosecutions as the ''illegal use of all kinds of measures, including juridical methods, to limit press freedoms and crack down on the media and limit its space.'' If the persecution of the newspaper does not end, the signers warned that ''the authority and credibility of the party and the government bodies and the legislature will be questioned, and news media whose responsibility is to push the society forward will find it difficult to survive.'' Although the official charge was embezzlement of company bonuses, most observers say the most immediate apparent cause for Southern Metropolitan Daily's legal troubles was its reporting in December of a suspected re-emergence of the SARS virus, which caused a deadly epidemic a year earlier. Yu Huafeng, the newspaper's general manager, was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison. Li Minying, a former editor in chief, was sentenced to 11 years. Cheng Yizhong, the paper's top editor, is under arrest and has been charged with embezzlement. ''The convictions and trials are a severe blow to the country's media reforms,'' said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet project at the University of California-Berkeley. ''It shows the leadership fears the country's press might be getting out of control and has decided to strike back.'' The Southern media group has curious origins for a muckraking paper that regularly irritates the authorities. It was founded in 1997 by the provincial Communist Party, just as the region's economic growth kicked into high gear. Guangzhou had already been a breeding ground for the country's liberalizing economic reforms. The city has long been a relatively freewheeling place, far from Beijing and near Hong Kong, whose intensely competitive news media make censorship here almost pointless. For weeks, reporters and editors at the newspaper and at Southern Weekend have been unwilling to speak publicly about their situation for fear of inviting further trouble for their publications or being made targets themselves. Privately, though, several employees spoke |
1574226_2 | For Bush and Sharon, 'Confidence' and 'Realities' Are Crucial | create the right conditions to resume negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. I was encouraged by your positive response and your support for my plan. In that context, you handed me a letter that includes very important statements regarding Israel's security and its well-being as a Jewish state. You have proven, Mr. President, your ongoing deep and sincere friendship to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people. I believe that my plan can be an important contribution to advancing your vision, which is the only viable way to achieve the peace and security in the Middle East. . . . Q. -- Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to go back to your opening statement and ask you, does the United States recognize Israel's right to retain some Jewish settlements in the West Bank? And if so, how does that fit with the U.S. policy that settlements are an obstacle to peace? PRESIDENT BUSH -- First, let us recognize that the prime minister has made the decision to dismantle some settlements. In other words, he is beginning to implement a vision that allows for contiguous territory so that a Palestinian state can emerge. . . . It is very important for a Palestinian state to emerge in which we have confidence, in which any prime minister of Israel has confidence, in which the United States has confidence, that will be a peaceful partner. And so what the prime minister has done is, he's started the process of removing settlements from the West Bank. Your question to me is about the final status agreements. I said that the conditions on the ground have changed over time and, obviously, that must be recognized during any final status negotiations. You know, I look forward to the moment when we're actually discussing final status negotiations. There's a lot of work to be done prior to getting there. And what the prime minister has done has started the process. And now it's up for responsible Palestinians, caring Europeans, Americans, the United Nations, to step in and help develop such a state that will be a peaceful state, one in which money will actually end up helping the people of the Palestinian -- Palestinians -- to be able to grow their businesses and grow their -- find wealth for their families. And then we can worry about the final status negotiations. THE MIDEAST TURMOIL |
1574343_0 | Call Me E-Mail | A CORPORATE e-mail message goes astray. Two young strangers flirt in cyberspace. They agree to meet. An assault ensues. And a mystery built on digital clues is born. It's not a plot that breaks new ground. But then, the earnest new ''novel'' that it fuels, ''Intimacies,'' by Eric Brown, is drawing notice more for its style than for its content. A former English professor who teaches executives how to write, Mr. Brown, 59, calls ''Intimacies'' a digital epistolary novel, or DEN, terms that he has trademarked. The plot of ''Intimacies'' is based on ''Pamela,'' the 18th-century work by Samuel Richardson that is one of Western literature's first epistolary novels. It is the format of Mr. Brown's work rather than its story that makes it postmodern: it is meant to be read with the aid of a software interface designed by Billy McQuown, an employee at Mr. Brown's consulting firm, Communication Associates. The story unfolds through e-mail messages, instant-message conversations and Web sites, all within a window generated by the DEN software; the program can be downloaded free from www.greatamericannovel.com, Mr. Brown's Web site. But more intriguing than ''Intimacies'' itself is Mr. Brown's plan to begin selling a version of the software that he used to write it, one that will help fans of the form execute their own digital epistolary novels. Of course, writers have long experimented with e-mail narratives; some say that by now it is almost impossible to avoid, given the prevalence of e-mail communication. ''E-mail fictions have been going for at least a decade -- it's a pretty primal urge,'' said Rob Wittig, 48, a writer who began posting fictional messages on electronic bulletin boards in the early 1980's. In 1999 Mr. Wittig created ''Friday's Big Meeting'' (www.robwit.net/fbm), a story set in a virtual chatroom, as well as ''Blue Company 2002'' (www.robwit.net/bluecompany2002), arguably the first epistolary e-mail narrative to be written and published for paying e-mail subscribers in real time. Other examples of what Mr. Wittig called message fictions have ranged in style from ''Online Caroline'' (www.onlinecaroline.com), a multimedia story that lets users interact with a fictional character by means of timed e-mail messages, her Webcam and her Web site, and SMS cellphone text-messaging and pager-message shorts. Then there is ''The Case of the Molndal Murder,'' a September 2003 project at the Molndal Museum in Sweden, where people using Bluetooth-equipped hand-helds followed a map while their devices |
1572194_0 | Endless Questions on Estrogen | To the Editor: Re ''Strokes or Insomnia? A Woman's Hormone Quandary'' (March 23): The author chose to stay on estrogen to avoid hot flashes. But could there be even better reasons to take estrogen? Could the changes in physiology that result from ending the treatment lead to an increased risk of arthritis, osteoporosis and other age-related diseases? Many women would like to see studies that compare people who stay on the pill to those who don't. A small increase in the risk of stroke might be a small price to pay for holding at bay a number of other serious conditions. DIANA B. STEIN Amherst, Mass. |
1572106_1 | MEMO PAD | for the April Fool's joke, but a lot checked it out with Virgin's press office. Only ''a few seemed perturbed'' at the prank, part of an April Fool's tradition at fun-loving Virgin, a unit of the Virgin Group, said Elizabeth Ciresi, a spokeswoman. FOREIGN TRAVEL UP -- There is more evidence of the resurgence in international travel from domestic airlines' data on March traffic, compared with March 2003. The five major airlines that had released March numbers as of yesterday reported they had sharp increases in overseas traffic as measured in revenue passenger miles. At AMR's American Airlines, international travel was up 20.9 percent (compared with a 7 percent rise domestically). Delta Air Lines' international traffic rose 16 percent (7.9 percent domestically). At Continental Airlines, international travel was up 17.7 percent (6.3 percent). US Airways' overseas traffic rose 24.2 percent (4.5 percent), and Northwest Airlines reported an increase of 9.4 percent (2.8 percent). CHALLENGE TO WATCH LIST -- The American Civil Liberties Union says it will file a lawsuit to challenge the so-called no-fly list, a consolidated watch list containing the names of thousands of people with suspected terrorist or other threatening connections. The list is being phased in at airports by the Transportation Security Administration. People whose names match one on the list, which has been consolidated from various watch lists maintained by government agencies, will be subject to extra security or prohibited from flying altogether. Numerous travelers have complained about being harassed at airports because they share a name with someone on the lists. The A.C.L.U. plans news conferences in three cities today to release details of its suit, whose plaintiffs include a retired Presbyterian minister, a member of the military and a college student. BUSINESS JETS AND EUROPE -- Business aviation has traditionally faced both cultural and geographical hurdles in Europe, where public attitudes toward corporate highfliers are more negative than in the United States and extensive high-speed train networks with luxury services adequately serve most medium-range distances typically flown by the company plane. That may be changing, especially as security measures cause new delays at European airports. NetJets, the leading United States provider of corporate fractional-jet services, says it is investing $312 million in the European private jet market this year and buying 21 new planes, including two Gulfstream IV-SP jets capable of making trans-Atlantic trips. NetJets is owned by Berkshire Hathaway JOE SHARKEY BUSINESS TRAVEL |
1572634_0 | Cause of Deadly Derailment Is Sought | |
1572548_1 | 100 Years Ago, an Intersection's New Name: Times Square | change on the morning the map was published. Times Square, The Times said, ''is a name that serves perfectly for identification and is one, we think, not likely to be forgotten in this community.'' Or at least not in The Times's new building. Its main entrance led to a subway station. And the subway, The Times said, was the reason for the new name. ''The choice of this name grew naturally out of the necessity of having a distinctive title for the subway station in the basement of The Times Building at the corner of Forty-second Street and Broadway,'' The Times explained. ''To have called the station 'Forty-second Street' would have been a source of endless confusion, since the Grand Central Station of the subway is also on Forty-second Street. The name 'Broadway Station' would have been open to the same objection, since there are many other subway stations on Broadway. The name Times Station naturally suggested itself, since the subway passes through the first underground story of The Times Building.'' Adolph S. Ochs, the publisher of The Times from 1896 to 1935, said that the name change originated with August Belmont, whose Interborough Rapid Transit Company was putting the finishing touches on the subway. ''I am pleased to say that Times Square was named without any effort or suggestion on the part of The Times,'' Ochs told the business manager of The Syracuse Herald in a letter on April 13. But he was clearly proud of what was going on in Times Square. He called the paper's new building ''the first successful effort in New York to give architectural beauty to a skyscraper.'' As he also noted, New York had named a square for a newspaper before -- Herald Square. Also, he wrote, ''The old name of Long Acre Square meant nothing, signified nothing.'' The issue of Jan. 1, 1905, was the last printed at The Times's old building at 41 Park Row. Twenty-seven Linotype machines were taken apart, hauled uptown and put back together, where 11 new Linotypes had already been installed. In the basement were new presses that could print, fold and count 144,000 copies an hour. The paper soon outgrew the tower, and in 1913 moved less than a block away, to what had been an annex at 229 West 43rd Street, where it remains today. The company sold the tower in Times Square in 1961. |
1572597_5 | Block That Ring Tone! | measures left to the customers' discretion. ''They are certainly less odious than jammers,'' he said. Another means of guarding against cellphone disturbance is the use of detectors, sold legally in the United States and abroad, that sound an alert when a cellphone is present. Zetron, a company in Redmond, Wash., makes the Cellphone Detector Plus, a $449 receiver that sounds an audio alert when it detects certain cellphone frequencies. The model, about the size of a thermostat, flashes a red light, beeps and plays a recording that urges people to turn their phones off. The devices are useful for hospitals, said Vaughn Entwistle, who edits Zetron's company newsletter. An Israeli company, Netline, makes a detector called the Cellular Activity Analyzer, a hand-held device that is used to monitor and detect cellular communication activity in a given area. (It is offered at www.netline.co.il or www.spyshops.ca for $2,500.) Other smaller detector models include the RF Signal Detector from Suresafe Technology, about the size of a beeper, which costs less than $100. As with jammers, the larger the detector, the greater its range. A different approach -- by design or happenstance, but altogether legal -- is to block cellphone signals through construction techniques. (An F.C.C. spokeswoman said the commission had no regulations dealing with building materials.) Like most cellphone-blocking methods, many of these ideas were developed long ago for military and espionage purposes, said Bill Sewell, senior vice president of DMJM Technology, who has spent years designing radio-secure areas for the United States government. Mr. Sewell said the methods used by his firm are simple: metal mesh screens tuned to the frequencies of radio waves are mounted inside the wall. They are also inexpensive, at about $15 a square foot, he said. Like Mr. Sewell, Deborah Chung, the Niagara Mohawk professor of materials research at the State University at Buffalo, has developed construction materials that block radio waves. Dr. Chung's ''smart concrete'' contains electrically conductive mixtures, like metal or carbon particles, that provide electromagnetic interference. Her structures are designed for the military and hospitals, she said, but they could be used in other structures to keep cellphone users away. ''It certainly would work,'' she said. ''On the other hand, they might not be able to watch TV inside.'' Some buildings have the blessing or curse of being cellphone-proof by accident, thanks to heavy walls. An example is the Frederick P. Rose Hall, the |
1572517_2 | Learning to Expect the Unexpected | black swan of the vicious variety. A vicious black swan has an additional elusive property: its very unexpectedness helps create the conditions for it to occur. Had a terrorist attack been a conceivable risk on Sept. 10, 2001, it would likely not have happened. Jet fighters would have been on alert to intercept hijacked planes, airplanes would have had locks on their cockpit doors, airports would have carefully checked all passenger luggage. None of that happened, of course, until after 9/11. Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave. Yet vicious black swans by definition do not repeat themselves. We cannot learn from them easily. All of which brings us to the 9/11 commission. America will not have another chance to hold a first inquiry into 9/11. With its flawed mandate, however, the commission is in jeopardy of squandering this opportunity. The first flaw is the error of excessive and naïve specificity. By focusing on the details of the past event, we may be diverting attention from the question of how to prevent future tragedies, which are still abstract in our mind. To defend ourselves against black swans, general knowledge is a crucial first step. The mandate is also a prime example of the phenomenon known as hindsight distortion. To paraphrase Kirkegaard, history runs forward but is seen backward. An investigation should avoid the mistake of overestimating cases of possible negligence, a chronic flaw of hindsight analyses. Unfortunately, the hearings show that the commission appears to be looking for precise and narrowly defined accountability. Yet infinite vigilance is not possible. Negligence in any specific case needs to be compared with the normal rate of negligence for all possible events at the time of the tragedy -- including those events that did not take place but could have. Before 9/11, the risk of terrorism was not as obvious as it seems today to a reasonable person in government (which is part of the reason 9/11 occurred). Therefore the government might have used its resources to protect against other risks -- with invisible but perhaps effective results. The third flaw is related. Our system of rewards is not adapted to |
1572600_5 | In Google We Trust? When the Subject Is E-Mail, Maybe Not | Web-based e-mail services, Gmail would have the advantage of being available from any computer with Internet access. That, plus the huge amount of storage available, could make it useful as a kind of data-transfer service. Some academic e-mail systems offer a taste of what this could be like. Dartmouth, for instance, uses a centralized e-mail service with a 100-megabyte storage limit. ''I've often seen Dartmouth students send an enclosure to themselves, walk across campus and then download the attachment to the computer where they need to work,'' said David Kotz, a computer science professor at Dartmouth. ''A one-gigabyte Google mailbox would be useful around the world.'' Mr. Wiggins agreed. ''The one-gig mailbox will now compete with Web servers, burnable CD's, burnable DVD's, iPods and flash memory thumb drives as the way we transport, carry and share personal content,'' he said. Still, many people consider the contents of their personal e-mail inviolable. Every day, people send personal e-mail messages both mundane (''Where should we go for dinner?'' ) and potentially explosive (''Where should we go for dinner so that my wife doesn't find out?''). Even topics that Google might consider innocuous could take the recipient of a targeted ad by surprise. ''Would Google peek and know that my life's passion is to own a red Badgley Mischka gown?'' said Ann Gillespie, a marketing writer in Weston, Mass., who uses AOL for her e-mail. ''I think I'd be a bit spooked.'' ''It's not that Google is peeking,'' said Mr. Rosing in response to Ms. Gillespie's concern. ''It's computers doing processing.'' Mr. Rosing said that if someone sent an e-mail to Ms. Gillespie about the gown, the software would probably notice the mention of the designer, and if Badgley Mischka happened to be a Google advertiser, an ad would show up on the Web page containing Ms. Gillespie's e-mail. But if Ms. Gillespie did not desire such a gown and simply received an e-mail from a friend noting that a film star had been seen wearing one, the Google software would place an ad next to the message anyway. Mr. Rosing said the software was not sophisticated enough to make such context-based distinctions. ''Not yet,'' he said. ''Maybe someday it will be.'' Ms. Gillespie also worried that, were she to subscribe to Gmail, her Google searches would be linked to the personal information gleaned from her e-mail. Mr. Rosing said Google did not |
1572661_0 | Corrections | Because of an editing error, an article on March 23 about the Bush administration's assertion that solid progress was being made in wiping out the Andean region's coca crops described the eradication efforts in Peru and Bolivia incorrectly. Only ground operations are used there; aerial spraying is limited to Colombia. |
1577987_2 | And the Rich Get Smarter | storehouse of knowledge than to the institutional coffers, and the shift from liberal arts to the ''practical arts.'' While competition has strengthened some colleges, embedded in the very idea of university are values the market does not honor: the belief in a community of scholars and not a confederacy of self-seekers; in the idea of openness and not ownership; and in the student as an acolyte whose preferences are to be formed, not a consumer whose preferences are to be satisfied. The operations of admissions offices display the marketers' handiwork. Consider the reliance on early admissions. That practice has no academic justification, just a market rationale -- the crucial U.S. News & World Report rankings stress selectivity, and colleges favor early decision because those accepted are expected to enroll. Going this route improves a student's chances by as much as 50 percent, but only those whose families don't have to shop around for the best aid package can afford to take advantage of this version of affirmative action. Admissions decisions are, more and more, based on statistical models that leave little room for hunches about character and potential. The paper credentials of students -- A averages and high SAT scores -- don't necessarily translate into intellectual fireworks. Many top-performing high school students are burnt out by the time they're freshmen, while working- class teenagers and community college transfers with less sterling records arrive with a hunger for learning and often fare at least as well. These new models are also intended to increase revenues by shrinking scholarships -- what the new breed of ''enrollment managers'' calls the discount from the tuition sticker price. In an environment where admissions offices are sometimes referred to as profit centers, the ''full payers,'' students from wealthy families, are in greatest demand. In addition, aid, which has historically been based on need, is increasingly being granted on academic merit. A dozen states have also adopted this approach, awarding millions of dollars a year in merit scholarships to students who would have attended college anyway, instead of helping those who otherwise can't afford an education. The bottom line is that five out of every six qualified seniors whose families earn more than $75,000 -- but fewer than half of those whose families earn less than $25,000 -- enroll in a four-year college. Higher education used to be regarded as an engine of opportunity. Now it's certifying |
