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1084543_4 | Hopes for Improved Ties With China Fade | Clinton about the Geneva conference, which starts on March 22 and runs until April 30. Inconveniently for the Administration, Prime Minister Zhu's visit to Washington is scheduled for the middle of the Geneva gathering. On national security, the Administration faces a confluence of issues that may only intensify the problems in the relationship with China. At the top of the list is the Administration's proposal, which China has vehemently criticized, to push forward plans for developing a theater missile defense system with Japan, South Korea and possibly Taiwan. The system, which is still in the design stage, has been promoted with new urgency by the Administration since the surprise firing by North Korea of a missile that flew over Japan and into the Pacific in August. The Administration says the system would protect Japan and South Korea from North Korean missiles, but Taiwan's Government has shown interest in being part of the system, an interest the Administration has not discouraged. The Chinese have interpreted the recent push on the theater missile defense system as hostile to their interests. A Pentagon official suggested that this was hardly surprising, since the system would affect the ''heart of their military posture.'' The coming release of a Pentagon report on the system, requested last year by Congress, is likely to heighten the debate. The Chinese have already raised the issue in a way that does not please the Administration. During a visit to Washington in January, a senior Chinese arms control official, Sha Zukang, warned the Administration that pushing ahead with the missile defense system would sink any chance of China's joining a major international mechanism for controlling the spread of missile technology, the Missile Technology Control Regime. Nations that belong to the regime are bound not to export missile parts. Mr. Sha made the warning at the same conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where Mr. Berger announced that Washington would like China to join the control regime this year. From the Administration's point of view, the brightest picture for achieving some progress with the Chinese in time for the Prime Minister's visit appears to be paving the way for China's entry to the World Trade Organization. Urging China to make concessions so it can join the world's most important trade organization has been the focus of Mr. Clinton's efforts in the last three years to open China economically and politically. |
1086064_1 | An I.N.S. Hurdle for the Disabled; Promised Exemptions Elude Many Would-Be Citizens | citizenship exam, Mr. Kholchanskiy was refused a waiver from the I.N.S. A 1994 law requires the I.N.S. to accommodate immigrants disabled by conditions like Alzheimer's disease, mental retardation and neurological damage from strokes, and whose doctors attest that they can not retain information sufficiently to pass the language and civics tests. Almost from its inception, however, the disability waiver has been a source of tension and dispute between immigrants and the I.N.S. It is a benefit, I.N.S. officials in Washington acknowledge, that the agency is still deciding how to best administer and that field employees sometimes misinterpret in their zeal to detect fraud. In New York, stories like Mr. Kholchanskiy's are common. In a case recounted by lawyers for the New York Immigration Coalition, an I.N.S. officer scolded a 78-year-old Spanish-speaking applicant, saying: ''In this country we speak English. There are always some of you who try to get the easy way out.'' Another I.N.S. officer recently rejected a Russian woman's request for a waiver, telling her to ''find a real doctor, not a Russian,'' according to a lawyer who was present. Nationwide, the agency's treatment of disabled applicants has prompted several lawsuits. The latest, a class-action suit brought by immigrants in southern Florida last fall, accused the I.N.S. of arbitrarily rejecting waiver applications and rejecting out of hand any that mention age-related illnesses like senile dementia and depression. A Federal judge in Miami has denied an I.N.S. motion to dismiss the case and has issued a preliminary injunction to two of the plaintiffs who faced a second, and final, rejection of their citizenship applications. A hearing is to be held later this month. In New York City, immigration lawyers are preparing a formal and unusual collective protest letter about what they call ''multiple persistent problems'' in the way the regional I.N.S. office treats disabled applicants for citizenship, and in I.N.S. guidelines that, for the first time, appear to demand that immigrants submit copies of detailed medical records and related diagnostic tests. Several lawyers for nonprofit groups in New York said they were also assembling cases in which disabled immigrants had been arbitrarily denied their rights to a waiver, in hopes of filing a class-action suit like the one in Florida. Besides verbal abuse, the immigrants' complaints in the New York area include allegations that I.N.S. officers reject disability waiver requests out of hand with no explanation, mislead immigrants on |
1081919_1 | British and Irish Leaders Try to Calm Fears Over Ulster Peace | gave no sign they would change their position that there would be no disarmament in the coming weeks. On Saturday, Mr. Trimble and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland acknowledged that the disarmament issue was threatening to disrupt, if not collapse, the Northern Ireland peace effort. After meeting in Mr. Ahern's office here for 40 minutes, the two leaders agreed that, with a crucial deadline on Feb. 15 for a vote on new government structures for home rule, disarmament was still a ''significant hurdle.'' The meeting came after a week in which Mr. Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and Mo Mowlam, the British Northern Ireland Secretary, sought to keep the effort alive. Both have sought to assure colleagues and the public that the peace effort will survive the vote in February on structures that are to be put into effect by the end of March. The new structures are intended to give the Roman Catholic minority more power and increase the influence of the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Irish Republic in the northern province of Ulster. The vote is to pave the way for Britain's return of home rule powers to the province through the Assembly in Belfast, the northern capital. In recent days, Mr. Trimble and Ms. Mowlam have publicly addressed indications that the province was edging back into sectarian warfare. Ms. Mowlam called for an end to ''punishment beatings'' by Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups, calling the beatings ''atrocious, barbarous behavior.'' The number of such beatings of civilians by paramilitary groups has been accelerating in recent weeks, involving more than 20 attacks. There has been a series of other attacks and episodes. Discussing the peace effort, a highly respected Assembly member said, ''This thing is going down.'' Some members of the British Parliament have called for a halt to the early release of Northern Irish paramilitary prisoners from British jails, being carried out under the peace effort, until the violence in the North subsides. Ms. Mowlam, with the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair, said there was no reason to curtail the early releases, and some experts say doing so would increase the potential for violence. Mr. Trimble has vowed to keep Sinn Fein from ministers' posts in the new Northern Ireland provisional goverment until the I.R.A begins to disarm. The I.R.A. has refused repeatedly, and Sinn Fein notes, accurately, that there there is no requirement |
1081946_1 | A Visionary Town in China | economic growth now faltering, Communist Party leaders are worried that the millions of remaining rural and urban poor could become a growing source of political unrest. In recent months there have been protests by workers and farmers angered by unpaid wages, onerous taxes and official corruption, including a large rally in Hunan province last month that was violently suppressed. Instead of reflexively responding with repression, the Government ought to follow the example of a brave township that has turned to democracy to give citizens a greater sense of control over their lives. The collapse of Asian markets, bankruptcies of Chinese investment companies and the problems of state-owned industries have drastically slowed China's pace of urban job creation. That has all but exhausted the capacity of cities to absorb unemployed and impoverished rural residents who have poured by the millions into urban areas over the last decade. Managing the hundreds of millions of Chinese who have not yet seen the benefits of the economic growth may be the biggest challenge facing the party leadership. A few weeks ago, some party leaders in Sichuan province came up with an enlightened response to this challenge, encouraging wider local democracy as a healthy outlet for popular discontent. They organized China's first democratic elections for township leader, in the township of Buyun. This is a position with important decision-making responsibilities. Previously, only politically insignificant village offices had been put to competitive votes. Voters chose among three candidates by secret ballot after listening to 13 public debates. As it turned out, the candidate backed by the Communist Party was elected. But even supporters of his defeated opponents are pleased, noting that the government now has more democratic legitimacy. But the prospects for future township elections are unclear. Top leaders in Beijing are opposed to such experimentation, though perhaps not unanimously so. The Legal Daily, an important national party newspaper, responded to the events in Buyun with an editorial that praised the spirit of local democracy but noted that township elections overstepped current Chinese law. China's most important leader, President Jiang Zemin, has meanwhile been orchestrating the arrest of prominent democratic intellectuals and their sentencing to long prison terms. Suppressing dissent and rebuffing the desire for greater democracy is a tyrant's answer to public discontent. But it is not a viable long-term policy in a nation with rising economic and political expectations and increasing disparities in wealth. |
1083808_10 | Americans Gamble On Herbs As Medicine | effect. Experts say many patients withhold information about herbal drug use because they fear being ridiculed by their doctors. Although all German physicians must take courses on herbal remedies, only a handful of American medical and pharmacology schools offer courses in this field. The Science Trying to Evaluate Effectiveness A year ago, the President's Commission on Dietary Supplement Labels recommended that the F.D.A. appoint a committee to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of herbal products. ''This could be the most important step in the United States toward legitimizing herbal medicine,'' Dr. Tyler said. However, the agency responded that it lacked the budget to support such an effort. American physicians have completed and published only a few well-designed studies of some popular botanicals. Among them were studies showing that saw palmetto can shrink an enlarged prostate and ginkgo biloba can improve memory in patients with early Alzheimer's disease. The Office of Dietary Supplements at the National Institutes of Health is helping to finance a three-year multicenter study of St. John's wort as a treatment for clinical depression and a study of plant-based estrogens as a preventive for postmenopausal health problems. However, thousands of studies of botanicals have been completed abroad -- mainly in Germany -- that strongly suggest a health-promoting role for more than 200 plant products. Germany's Commission E evaluated 380 botanicals, approving 254 as safe and reasonably effective and disapproving 126 as ineffective, unsafe or