1578039_1 | The French Get Their Drug Company. Will Foreign Investors Retaliate? | 25 percent of a United States airline. Not that long ago, it was America that was worried about its place in an international economy increasingly dominated by Japan. There were cries of anguish as Japanese investors snapped up assets deemed to be emblematic of the United States, among them Rockefeller Center in New York and the Pebble Beach golf course in California. The anxiety existed even though it was hard to imagine what harm there could be. Would the Japanese refuse to rent offices to Americans? Would wealthy duffers be banned from losing golf balls in the Pacific? Now, ''in Europe there is a feeling of insecurity,'' Felix G. Rohatyn, the investment banker and former United States ambassador to France, said in an interview. ''The problem is the lack of growth.'' Efforts at economic reform in Europe have proved both ineffective and unpopular. France evidently wants to protect its place in a growth industry where it has two important companies, even if Aventis is the result of an earlier French-German merger. But France has been less protectionist in other areas. It allowed Alcan of Canada to acquire Pechiney, but pharmaceuticals are different from aluminum. What would have happened if Novartis, the Swiss company, had been willing to bid for Aventis despite worries that France could have retaliated with delayed drug approvals or harsh decisions on drug pricing? ''I can't be sure that if they had made a superior bid the French government would have stopped them,'' Mr. Rohatyn said. He thinks a combined Novartis-Aventis could have defended itself with threats to move research or other operations. Weeks ago, the French prime minister arranged to meet some foreign capitalists, Mr. Rohatyn among them, to begin a campaign promoting investment in France. The meeting took place the day after Aventis surrendered. The timing could have been better. Angry investors who wanted more for their Aventis shares are now muttering about avoiding France, and it can be noted that the euro peaked soon after the French government first intervened. But there are other reasons for the euro's rise and retreat. Investors hoping for takeover bonanzas may be less willing to buy major French companies, but that effect on investment is likely to be marginal. France's big problem with attracting investment has not changed: Investors doubt French growth prospects, and they have little expectation that much will be done to improve them. Floyd Norris |
1573259_0 | PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL | |
1573132_2 | Privacy Issues Slow Updated Airline Security | change the required ''passing'' score at a given airport or on a given day in response to intelligence information. The A.C.L.U. is still opposed. LaShawn Y. Warren, a staff attorney who specializes in privacy issues complained in a statement, ''Imagine a travel system where everyone is a suspect, based upon secret information they can't review, let alone dispute.'' Not even the T.S.A. is certain about the level of accuracy of the databases that the contractor would use, she said, adding, ''T.S.A. still plans to rely on this information to assess air passengers' risk levels, which could mean detention, or worse, land some passengers in jail.'' But the idea has support. Paul Rosenzweig, a senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative research center, testified that last year he was at a small airport with a federal judge, who was chosen for scrutiny. A T.S.A. security guard went through the judge's lingerie, he said. ''She would have traded a little bit of electronic privacy for physical privacy,'' he added. Another witness, Kevin P. Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, an advocacy group, said that he favored a better system but that he was not sure Capps 2 would work as advertised. ''A U.S.-based terrorist sleeper cell could throw 50 recruits at Capps 2 until it found 10 that were color-coded green,'' he said. Their status could stay green on subsequent flights, and they would be assured of only light scrutiny, he said. Mr. Mitchell and others also raised the possibility that identity theft could defeat the system, with a terrorist simply using the identity of a person not posing a threat. Another constituency in favor of the program, though, is the airlines., which would like to see a more sophisticated system that puts fewer travelers through the wand-and-stocking-feet routine. James C. May, the president of the Air Transport Association, the trade group for the big airlines, said the current system was ''a rudimentary mix.'' ''It's clear that to improve aviation security, Capps 1 does need to be replaced,'' he said at the hearing. But after two airlines, Northwest and JetBlue, were publicly pilloried in the last few months for handing over passenger data to help planners test the system, Mr. May did not volunteer cooperation. Mr. Stone of the T.S.A. said that his agency would soon make the data submission mandatory, either by releasing a new rule for |
1573107_3 | Vows | to want,'' and that Americans will easily recognize that polygamy does considerably more damage to a liberal-democratic order than his own preferred policy of ''one person, one spouse'' possibly could. To the ''Men Behaving Badly'' argument -- that what ''settles'' men is not the institution of marriage but the need to negotiate a modus vivendi with women -- he narrows the discussion to adultery and finds the jury still out. Even if gay men are more likely to cheat on their partners than heterosexuals, Rauch points out, there would be a clear net gain to society in having them disciplined into discretion by a marital vow. Rauch's points do not close any arguments. Strands of two large American religions, Islam and Mormonism, will surely demand polygamy once gay marriage passes; and the question of whether women help settle men might look different if Rauch used the lens of, say, substance abuse or violence. But his discussion is enough to reassure anyone not already dug in against gay marriage. Even more important, it puts on display his arguing style, an appealing combination of prosecutorial logic and gentlemanly forbearance. Rauch strains to find merit even in the positions of intemperate talk-show hosts. He neither twists words nor tweaks statistics. He takes pains not to leave angles unexamined. And yet he commits an important error of emphasis, which is not fatal to his case for gay marriage but damages his case that gay marriage can be traditional marriage. It concerns the importance of childbearing. ''I hope I won't be accused of saying that children are a trivial reason for marriage,'' he says early in the book. ''They just cannot be the only reason.'' It is true that marriage has historically served many purposes. But alongside that of providing a nonanarchic context for producing children, they all look like moons against Jupiter. Rauch hates this argument. He finds it ''incoherent, incorrect and antimarriage.'' He is happy to speak of the welfare of children, but skirts the production of children, dismissing it as a ''sex-centered view.'' Rauch is not being prudish, only unreasonable. ''If the possibility of procreation is what gives meaning to marriage,'' he writes, ''then a postmenopausal woman who applies for a marriage license should be turned away at the courthouse door. What's more, she should be hooted at and condemned for breaking the crucial link between marriage and procreation.'' Not necessarily. The |
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1577723_0 | Future of the Rain Forest | To the Editor: Brian Kelly and Mark London (''Bright Spots in the Rain Forest,'' Op-Ed, April 22) suggest that ''the solution for saving the rain forest may be more development, not less.'' Amazonia will develop, but the real issues are the nature of this development, where it will take place, whether legitimate stakeholders will guide it, who will benefit from it and, most important, what development models will be followed. Brazil needs large-scale agriculture, but should that be the dominant model for Amazonia? High-tech soy cultivation, for example, employs few workers, and historically, landholder consolidation in Brazil has generated high environmental and social costs. Significant resources should focus on helping small communities help themselves, so Amazonian people can remain self-employed and not live as peons. Better models are possible. Marina Silva, the Brazilian environmental minister, has said development should favor ''sustainable, diversified production that is appropriate to the realities of the forest.'' DOUGLAS C. DALY Curator of Amazonian Botany New York Botanical Garden Bronx, April 26, 2004 |
1576205_4 | Examining an African Culture in Which Two Sets of Reality Coexist | Some of these sculptures correspond to Western conventions of beauty. A dance mask of a youthful female water-spirit, with its tapering chin, downcast eyes and leaf-shaped facial adornments, is one. Larger-than-life figures of ancestor spirits, their bodies tensed in a half-seated crouch as if in the process of rising, were intended to inspire awe, especially when grouped in altarlike shrines, one of which has been recreated for the show. The best known Urhobo sculptures, though, are those called iphri, associated with male aggression. Almost all of those in the show are variations on a single type: the image of a squat, barrel-shaped beast surmounted by one or more armed figures. The beast itself is the visual focus. Standing on four stout legs, it consists primarily of an enormous mouth lined with teeth and sometimes equipped with saber-toothed incisors. It's a wild concept, literally. This isn't art you are meant to get comfortable with. It is art that bites, devours, exhorts and rebukes, that is simultaneously captivating and repellent. As the Fowler exhibition explicitly stated and the Museum for African Art show implies, an assertive warrior ethos is a dominant feature of many Niger Delta societies. And iphri symbolically encourage and extol it, as surely as battle scenes carved on Greek temples did, or the glamorous violence of contemporary action films does. But the iphri also have a second, opposite function. They are instruments for controlling types of aggression -- implacable personal anger, say -- that have exceeded manageable bounds. Like much African sculpture, they are examples of a regulatory moral art, designed to shape behavior in the interest of social balance. The kind of iphri seen in the show are infrequently made now, and ancestral spirit shrines, intact when Mr. Foss first arrived on the scene, are empty or gone. But their forms and the art of moral purpose that they represent survives, recast in the contemporary paintings and prints of Mr. Onobrakpeya, an artist of international stature. Several pieces by him are in the show, interspersed among related traditional works. One, ''Agbogidi,'' is a richly colored image of an ancestor shrine he encountered in the early 1970's. Another, of a family going to market, is a scene remembered from his childhood. A third, a black-and-white print titled ''Emedjo,'' incorporates images of the jubilant characters known as children-of-the-spirit from the Ohworhu masquerade. That festival is still staged, though on a |
1576221_0 | Work Restarts On Projects Hurt by Strife, Officials Say | Work on rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure is recovering from a near halt at the height of the violence earlier this month, project officials said on Thursday, though 10 percent of the foreign workers remain out of Iraq for safety and little is being done at 10 percent of the projects. The officials said it was too early to assess whether the violence -- ambushes of supply convoys, kidnappings and killings of foreign workers, threats against Iraqis working on the projects -- would delay completion of the $1 billion in projects under way to rebuild electricity plants, bridges, sanitation facilities and the like. But American officials are bracing for more violence in the weeks leading up to the transfer of some sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, a problem that one senior American reconstruction official acknowledged might further hinder the work. ''The logic would be if the security situation stays like it is or gets worse, it's going to have an impact,'' Tom Wheelock, director of infrastructure programs for the United States Agency for International Development, which oversees the rebuilding contracts, told reporters in Baghdad on Thursday. So far, Mr. Wheelock said, ''despite the security problems, work has continued.'' With companies citing security concerns, few specifics have been disclosed about how the violence has affected the work of rebuilding Iraq. But amid the pullout of hundreds of foreign workers -- among them 600 Russians last week -- two major contractors, General Electric and Siemens, have suspended most of their operations here because of security concerns and some of their foreign workers have left the country. Mr. Wheelock said that virtually all work shut down during the second week of April as the violence intensified and Iraqi subcontractors and employees failed to show up. Now, he said, the subcontractors have returned, as have most employees, and substantial work is being done, though not necessarily at full speed, at about 45 of some 50 projects overseen by A.I.D. Work speed at the others -- mostly in Baghdad and south to the Shiite city of Nasiriya -- is ''not worth writing home about,'' he said. Work in the north and the far south has not been affected, he said. Another aid agency official said 10 percent of foreigners were currently out of Iraq. Some were sent out, the official said, but most had been on break outside the country and were told not to return |
1576449_3 | Torn Cyprus Votes Today: Will It Enter Europe United? | and on both sides of the debate, said they had tired of the exhortations and excuses of the two old leaders. ''The philosophy of Denktash and Papadopolous is the same philosophy, that it's better to live separate,'' said George Hadji Savvas, a Greek Cypriot supportive of the reunification plan. Now 63, Mr. Savvas remembers with overpowering sentiment the village of his birth in northern Cyprus that he had to leave in 1974. ''It's a beautiful village,'' he said. ''I cry when I think of how I left it and I cry when I think how I can't live with my Turkish compatriots in a peaceful future.'' Yet older Turkish Cypriots remember being afraid to venture into Greek areas long before the invasion. Their counterparts from the other side have similar but mirror opposite recollections. ''It may sound unbelievable, but growing up, I never met a Turkish Cypriot,'' said Demos Kyriacou, a pro-settlement Greek Cypriot who spent his youth in Famagusta, a lovely port city now under Turkish control. ''The Turkish people lived in the old city, in a ghetto.'' Some reconciliation has begun recently, but timidly. Last year Mr. Denktash, pressed by Turkey to make a gesture toward compromise after he was blamed for the breakdown of negotiations on a Cyprus settlement, agreed to a longtime demand of the Greek side and permitted people to pass back and forth along the Green Line. Since then, border guards have recorded more than three million crossings from both sides, with Turkish Cypriots taking low-paying jobs on the Greek side and Greeks venturing to their old villages in the north. The plan proposed by the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, and put forward unilaterally after Cypriot negotiations broke down last month, would allow some 120,000 Greek Cypriots the right to recover homes that ended up on the Turkish side, provide compensation for others and gradually reduce the number of Turkish troops on the island to 650 from the present 35,000. The two sides would retain control of their own affairs but be linked to a weak central government run by a committee made up of four Greek Cypriots and two Turkish Cypriots. The plan is a compromise, but one that many people outside believed that the Cypriots would welcome. As Álvaro de Soto, the United Nations envoy to Cyprus, put it: ''The question everyone was asking me in Europe is, 'Don't the |
1574595_0 | World Briefing | Africa: Anglican Leaders Meet About Gay Bishop | Anglican Church leaders from throughout Africa recommended at a meeting in Nairobi that the American Episcopalians who appointed a gay bishop in New Hampshire be disciplined by the church. Representing 40 million Anglicans, more than half the world's total, the African leaders also vowed to turn down donations from Western churches that endorse the ordination of gay bishops. ''Unless they repent, we do not need their money,'' said Archbishop Peter J. Akinola of Nigeria, who heads the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa. Marc Lacey (NYT) |
1574617_0 | Technology Briefing | Hardware: Xerox To Report On Plastic Electronics | Xerox said that it would present a report today outlining what it said is major progress toward creating electronics out of inexpensive, flexible plastic. The report, which will be presented at the spring meeting of the Materials Research Society in San Francisco, will detail advances in its development of conductive, semiconductive and insulating inks. Xerox will also describe its ability to fashion them into an electronic circuit using an inkjet printer in normal atmospheric conditions, according to Beng Ong, a fellow at Xerox's Canadian research center. Organic electronics will never match silicon for processing speed, but such plastic devices would not have to be made in expensive clean rooms as today's chips are. Xerox and others are racing to develop them for less demanding applications like electronic displays and radio identification tags. Barnaby J. Feder (NYT) |
1572333_2 | Motor-Vehicle-Related Deaths Will Increase, Study Predicts | medical attention from a clinic or hospital after a traffic accident were suffering from brain injuries. The study said that road crashes should be ranked with cancer, heart disease and stroke as major threats to public health. The organization, an affiliate of the United Nations, issued its last major report on the subject more than 40 years ago. The death and injury toll is directly related to poverty, according to the study, which predicts that between 2000 and 2020, motor-vehicle-related deaths will decline by 30 percent in high-income countries but increase 80 percent in poor ones. In China, for example, road-traffic deaths more than tripled between 1975 and 1998, according to a study cited by the authors. For 2000, the study put the death rate at 11.8 per 100,000 people in high-income countries, compared with 26.1 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 19.2 in the Middle East and North Africa and 19.0 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The developing world has 20 percent of the cars but 80 percent of the dead, Dr. Krug said. The study, mostly a compilation of smaller studies conducted around the world, points out that especially in low-income countries the victims are often pedestrians and cyclists and other people not in vehicles. In India, more than half of the dead were pedestrians; in the United States, less than 15 percent were, and 80 percent of the dead were in cars and trucks. Part of the problem is money, Dr. Krug said. ''Clearly, to repave and redesign all the roads of India would be hugely expensive,'' he explained. But he also noted that most cars already have seat belts and that enforcing laws against drunken driving is not very expensive. In Thailand, he said, more than one-third of the deaths involve motorcyclists, most of whom do not wear helmets. Helmets are not expensive, he said, and helmet laws are easy to enforce. Not all the hazard is from cars and trucks. Motorized two-wheelers and three-wheelers, like rickshaws and jitneys, make up 95 percent of motor vehicles in Vietnam. The study gave examples of steps taken to reduce deaths, like limitations on the size of motorcycle engines that beginners are allowed to ride and the installation of road devices designed to absorb shock when hit by a car. It also recommended a variety of other steps, including better land-use planning to reduce the need to travel. |
1572303_1 | Shortage Makes Vanilla as Precious as Gold | grow vanilla, or xanath, as it is called in their language. Many authorities, including the Larousse Gastronomique, contend that the world's finest vanilla comes from Mexico. But don't expect bargains here. Even in Papantla's market square, beans are about $2 each, cheaper than in New York, where they are about $5, but not cheap. That's because vanilla is costlier and more precious than ever. ''The wholesale price of vanilla beans has increased from about $40 a kilogram to more than $500,'' or $227 a pound, said Matt Nielsen, a vice president of Nielsen-Massey, a company in Waukegan, Ill., that has specialized in vanilla since 1907. Eli Zabar, who uses pure vanilla extract in ice cream and baking at his stores on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, estimated that his annual cost of vanilla has soared to nearly $100,000. America consumes well over half the world's vanilla, importing 2.5 million pounds of beans in 2002. Vanilla is still the favorite ice cream flavor in the United States. The price leap is a result of a worldwide vanilla shortage over the last three years or so. It is not expected to begin easing until the end of this year. In April 2000, cyclones in Madagascar, which grows about 60 percent of the world's vanilla and sets the price, destroyed about a third of the vanilla vines in that country. The vines have been replanted, but it takes at least four years for the whitish-green orchids to bloom on a new plant and to develop the all-important seedpod, which looks like a robust string bean. There were weather losses in Indonesia, where vanilla is also cultivated. Not enough is grown elsewhere, in Tahiti, Uganda and India, to pick up the slack. And in Mexico, which accounts for about 10 percent of the world's vanilla, there were serious floods in 1999. The decline in production actually began decades ago, as farmers turned from vanilla to the Gulf Coast oil industry. ''Today, there are about 2,000 growers here,'' Mr. Vallejo said. ''Sixty years ago, there were 30,000 families.'' Lucrative cattle-ranching also led to the cutting of the forests needed by the vanilla plants. But recently, Mexico's major vanilla producers have started to develop methods to revive the industry and increase production while maintaining quality. Mr. Vallejo has experimental greenhouses in which the vanilla vines are trained on tall, closely spaced bamboo stakes. And in |
1572435_3 | A Bit of Arthritis Aside, an Old Fireboat is Fitted for the Future | with the lights off. Otherwise, the glare inside the pilothouse is blinding. Oh, and get there five minutes ago. Lives depend on it. ''You tell me if technology helps under those pressures,'' he said. But as with any institution moving haltingly but relentlessly toward the new, not everyone was persuaded. ''I'm an old-schooler, I guess,'' said Robert Spadaro. A firefighter whose seafaring career spans 5 years with the marine division of the Fire Department, 10 years with various tugboat companies and 6 years with the Staten Island ferry, he swears by paper charts, foghorns, VHF radio dispatchers and, most of all, local knowledge of the waters. But Pilot Mauro cites experience. Had the boat had the software when T.W.A. Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island in 1996, it would have taken two minutes, not two days, to get the maps needed to navigate those distant waters, he said. Or when a boater fell overboard in thick fog two winters ago, the computer could have marked the exact spot and adjusted for water speed and direction. Instead, the pilot had to backtrack using an inexact ''Williamson turn,'' the mariner's equivalent of a U-turn. The computers, which were purchased and donated by the Fire Department Safety Fund for the department's five main fireboats, have already averted some close calls. Last October, when the Fire Fighter was making a test run of the new software, it arrived at an abandoned pier that had been burning all day near Kearny, N.J., on the Hackensack River. Nautical maps showed one petroleum tank set back from the shore. Just in case, Pilot Mauro checked the computer's data bank of aerial photos. They revealed a far more serious threat: 15 to 20 petroleum tanks less than a half-mile away. Still, the crew is quick to explain that the ship's true virility lies in its vintage components, despite the occasional kinks. Take the ''worm gears'' on the top deck, for example. On many new fireboats, water cannons are mounted on hydraulic swivels, Mr. Spadaro explained. ''When you're in a clutch, manual is good,'' he said. ''A worm has enough common sense to fix these,'' he added, playing off the gears' nickname. The ship is also built with thicker steel than is used in most fireboats today, Mr. Whyte said. ''What you have here is basically two cans and a string,'' Mr. Whyte said, placing |
1577181_0 | College, for Richer or Poorer | To the Editor: Your April 22 front-page article regarding the rising numbers of students from higher-income families at American colleges and universities misses a very basic point. Sure, the children of the wealthy have advantages. But the children of successful parents are more likely to be successful not simply because their parents were wealthy but because their parents had the skills necessary to create that wealth. The parents did not inherit doctors' degrees; they earned them because they possessed intelligence and drive. Thus the odds that the children possess the same qualities and therefore are admitted to institutions of higher learning should be neither a surprise nor a negative. STEVEN BECKER New York, April 22, 2004 |
1577206_3 | AUTOS ON MONDAY/Technology; A Green S.U.V., at Least in Theory | 9 percent over the Explorer's conventional five-speed automatic. Improved aerodynamics and tires with lower rolling resistance would also improve fuel economy. Further savings would be achieved by reducing the weight to 3,150 pounds through the use of lightweight materials, including aluminum and high-strength steel, a target that Mr. Friedman says can be reached while actually improving crash safety. The fuel-saving technology would add $2,300 to the Guardian's cost, but the scientists' union calculates that an owner would recoup that amount in fuel savings in 5.4 years, based on gasoline at $1.40 a gallon. The Union of Concerned Scientists considers the Guardian a viable alternative to S.U.V.'s like the Explorer, similar in performance on the road and in its capacity to carry passengers and cargo. Still, with unibody construction rather than a truck-type frame, the Guardian is closer to a car-based crossover vehicle like the Honda Pilot. Given the sales success of S.U.V.'s equipped with large, powerful engines, it is not easy to make a case that customers really want a new breed of less-thirsty vehicles, particularly if they are perceived as less trucklike. And in a competitive market, there is no guarantee that buyers would pay a higher initial price for an S.U.V. that gets better fuel economy, even when they know the outlay will be repaid in gas savings. In the view of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington-based industry group, the U.C.S. Guardian is all show and no go. ''It's a nice exercise on paper, but we have to produce cars that run on pavement,'' said Eron Shosteck, the group's director of communications. ''They haven't built it, tested it or produced it.'' Mr. Shosteck said that tires with low rolling resistance, for instance, could pose problems in winter driving. Jon Harmon, a public affairs manager for Ford, contends that the company incorporates fuel-saving technologies as they become available because it makes good business sense. ''We know a competitive advantage when we see one,'' Mr. Harmon said. In that case, automakers might note a survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California last July. Among the findings: ''A large majority (79 percent) -- including 69 percent of S.U.V. owners -- also say they favor changing federal regulations on S.U.V.'s to match existing fuel economy standards for passenger cars.'' Is the California survey an indication that automakers ought to consider producing more efficient S.U.V.'s? To Mr. Friedman, the |
1574028_2 | Housatonic River Ranked Among Most Endangered | it settles behind at least six dams. By the end of this year, the federal agency has said it will complete assessments of public health risks and ecological dangers linked to river contamination. It is also calculating how the remaining pollutants might be dispersed if they are not removed. Once those studies are complete, G.E. will propose a number of cleanup options for the rest of the river, including leaving the PCB's in place. After public hearings, the federal agency will a final decision, probably by 2007. Timothy M. Conway, a lawyer for the E.P.A.'s Region 1 office who is working on the Housatonic cleanup, said the next few years would be critical in determining the river's long-term recovery. ''We've devoted an awful lot of brainpower and resources and people's time to making this project as fair and thorough as possible,'' Mr. Conway said. ''We plan to continue that, and we think that our efforts speak for themselves.'' Not everyone is pleased with all aspects of the project, or the direction it is heading. Timothy W. Gray, executive director of the Housatonic River Initiative, a group concerned with the health of the river, said that with the cleanup of the first mile now complete, it was important that G.E. not try to wash its hands of responsibility for the rest of the river. ''We intend to do everything in our power to help the E.P.A. make the right decisions about cleaning up the rest of the PCB's,'' Mr. Gray said. Gary F. Sheffer, a G.E. spokesman, said the company reached an agreement with the federal government and the states in 2000 that lays out precisely what happens next. ''There's a process that will determine, based on science, what's best for the river,'' Mr. Sheffer said, ''and the E.P.A. leads that process.'' The company is also involved in another project to clean up tons of PCB's from a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson River. But that project is so much larger than the work on the Housatonic that the company and environmental officials consider them more dissimilar than alike. This is the first year, since American Rivers started releasing a most endangered rivers list in 1986, that a Connecticut waterway has been included. The other rivers on this year's list are, in order -- Colorado, Big Sunflower, Snake, Tennessee, the Allegheny and Monongahela combined, Spokane, Peace, Big Darby Creek and Mississippi. |
1573738_3 | Philosophy Hitches a Ride With 'The Sopranos' | the second film in the blockbuster science-fiction trilogy. ''Any of the books in this series sell more copies per month than most of our other books sell in a lifetime,'' said David Steele, the editorial director at Open Court. ''For more traditional philosophy monographs, you hope that in their entire lifetime they will sell 5,000 copies.'' But Mr. Irwin said the books had also drawn the ire (and ridicule) of some people in his profession and of other traditional educators. Writing for The Village Voice, Norah Vincent, a freelance columnist, described the ''Seinfeld'' book as ''a collection of essays by mostly third-rate philosophers from mostly substandard institutions -- a fact that should come as no surprise.'' ''Low culture,'' she continued, ''is infiltrating the scholarly world, a curriculum of aptly 'higher' learning in which shallow amusements have no place.'' Alexander Nehamas, president of the eastern division of the American Philosophical Association, said the tensions between philosophy and pop culture dated to ancient times. ''Greek tragedy is now considered high art,'' Mr. Nehamas said, ''but intellectuals at the time were seeing popular culture and entertainment. It was very distasteful. Now think 2,500 years from now somebody could be talking about Jerry Bruckheimer or Aaron Spelling. To us that sounds quite strange.'' Joss Whedon, creator of ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and its spinoff series ''Angel,'' said the academic attention given to his show is ''a little surprising,'' but he said pop culture should be taken seriously, not trivialized. ''Popular culture is a thing on its own that needs to be examined very carefully, very philosophically,'' Mr. Whedon said by telephone from Los Angeles. ''If someone has a Nietzschian bias or a Freudian bias or any kind of bias that they want to put Buffy into as a mold, it's legitimate.'' At the same time Mr. Whedon, who said he had not read any of the Open Court series, cautioned against getting too carried away with pop culture scholarship. The trend among universities to offer courses in pop culture and media studies has certainly helped sales for Open Court's series. A few of the titles are now required reading for some classes, and others are big sellers at college bookstores. Open Court's next book, ''Woody Allen and Philosophy,'' is scheduled for release in August, ''Harry Potter and Philosophy'' is due in October, and a title on superheroes and philosophy is planned for next year. |
1573743_0 | No Time for Bullies: Baboons Retool Their Culture | Sometimes it takes the great Dustbuster of fate to clear the room of bullies and bad habits. Freak cyclones helped destroy Kublai Khan's brutal Mongolian empire, for example, while the Black Death of the 14th century capsized the medieval theocracy and gave the Renaissance a chance to shine. Among a troop of savanna baboons in Kenya, a terrible outbreak of tuberculosis 20 years ago selectively killed off the biggest, nastiest and most despotic males, setting the stage for a social and behavioral transformation unlike any seen in this notoriously truculent primate. In a study appearing today in the journal PloS Biology (online at www.plosbiology.org), researchers describe the drastic temperamental and tonal shift that occurred in a troop of 62 baboons when its most belligerent members vanished from the scene. The victims were all dominant adult males that had been strong and snarly enough to fight with a neighboring baboon troop over the spoils at a tourist lodge garbage dump, and were exposed there to meat tainted with bovine tuberculosis, which soon killed them. Left behind in the troop, designated the Forest Troop, were the 50 percent of males that had been too subordinate to try dump brawling, as well as all the females and their young. With that change in demographics came a cultural swing toward pacifism, a relaxing of the usually parlous baboon hierarchy, and a willingness to use affection and mutual grooming rather than threats, swipes and bites to foster a patriotic spirit. Remarkably, the Forest Troop has maintained its genial style over two decades, even though the male survivors of the epidemic have since died or disappeared and been replaced by males from the outside. (As is the case for most primates, baboon females spend their lives in their natal home, while the males leave at puberty to seek their fortunes elsewhere.) The persistence of communal comity suggests that the resident baboons must somehow be instructing the immigrants in the unusual customs of the tribe. ''We don't yet understand the mechanism of transmittal,'' said Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford, ''but the jerky new guys are obviously learning, 'We don't do things like that around here.' '' Dr. Sapolsky wrote the report with his colleague and wife, Dr. Lisa J. Share. Dr. Sapolsky, who is renowned for his study of the physiology of stress, said that the Forest Troop baboons probably |
1573767_2 | MEMO PAD | operates Heathrow Airport outside London, is starting a $180 million redevelopment project this week to ready Pier 6 at Terminal 3 to handle the A380's. The new three-story Pier 6 will be nearly 1,000 feet long. CLUELESS OVER SHOELESS -- Most passengers are confused about whether it is mandatory to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints, according to a survey by Opinion Research Corp. Nearly a third say they think it is mandatory and another 23 percent say they are not sure. In fact, the Transportation Security Administration says that removing shoes is voluntary but that those tripping the magnetometer alarm because of metal in their shoes are subject to a more thorough and time-consuming secondary search. Incidentally, 2 percent of those surveyed say they believe that the shoe-removal policy varies by airport, no matter what the T.S.A. says. That's an opinion most frequent travelers would heartily agree with. The national survey of 1,013 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. It was sponsored by ECCO, a Danish company that makes shoes without metal shanks. TRAIN BEATS PLANE -- Eurostar, the high-speed train service between London, Paris and Brussels, said it had a record 19 percent increase in passenger traffic during the first quarter of 2004. More than 1.6 million passengers took Eurostar during that period, compared with 1.35 million in the first quarter a year earlier. On the London-Paris route, Eurostar's market share rose to 66 percent compared with 55 percent a year ago, as more passengers chose trains over planes. GIVING UP PAPER -- Continental Airlines says it will eliminate paper tickets altogether by the end of this year, including those for international travel. Continental added that 95 percent of domestic passengers and 88 percent of all passengers now use electronic tickets. Other domestic airlines have said that while electronic tickets dominate in similar percentages, they will continue issuing paper tickets on demand, usually for a fee of $10 to $20. AIRLINE OF THE YEAR -- Skytrax, the air travel research company based in Britain, announced results of its airline of the year survey, which drew more than 10 million nominations from world airline passengers this year. The top 10: Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Cathay Pacific Airways, Qantas Airways, Thai Airways, British Airways, Qatar Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Continental Airlines and ANA. In a separate category for best first-class international service, the top |
1573737_3 | With Tiny Brain Implants, Just Thinking May Make It So | Jonathan R. Wolpaw of the New York State Department of Health has developed a system that does not require implants but uses electroencephalography to pick up brain waves using sensors attached to the scalp. Though Cyberkinetics is not the first to try neural control in people, it seems the most intent on bringing a product to market, perhaps by 2007 or 2008, said its chief executive, Timothy R. Surgenor. Started in 2001 and based in Foxborough, Mass., the company has raised $9 million for the project. Cyberkinetics argues that its system will perform better than other systems tested on people so far. Devices that use sensors outside the skull do not pick up signals as clearly as electrodes under the skull. And though Dr. Kennedy implanted two electrodes per patient, the Cyberkinetics chip has 100 electrodes. That means more neurons can be monitored, providing clearer information, the company says. To implant the chip, a small hole will be cut in the patient's skull, above the ear. The chip, which measures about 2 millimeters (or just under one-tenth of an inch) square, will be placed on the surface of the brain at the motor cortex, which controls movement. The electrodes, which are like spikes protruding from the chip's surface, will extend into the brain to a depth of 1 millimeter. The surgery will be performed at Rhode Island Hospital by Dr. Gerhard Friehs, an associate professor of neuroscience at Brown and a co-founder of Cyberkinetics, who performed the operations on the monkeys. Another neurosurgeon without connection to the company will monitor the procedure to ensure that financial interests do not dictate proceeding with surgery if it is not safe. Technicians from Cyberkinetics will later visit the participants, whose identities will not be disclosed at first, several times a week at their homes to test the system for an hour or two a day. The trial will last about a year, and then the chips will be removed in a second operation. Some scientists question whether the benefits will outweigh the risks. One reason is that the signals from the chip are carried out of the body by wires coming through the skull. When the system is to be used, a cable will be connected to the wires. The cable will carry the signals to a cart full of electronic equipment that will analyze them and convey the results to the computer. |
1573858_1 | A Bridge Between the Classics and the Masses | translations of ancient Greek classics have sold some two million copies. ''There are many readers who hunger for substance,'' Dr. Fagles said. ''I do not despair. I know they are out there, and I hear from them often.'' On his desk was an open copy of Virgil in Latin, sheets of paper and Dr. Fagles's printed manuscript. He works about four or five hours a day. '''The Aeneid' is a cautionary tale,'' he said. ''It is one we need to read today. It speaks of the terrible price of victory in war, for Virgil knew that victory is finally impossible, that it always lies out of reach. He saw the unforeseen aftermath, the way war could all go wrong whether from poor planning or because of the gods on high. He knew the sheer accumulation of death, the destruction, the pain we inflict when we use force to create empire.'' Every age needs classics translated into the idiom of the moment. It gives the works new vitality, new meaning. It offers to the living a connection with those who went before, the accumulated wisdom of the past, a protection from a dangerous provincialism. ''In Virgil, as in Homer, you find great reservoirs of memory,'' he said. ''You find the restorative power of love set against a world of violence. There is sadness in the poem. There are innumerable losses. War wages on too long. Nearly every book in 'The Aeneid' ends with certain death. Aeneas reaches out to the ghosts of those he loved, always beyond his grasp.'' The struggle to be faithful to the original text, however, has to be matched with an ability to write. And Dr. Fagles, like all great translators, marries scholarship and art. ''I have two sets of books,'' he said. ''I have Virgil, the commentaries and the lexicon on one side, and I have modern poetry on the other. I read poets such as Robert Lowell, Derek Walcott, C.K. Williams, Paul Muldoon and Seamus Heaney. I look at how they use language.'' Dr. Fagles, 70, taught literature at Princeton for 40 years and retired in 2002. ''I read 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey' in translation as a student at Amherst,'' he said. ''I loved them. I wanted to taste them in the original language.'' He began, late in the game, to study Greek and Latin. He went on to get his doctorate at Yale |
1575845_3 | U.S. Track Is Bracing For Fallout In Balco Case | his position.'' The anti-doping agency has worked with federal investigators on the Balco case, but it is not known how much evidence the Justice Department would share as it builds its own criminal case. Matthew J. Jacobs, an assistant United States attorney in San Francisco, declined to comment on the Balco case yesterday. In general, he said, rules of criminal procedure prohibit the disclosure of grand jury material. It is also the practice of the Justice Department not to disclose the names of potential witnesses who have not been charged with a crime, Jacobs said. But the anti-doping agency has other potential evidence that it could explore, such as e-mail messages to and from Conte involving track and field athletes and checks written to Conte by athletes, including one described as an Olympic gold medal winner. The existence of such documents were made public in government affidavits, with the names of athletes edited out. The anti-doping agency could receive assistance in this evidence search from the Senate Commerce Committee, whose chairman is John McCain, Republican of Arizona. Two weeks ago, McCain subpoenaed documents related to Olympic athletes from the Justice Department. Athletes might also find themselves vulnerable to perjury charges if they were found to have lied last fall to the federal grand jury investigating the Balco scandal, lawyers have said. What Conte and others may be able to prove about doping is certain to send shivers through the American track community. For years, the sport has existed in an atmosphere tainted by drug scandals and international accusations that American officials had covered up positive drug tests. The legitimacy of any great performance comes under suspicion in such a cynical setting. Marion Jones, the Olympic sprint champion, and Tim Montgomery, the world-record holder at 100 meters, each testified before the Balco grand jury. Each has denied using banned substances. Neither has been charged with any crime. But that does not rid the sport from a dark cloud of skepticism. Last weekend at the Mount San Antonio College Relays in California, talk swirled around the Balco case and its potential implications. ''It's time for a lot of positive things to happen, because a lot of negative things have been happening,'' said Maurice Greene, the Olympic champion at 100 meters. Just yesterday, four American track athletes -- Chryste Gaines, Eric Thomas, Chris Phillips and Sandra Glover -- got public warnings, but were |