both. The Germans use a different criterion to assess an herb's benefits -- a doctrine of ''reasonable certainty'' that the herb has the desired effect and is safe, Mr. Blumenthal said. Whereas standard testing of a drug for approval by the United States F.D.A. can cost as much as $500 million per product -- a prohibitive amount for companies to spend on botanicals that cannot be patented -- tests to establish ''reasonable certainty'' would cost only $1 million to $2 million, Dr. Tyler estimated. In June 1996, Dr. Robert Temple, director of medical policy for the F.D.A.'s Center for Drug Evaluation, suggested that, rather than subjecting botanicals to the extensive tests required for drugs, the agency might consider applying less stringent criteria to assess an herb's effects, at least when a product is to be used only for a short time. He said, ''A long history of safe use might provide sufficient safety information for products that are intended for short-term use.'' More than |
1082252_0 | Root and Branch, a Swiss Exhibition Fights Chainsaws | The quiet galleries of the Fondation Beyeler in this prosperous Swiss city may seem a million miles from the chainsaws at work in the Amazon. Yet one of Ernst Beyeler's objectives when he opened his museum 15 months ago was ''to link art with life.'' And the new exhibition here does just that. While illustrating the privileged place of trees in modern art, ''The Magic of Trees'' aims to prompt reflection on the accelerating destruction of the tropical rain forests. The link is crucial for Mr. Beyeler, a 77-year-old Swiss collector and dealer. In the catalogue, he states that the exhibition should ''heighten our awareness of the gifts trees give us, of how they protect us, of our obligation to provide them with special protection.'' In tandem with the show, which runs through April 5, he has also organized benefit events for the World Wide Fund for Nature and for Greenpeace and has found space nearby for them to present their forest conservation projects in Brazil. That said, ''The Magic of Trees'' is an exhibition of art, not ecology. Indeed, most of the 120 paintings and sculptures on display are by artists who were working in the first half of this century, long before the environment became a major issue. The tree is celebrated as a symbol and as a visual artifice as much as a marvel of nature. In art, it seems, a tree is not always a tree. In fact, soon after the exhibition opened on Nov. 21, Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, wrapped 178 trees in the gardens and pastures surrounding the Fondation Beyeler, drawing no fewer than 300,000 people during the two weeks the installation was in place. And inside the minimalist museum building, designed by Renzo Piano, there are paintings and sculptures in which trees are even harder to identify among swirling colors or abstract shapes. Until the 20th century, trees had a good run at being trees, presiding over realistic or imaginary landscapes as confidently as trees of life. Yet the oldest painting in this show, Caspar David Friedrich's ''Oak Tree in the Snow'' (1829) shows that artists have long understood that trees can serve as more than scene setters. Friedrich's tree is no longer idealized: with its top and many branches broken off, it seems to be preparing for death. By the late 19th century, trees were still trees, but the Impressionists began |
1082382_0 | Corrections | An article in Science Times on Jan. 19 about the debate over a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone to increase milk production in cows referred incompletely to Canada's reason for barring it. The Canadian Government health authorities cited fears that the hormone, made by Monsanto, was unsafe for dairy animals, not that milk from cows given the hormone might be unsafe for people. The article also misstated the name of a department of Consumers Union and misstated its involvement with a petition to the Food and Drug Adminstration on the hormone. The department is the Consumer Policy Institute, not the Consumer Policy Research Institute. It did not sign the petition, but has written the F.D.A. endorsing it. The article also misstated the increase between 1996 and 1997 for United States sales of organic milk -- that is, milk marketed as being from cows free of the hormone, among other substances. The sales rose from about $16 million to about $31 million, not $31 billion. |
1082300_1 | State Reports Disproportionate Number of Minority Pupils in Special Education | term that includes pupils who are mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed or have learning disabilities. In the fall of 1997, according to the report, which is based on 1997-98 data, black children made up 19.5 percent of the state's public school population but 24.5 percent of the students in special education. Hispanic children made up 16.8 percent of the school population but 18.7 percent of the special education enrollment. White children, who made up 58 percent of all students, accounted for 54.3 percent of the special education population. Asians/Pacific Islanders were 5.2 percent of the overall enrollment and 1.8 percent of the students in special education. Of a total public school enrollment of 3.3 million, 11.8 percent of the students were in special education. The statistics showed that the inconsistency was even worse for the most extreme forms of special education placements -- in buildings separate from regular schools or in classes with only other special education students for most of the day. While 32.4 percent of white students with learning disabilities were in such placements, the number was 60 percent for Hispanic students and 57 percent for black children. Richard P. Mills, the State Education Commissioner, said an inquiry by the Regents will try to explain the pattern. ''We want to know why it's happening,'' he said. ''We want to probe deeply into these issues, district by district.'' The Education Department said school districts in New York City, Long Island, the lower Hudson Valley and