1575719_0 | Modified-Food Labeling Begins in Europe | ALL food sold in the European Union with genetically modified ingredients must now say so on the label, under rules that went into effect on Sunday. Any restaurant serving genetically engineered food must identify it on the menu. Europe has been unfriendly to modified foods for years. After protests, and with fears rising among consumers that such foods might cause biological and environmental damage, France, Italy and five other countries unofficially banned the sale of any new genetically altered crops five years ago. Products with modified ingredients have been sold before in the Union, which will expand to 25 members on May 1, from 15. But the first to be labeled as such, Butterfinger bars that were offered five years ago in supermarkets and stores in Germany, proved so unpopular that sales were halted within a year. To adjust to consumer preferences, Nestlé and the Unilever food conglomerate allow no genetically engineered products in European markets. ''The company has found that customers reject modified products,'' said Elke Schmidt, a Nestlé spokeswoman in Frankfurt. ''Consumer confidence is essential to us.'' Geert Ritsema, who coordinates the campaign against genetically modified food and crops for Friends of the Earth Europe, headquartered in Brussels, said he approves the labeling of products. ''In general, we think this will give the consumer a better choice and a chance to avoid these foods if they don't want them,'' Mr. Ritsema said. The rules apply to any product -- cereal, frozen pizza, baby formula or whatever -- in which more than 0.9 percent of the ingredients have been genetically engineered. Each modified component must be marked in the ingredients list, including vegetable oil or sugars made from modified plants. Stefan Kern, a spokesman for the Kaufhof chain in Germany, said genetically modified food is not really an issue because customers will not buy it. ''We do not stock anything that has been altered,'' he said. Andrea Salarías, a restaurant manager in Barcelona, Spain, said Europeans implicitly expect food to be unaltered. ''People usually only ask if the fish is fresh,'' he said. Some detractors of the regulations say they do not go far enough. Meat, eggs and milk are not subject to labeling, even from animals raised on genetically modified feed. Shopping for organic apples on Saturday in Berlin, Iris Stöber, 47, said she is concerned about engineered food and supports the labeling. ''I don't want to shop |
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1571816_0 | The Socratic Shrink | I think Lou Marinoff is onto something. I am taking a course for my master's degree that requires reading Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. I've discovered that the sky is definitely bluer outside the cave. I have started playing the piano again, listening to music and just enjoying every aspect of my life more. If Marinoff can help people discover this very powerful aphrodisiac, all power to him. Judy Rabinowitz Ocean Township, N.J. |
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1571644_3 | From Brazil to the Pacific, A Road to a Region's Future | hardscrabble lives of the town's residents. ''Without it, we cannot improve our situation, improve our way of life,'' he said. Brazil, which has been projecting its influence in South America by pursuing trade pacts with neighbors, has been the leading proponent of an integrated series of highways in South America. Under the Regional Initiative for the Infrastructure Integration of South America, a nonbinding agreement signed in 2000 by several countries, roads from Brazil into Bolivia, Chile and Peru would be built or improved. River travel, along with road links, would connect Brazil with other countries, like Ecuador. Not everyone wants the road. The rain forest spread across this region is one of the most diverse in the world, filled with toucans, parrots, jaguars and indigenous groups so isolated that they have never had contact with modern Peru. Environmentalists warn that, like the paved highway on the Brazilian side of the border, a road here will mean secondary roads, new cattle ranches and increased logging. The road is also sure to bring vices like prostitution, drugs and more contraband, feeding off the Wild West atmosphere in this region. ''This is a big threat because it will lead to terrible deforestation,'' said Juan Carlos Flores, a biologist who administers a 330,000-acre reserve for the Peruvian partner of the Amazon Conservation Association, an environmental group based in Washington. ''It means more farming, more logging. It goes against conservation efforts.'' But most people along this road, both here in the jungle and in the high Andes, want to see it paved. In Urcos, more than 15,000 feet up in the Andes, those looking to sell their potatoes and vegetables must board trucks and ride with fuel oil and chickens, never sure if they are ever going to make it. The ticket costs just $5 but the ride down is bone-jarring. Trucks wheeze along frigid mountain passes. Below, humidity and sun are relentless. In the rainy season, which is now, flimsy wooded bridges and sometimes the road itself are washed away. Vehicles can be backed up for weeks. Mr. Reyes, the truck driver in Laberinto, tried to put the potential hazards out of his mind as he prepared to carry logs up the Andes. He usually hauls fuel or gasoline down from Cuzco. A bumper sticker on his aging Volvo truck seemed to capture the region's ambition: ''Do not doubt that you can do it.'' |
1571815_0 | The Socratic Shrink | Philosophy is a difficult discipline with high standards of rigor, where assumptions are relentlessly questioned in a way you rarely find even in the sciences or social sciences (Daniel Duane, March 21). Is it good therapy? As Socrates would say, you tell me. But it is indeed a deeply positive life experience to teach and learn philosophy. If Marinoff encourages more people to take courses or even to explore a philosophy book alone on a bus ride, the good he does should outweigh the drawbacks. Erik Banks New York |
1571794_0 | Greek Revival | ''Lent is a time for reflection,'' said Nick Livanos at Molyvos, the restaurant at Seventh Avenue and 54th Street that he owns with his family and that is named after a village on the island of Lesbos in Greece. ''For us, it's the time to tame your passions. So the emphasis is spiritual -- it's not just, 'Oh, let's lose weight or quit smoking.''' An array of Molyvos's Lenten specialties has been spread before us: a crunchy-soft sea scallop breaded with panko, the Japanese crumb with so little moisture it just about guarantees crispness; an octopus pie wrapped in phyllo that will change your mind about the octopod; a jumping, impeccable taramosalata -- carp roe, olive oil, potato, garlic and almond, puréed and smeared on crisp pita triangles; a bracing salad with pickled pearl onions and candied beets; a vegetable moussaka that not only shuns ground beef but also the customary yogurt béchamel, replacing them with a dairy-free mixture Viagra-ed with garlic. For the Greek Orthodox Church, Lent began on Feb. 23, two days before Ash Wednesday, when most of the rest of Christianity marks it. ''There are no baptisms, no weddings, maybe only a small glass of wine at night,'' Livanos added quietly. Because of that movie, there seems to be more focus on the mysteries of Christianity right now. Even those rare films lucky enough to attain boffo box office generally fade from memory and certainly from the front page within a few weeks. Not so the most controversial movie of this young century, at least in part because it delivers whatever you want it to: if you're looking for a great story, you'll find it; blood and gore, you'll find it; spectacle, it's there; fervent ideology; a snapshot of historic barbarism; anti-Semitism; sacrifice; enduring love -- there it is, if you're looking for it. ''The Passion of the Christ'' has prompted renewed interest in the life of the title character before and after the gruesome end of his earthly life. The 40-day, 40-night period three years before crucifixion, resurrection and ascension -- in many ways parallel to what North American Indians call a vision quest -- is today observed as Lent. ''The main difference in food between our Lent and yours,'' Livanos said, ''is that we don't have blood of any kind -- no meat, no poultry, no fish or dairy, though you can have shellfish on |
1576608_4 | A Different Course | students bring in nearly $13 million for the university. For-profit companies have similar success stories to tell, thanks in no small part to a weak economy that drives workers back to school to upgrade skills and credentials. For instance, Strayer University, which began 112 years ago as a business college in Baltimore, now serves students online and on 27 campuses in six states and the District of Columbia. It has repeatedly made Forbes magazine's list of 200 best small companies, and was one of five for-profit education companies (with Apollo Group, Corinthian Colleges, Career Education and ITT Educational Services) on Business Week's list of the top 25 ''Hot Growth Companies'' last year. Mr. Wilson says that a field with winners and losers should come as no surprise. ''History tells us this is always what happens when there's a new paradigm -- some people figure it out and some people don't,'' he says. ''It's about execution.'' With growth has come greater acceptance. ''Nontraditional education is becoming traditional,'' Mr. Wilson says. He should know -- his previous job was running UMassOnline. Increasingly, students are finding that ivy walls do not a college make. There is certainly no ivy on the walls of the conference rooms at the Hilton hotel in Alexandria, where the University of Phoenix has set up temporary quarters while preparing its latest northern Virginia campus. On a recent night near 10 o'clock, classes are breaking up and about 20 students stream out of a computer science class. Just before ending the lesson, the teacher, Lawrence Wallace, encourages the students to get in touch if they have problems with the material. ''If you get stuck during the week, don't hesitate to send me an e-mail,'' he says. The class is diverse. A woman in camouflage fatigues and Army boots -- the genuine article, not thrift-store look-alikes -- leaves about the same time as an elegant woman with a Louis Vuitton bag and just ahead of Jason Hoopingarner, a 23-year-old construction manager who started his college career five years ago at Radford University, near Roanoke, but dropped out after two years. ''I need to work full time,'' he says. ''I've got an infant son. This fit perfectly.'' Fitting perfectly is what continuing education strives for. A big part of the business plan is to strip away the elements of a traditional college that cost so much: fancy campuses, dormitories, athletic complexes, |
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1576675_2 | Beware! I'm With You on the L.I.R.R. | it falls over, which it will, the leftover will run under somebody else's shoes, not mine. During rush hour I'll take the aisle seat first and calculate that I'm more likely to have the bench to myself, especially if my coat and bags are piled up next to me. I'll have a really smelly onion roll with egg early in the morning and I'll loudly slurp my coffee before I put the bag, cup and napkin under the seat. If I'm forced to sit by the window I may stuff it between the seat and the wall. If the coffee tastes bad I'll put the cup on the floor, away from my shoes because when it falls over, and it will, I don't want the puddle under my feet. And then, as a nod to the changing times, I'll whip out the cellphone. I have to call someone to tell them that I'm on the train. And that's where my successor comes in, the new slob. When I'm the new slob you can tell by the number of gadgets I have. You can tell by the amount of metal attached to my head. You can tell because I'm loud. I don't stuff newspapers under the seat because reading is for the old slobs. I am loud in looks, smells and noises. If I am a woman, I wear lots of fruity perfume early in the morning so it can beat the onion roll at 100 paces and guarantee me an empty seat. If I'm a man, I have a music playback device with earphones designed to let the annoying parts of the music filter out while keeping the good stuff in, and guarantee me a seat. And then I have a cellphone. I was brought up to believe that I'm alone everywhere, so I can talk as loudly as I want. I can sprawl over three seats and put my shoes on the seats, I can holler to my acquaintances across the car and I can bring six-packs of beer, especially on Fridays or game days, and I can spill the smelly stuff everywhere. If I'm forced to go to work in the city, I will buy the requisite suit and tie but I'll act like the 16-year-old slob I still am. So look around on your next commute. You can't miss me. SOAPBOX Serge Nedeltscheff lives in Sea Cliff. |
1576664_0 | If You Went Here, You'd Be Sitting Pretty Now | Founded in 1879, Sullivan & Cromwell is a classic white-shoe law firm. It has stately financial-district offices with views of the Statue of Liberty and a history that includes brokering deals that paid for building the Panama Canal. Landing a job at Sullivan & Cromwell is not easy. This June, about 90 lucky students will get entree to entry-level jobs through summer associate positions (internships) -- that's great, compared with 60 last summer, but well below the 130 in 2001. A bias toward elite law schools is strong here, and the firm's partners make no apologies. Recruiters typically visit 12 to 15 schools each year, and while the list changes a bit over time, the stalwarts are Stanford, the University of Chicago, Michigan and the four law schools from which almost half its partners graduated: Harvard, Yale, Columbia and New York University. ''Write-ins'' from unsolicited schools land maybe a half-dozen spots. Benjamin F. Stapleton III, a Yale law graduate and senior partner, acknowledges that alma mater is not a perfect way to evaluate candidates. ''Sometimes the people with the best grades at the best schools can't make a decision,'' he says. But ''these facts are the only proxies we've got for intelligence and effort as people begin their careers.'' Brian Leiter, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law at Austin, studies trends in job placement and developed a formula to determine which law schools placed the largest percentage of graduates at top national firms. The schools topping Mr. Leiter's list are not surprising, either: Harvard, Chicago, Michigan, Yale, University of Virginia. At Cravath, Swaine & Moore, which has about 500 lawyers on staff at a firm that goes back to 1819, he found 110 Harvard law graduates, 88 Columbia graduates, 59 N.Y.U. graduates and no other school with more than 30 lawyers at the firm. But Mr. Leiter cautions against worrying too much about statistics at such firms, which occupy a rarefied place in the legal world. Most people end up at ''a D.A.'s office or a firm with eight lawyers,'' he says. It's the local economy that has the greatest influence on law jobs, and over all the picture is improving. Besides, prosecutors and public defenders are immune to economic shifts. But the downturn created larger-than-expected law classes as the uncertain retreated to education. A record 140,600 students were attending 186 schools accredited by the American |
1576656_0 | When Religion in Schools Meant Spilled Blood | Nolo's IEP Guide: Learning Disabilities By Lawrence M. Siegel Nolo Finding out that your child has a learning disability can be confusing and overwhelming, and that is just the beginning. You then have to figure out the educational interventions that are needed, in a partnership with your child's school, a relationship that can be more or less amicable. The result of this collaboration (or head-butting, as the case may be) is the individualized education plan, a lengthy and exhaustive document that can boggle the mind. Published by Nolo, a Berkeley, Calif., company that specializes in legal self-help guides, and written by an education lawyer, ''Nolo's IEP Guide'' aims to help parents identify learning disabilities and to navigate the maze of the special-education system. There are sections on educational assessments and determining eligibility for special-education services; on requesting and preparing for an education plan meeting; on working with the school to write the plan; and on resolving disputes, whether through informal negotiations or the courts. In this useful guide, parents may find the support they need for a long and often lonely process. TRACEY HARDEN BOOKS |
1576594_3 | On the Art Trail In Rural Japan | Steve adroitly deflected my questions about what was going to happen next with a calm ''We will get to that answer.'' And we always did. Steve declared us to be ''pilgrims of the now.'' Compliantly we pilgrims progressed on the hourlong express train ride to Shikokumura, the 40-minute walk to the glorious Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, the 30-minute taxi ride to Takamatsu station, and the peaceful hourlong ferry voyage to Naoshima Island. If you like the Scottish Isles, or San Francisco Bay, or the waters off Maine, you will love the Inland Sea. We have seen no other Westerners except for an offshoot of the Vienna opera traveling by train. Where are the others? Are they all lost in translation? The implausible array of art on remote Naoshima seems to be the result of a specifically Japanese kind of corporate whimsy. Benesse Corporation owns, among other things, Berlitz. Some years ago its president, Soichiro Fukutake, decided that a rocky peninsula should be crowned with an example of Tadao Ando's architectural genius and suffused with contemporary art. And so a hotel, Benesse House, of few but carefully designed Western-style rooms appeared, incorporating the open galleries and outdoor installations of the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, displaying such fashionable favorites as Bruce Nauman and Walter De Maria. In time, the neighboring town of Honmura transmogrified from fishing village into the Art House Project. The rebuilt Shinto temple acquired glass-block steps, big as ice-house squares. A James Turrell installation, ''Backside of the Moon,'' was set inside a blank-walled Ando building into which we solemnly led each other by the hand into total darkness. We stumbled over benches, and waited. And waited. Long before our eyes adjusted and a ghostly rectangle appeared before us, I am afraid we began to giggle. As we returned to sunlight the townspeople giggled back. So difficult to take pictures, write notes, learn, get to know 16 people, take shoes on and off, drag my backpack, walk and walk, and then be urged to take part in the ''journaling process'' by sharing what I am thinking about. Did Goethe share when he wrote his Italian journal? Back on Shikoku, during the two-hour express train ride to Iya Gorge, a Japanese man complimented me on ''the very nice Japanese way you use chopsticks.'' I was absurdly pleased. Iya Gorge is one of the most remote and relatively unspoiled spots in Japan. |
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1576612_2 | The B-School Hierarchy | lawyer, investment banker in a top house or a consultant for McKinsey -- these elite jobs that everybody seems to want -- you're not even going to get an interview unless you go to one of the elite schools,'' says Robert H. Frank, a Cornell University management professor and co-author of ''The Winner-Take-All Society.'' ''Going to an elite school doesn't guarantee you'll get one of those jobs,'' he adds, ''but for better or worse, you won't even have a shot at it without it.'' AS the tight job market accentuates the advantages that graduates of Harvard or the University of Pennsylvania enjoy even in the best of times, students from lower-tier schools must hustle even harder. At the job fair, options are improving but it's clear that they are still more limited than a few years ago. I.B.M. will hire about 2,000 people for the summer, down from 3,000 in past years. Organizers are pleased to have 14 employers. Last year, there were 10. But in the 1990's, they had 30, and students could write their own ticket. If you want to rile someone at the fair, use the phrase ''core schools.'' Those are schools where companies recruit in person year after year. Many have only five or so core schools, some as few as two. At big-time companies, only a few business schools turn up on list after list: Harvard, Northwestern, Stanford, Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia. A survey by Business Week last year found that of Citigroup's 164 M.B.A. hires, 23 were from Columbia and 14 from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. No other business school placed more than 8 there. Columbia M.B.A.'s took 16 of the 71 M.B.A. jobs at Booz Allen Hamilton, 11 of the 43 at Deutsche Bank, and 15 of the 40 at Goldman Sachs. What do these gold-plated programs bring to the table? Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford's business school, published a study in 2002 based on decades of data to determine what the M.B.A. degree actually did for students. Internal studies by leading consulting firms and investment banks of their M.B.A. and non-M.B.A. employees showed that the degree had no impact beyond helping them get the job. Professor Pfeffer concluded: ''There is little evidence that mastery of the knowledge acquired in business schools enhances people's careers, or that even attaining the M.B.A. |