northeastern New York tend to have higher percentages of students classified with disabilities than the state average. Districts in a wide swath from the St. Lawrence Valley across central New York to the Pennsylvania line west of Binghamton tend to have lower-than-average enrollment in special education. Nationally, 26 percent of children classified with learning disabilities spend less than 40 percent of their school day in general education classes. In New York, 44 percent of those with learning disabilities were spending less than 40 percent of their days in general classes as of Dec. 1, 1997. There were a few bright spots in the figures released by the Regents yesterday. The increase in the number of students placed in special education rose to 389,887 in the 1997-98 school year from 380,320 in 1996-97. That increase is one-tenth of one percent of the total student body, the smallest increase in at least a decade, Mr. Mills said. |
1088570_2 | In America; Staring at Hatred | go out and shoot black folks.'' Ms. Robinson was chosen because the men thought she was biracial. They were mistaken. Ms. Robinson was, in fact, white. In October in Buffalo, N.Y., a group of black teen-agers attacked a 41-year-old white man, Gary Trzaska, as he was walking to his car. Mr. Trzaska, who was gay, was beaten and stomped to death. Witnesses said they saw the teen-agers jumping high in the air so they could land on Mr. Trzaska's head with both feet. They said the boys appeared to be gleeful as they killed their victim. Last spring a group of whites ''armed with brass knuckles and chanting 'white power' '' attacked Lance Cpl. Carlos Colbert, a 21-year-old black Marine, as he left a party in San Diego, Calif. As many as 30 men joined in the assault. Corporal Colbert was not killed, but his neck was broken. He is paralyzed from the neck down. Last May a racially charged exchange in a bar led to the murder of Mark Dale Butts, a 35-year-old white man. He was beaten to death in a cemetery in Victor, Colo., by a group of black men and teen-agers. A shovel was used in the attack. Authorities said Mr. Butts was beaten so hard the handle of the shovel eventually broke. Morris Dees, the chief trial counsel of the Law Center, said he is surprised by what appears to be the increasing frequency and viciousness of such attacks. They are being committed by whites and blacks, he said. Much of the hatred is fueled by the growing number of organized hate groups and the proliferation of Internet sites devoted to racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of intolerance. The desire to turn away from a crime as grotesque as the murder of James Byrd in Jasper, Tex., is understandable. Once justice is done, what's the point of wallowing in the hideousness of the crime? But there is a need to understand the rage and the frustrations and the impulses that lead so many of us to mayhem in the name of some warped sense of superiority, or inadequacy, or fear, or whatever. Dragging someone to his death behind a truck may be unusual. But torturing, maiming and killing people because they fit a certain despised profile is an everyday occurrence. We can hardly stop it if we're not even willing to look at it. |
1088631_2 | Pataki Plan Would Limit Special Classes | officials contend that a student should be educated in the ''least restrictive setting'' -- ideally a regular classroom -- unless that student cannot succeed there even with additional specialized services, like individual tutoring. In addition, Federal officials have questioned the placement of thousands of black and Hispanic students in special education in New York City schools. The officials challenged Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew in a letter in November to show evidence that the students were being properly placed in special education. The letter cited a Federal analysis of data submitted by Dr. Crew showing that even among districts with the same rates of poverty, there were wide discrepancies in special education placements that appeared to be based on race or ethnicity. Richard P. Mills, the State Education Commissioner, recently cautioned lawmakers during a hearing at the Capitol that officials in Washington could begin withholding aid as early as this July if the state fails to comply with their request. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Mills reiterated the warning. ''I think it should be taken seriously,'' he said, adding, ''I think it is unfortunate that New York State would have to be threatened by the Federal Government to do the right thing.'' The state's special education system dispenses aid to schools using a formula that covers a broad range of disabilities, from deafness and blindness to more ill-defined conditions like emotional disturbances and learning disabilities. But that system has come under intense attack from critics who say it has provided districts with a financial incentive to place children with relatively minor problems into expensive special education classes. In New York City, for example, most special education students do not have readily defined disabilities like deafness or blindness. Instead, they are classified as being ''learning disabled'' or ''emotionally handicapped.'' Education experts contend that such labels are often loosely applied, particularly in cases in which teachers want to rid themselves of disruptive students. Mr. Pataki's proposal differs from previous plans to overhaul the state's special education program in one key way: it would continue to fully pay for children with severe disabilities. As a result, the plan avoids any confrontation with a highly organized group of parents, teachers and other experts who work with these children and who have helped to defeat changes to the special education program in the past. Nonetheless, Mr. Pataki's plan has its critics. The Governor wants to |
1088528_2 | One Luddite Down, but Swinging All the Way | professor at Pennsylvania State University in Abington, has thought a lot about the skills we humans are losing to technology. Mathematics tops his list. ''Simple mathematical skills are just going right out the window,'' he said. Having a tax program do our addition only encourages this. Our returns may be more accurate, but we're getting lazier. And if we can no longer do the math ourselves, he asked, ''how are we going to understand if we're getting ripped off?'' And accuracy works both ways. A teen-ager in Dunkirk, N.Y., was once expecting a refund of $23. Instead, he received $555,555. If you E-filers want to pass up your chance at $555,555, that's fine by me; it just improves the odds for the rest of us. Advantage: Paper. SECURITY -- People in the E-tax business are extremely concerned about keeping criminals and precocious 11-year-olds from hacking into your tax return. Thus, E-filers may be asked to use secret numbers, passwords, decoder rings or backward writing that has to be read with a mirror. But this ignores a broader danger, which I call the Kite in a Box Effect. Try this test: In a large box, place one 20-foot-long rope, one extension cord and one kite with string. Store the box in your garage for five years. Open. Rope, cord and kite string will be hopelessly tangled together, even though no one has touched the box. Electronic communications are like that box. We've got telephones, pagers and a few zillion other things all sending out electronic signals. Sooner or later, tangling will occur. Do I want my ''income or (loss) from tax-shelter farm activities'' marching across someone's beeper? Advantage: Paper. SPEED -- All right, for crying out loud, you get your refund in days, not weeks, if you E-file. Big deal. Advantage: E-filing. PHYSICAL SAFETY -- In 25 years of doing my taxes by hand, I have never been seriously injured. By contrast, the Web site of the Consumer Product Safety Commission contains recent recall notices for seven computer products and 11 surge protectors. These notices use phrases like ''fire, shock and electrocution hazards.'' Given the already natural pairing of ''death and taxes,'' it seems like an accident waiting to happen. Advantage: Paper. PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS -- Clearly, we humans are in danger of being downsized right out of the tax equation. We can already file electronically. The I.R.S. already offers to deposit |
1088291_1 | Ozymandias Endangered In Eastern Turkey | cistern and ruins of columns, as ''one of the most awesome sights in all of Anatolia.'' Another calls Antiochus ''a deluded king and creator of this grandiose folly.'' Until the 1960's, when a rough road was built to the mountaintop, it was accessible only by foot, a walk of two days. The road is now paved, and the site draws many tourists, among them American soldiers from the Incirlik air base 220 miles away. Unesco placed Mount Nemrut on its list of World Heritage Sites in 1987, and it was made a national park the following year. As more people became aware of the site, efforts were made to protect it, but none has been carried to completion. ''Although it has received public attention around the world since its discovery in 1881, the Nemrut monument has never been fully appreciated in Turkey,'' the archeologist Nezih Basgelen wrote in a new book about the site. ''Unfortunately, just as earthquakes and the harsh climate in the region have taken a toll on the monument, uncontrolled, ever-increasing tourism also threatens the site. ''One solution to this problem is to move the original statuary and steles to a protected area and replace them with copies,'' Mr. Basgelen suggested. ''Before further damage occurs, a comprehensive restoration and conservation project must be undertaken on Mount Nemrut.'' A Dutch businessman and architect, Maurice Crijns, has formed a foundation aimed at preserving the Nemrut monument. The foundation has produced a five-year plan that Mr. Crijns estimates would cost $2.7 million. He said the foundation can pay for the first year or two of work, and he believes that private donors will provide the rest once the project begins. The plan has been endorsed by Turkey's culture ministry, but for reasons that are not clear, the ministry has not given him final permission to begin. Asked for comment, the ministry said that Mr. Crijns's plan was ''still under consideration.'' Mr. Crijns recently met with President Suleyman Demirel and received his blessing for the project. But so far even that has not produced final permission for work to begin. ''Many people in Turkey don't know how valuable this monument is,'' Mr. Crijns said. ''It's very unknown, and unknown makes unloved. You can see pictures of it in every travel agency in Holland, but they never say where it is. ''The problem is that the monument is deteriorating very fast, partly |
1088625_1 | To Get a Rig Down, Build a Second One | to the street in stages, starting with the boom. Then the derrick is taken apart into pieces that can fit into a hoist or freight elevator. Down it goes to the ground, and off to the next job. The public rarely witnesses these operations because they are scheduled at night or on weekends when there is the least traffic. At 4 Times Square, there is a bit of a hitch because of the complex, constricted nature of the rooftop. ''We don't have room on the roof to lay the boom down and disassemble it,'' said Mel Ruffini, a vice president of the Tishman Construction Corporation, the construction manager. ''That's why it's being brought down in one section.'' Mr. Ruffini said wind would be a critical factor in deciding whether to proceed. If the maneuver is postponed, it will be put off until next Sunday, since 42d Street will have to be closed temporarily. Four Times Square is an especially sensitive site because there have been construction accidents there, including a catastrophic collapse of a subcontractor's scaffolding in July. Thereza Feliconio, 85, was killed as pieces of steel crashed into her room in the Woodstock Hotel across the street. Times Square was snarled for days, and one block of 43d Street was closed for a month. The tower crane has not been