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1576616_7 | The Digital Doctorate | Mr. House, who has specialized in research and technology, acknowledges some of these limitations to online research. During his own graduate studies (at Texas A&M), whenever he got stalled, he said, ''I'd get 10 books around me and start looking for a new, mixed method. I can't thumb through things as easily now.'' 'We Try Harder': E-Mails With Rigor ''If you meet the requirements for a degree, what difference does it make how you got the experience?'' asks Thomas L. Russell, director emeritus of instructional telecommunications at North Carolina State University. Mr. Russell is the author of ''The No Significant Difference Phenomenon,'' a continuing book that compiles studies on distance learning since the 1920's (there were 355 by last count, in 2001). Their bottom line? On average, distance-learning courses are neither better nor worse than a traditional class. Some online Ph.D. programs actually require more writing and exam work than traditional colleges do -- a step reminiscent of Avis Car Rental's famous slogan, ''We Try Harder.'' Online students take pride in the quality of their written dialogues, which by necessity constitute the bulk of their communication. Since students are given several days or more to reply to questions in classes and other students' comments, professors often require them to do careful study when composing their thoughts. ''You make any statement off the cuff, and you will get an e-mail from the professor within 24 hours,'' says Mike Todd, 46, who recently got a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Capella. ''They won't let you get away with anything without supporting it.'' Mr. Todd was, and still is, a community college teacher, with a private practice as a guidance counselor for former prison inmates, concentrating on drug and alcohol abuse and anger management. He took graduate classes at a traditional college, Ottawa University, and says, ''I learned much more online than I ever have in a class.'' He believes this is because of the rigorous writing standards, as spelled out in the American Psychological Association's 440-page manual of style. Those standards apply even to e-mail notes posted in class. The Case Against Elitism The online culture can also lead to extra steps in the application process. Tim Westcott, a graduate of Union Institute who had considered Ivy League schools, recalls the essay demands actually being more extensive from Union. Many applicants choose distance education for its flexibility, not because they can't get |
1576592_1 | U.S. Security Rules Test British Patience | a maximum of 90 days without a visa under a visa-waiver program. Every year, according to United States estimates, 13 million people from those countries qualify for the waivers, which in practice mean no more than filling out a form and handing it to American immigration authorities on arrival in the United States -- much the same as the requirement for United States travelers landing in Europe. Visitors from many other countries are required to obtain visas from United States offices abroad before departure. Since last year, though, travel to the United States has become entwined in a maze of new regulations. Britons and other European travelers without machine-readable passports were told that, as of Oct. 26, 2003, they must obtain visas in person from United States consulates, raising the prospect of long lines in places like the heavily guarded American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London. That was not particularly onerous since the vast majority of Britons and other Europeans already have machine-readable passports containing personal data accessible to immigration officers with scanning equipment. In any event, the deadline was postponed until Oct. 26, 2004. But United States authorities then said that by October 2004 all 27 of the visa-waiver countries must introduce so-called biometric passports -- including a digital photograph or other form of identity embedded in the area read by scanning machines -- if their citizens wanted to continue to enter the United States without a visa. When Britain and other European nations protested that they were unable to meet that demand in time, the Bush administration said it would seek congressional approval to extend the deadline for two years. But, in the meantime, the Department of Homeland Security said on April 2 that visitors arriving in the United States would be required to be fingerprinted and photographed starting Sept. 30, 2004, whatever passport they hold. Ultimately, United States officials said, Washington wants to promote a global system of security whereby biometric identities on passports would be checked against the same kind of information held on file by immigration authorities around the world. In response, a European Union official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the union might consider reciprocal measures for Americans arriving in Europe, as Brazil did when the United States enforced similar requirements on its citizens. Some people in the travel business in Britain argue that the regulations will not discourage travelers because |
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1576754_1 | Degrees of Unemployment | with their diplomas,'' said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group based in Washington. ''That's certainly not the case now.'' In an analysis published last month, Mr. Bernstein noted that unemployed college graduates first overtook those without high school diplomas in December 2001, and that the two groups have flip-flopped for the dubious distinction ever since. One reason is that more than a quarter of all Americans who are 25 and older -- more than ever before -- now have four-year college degrees, according to the Census Bureau. Almost 27 percent of adults 25 or older have college degrees, while almost 16 percent in that age range did not complete high school. Despite the rise in the number of unemployed college graduates, labor experts say that college still pays off. College graduates earn more over the course of their working lives than those without bachelor's degrees, the experts say. ''There's still an enormous premium attached to having a degree,'' said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers. College graduates are likely to endure shorter periods of unemployment, he said. And even though unemployed college graduates outnumber unemployed high school dropouts, their unemployment rate is actually lower. In March the unemployment rate for college graduates who were at least 25 years old was 2.9 percent, compared with 8.8 percent for those who did not finish high school, Mr. Bernstein said. Also, college graduates are paid more on average than those who did not graduate from high school. For example, among full-time workers who are 25 and older, college graduates earned a median weekly income of $964 in 2003, compared with $396 for high school dropouts, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But for Sukhnoor Taluja, 24, who graduated from Rutgers with dual majors in information technology and economics in January 2003, lifelong earnings potential is of little solace. Ms. Taluja, who is currently a temp worker, was unable to find a job after graduation, and returned home to Cherry Hill to live with her parents. Although her résumé lists a plethora of computer skills and internships, temp jobs and campus positions, she could not find the type of job she'd hoped to get in the music industry, and has broadened her search considerably. Some days, the job search is disheartening, she said. ''I haven't really |
1576830_1 | The Couple Who Saved Park Slope | had to do it over now, the Ortners could hardly afford the house they had the foresight -- or was it the temerity? -- to buy in their past. In 1968, five years after the purchase, something happened that further strengthened the couple's resolve. The Ortners traveled to France for their 25th wedding anniversary and stumbled on a ruined castle, Chateau Gratot, in Normandy. The day they visited, volunteers from Union Rempart, a French national association of preservation groups, were clambering among the tumbled-down stones, working to put the Humpty Dumpty of a castle together again. Returning to Brooklyn, they felt a kinship with those French volunteers as they imagined the ghost of Elsie Hincken, an original occupant of their house, admiring herself in the 10-foot high mercury mirror, which remained just as it was in her childhood. Ms. Hincken was born about 1886, Mr. Ortner says, the year the house was built. When she died, she left it to her housekeeper, who in 1960 sold it to a pair of college professors, who flipped it to the Ortners. The three decades after that anniversary trip to France were a blur of neighborhood activity: calling politicians to stop urban renewal projects, negotiating with Meade Esposito, the Brooklyn Democratic boss, over designating Park Slope as a landmark, and holding a national ''Back to the City'' conference at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1974. But the Ortners never forgot that old chateau. In 1998, they returned to Normandy and were astonished to find that Humpty Dumpty had been put back together and looked as good as new. Now the Ortners had another cause; they set about building their own version of Rempart, the French volunteer group, with the same intensity they had devoted to restoring Park Slope. In 1999, Mr. Ortner and Dexter Guerrieri, a Manhattan real estate agent, held a meeting at the French Embassy that led to the founding of Preservation Volunteers (www.preservationvolunteers.org), conceived as a cultural exchange program that would put teams of French and American volunteers to work preserving historic monuments here and in France. For the last two summers, the volunteers have restored a one-room schoolhouse in Gunnison, Colo., Mr. Guerrieri's hometown, along with a church in Nantucket and two historic sites near Park Slope, Green-Wood Cemetery and Lefferts Homestead. This year, they will be restoring an old mining town in Gothic, Colo., the Morris Jumel Mansion in Harlem |
1574695_0 | Study Plans To Retest Use Of Hormones In Menopause | Despite studies in recent years finding that hormone therapy after menopause did women more harm than good, researchers at a group of major medical centers have decided to test the treatment again because they still suspect it may have benefits, particularly for younger women. The researchers hope to find out whether hormones can protect against artery disease if women start treatment early in menopause. The scientists also want to find out whether there is any advantage to giving estrogen by a different route, skin patches instead of the usual pills, and changing the schedule of the hormone given along with it, progesterone. The hormones must be taken together because estrogen alone can cause uterine cancer; adding progesterone counters that risk. The new study is expected to start in September, last five years and include 720 women at eight medical centers around the country. The women will be ages 40 to 55 and in early menopause, defined as six months to no more than three years past their last menstrual period. They will take estrogen in pill or patch form, or placebos, and those taking estrogen will use a vaginal gel containing progesterone for 10 days a month. The researchers will use ultrasound and X-rays to look periodically for signs of artery disease, but the study will not last long enough or include enough women to learn whether the hormones change the risk of heart disease or stroke. That means the findings will not be definitive. If they do suggest a benefit, another study, larger and longer, will be needed to find whether the treatment really affects heart attack or stroke. The study is being paid for by the Kronos Longevity Research Institute, a private, nonprofit organization in Phoenix. Kronos was founded by John Sperling, 83, a billionaire who made his fortune by creating the University of Phoenix Online. A spokeswoman said that neither Mr. Sperling nor the institute stood to profit from the study findings. The leader of the study will be Dr. JoAnn E. Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard and chief of preventive medicine and co-director of a women's health center at Brigham and Women's Hospital. The seven other centers in the study, all major hospitals and teaching centers, will not be announced until Tuesday because the agreements have not been completed, a spokeswoman for the institute said. Dr. Manson said the new study was meant to |
1573014_0 | 88 Air Travelers at Newark Are Held in Immigration Case | Federal agents at Newark Liberty International Airport have detained 88 passengers, close to half of those arriving on a domestic Continental Airlines flight from Los Angeles early Thursday morning, acting on a tip that many illegal immigrants were on board the plane. Homeland Security officials said 53 of those detained after the 6 a.m. flight were from Mexico, 16 from Ecuador, 16 from Guatemala, 2 from El Salvador and one from Honduras. Among them were five juveniles -- one girl and four boys -- as well as 63 men and 20 women. All are being held in detention centers or jails in northern New Jersey pending deportation proceedings in immigration court, according to Janet Rapaport, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security. It was unclear how the unusually large number arrested as illegal immigrants had been sorted from the rest of the 222 passengers on Continental Flight 1803, Rahsaan Johnson, a spokesman for the airline, said yesterday. He noted that passengers on domestic flights are not required to carry a passport or show immigration documents. Ms. Rapaport said she could provide no details about the nature of the tip that led to the arrests, how passengers were screened, or how many on the flight had been questioned. But even with those facts unknown, the case highlighted the tension between efforts to stem the smuggling of illegal immigrants and concerns about profiling and the erosion of civil liberties. Civil liberties lawyers and advocates for immigrants said the operation raised many questions, including whether there had been a mass detention and screening of passengers. They said that within 25 miles of a border, people can be legally questioned about their status, but inside the country, the government has the burden of establishing probable cause that someone is a noncitizen before an agent can approach that person and ask for proof of legal status. ''I don't think they could ask everyone for documents at a domestic airport,'' said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a research and advocacy group. ''You cannot use race, ethnicity, language or dress as a proxy for being an alien. It has to be some behavioral tendency or real knowledge.'' ''Did they ask only people who looked Latino?'' he asked. ''How did they pick the people they apprehended? Who did they let go?'' Other |
1573004_0 | Piracy and Terrorism | Piracy, these days, refers more often to digital miscreants who copy music and movies than to skull-and-crossbones derring-do on the high seas. But pirates of the old-fashioned variety, armed with automatic weapons, are not only a real and growing menace, they are also suspected of forging links with global terrorists. A greater effort is needed on the part of governments and private shippers worldwide to secure their harbors, ships and sea lanes. Thinly staffed tankers and container ships carrying valuable cargo are irresistible prey on the high seas, especially where pirates can count on lax policing or corrupt officials who turn a blind eye. The biggest problem is in Southeast Asia, particularly around Indonesia, where tankerloads of crude oil are regularly stolen. Indeed, piracy has become one of globalization's most serious forms of organized crime, and a magnet for terrorists. Al Qaeda, which attacked the American destroyer Cole in 2000 and the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002, is thought to have planned attacks on major ports. A hijacked ship carrying a nuclear weapon or radioactive ''dirty bomb'' could lay waste to a port, or block a sea lane like the Strait of Malacca, a narrow channel between Malaysia and Indonesia that carries a quarter of the world's trade and half of all its oil flows. In one indication that terrorists might be planning such an attack, 10 armed men seized a chemical tanker off Indonesia in March 2003 apparently for the purpose of learning to steer it -- a frightening echo of the flying lessons taken by the Sept. 11 terrorists. In response to Sept. 11, the 163 members of the International Maritime Organization agreed in 2002 to measures like shipboard security officers, ship-to-shore alert systems and port security plans. It is likely, however, that many countries will fail to comply by the July 1 deadline or will prove unwilling to enforce the agreement. Securing the world's most vulnerable shipping lanes requires multilateral coordination. Last week Adm. Thomas Fargo, the commander of American forces in the Pacific, told a Congressional committee that the Navy was considering armed patrols in the Strait of Malacca. American diplomats had to smooth ruffled feathers in Malaysia, whose government hadn't been consulted. The costs of failure in securing the high seas could be huge -- shipping accounts for 80 percent of all trade. A major disruption could cripple the global economy. |
1575974_0 | Bright Spots in the Rain Forest | The rallying cry, ''Save the Amazon!'' rang out again this month when the Brazilian government reported that clearing of the rain forest had reached near-record levels -- with an area bigger than the state of New Jersey disappearing last year. This Earth Day, global environmental groups are covering their Web sites with the usual predictions of how long it will take for all the trees there to vanish (20 to 50 years). Recently, the Brazilian government announced yet another initiative to get serious about the problem. But the news was welcomed by others who also care deeply about the environment. Most of them actually live in the Amazon. The reasons for the surge in deforestation are a lot more complicated than they used to be, and the solution for saving the rain forest may be more development, not less. The facts have changed, as we discovered while traveling thousands of miles across the Amazon this year. At one time, use and abuse of the region were synonymous. In many instances, the best development was no development at all: there were few alternative uses of the forest that justified its destruction. Not anymore. Technically savvy Brazilian farmers have created profitable large-scale cattle ranches and soybean farms that reach to the horizon. Cotton, corn and rice, when rotated properly, flourish in the delicate soil. Last year, Brazil passed the United States in soybean exports. The facts on the ground give every indication that the Amazon can be used for multiple purposes. Perhaps 60 percent to 70 percent of the territory -- as much as a million square miles -- should be left untouched, set aside because the soil is too poor or the biodiversity too rich. The rest, however, can be used. There's a lot there: a promising new agricultural frontier, giant mineral deposits of iron ore and bauxite, fish farming, hydroelectric power, even some substantial oil and natural gas reserves. To take a do-not-touch position ignores reality and makes it impossible to work with those who have the capital to make productive changes to the environment. Though recent discussions among aid organizations, the private sector and the Brazilian government about new road development have been promising, too much of the debate remains locked in old mythologies. The World Bank and the European Community, for example, are intent on strict preservation or, sometimes, ''sustainable development,'' a term that is so open to |
1576073_4 | As Wealthy Fill Top Colleges, Concerns Grow Over Fairness | high school students can say how much money their parents make and whether any of their grandparents went to college. Michigan started devising the questions last year when the Supreme Court was considering its affirmative action policies. The court ultimately upheld affirmative action but required the university to eliminate a point system that gave extra points to minorities. With the new questions, Theodore L. Spencer, director of undergraduate admissions, said Michigan wanted to give proper credit to students who had compiled good academic records without the advantages that others had. ''We certainly want to look at ways to create a better distribution of students,'' he said. Michigan is still not dominated by wealth as some private colleges are. Almost half of its students are from families earning less than $100,000 a year, the student survey shows. But the changes are still unmistakable, say professors and others here. ''When most people think of a typical college student, they're thinking about eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and having massive debts,'' said Scott E. Mendy, a junior from Tigard, Ore., who receives financial aid. At Michigan, he said, ''people live very well.'' Summer jobs? Many undergraduates do not think twice about accepting an internship that barely covers their expenses. Many can afford to take spring break trips to Mexican resorts or Europe. Extracurricular activities often seem to be run by students who can devote dozens of hours to them each week without trying to hold down a campus job, said Angela Galardi, a senior who recently completed a term as president of the student government. The forces behind the rising wealth on many campuses seem to be both economic and psychological, university officials say. As the income of college graduates has risen much faster than that of less educated workers, getting into the right college has become an obsession in many upper-income high schools. With the help of summer programs, preparation classes for college entrance examinations and sometimes their own private admissions counselors, students in these schools assemble more impressive applications than they once did. They also apply to more top colleges. The advantages of campuses with increasingly wealthy student bodies are obvious, educators say: the colleges have more resources for research and student activities, more professors doing cutting-edge work and more students who received solid high school educations. But they also have much steeper tuition bills than in the past, and |
1576112_0 | National Briefing | South: Florida: Cubans Sentenced In Hijacking | Six Cubans were sentenced to 20 to 24 years in federal prison for hijacking a passenger flight in Cuba in March 2003. The men were convicted of using knives and a hatchet to take control of a flight with 37 people on board from the Isle of Youth, off Cuba's southern coast, and divert it toward Florida. United States fighter jets intercepted the plane and escorted it to Key West. Alexis Norneilla Morales, whom the prosecution painted as the ringleader, received a 24-year sentence, as did his brother, Miakel Guerra Morales. Eduardo Javiér Mejía Morales, Yainer Olivares Samón, Neudis Infantes Hernández and Alvenís Arías-Izquierdo received 20 years, the minimum sentence for air piracy. Abby Goodnough (NYT) |