implicated in the accidents, however. And city officials and industry executives said tower cranes have a good record overall. The more frequently reported accidents involve mobile cranes at street level or smaller, unlicensed derricks. In January 1998, for example, a smaller 40-foot crane at the site fell while lifting a load of granite. ''We very rarely have a problem with a tower crane,'' said Gaston Silva, the city's Buildings Commissioner. ''In general, the tower cranes are very safe.'' Tower cranes are operated by licensed riggers. The cranes and derricks division of the Buildings Department reviews the assembly and dismantling procedures and also inspects the equipment before and after it is erected. ''Tower cranes, because they're larger, heavier and more complicated, are treated more carefully,'' said Jay P. Shapiro, principal engineer at Howard I. Shapiro & Associates, a structural engineering firm specializing in cranes and derricks. ''For the volume of construction and the number of cranes in use, it's remarkable how few accidents there are.'' Two tower cranes were used to build 4 Times Square: a Favco 1500 with a |
1088285_10 | Fear Itself | other creatures that prowl the earth. Fear and its fellow traveler, anxiety, in some ways represent a hard-wired alarm system in the brain in search of genuine life-threatening dangers. We tend not to encounter mastodons, saber-toothed tigers and other predators that prowled the earth eons ago, and yet we, like all mammals, have been evolutionarily equipped to respond to such threats instantaneously. We still respond to danger signals, but more often than not we've come to associate danger with social predators and situations -- the boss at work, the intolerant mate, the teacher, the bully. It may also be one of the paradoxes of our age that we've created entire economies around activating this fear system under safe conditions in the form of theme-park rides and Stephen King novels and films that have us on the edges of our seats. It is as if an archival survival circuit in our brains has become a cathartic button that gets pushed at great profit, the center of billion-dollar economies based on the vicarious experience of life-threatening fear. By the same token, the proliferation of phobias and panic disorders may represent the overreaction of a life-preserving neural mechanism to normal everyday social stimuli. Only by the wildest stretch of the imagination should the George Washington Bridge represent a threat to one's very survival. And yet imagination, especially about the future, is precisely the engine that drives so many human fears -- fear of the unknown, fear of nuclear holocaust and in recent years fear of contracting AIDS. As Joseph LeDoux, a prominent neuroscientist at New York University, put it, ''A rat can't worry about the stock market crashing.'' But we can. ''One of the things that is so important about having anxiety and fear is some understanding that there's a future,'' says Jack Gorman of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. ''Humans with generalized anxiety disorder -- that is always a disorder characterized by anticipation of future events. I don't know that a monkey is capable of that.'' It has been traditional to think about fear (and anxiety) as a battle ultimately waged between the rational and irrational minds, between human reason and animal fear. In all but the most dangerous circumstances, it is a battle that reason and rationality should win every time, as William James suggested, and yet the fact that 10 to 15 percent of adults in America suffer from some sort of |
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1088656_0 | As Ulster Peace Effort Stalls, Eyes Turn to U.S. | Irish and British officials are looking increasingly to President Clinton for another intervention in the Northern Ireland peace effort, hoping he can end the dispute over the disarmament of the Irish Republican Army. The dispute threatens to end attempts by Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders to achieve lasting peace in the northern British province. The President's involvement, including two widely acclaimed visits to Ireland, is credited here as essential to the advance of the peace agreement approved by Protestant and Catholic leaders 10 months ago and overwhelmingly endorsed in referendums here and in the North. Officials here and in Belfast, the northern capital, have indicated clearly in recent days that if the Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast fails to resolve the disarmament dispute by mid-March, then the President is likely to try to persuade Protestant and Catholic political leaders to meet during their scheduled visit to the White House on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. Michael J. Sullivan, the new American Ambassador to Ireland and a former Governor of Wyoming, said on Friday that he would not speculate on the specifics of the involvement of Mr. Clinton, who is a personal friend. But he added, ''The President is deeply interested and anxious to see the peace agreement implemented.'' Last week, on his first visit to Northern Ireland, Mr. Sullivan, who became the Ambassador six weeks ago, discussed the dispute with the Assembly's two leaders, the Protestant First Minister, David Trimble, and his Catholic deputy, Seamus Mallon. He was accompanied by James Lyons, Mr. Clinton's economic adviser for Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. That post was previously held by former Senator George J. Mitchell, who became chairman of the peace talks that produced a formal agreement last Easter to end the sectarian warfare involving the province's Protestant majority and its Catholic minority. The Americans did not meet officials of Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing, or of the Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, which vehemently opposes the peace pact. |
1084113_0 | NEWS SUMMARY | INTERNATIONAL A3-11 German Holocaust Fund Is Approved in Principle The German Government said it had agreed in principle to establish a compensation fund, financed by the biggest names in German industry and banking, for victims of Nazi horrors. The proposal appears to be an effort to short-circuit a wave of lawsuits in American courts. A10 Mourning in Jordan Thousands of Jordanians made their way to the royal palace to offer sympathy to King Abdullah and prayers for his late father, King Hussein. The day's events showed tribal fealty and true grief, as well as a hope that a new generation might bring fresh attention to problems at home. A8 The handshake between President Ezer Weizman of Israel and the leader of a radical Palestinian faction at the funeral has become a matter of fierce controversy in Israel. A8 Spotlight on Yeltsin's Frailty Boris N. Yeltsin's decision to attend the funeral of King Hussein seemed to backfire, ending up as a showcase for Mr. Yeltsin's frailty and giving fresh ammunition to critics who say he is too ill to govern Russia. A10 Tainted-Blood Trial in France France put on trial a former Prime Minister and two former Cabinet members accused of having delayed testing of blood for the AIDS virus in order to give a French-designed test a chance to compete commercially with an American-made one. A11 Holbrooke Investigation Ends The Justice Department dropped an eight-month investigation of Richard C. Holbrooke, President Clinton's choice to be the top American diplomat at the United Nations, after Mr. Holbrooke agreed to pay $5,000 to settle civil charges that he had violated Federal lobbying laws. A10 New Monitoring Plan for Iraq The International Atomic Energy Agency has submitted plans for long-term monitoring of Iraq that call for ''intrusive'' inspections and assume that Baghdad may try again to produce nuclear weapons. A8 F.B.I. Helped Chile in U.S. Declassified documents show that the F.B.I. tried to track suspected associates of Chilean leftists in the United States in the 1970's on behalf of the Pinochet Government. A6 World Briefing A8 NATIONAL A12-23 Senate's Deliberations Start Behind Closed Doors Senators began closed-door deliberations in the impeachment trial of President Clinton, the only formal opportunity during the trial for senators to express their overarching assessments of the case inside the chamber. Deliberations were expected to resume at 10 A.M. today, with the conclusion, followed by votes on the two |
1087781_0 | U.S. Sidetracks Pact to Control Gene Splicing | Attempts to forge the world's first global treaty to regulate trade in genetically modified products failed this morning when the United States and five other big agricultural exporters rejected a proposal that had the support of the rest of the roughly 130 nations taking part in the talks. The treaty would have required that exporters of genetically altered plants, seeds or other organisms obtain approval in advance from the importing nation. The talks broke down over the question of whether this requirement would also apply to commodities like wheat and corn. Proponents of the treaty, especially European and many developing nations, have resisted genetically modified products, worried that not enough is known about the possible effects on human health and the environment. But Washington and its allies have argued that such regulations would entangle the world's food trade in red tape. From 25 percent to 45 percent of crops like corn, soybeans and cotton grown in the United States are genetically modified, according to United States industry estimates, and American negotiators feared that the proposal would have blocked or stalled some of the $50 billion in annual farm exports. Bleary-eyed delegates from many nations, who have been negotiating day and night for more than a week, expressed fury at the United States, accusing it of intransigence and of putting the interests of its world-leading farming and biotechnology industries above the environment. ''It's five nations against the world,'' said Dr. Joseph M. Gopo, the delegate from Zimbabwe, referring to Washington and its allies, which actually number six. ''There could be no greater injustice than that,'' he said. The United States, he added, ''is holding the world at ransom.'' The allies are Canada, Australia, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The delegates agreed to suspend the talks and resume them no later than May 2000. The United States had urged this, saying there were too many unresolved issues to achieve a consensus by the deadline, which was Tuesday. Such agreements are generally done by consensus, not by an explicit vote. ''It would be much better to get a sound instrument a year hence than to get a flawed instrument today,'' said Rafe Pomerance, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. But delegates from some other nations feared the process would now lose momentum. Even without a treaty, countries can limit the import of genetically engineered seeds or foods under their own law, subject to challenge |
1087680_4 | Will the 2000 Bug Gobble the Veggies? | Patrick D'Acre, 43, a technology consultant, plans to turn a steep hillside behind his home into a terraced fruit-tree orchard and vegetable garden and to chronicle its development on his Web site, www.y2kupdatereport.com. ''It will be therapeutic, practical and timely,'' said Mr. D'Acre, who describes himself as an on-again, off-again gardener. But there are also newcomers. ''We get people every day who've never gardened before,'' said Mr. Johns, who included enough seed in the Victory Garden packages to build in some redundancy for beginners' inevitable failures. ''We're trying to reach people who may not normally be gardeners.'' The seeds that are most in demand are open-pollinated varieties, as opposed to commercial hybrids, and especially the ''heirloom'' plants that have been passed over the garden fence for generations. Open-pollinated plants -- those pollinated by natural means, like visits by insects -- have been ignored by most commercial growers and many gardeners because they are often more susceptible to insects or disease than commercial