1576067_3 | China Agrees To Postpone Wireless Plan | ''proved to be a complete success.'' That success was ensured by the administration's decision to adopt a narrow agenda and avoid issues where disagreement was inevitable. The Chinese were spared questions about how they will respond once the global textile quota is lifted next year and, experts predict, China takes over 50 percent of the United States textile market. Also off the official agenda were China's currency controls, which will be discussed this weekend at the International Monetary Fund's spring meetings, and its labor practices. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. filed an unusual trade complaint last month asking President Bush to punish China for reportedly gaining a commercial advantage in trade through violating workers' rights. Responding to a reporter's question, Ms. Wu said that petition ''is completely groundless'' and that she would invite the American labor leaders to visit China and investigate the situation for themselves. To try to improve the longstanding problem of piracy and counterfeiting, the Chinese agreed to increase the range of violations of intellectual property rights that are subject to criminal investigations and penalties. They also agreed to lower the threshold for these sanctions and apply them to the import, export, storage and distribution of pirated and counterfeit products. Jack Valenti, chairman of the Motion Picture Association, said this plan was commendable and ''contains important elements that could lead to improved copyright protection in China.'' This was not the first instance where China promised to crack down on piracy under pressure from the United States. Under President Bill Clinton, several prominent agreements were reached to end counterfeiting of tapes, movies and compact discs. But the problem was never resolved and has grown worse in some areas, in part because piracy is carried out on such a large scale that it may be unstoppable, according to analysts. China agreed to further open its market to American agricultural products in talks on Wednesday. But the United States refused to discuss the $19 billion it pays in agricultural subsidies and supports its farmers to raise commodity crops, including cotton and soybeans. The United States contends that agricultural subsidies should only be discussed in the global setting of the World Trade Organization. Ann M. Veneman, the agriculture secretary, took part in the meeting and said afterward that American agricultural exports to China had grown threefold over the last several years. China is now the biggest customer for American soybeans and cotton, she said. |
1577610_0 | Roman Catholic Priests' Group Calls for Allowing Married Clergy Members | Representatives of priests in at least nine dioceses, from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Long Island, have announced the birth of a new nationwide effort to allow married men in the Roman Catholic clergy. The priests met in Riverdale in the Bronx on April 20 and 21 and created the Priests' Forum for Eucharist, which the organizers said yesterday would press the church to increase the ranks of the priesthood through optional celibacy. They said those at the meeting represented groups of priests totaling about 1,000. There are roughly 30,000 diocesan priests and 15,000 religious order priests in the country. The total is down by nearly a third since 1965. ''Priests' Forum for Eucharist sees that the Church law of mandatory celibacy is endangering the identity of the Catholic faithful as a people of the Eucharist,'' the organizers said. ''They believe that making celibacy an option for those who wish to become priests or by ordaining those who are already married is an obvious and welcome way'' to bolster those ranks. The movement stems from a letter sent in August by 163 priests in the Milwaukee diocese urging the nation's bishops to make celibacy optional. Priest organizations in other dioceses began sending letters of support spontaneously, said Thomas McCabe, a married former priest. He said the forum members hoped to organize a large-scale meeting on the subject in the spring of 2005. The group generally favors optional celibacy for diocesan priests, and not for priests in religious orders. A driving force in the forum is Voice of the Ordained, a recently organized group of priests in the Archdiocese of New York and dioceses of Brooklyn and Rockville Centre, which covers Long Island. The forum's coordinator is the Rev. Andrew P. Connolly, pastor of St. Frances de Sales parish of Patchogue, N.Y. The meeting last week included priests from Milwaukee, Chicago, Albany, Belleville, Ill., and Pittsburgh. The organizers stress that what drives them to push for optional celibacy is what they call a major shortage of priests, leaving some parishioners without anyone to administer holy communion and crushing workloads for many pastors. Some pastors celebrate five or more Masses a weekend, others travel to distant churches and many dioceses depend on imported priests whose ''differences of language and culture limit their effectiveness,'' the forum organizers said. Last summer, 3,040 parishes out of 19,081 in the United States did not have resident pastors. The |
1577631_0 | National Briefing | Science and Health: Vermont Requires Labels On Biotech Seeds | Vermont is requiring that genetically modified seeds be labeled, becoming the first state to do so. Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, signed the measure into law on Monday. ''It showed that state legislatures can stand up to the biotech industry,'' said Ben Davis, environmental advocate for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. Lisa Dry of the Biotechnology Industry Organization said farmers already knew when they were buying genetically engineered seeds because they had to sign agreements covering their use of the seeds. Andrew Pollack (NYT) |
1577539_0 | Hearing for Senator's Father On His Competency for Trial | Vincent Velella has an average I.Q., but he has dementia and his short-term memory is on the borderline for mild mental retardation, a psychologist testified yesterday. Whether Mr. Velella, 90, is mentally and physically fit to stand trial is being considered by a judge in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, where he is scheduled to be tried next month alongside his son, State Senator Guy J. Velella, on charges of receiving bribes and influence-peddling. Earlier this year, a lawyer representing Vincent Velella moved to dismiss the charges against him based on his age, many ailments and limited mental abilities. ''He can't assist in his own defense,'' the lawyer, Murray Richman, said outside the courtroom yesterday. ''If he has cognitive impairments, it is obvious that he will have lapses of memory. How can he be of assistance?'' Senator Velella, who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester and is also the Bronx Republican Party chairman, pleaded not guilty, as did four co-defendants, including his father, after they were indicted in May 2002 on charges of taking cash payments from companies in exchange for bridge painting contracts. Vincent Velella, who says he has gout, diabetes and a heart ailment and has suffered two forms of cancer and ministrokes, arrived at court in a wheelchair, but walked to the defense table with a cane. As the questioning began, it was clear to the judge, Justice Joan C. Sudolnik, that Mr. Velella could not hear. He was allowed to sit just in front of the witness stand, and everyone was instructed to speak loudly. Marc Janoson, a forensic psychologist hired by Mr. Velella, was the only witness of the day for the defense, which has the burden of proving incompetence. The hearing is expected to last four days, and will mainly consist of doctors' testimony. Dr. Janoson testified that he performed tests on Mr. Velella over nine hours in August 2003. One test involved drawing figures. The drawings, Dr. Janoson said, ''any 6-year-old child would find defective.'' He said they exhibited ''all the classic signs of brain damage.'' The tests included mental exercises intended to catch someone who might be faking impairment. ''He has dementia; I can say that with psychological certainty,'' Dr. Janoson said. Mr. Richman asked whether Dr. Janoson thought Mr. Velella could pay attention for four to six hours a day in court. Dr. Janoson answered, ''He could try.'' The prosecutor, |
1572849_2 | China's Premier Orders Halt to a Dam Project Threatening a Lost Eden | the dam project could still eventually go forward. Construction had been scheduled to begin this year on the first dam at Liuku, near the Chinese-Burmese border. But Mr. Wen's instructions make it clear that environmental objections must be given serious consideration. ''He wants to hear more opinions and gather more views, especially from the conservation side that has been left out,'' said Qian Jie, deputy director of the Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge, a Chinese environmental group. ''I think at the least it sends a signal that our leaders care about the environment and about social development, and not just about the economy,'' she said. ''This gives us some hope that the river can be saved.'' The project has been advocated by officials in Yunnan Province, where the river flows beside China's border with Burma. Yunnan officials predicted it would help provide jobs and raise incomes in one of China's poorest regions. Advocates also have argued that the dams were critical at a time when China is suffering energy shortages. A Yunnan official reached by telephone said she had heard about Mr. Wen's decision but did not know any details. Opposition from Chinese scientists and environmentalists began last year. In a surprisingly public rift within the government, the State Environmental Protection Agency, the country's leading environmental agency, announced its opposition to the project. The Chinese Academy of Sciences also warned that the plan could cause enormous damage. In recent weeks, a consortium of international groups publicly opposed the plan and wrote a formal letter of opposition to President Hu Jintao. During the annual March meeting of the National People's Congress, China's Communist Party-controlled legislature, a number of delegates wrote to central authorities asking that the project be halted, according to the report in Ming Pao. According to opponents, the dam project would also disrupt one of China's most diversely populated regions. An estimated 50,000 people would have to be relocated, most of them ethnic minorities who farm and herd in the isolated mountains above the river. For many, however, the promise of urban jobs at a time of rising unemployment rang hollow, particularly since most villagers in the region have little education. China's government has historically had an atrocious record on the environment. Pollution levels for water and air are among the worst in the world. Recently, though, Mr. Wen has spoken about the need to emphasize environmental protection. |
1572831_9 | Excerpts From Rice's Testimony Before Commission Investigating Sept. 11 | and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijacking. The C.I.A. worked round the clock to disrupt threats worldwide. Yet as your hearings have shown, there was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. In hindsight, if anything might have helped stop 9/11 it would have been better information about threats inside the United States, something made very difficult by structural and legal impediments that prevented the collection and sharing of information by our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. So the attacks came. A band of vicious terrorists tried to decapitate our government, destroy our financial system and break the spirit of America. And as an officer of government on duty that day I will never forget the sorrow and the anger that I felt. Nor will I forget the courage and resilience of the American people, nor the leadership of the president that day. . . . Questions and Answers THOMAS H. KEAN -- I've got a question now I'd like to ask you. It was given to me by a number of members of the families. Did you ever see or hear from the F.B.I., from the C.I.A., from any other intelligence agency, any memos, discussions or anything else between the time you were elected or got into office and 9/11 that talked about using planes as bombs? A. Let me address this question because it has been on the table. I think that concern about what I might have known or we might have known was provoked by some statements that I made in a press conference. I was in a press conference to try and describe the Aug. 6 memo, which I've talked about here in the -- my opening remarks and which I talked about with you in the private session. And I said at one point that this was a historical memo, that it was not based on new threat information. And I said, No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon -- I'm paraphrasing now -- into the World Trade Center using planes as missiles. As I said to you in the private session, I probably should have said, I could have not imagined. Because within two days people started to come to me and say, Oh, but there were these reports in 1998 and 1999; the intelligence community did look |
1571355_3 | Halting Rust From Devouring What 9/11 Couldn't; Curators Battle Elements to Preserve Pieces of a Terrible History | look old, or with the original tape, perhaps hiding thin magnets underneath. The pictures pose yet another challenge, since many of them were produced by color photocopiers or ink-jet printers and are already fading badly. A possible solution, Mr. Weintraub said, is to make high-resolution reproductions and -- once again -- leave to later curators the choice of reaffixing the original or attaching a copy. ''The overall philosophy of the project is not to make decisions about the future exhibit but to stabilize as much as possible,'' Mr. Weintraub said, ''to keep all the doors open to the future.'' Before founding Art Preservation Services in 1988, Mr. Weintraub was a staff conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a conservation researcher at the Getty Conservation Institute. He was also a consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. The paradox of lavishing Chippendale care on utilitarian objects is not lost on Mr. Weintraub, who calls this phenomenon ''the miracle of the accession number.'' By way of example, he mentioned a Danish rescue boat that had been used in World War II to ferry Jews to safety. Until its acquisition by the Holocaust museum, it was still afloat. ''One day it's in the water,'' Mr. Weintraub said, ''the next day it's being handled with white gloves.'' So, too, the artifacts at Hangar 17, which were salvaged from metal recycling plants in New Jersey, the Fresh Kills recovery operation on Staten Island and ground zero itself. Many of the pieces are likely to return to the trade center site as part of the underground interpretive museum known as the Memorial Center. But that may not happen until the end of the decade, at the earliest. Now they fill the 80,000-square-foot hangar: deformed sections of the broadcast mast that once towered almost one-third of a mile over Lower Manhattan, the rugged steel tridents from the base of the north tower, crumpled red puzzle pieces of Alexander Calder's ''World Trade Center Stabile,'' and a mangled Port Authority police car that is recognizable as a vehicle only because it still has wheels. There is also the dedication-day plaque, which stood in or near a planting bed between the north tower and the Custom House at 6 World Trade Center, recalled Robert C. DiChiara, who was formerly assistant director of the Port Authority World Trade Department. ''It's nice to see things survive,'' said |
1585156_0 | World Briefing | Americas: Cuba And Mexico Agree To Return Ambassadors | Mexico and Cuba have smoothed over a diplomatic dispute, agreeing to return their ambassadors. Mexico withdrew its ambassador to Havana and expelled the Cuban ambassador from Mexico City on May 2, charging that statements by Cuba had constituted interference in Mexico's internal affairs. Mexico has long been an ally of Cuba, although the government of President Vicente Fox has become more critical of it rights record. The Cuban foreign minister, Felipe Pérez Roque, announced the restoring of relations at an international meeting in Guadalajara. Antonio Betancourt (NYT) |
1583547_6 | Conservative Group Amplifies Voice of Protestant Orthodoxy | instead of a controversial position,'' he said, adding that ''the sexuality issues and the liturgical issues in the churches have never been of great interest to us.'' Mrs. Ahmanson, who is Presbyterian, said she and her husband, who is Episcopalian, were motivated mainly by theological concerns. ''My husband and I are what we call classical Christians,'' Mrs. Ahmanson said, explaining their view that Christians should stick to the fifth century St. Vincent of Lerins's orthodox standard of ''what has been held everywhere in every time by everyone.'' She added, ''It is only in the last hundred years or so that there has been an elite, if you will, who have argued with that.'' After the fall of communism, Mrs. Knippers said, the institute's focus on policing the churches' support for leftists abroad faded away. ''We talked about whether the I.R.D. should just fold up,'' she said. Instead the institute turned more of its attention to social issues closer to home. ''In the seminaries, what replaced the liberation theology of the 80's was a radical feminist theology,'' Mrs. Knippers said, noting that in 1993 the Presbyterian Church organized a conference encouraging women to ''re-imagine'' God in a new way. ''And if feminism was the theology du jour on many campuses in the 90's, now it is homosexuality that is the issue.'' Feminism and homosexuality are also subjects that make for much more effective fund-raising appeals than foreign policy, marketers say. And in recent years the institute has broadened its direct-mail fund-raising to cover roughly 60 percent of its annual budget, Mrs. Knippers said. By 1989, fundamentalists had recently taken over the Southern Baptist Convention. And in the liberal mainline churches, the conservative Presbyterian Lay Committee and the Methodist group Good News were already growing. ''We have had for a number of years a good number of renewal groups,'' said Parker Williamson, chief of the Lay Committee. ''But the I.R.D. and Diane Knippers have been a wonderful help.'' Now, as Presbyterians prepare for their General Assembly, Alan Wisdom, the institute's Presbyterian director, says representatives of the institute will be there in force, calling attention to any liberal positions coming out of the church, distributing position papers to delegates and lobbying them in a conservative direction. Mr. Wisdom said the institute did not support the idea of a Presbyterian breakup, and almost no one expects a split at this year's General Assembly. But |
1583589_5 | Man Sought by 9/11 Panel Emerges to Tell of Chaos | operated from consoles in the lobbies of the north and south towers. The consoles, which looked like phones, had several buttons, one of which was pressed to turn on the system and a second that activated the handset to talk through. The commission concluded that the second button was not pressed down, creating the perception that the repeater itself was not working when fire chiefs tested it. Consequently, the chiefs decided to switch to alternative radio channels that did not have the benefit of the booster. Video from that morning shows Deputy Assistant Chief Joseph W. Pfeifer, one of the first fire officials on the scene, asking Mr. Thompson to turn the repeater on. But Mr. Thompson said yesterday that when he looked over to check the repeater, which was about five feet from his post, it was already on. A red light that only came on when both buttons were pressed was lighted, he said, and several supervisors confirmed that the unit was operating. But when Chief Pfeifer tested the system minutes later, he could not communicate with another chief standing nearby in the lobby. ''I don't think we have the repeater,'' the video shows Chief Pfeifer saying to the other chief. ''I pick you up on my radio, but not on the hard wire,'' he said, referring to the repeater's handset. Chief Pfeifer has said he believed that he could not rely on the repeater at that point and switched to another radio channel. A spokesman for the Fire Department, Francis X. Gribbon, said yesterday: ''There is overwhelming evidence that the repeater could not possibly have worked correctly and completely throughout the morning. Chief Pfeifer did not have the luxury of time to figure out what was wrong with it.'' Without the boosted channel, a fire chief who tried to call units down to the north tower lobby at 9:32 a.m., about half an hour before the south tower collapsed, found that no one acknowledged his message. A second evacuation order given by Chief Pfeifer, after the south tower had collapsed, was heard by some firefighters. Chief Pfeifer has said it was a good thing that he was not using the repeater channel when he made that announcement because the repeater antenna was damaged as the south tower collapsed, and thus no firefighters would have heard his order. Mr. Thompson agreed. ''They would have been in trouble once |
1583475_0 | Anti-Obesity Plan Drafted | After months of negotiations with sugar-producing countries, the World Health Organization reached tentative agreement on Friday on a set of recommendations to help millions of people avoid obesity and other chronic diseases through a healthy diet. The recommendations include strictly limiting fat, salt and sugar. The plan was requested by governments to help them set health policies to combat rising rates of obesity, heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, which the W.H.O. says account for 60 percent of the world's deaths. The World Health Assembly, an annual meeting of the world's health ministers in Geneva that sets W.H.O. policy, is expected to endorse the recommendations on Saturday. |
1580662_0 | China Unveils Plan to Curb Rapid AIDS Spread | The Chinese government warned on Sunday that AIDS was continuing to spread rapidly here in the world's most populous country, and it announced ''urgent measures'' to improve prevention and education efforts that include holding local officials directly responsible for curbing the disease. ''Those officials breaching duty or hiding epidemic reports will be severely punished,'' stated a 12-page circular from the State Council, China's cabinet. The official New China News Agency released the circular on Sunday. Meanwhile, Wu Yi, a deputy prime minister and the government's point person in fighting AIDS, cautioned that China was at a crucial stage because the disease might soon jump from high-risk groups like prostitutes and intravenous drug users into the general population. Ms. Wu, who oversees the Health Ministry, called for a crackdown on prostitution and the kind of illegal blood sales that led to an outbreak of AIDS in rural central China. She also said condom use and clean needle exchanges for drug users should be encouraged. Her comments, publicized in the state media on Sunday, came in a speech last month. If China fails to improve its response to the disease, Ms. Wu cautioned, ''The consequences will be very grievous.'' Experts have predicted that China could have as many as 10 million AIDS patients by 2010 if the government fails to adequately fight the disease. Government statistics estimate that 840,000 people in China are H.I.V. carriers, while 80,000 more have tested positive for AIDS. More than 100,000 people are already believed to have died of the disease. The new announcement noted that AIDS was in every province and region of China. The announcement is the latest effort by the Chinese government to confront a disease whose spread officials once actively sought to conceal. In the past year, China has introduced a limited program providing some free drugs to AIDS patients and begun a public relations campaign to reduce the stigma associated with the disease and encourage testing. A central focus of the State Council pamphlet was improving education, particularly in rural areas, state news agencies reported. AIDS education will be included in the curriculums of the country's middle schools, vocational schools and colleges. AIDS prevention posters should be displayed at public ''entertainment venues,'' according to the pamphlet. Already, posters and billboards with such messages are on display in major cities like Beijing. Medical workers, the circular stated, will also be charged with discussing |
1580640_0 | Researchers Develop Computer Techniques to Bring Blacked-Out Words to Light | European researchers at a security conference in Switzerland last week demonstrated computer-based techniques that can identify blacked-out words and phrases in confidential documents. The researchers showed their software at the conference, the Eurocrypt, by analyzing a presidential briefing memorandum released in April to the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. After analyzing the document, they said they had high confidence the word ''Egyptian'' had been blacked out in a passage describing the source of an intelligence report stating that Osama Bin Ladin was planning an attack in the United States. The researchers, David Naccache, the director of an information security lab for Gemplus S.A., a Luxembourg-based maker of banking and security cards, and Claire Whelan, a computer science graduate student at Dublin City University in Ireland, also applied the technique to a confidential Defense Department memorandum on Iraqi military use of Hughes helicopters. They said that although the name of a country had been blacked out in that memorandum, their software showed that it was highly likely the document named South Korea as having helped the Iraqis. The challenge of identifying blacked-out words came to Mr. Naccache as he watched television news on Easter weekend, he said in a telephone interview last Friday. ''The pictures of the blacked-out words appeared on my screen, and it piqued my interest as a cryptographer,'' he said. He then discussed possible solutions to the problem with Ms. Whelan, whom he is supervising as a graduate adviser, and she quickly designed a series of software programs to use in analyzing the documents. Although Mr. Naccache is the director of Gemplus, a large information security laboratory, he said that the research was done independently from his work there. The technique he and Ms. Whelan developed involves first using a program to realign the document, which had been placed on a copying machine at a slight angle. They determined that the document had been tilted by about half a degree. By realigning the document it was possible to use another program Ms. Whelan had written to determine that it had been formatted in the Arial font. Next, they found the number of pixels that had been blacked out in the sentence: ''An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an xxxxxxxx service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.'' They then used a |
1585864_0 | Gene-Modified Crops | To the Editor: Re ''A Call for a Gene Revolution'' (editorial, May 24): The Food and Agriculture Organization and other United Nations agencies are a prime source of the flawed public policy that has stymied the application of gene-splicing technology to the development of new crop varieties for poor countries. Last year, the United Nations put into effect a ''biosafety protocol'' focused narrowly on the bogus category of gene-spliced organisms. Also last year, the United Nations' Codex Alimentarius Commission promulgated unscientific, excessive requirements for gene-spliced foods. These flawed regulatory policies make the use of gene-splicing -- a proven, safe, superior technology -- prohibitively expensive to use, except for a handful of rich countries' high-volume commodity crops. A ''gene revolution'' in the developing world will have to be preceded by a regulatory revolution. That is a long road to hoe. HENRY I. MILLER, M.D. Stanford, Calif., May 26, 2004 The writer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution. |
1585883_3 | Salvaging Jewish Heritage in China, Block by Block | ''Faustian bargain.'' Mr. Choa said that no matter what he proposed, much of the ghetto could be torn down anyway. ''There's no guarantee that even a municipal-preserved building will stay,'' he said. But momentum is growing to preserve the entire neighborhood. An alternate plan has been drawn up by two Canadians, Ian Leventhal and Thomas M. Rado, who are Jewish. They formed a company called Living Bridge, that is trying to raise $450 million to preserve at least 50 ghetto buildings in a nine-block area. ''Our plan calls for the restoration of all the buildings of significant architectural importance, such as the row houses, the Broadway Theater and of course the Ohel Moshe Synagogue,'' Mr. Leventhal wrote in an e-mail message, though he declined to say how much money has been raised. Mr. Leventhal and Mr. Rado, who are working with government-appointed preservation professors from a Shanghai university and a Toronto architect, made a presentation to district officials in Hongkou last Monday. If district officials can be convinced of the financial viability of the Leventhal-Rado restoration plan -- which also calls for a boutique hotel, an extensive memorial park and a car-free pedestrian zone -- it would then go to the Shanghai city government for consideration when they auction the area to developers. ''In principle the government is supportive, and our next step is to do a more detailed version for presentation early this summer,'' Mr. Leventhal said, adding that he hoped to set a precedent for heritage conservation and development. The Ohel Moshe Synagogue is already a tourist attraction. No longer used for worship (Judaism is not officially recognized by the Chinese government), the synagogue operates as a small museum and Jewish cultural center supported by donations. A museum plaque listing visitors during the last few years includes photos of Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Chancellor Gerhard Schröeder of Germany and former Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Benjamin Netanyahu. Because Shanghai has not decided which redevelopment path to take, no one knows what, if any, buildings beyond the synagogue and the row-house block will be preserved. All Mr. Choa, Mr. Leventhal and Mr. Rado can do is keep urging government officials to consider the tourism potential of the district so that they in turn might transfer that pressure onto future developers. ''You're just trying to save as much as possible,'' Mr. Choa said. |
1585893_5 | Technology Strains to Find Menace in the Crowd | other unexplained anomalies, like the tendency of the systems to identify men more accurately than women, and Asians more accurately than other races. Technology sellers are pursing a variety of strategies to improve the results. Some are developing systems that start with three-dimensional images taken by multiple cameras, allowing more varied head angles as a person walks through a checkpoint. Others are developing complex mathematical functions to transform two-dimensional images into three-dimensional models. They are also using software to compensate for poor lighting and to take shadows off a face. The technical advances are having an impact. Viisage, for example, struggled to achieve a 50 percent recognition rate in tests last year at Boston's Logan International Airport. But Mohamed Lazzouni, the company's chief technology officer, claimed that Viisage's results would improve to better than 90 percent if it repeated the trial with its latest technology, including elements brought in when it acquired ZN Vision Technologies of Germany in January. Combining face recognition with other biometrics or even nonbiometric security measures could also improve the success rate. Identix hopes to meet the goal set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology by combining a technology for measuring skin texture with its FaceIt feature mapping system, Dr. Atick said. Last year, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a division of the United Nations, adopted the use of dual biometrics in passport standards. That agency's decision to have face-recognition technology and fingerprints incorporated in all passports has been endorsed by the United States, which recently began laying the groundwork for adding face recognition to fingerprinting in all visa applications. Those documents will eventually contain microchips recording lasting facial characteristics like the distance between eyes and shape of the jaw. Scanners at check-in counters could then check whether the face of the traveler bearing the document matches the data on the chip. But the challenge of including the technology in passports is still enormous. The Bush administration told Congress that neither the United States nor any other country could comply with the Oct. 26 deadline Congress had set for all travelers who do not require a visa to enter the United States to have the new biometrically equipped passports. Most experts say including face data on microchips in passports will take at least another year, and deploying the systems needed to analyze the data at every port of entry could be delayed for years. |
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1580254_1 | In the Region/New Jersey; Hat Factory Is a Focus of Redevelopment in Orange | feet of ground-level retail and covered parking. ''These will be for-sale homes rather than rental,'' said Patrick Morrissy, the executive director of Hands. ''That's sort of the point -- to turn this back into a real neighborhood.'' The $7.5 million project, to be financed with a combination of federal and state funds, tax credit programs and private money, will create 16 two- and three-bedroom duplexes, 9 one- and two-bedroom loft apartments, and 19 studios, all to be sold at market rate. Another potential developer wanted to create a self-storage facility, Mr. Morrissy said. ''That would have gotten rid of the rats and squatters and put the property back on the general tax rolls,'' he conceded, ''but with our plan, you actually bring life back to the area.'' Hands has worked for six years to stabilize existing neighborhoods of single-family homes in Orange and neighboring East Orange, one building at a time, Mr. Morrissy said. Using a strategy of picking the house in worst shape on a block, relocating squatters and troublesome tenants, untangling thickets of liens and forfeitures to purchase a building and then completely renovating it for resale, Hands has helped to prepare Orange for successful redevelopment, Mr. Morrissy said. Hands pushed for the state Abandoned Property Rehabilitation Act, enacted last year, that aims to streamline the process of getting abandoned property into the hands of nonprofit groups and is field-testing the new law with its continuing work in Orange. Mayor Mims Hackett Jr. said that Hands had a record of what he called ''exemplary success'' in turning around problem and abandoned properties. ''This is what redevelopment is all about,'' Mayor Hackett said. ''As you get older cities -- and we are almost 150 years old -- you have to be innovative, understanding, and take what avenue is granted for revitalization.'' Orange has three target areas for redevelopment. The largest is an L-shaped area near the town's main train station, where financing has been received through the state's Transit Village program and is being sought through the federal Hope VI program. Another redevelopment area is being proposed for the lower end of the town's Main Street. The third is the ongoing Valley project. ''We're right in the mix,'' said the mayor. ''Give us a short period of time, and we'll probably be one of the redevelopment models in the nation.'' The community was sorely wounded 40 years ago when |
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1580160_3 | And You Thought Art in New York Was a Jungle | there studying architecture. I invited them to Belize to see the ranch. Adrian Barron'' -- a British artist who lives in London -- ''came over in 1993, and that's how it started.'' ''You own the secret sculpture garden?'' I asked. ''Yes,'' he said. ''But it's not secret. Anyone can come see it. They just have to call and make an appointment.'' Those who make an appointment would be well advised to ask for directions. The garden, about an hour's drive from Belmopan, is marked only by a gate and a small wooden sign beside a dirt road a few miles from the Guatemalan border. ''Poustinia Land Art Park,'' it reads. Beyond the gate lies a sculpture park that evokes the spirit of ''Fitzcarraldo,'' Werner Herzog's film about a man's quest to bring opera to the Amazon rain forest. More than 30 site-specific works created by artists from Belize, Venezuela, Guyana, Norway, England, the United States, Barbados and Venezuela are strewn across 60 of the ranch's 270 forested acres, connected by a grassy road that winds through the property like a labyrinth. Visiting Poustinia typically involves a long day's hike in the hot sun. The dense forest is alive with snakes and mosquitoes, and sharp-eyed visitors may be rewarded with a glimpse of a toucan or scarlet macaw. But given our limited time (Mr. Musa had to be back in Belize City that evening for the opening of a film festival), Mr. Ruiz allowed us to drive the grounds. ''This is one of our newest works,'' Mr. Ruiz said as he stood in the shadow of ''Downtown,'' a sculpture by the Venezuelan artist Manuel Piney. The work is a miniature metropolis of boxy 18-foot-tall skyscrapers made of rough cast concrete, waiting to be overtaken by the fast-growing jungle. Mr. Piney's sculpture made clever reference to Belize's numerous Mayan ruins, architectural relics of a lost empire that remained buried for centuries in the tropical growth. Further down the trail is Mr. Barron's ''Conquistadores,'' two armored breastplates with young gumbo limbo trees growing through them. ''The Spaniard is still looking for the Maya,'' Mr. Musa said. ''Eventually the trees will grow through the breastplates and burst them.'' Mr. Ruiz added: ''That's the idea with what we do, yes? What's here today will change tomorrow.'' If Mr. Musa is the brash public promoter of Belizean art, Mr. Ruiz is its quiet private patron. There |
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1580414_3 | The Disability Movement Turns to Brains | Dr. Damasio and others compare the shifting awareness about brain function to the broader conception of intelligence that has evolved over the last two decades, driven in part by the theory of Howard Gardner, a Harvard education professor, that children who don't excel in ''traditional'' intelligence -- the manipulation of words and numbers -- may shine in other areas such as spatial reasoning or human relations. Skeptics, like Mr. Harper's family, and some medical professionals argue that clinicians are too quick to hand out a diagnosis to anyone who walks through the door. In an effort to rein in the number of diagnoses, the American Psychiatric Association imposed a new criterion in its latest edition of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual: an individual must now suffer from ''impairment'' to qualify as having one of its 220 psychological disorders. ''We're not adequately differentiating normal from pathological if we just use the criteria that are in the syndrome definitions,'' said Dr. Darrel A. Regier, director of research for the American Psychiatric Association. The definition of ''impairment,'' however, remains vague. And many clinicians chafe at the manual's rigid diagnostic criteria. ''Say the diagnostic category for a depressive disorder is four out of eight symptoms, and you have two,'' said Dr. John Ratey, a Harvard University psychiatrist. ''What are you, just miserable?'' For patients, being given a name and a biological basis for their difficulties represents a shift from a ''moral diagnosis'' that centers on shame, to a medical one, said Dr. Ratey, who is the author of ''Shadow Syndromes,'' which argues that virtually all people have brain differences they need to be aware of to help guide them through life. But the most humane approach, some experts argue, may lie in redefining the expanding set of syndromes as differences rather than diagnoses. ''We're doing a service on the one hand by describing many more of these conditions and inviting people to understand themselves better,'' said Dr. Edward Hallowell, a leading authority on A.D.D. ''But when we pathologize it we scare them and make them not want to have any part of it. I think of these as traits, not disorders.'' Knowing you are a mild depressive, for instance, could induce you to exercise often. A bipolar person could adapt their lives to fit their mood swings, or treat them with drugs if that works better. And a neurologically tolerant society would try to accommodate |
1579015_1 | Dance to Nature's Rhythm | disorder. Dr. Rako, a Boston psychiatrist, addresses the ''disturbing reality'' of promoting menstrual suppression as beneficial. Doctors, she points out, have been prescribing contraceptive pills, which suppress menstruation, for uses other than those approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Pharmaceutical companies have drugs in the pipeline intended to stop periods, she adds. Lured by the prospect of ''no more periods,'' Dr. Rako writes, women are putting themselves at increased risk for osteoporosis, infertility, heart attacks, strokes and cancer. Dr. Rako discusses a growing body of information that deflates the notion that menstrual suppression is a viable option for women. She notes, for example, that ''the monthly bleed'' may well be ''a blessing to the balance of iron in our bodies and makes an important contribution to our health and longevity.'' She singles out for criticism Depo-Provera, a widely used drug to produce temporary sterility and menstrual suppression. One injection every three months interferes with the normal maturation of the eggs in the ovaries, but also causes bone loss. ''Without an appreciation of the complexity of hormones' effects upon one another, and of their far-reaching effects on every organ system in the body,'' she concludes, ''we are not equipped to understand the risks of hormonal manipulation and disruption of the normal menstrual cycle.'' Ms. Ballweg's book is a collaborative effort, with contributors discussing the symptoms of endometriosis, old and new treatments, nutritional strategies that help manage some symptoms, and the connection between the disease and cancer. The book also takes on the notion that the early symptoms, especially menstrual pain, can be dismissed as normal -- something many doctors are taught and many women believe. One chapter lays to rest any idea that teenagers do not get the disease; the endometriosis association's registry data show that two-thirds of the women with it reported that their pelvic symptoms first appeared before they were 20; 38 percent had symptoms before age 15, and 28 percent from 15 to 19. Also overlooked, the authors write, is endometriosis in women who are past menopause. Many women with endometriosis see symptoms, especially pelvic, end with menopause, the authors write. But many others report continuing problems. ''The real question to ask,'' one author writes, ''may be, 'Is endo uncommon in menopause, or is it not commonly diagnosed in menopause?' In fact, endo as a source of complaints may be underdiagnosed in postmenopausal women.'' BOOKS ON HEALTH |
1579012_0 | Development May Threaten National Park | A valley treasured by biologists as one of the wildest places in North America could become the site of large coal-related development projects, if two plans are realized. The proposals call for mining and gas development in the Flathead Valley in British Columbia, a sparsely settled region that includes the North Fork of the Flathead River. A few miles south, the river forms the western boundary of Glacier National Park in the United States. Kenneth Bates, president of the Cline Mining Corporation, a Canadian company, said he planned to have an open-pit coal mine operating within two years to extract hard metallurgical coal, which is in demand because of a boom in steel production in China. The other project is a series of exploratory wells to find out whether it is feasible to drill more extensively for natural gas found in coal deposits in the valley. It is not clear what company will handle that project. Mr. Bates, who is working in partnership with Mitsui Matsushima, a Japanese company, said the mine would be a boon to southern British Columbia, producing nearly two million tons of coal a year and creating some 1,500 jobs directly and indirectly. But environmentalists, biologists and Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, have vowed to block the proposal. ''If they want to pursue a full-scale operation that could devastate one of our most pristine and valuable areas for recreation and wildlife, then they're asking for a fight,'' Mr. Baucus said. He has written to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell asking him to express concern to the Canadians. A study last year by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is based at the Bronx Zoo, found that the valley might well be the wildest one in the lower 48 states. Glacier National Park and, next to it, Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada are among the most pristine areas in the world. On the American side, the North Fork has been designated a wild and scenic river, which carries some federal protections. It is home to an endangered species, the bull trout. Experts fear a mine could taint the region's water with increased sediment, coal dust and nitrates from explosives. The valley is a redoubt for grizzly bears, and an important connector between bears further north in Canada, and threatened bears in the United States. ''You can't turn this corridor into an industrial landscape,'' said David |
1579012_1 | Development May Threaten National Park | and Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, have vowed to block the proposal. ''If they want to pursue a full-scale operation that could devastate one of our most pristine and valuable areas for recreation and wildlife, then they're asking for a fight,'' Mr. Baucus said. He has written to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell asking him to express concern to the Canadians. A study last year by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is based at the Bronx Zoo, found that the valley might well be the wildest one in the lower 48 states. Glacier National Park and, next to it, Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada are among the most pristine areas in the world. On the American side, the North Fork has been designated a wild and scenic river, which carries some federal protections. It is home to an endangered species, the bull trout. Experts fear a mine could taint the region's water with increased sediment, coal dust and nitrates from explosives. The valley is a redoubt for grizzly bears, and an important connector between bears further north in Canada, and threatened bears in the United States. ''You can't turn this corridor into an industrial landscape,'' said David Thomas, a member of the City Council of Fernie, British Columbia, which is near the proposed wells. ''It would create an isolated population of large animals.'' An unrelated open-pit mine was proposed in the late 1970's in the same area. The fear then that American water quality would be threatened led to the creation of the International Joint Commission, a team of Canadian and American scientists that studied the issue for three years. In 1988, the commission found that pollution from the mine could flow into the United States and would violate the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty. It voted unanimously to recommend against the mine. That decision remains untested because the mine plans were dropped. Some involved in the commission believe the 1988 decision is still binding under international law and would affect the Cline plan . ''I would argue it does,'' said Richard Moy, chief of the Water Management Bureau in the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation of Montana and a member of the commission in the 1980's. ''Treaties are, in effect, international law, and that's as binding as it gets.'' Mr. Bates, however, said he did not believe the decision would affect his plan. He also took |
1582445_4 | A Brooklyn Landmark Gets Its Crown Back; At Music Academy, Color Supplants Grime | beyond rust to exfoliation. Key flashing had failed, and walls were bulging with water damage and age. According to Raymond M. Pepi, president of Building Conservation Associates, more than half of the brick supporting the parapet and cornice had to be taken apart, removed, salvaged, cleaned or replaced, and put back together. Workers rebuilt lintels, refurbished the building's stained-glass windows and partly replaced the roof. A replica of the original cornice and its topmost balustrade was reconstructed from original plans and photographs and written descriptions, and the colors were matched with terra cotta from other parts of the building. ''The restored colors haven't weathered, and they're so vivid that, viewed up close, they are almost shocking,'' Mr. Pepi said. ''But from a distance, they harmonize with the existing colors.'' Mr. Hardy said his goal was ''to recreate the mad joyousness of it all,'' he said. More mundanely, the facade of cream-colored terra cotta bricks -- some of them embossed with tiny lyres to reference the building's musicality -- has been repointed and cleaned. It is not only the first time the academy building has been restored, but also there is no evidence that it has ever before been cleaned, said Mr. Hardy, who has been involved for two decades in the restoration and renovation at the academy. If Herts & Tallant had high hopes for the building in 1908, they perhaps could not have imagined the current influx of hungry audiences seeking theater, opera, symphonic music, film, jazz, gospel groups and avant-garde performances, Mr. Melillo said. The underutilized Helen Carey Playhouse at the academy has been transformed into the four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas; a second-floor BAMcafé performance space, restaurant and bar have been added along with a Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, and the academy has branched out to the nearby Majestic Theater at 651 Fulton Street, now the Harvey Theater. Attendance is 400,000 a year, up 40 percent from five years ago. Where once 60 percent of the academy's audience arrived from Manhattan, now that portion has dropped to 45 percent; another 45 percent comes from Brooklyn and the remaining visitors are regional, national and international cultural tourists. The restored building celebrates that new vibrancy, Mr. Melillo said, and melds the present and the past. Although contemporary craftsmanship is often considered inferior to that of earlier generations, the new repair effort has employed some techniques and materials superior to the |
1582371_4 | A technique to help combat the online piracy of music uses decoy files that deliver noise and 'gotcha' scoldings. | because tactics for fighting piracy are changing, too. ''For a long time the music industry has gone after an 'all or nothing' digital rights management strategy,'' Dr. Hale said. ''It's been pretty brutal. It relies on hardware. It's like putting hardware in your car to meter control of the engine. That's the strategy which has largely failed. ''Now there's a new movement in copyright circles to develop a speed bump. The basic idea is to slow or stem the tide of piracy. There's little that can be done to circumvent a speed bump that spans the entire width of the road. It's a low-tech, robust technology.'' Dr. Hale said he and Dr. Manes had carefully tested their invention by sharing files first on an isolated network. None of the work was financed by the music industry, he said. And the inventors believe that file sharing sites and networks should not object to a surreptitious invasion of decoy files. ''Kazaa has always said they're not in favor of digital piracy, and that's what this fights,'' Dr. Hale said. ''I can't speak for them, but if they are genuinely concerned, this is the way to deal with it. ''It's a noninvasive way, as opposed to lawsuits and technological attacks,'' he added. ''It doesn't go out and hit a person's system. It makes finding pirated material and pirated material alone difficult to do. If people want to share their own music we don't interfere with that, but if they are bootlegging a Britney Spears song, our presence will be felt.'' In fact, the university, which owns the patent, hopes that artists and the music industry will license the decoy technology and make the invention profitable. ''The music industry loses $700 million a year to peer-to-peer piracy,'' said Dr. Hale. ''So there is a dynamic involved whereby digital content and copyright owners have an interest in using our invention to protect their intellectual property.'' Especially since Dr. Hale believes that digital piracy will only increase. ''Peer-to-peer networks are going to evolve to be ever more anonymous, and people will feel more disconnected and less accountable for what they do to standards or laws,'' he explained. ''Plus, the pipes will get fatter. More bandwidth will come into the home. So not only will we have to worry about music, but movies, too. That's the next stage.'' Dr. Hale and Dr. Manes received patent 6,732,180. Patents |
1584319_4 | Spruced Up For a 500th Birthday; After His Bath, 'David' Has a Bit More Shine | with a hammer, and this too had to be restored. Mr. Paolluci and his team say that what Accademia documents describe as restoration involves only conservation, although the work done here seems to lie somewhere between the two. In some areas the once dull marble has recovered its shine, with the front of the figure's torso again catching light and shadow. Some vertical stains, perhaps remnants of streams of rainwater, have also been removed. Scientists also have carried out detailed studies of the environment in which ''David'' now lives. They concluded, for instance, that both the temperature and gaseous pollutants monitored around the statue were at acceptable levels. But they also noted that larger dust particles introduced by some two million visitors per year quickly soiled the marble ''and threaten to cancel out the results obtained with the newly completed cleaning.'' Ms. Parnigoni said that to prevent a dust buildup she planned to clean the statue with a hand-held vacuum cleaner every six weeks. Temperatures around ''David'' will continue to be monitored, and ultraviolet and other photographic techniques will be used to identify the accumulation of gypsum and other harmful substances on the marble surface. Perhaps most alarming, however, is the fresh recognition by Florentine experts that ''David'' would not be safe in case of a major earthquake. In documents provided to the press today, the experts are quoted as saying, ''Given the importance of the work, we consider it necessary to take even this extreme hypothesis into consideration.'' Since Florence lies in an earthquake zone, the hypothesis is not extreme. The principal message accompanying Monday's unveiling, however, was that all was well with ''David.'' ''I wonder if people can see the difference?'' asked Willem Dreesmann, president of a Dutch foundation, Ars Longa Stichting, which financed the studies and restoration along with the American-based Friends of Florence. ''All kinds of stains have been removed,'' he said, ''but you can only see this at close quarters.'' Mr. Paolucci was more eager to minimize what has been done here. ''A restoration that doesn't look like a restoration is always the best kind,'' he said. '' 'David' is the same as ever. For journalists this is a letdown because there is no controversy.'' Mr. Beck, though, was not about to give up. ''They just sort of tidied it up,'' he said, ''and created a spectacle to get more visitors and sell more products.'' |
1584361_0 | MEMO PAD | STANDBY TO STANDBY -- Aviation and government officials are sounding the alarm: With air traffic approaching pre-2001 levels, get ready for worsening airport delays. ''Even though we are not yet into the summer months, typically the busiest for the airlines, we are already seeing delays and congestion resulting from the rebound in airline traffic,'' Kenneth M. Mead, the Department of Transportation inspector general, told a Senate committee last week. Because of intense low-fare airline competition at major airlines' hubs, some airports with high delay rates last summer will handle even more flights this summer, a report by the agency said. For example, Kennedy Airport, where 25.1 percent of flights were delayed last summer, has 20 percent more flights scheduled this summer. Washington Dulles, where 22.5 percent of flights were delayed last summer, has 17 percent more scheduled flights this summer. BE PREPARED -- Passengers who are unprepared to proceed smoothly through airport security are ''one of the major reasons for backups at the checkpoint,'' according to the Transportation Security Administration. The agency announced a partnership with airlines yesterday to deal with the surge in travel expected this summer. The agency said its screeners intercept more than half a million prohibited items each month. ''The result is a more lengthy process at the security checkpoint for every passenger,'' the agency said. Besides what the agency called ''passenger education techniques,'' the partnership is planning to devise solutions specific to the 25 airports where the most significant increases in passenger traffic are expected. The agency is also transferring some screeners to the busiest airports. There are currently about 45,000 federal screeners, down about 5,000 from last summer. RELAX, HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE -- Passengers can convert frequent flier points into cards redeemable at Starbucks, said Points International, operator of Points Exchange, which provides various ways for loyalty-program members to exchange points for products. For 10,000 American Airlines Aadvantage points, for example, $45 can be loaded onto a Starbucks Card. Details are at www.points.com OR FLY FIRST CLASS, CHEAP -- Seeking to differentiate itself further from rival Southwest Airlines, US Airways revised first-class fares yesterday on eight routes from Philadelphia. Southwest, a low-fare carrier that has no first class cabins, invaded US Air's hub at Philadelphia earlier this month, forcing US Air to cut coach fares sharply on competing routes. In the latest response yesterday, US Air introduced what it calls GoFirst fares |
1584315_4 | OBSERVATORY | The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the crystals are not aligned in chains. A chain configuration, they point out, is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of biologically produced magnetite crystals. So, they say, it will be difficult to prove definitively that the crystals are a sign of life. Falling Palm Fronds If a palm frond falls in the rain forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? That is something for philosophers to wrestle with. From a biologist's perspective, a more interesting question is, does it do any damage? The answer, according to a Stanford researcher, is quite a lot, particularly if the frond is from Iriartea deltoidea, one of the grandest and most common palms making up the rain forest canopy in the western Amazon. In fact, the researcher reports in Biology Letters, a publication of the Royal Society, falling fronds from I. deltoidea have a major influence on the makeup of the rain forest. Halton A. Peters, a doctoral student in biology, and colleagues studied the understory vegetation around I. deltoidea palms in a national park in Peru. The palm can grow higher than 100 feet and has fronds like giant bottle brushes that can be close to 20 feet long and weigh 35 pounds. Fronds die naturally from time to time, and a dead frond ''has the potential to represent a major disturbance when it comes crashing out of the canopy,'' Mr. Peters said. ''We wanted to understand if this phenomenon could change the way tropical forests are organized,'' he said. In areas where saplings and seedlings are dense, falling fronds tend to snap off branches and damage stems. ''You can really see the evidence of past damage on saplings,'' he said. For a sapling that stores its carbon reserves, produced through photosynthesis, in above-ground tissues, damage to a stem or branch can be fatal. By contrast, a species that stores its carbon underground, in the roots, should be better able to recover from a direct hit. Indeed, the researchers found that in areas directly beneath the palms, there was a greater prevalence of species with root storage than in control areas where there were no palms. ''We know that tropical forests are incredibly diverse,'' Mr. Peters said. ''This study indicates that just a few species can really drive the community dynamics of the whole system.'' |
1581276_0 | Where the Jobs Are | Job jitters are vexing America. Not even the striking gains in employment over the last two months have put an end to hand wringing over work being ''outsourced'' to low-wage countries. Americans had become used to shedding factory jobs, but the technology and service jobs now at risk were supposed to be secure, the guarantee of our future. So we're left to wonder: what will Americans do? Well, just like previous generations of Americans, they'll learn to do something different from what they've done in the past. Our history is one of a constant churning of jobs, with workers always finding the next step forward in the evolution of work -- from farm hands to industrial workers to information handlers. They will do so again. As existing jobs succumb to shifts in technology and trade, the economy will adjust, creating new work that uses new skills and talents. Over time, workers move up what we call a ''hierarchy of human talents'' -- they find jobs that demand higher-order skills and offer better pay and working conditions. As depicted in the chart above, the hierarchy provides a guide to the traits and qualities that will dominate the next employment wave. Over the past decade the biggest employment gains came in occupations that rely on people skills and emotional intelligence -- like nurse and lawyer -- and among jobs that require imagination and creativity: designer, architect and photographer. But not all of the new jobs require advanced degrees or exceptional artistic talent; note the rise of employment for hair stylists and cosmetologists. Trying to preserve existing jobs will prove futile -- trade and technology will transform the economy whether we like it not. Americans will be better off if they strive to move up the hierarchy of human talents. That's where our future lies. Op-Chart W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm are, respectively, chief economist and economics writer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Nigel Holmes is a graphic designer. |
1581270_2 | Google Mail: Virtue Lies In the In-Box | because you'd be missing a wonderful thing. Even in its current, early state, available only to a few thousand testers, Gmail appears destined to become one of the most useful Internet services since Google itself. Like Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, Gmail is a free, Web-based e-mail program, which means that you will be able to check or send e-mail from any computer on the Internet, wherever you go. Even if you already have a traditional e-mail account, a Web mail account makes a great backup. But otherwise, you wouldn't even peg Gmail as being from the same planet as Yahoo and Hotmail. The most important difference is the amount of storage: one gigabyte. That's 250 times the amount you get on a free Yahoo account, 500 times the amount on Hotmail. One gigabyte changes everything. You no longer live in terror that somebody will send you a photo, thereby exceeding your two-megabyte limit and making all subsequent messages bounce back to their senders. You're no longer neurotic about checking your mail twice a day just to keep the in-box cleaned out. You can let years' worth of e-mail pile up, complete with file attachments (maximum size: 10 megabytes each). One gigabyte means that Gmail can be a handy personal transfer disk. Send files to yourself and then retrieve them when you get to the office. Keep important pictures or documents in your Gmail account all the time, ready to forward when friends request them. In fact, Google argues that with so much storage, you should get out of the habit of deleting messages. Why risk throwing away something that you might need again someday? An Archive button moves a message out of the in-box, but it remains searchable. Actually deleting a message involves fussing with a pop-up menu. Of course, if you're going to keep all your e-mail around forever, you'd better have some pretty good tools for managing it. Fortunately, if anyone can tame a vast pile of data, it's Google. Its famous search command works brilliantly on your own e-mail, plucking one message out of 5,000 in a fraction of a second. Each message offers a hollow star icon that turns yellow when you click on it, to signify anything you like: ''Deal with this,'' ''Those darned in-laws,'' or whatever. Each row also displays the first line of the message in light-gray type, which is a time-saving bit |
1582794_0 | Report Shows Racial Disparity In Special Education Programs | A disproportionate number of the state's black and Hispanic students are still placed in special education programs, and are far more likely to be kept in separate classes than white students with disabilities, the state said on Tuesday. In a report it released here on the 2002-03 school year, the Board of Regents painted a mixed picture of New York's special education programs. It found that more students with disabilities are succeeding in math and more are taking Regents exams and graduating. But in many areas, the board found, wide achievement gaps remain. The state recommends placing children with disabilities in general education classes wherever possible. But the report found that the percentage of white disabled children in New York who were able to spend the bulk of their school days in regular classes was above the national average, while the percentage of black and Hispanic students fell short of it. New York City, in particular, kept 9.2 percent of its students with disabilities in separate classes -- more than twice the national average. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has announced plans to overhaul the city's special education system. Richard P. Mills, the state education commissioner, said New York would continue to push local districts to educate more disabled students in general education classes. ''Placement in an education program with nondisabled peers, or placement in a program that allows the child to engage in the general curriculum most of the time, really has payoff in terms of performance'' he said at a news conference here. The New York City schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, said in a statement that the data ''offer little more than damning commentary on the status quo and confirmation of the need for continued substantial reform of how we instruct our children with special needs.'' The report found that the percentage of students statewide classified as disabled rose slightly, to 12 percent from 11.8 percent the previous year -- the highest percentage in at least a decade. Most of them were classified as learning disabled, emotionally disturbed or having speech or language difficulties, education officials said. In recent years, special education programs around the state have come under increasing scrutiny, with some parents complaining that they have often been used as ''dumping grounds'' for difficult children who then languish in the programs for years. Education experts and fiscal watchdogs have charged that separate special education classes have |
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