hybrids and, unless conditions are perfect, may not produce as much food. In some crops, like tomatoes, the fruits of the open-pollinated plants are tastier than the hybrids but not firm enough to be shipped long distances and handled in stores. What appeals to millennium bug alarmists, though, is that seed saved from one year's crop of open-pollinated plants will produce very similar plants in future generations. Seeds saved from commercial hybrids rarely produce plants as productive or vigorous as the parent, so gardeners must buy new hybrid seed each year. There is more to heirloom seed sales than Y2K. They have long been favored by gardeners for their taste and for the stories linked with their history. Now, they are also attracting those who are concerned about the spread of genetic engineering into the food chain and the concentration of control over hybrid seeds in fewer and fewer corporations. The heirloom movement is so strong that 1,900 of the 7,313 varieties available were added in just the last four years, according to the Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit group in Decorah, Iowa, dedicated to preserving seed diversity. Still, seed marketers say there is no doubt that the possibility of computer disruptions next year is increasing interest in such seeds and food gardening in general. As Ms. Baker explained, ''Everybody's trying to be a little more prepared without looking like the crazies running into the woods with guns.'' |
1087843_1 | World News Briefs | a Belfast house where five Catholic children were playing. The children, ranging from 13 months to 9 years old, were unhurt. Warren Hoge (NYT) ASIA SINGAPORE: 2 POLITICIANS JAILED -- Two opposition politicians were jailed for violating a law requiring police permits for political speeches, effectively barring them from taking part in elections for five years. Chee Soon Juan, head of the Singapore Democratic Party, and another party official, Wong Hong Toy, were jailed for 12 days after refusing to pay fines. Mr. Chee was jailed earlier this month for a similar offense. (AP) PHILIPPINES: TALKS WITH COMMUNISTS SUSPENDED -- The Government suspended peace talks with Communist rebels a week after they abducted a general and another officer in the southern Philippines. President Joseph Estrada also suspended all immunity and security guarantees the Government had given 85 senior rebel leaders involved in the talks. (AP) BANGLADESH: VOTERS IGNORE VIOLENCE -- Voters turned out despite opposition attempts to block the second of three days of nationwide municipal elections. An alliance of three opposition parties enforced a nationwide strike and at least five people have died in a spate of bombings and violent clashes. (Reuters) INDONESIA: 14 DIE IN RELIGIOUS RIOTING -- Up to 14 people died as troops fired on Muslim and Christian mobs that were battling each other with gasoline bombs, machetes and bows and arrows in Ambon city, witnesses and diplomats reported. In Jakarta, some 800 students rallied, calling for President B. J. Habibie to resign. It was the first mass protest since December. (AP) THE AMERICAS CUBA: PHONE SERVICE TO U.S. CUT -- Cuba cut most of its telephone links with the United States early this morning, an official with the Cuban-Italian telecommunications firm Etecsa said. Havana had issued an ultimatum to Washington on Friday, warning that it would cut off most phone service with the United States by ''next Thursday at 00:01'' unless United States companies, including AT&T and M.C.I., pay debts the Cuban Government says are in arrears. Agence France-Presse MEXICO: DRUG USE ON RISE -- Mexicans' illegal drug consumption has increased by 56 percent in five years, although consumption remains far lower than in the United States, a Government survey found. In 1993, 1.6 million Mexicans consumed some type of illegal drugs; in 1998 the figure was 2.5 million. Last year 4.7 percent of Mexicans smoked marijuana, compared with 33 percent in the United States. |
1082462_0 | Going My Way, Birnam Wood? | That's no ordinary 2,908-ton landmark rolling across Minneapolis this week. It's ''the world's heaviest single building ever moved on rubber tires,'' according to Artspace Projects Inc., a nonprofit real estate developer in Minnesota known for moving logistical mountains. (Yes, the Empire Theater on 42d Street in Manhattan was bigger, but it was moved on rails, and then only 170 feet.) Five bulldozers will spend the next couple of weeks pulling the Shubert Theater, above, a quarter-mile to a spot next to the Hennepin Center for the Arts, where it will house local performance groups. Built in 1910 as a legitimate theater, the Shubert was the site of the premiere of ''Birth of a Nation'' in 1915; it became a burlesque house, and eventually a multiplex cinema. Artspace, which consults nationwide, specializes in recycling landmarks for cultural uses (800-229-5715). International Chimney Corporation (800-828-1446) is doing the actual moving. CURRENTS -- RECYCLING |
1082623_0 | Free E-Mail Site Cuts Back On Services for Some Users | Juno, a New York company that pioneered the concept of free E-mail, recently announced that thousands of its users would be able to check their E-mail only once a day. The reason, the company said, is that those users live in regions of the country where telecommunications costs are more expensive. Users affected by the change who still want to check E-mail more often must pay $2.95 a month. Charles Ardai, the company's president, said that ''fewer than 1 percent'' of the company's 6.5 million subscribers were affected. But he was less than reassuring when asked whether he might expand the geographic area falling under the once-a-day for checking E-mail. ''I have no opinion about that,'' he said. While the Juno service is free, users view banner advertisements that appear at the top of messages. The idea of advertising-supported E-mail, and the related concept of advertising-supported Internet access, have attracted many entrepreneurs. But analysts contend that the business model presents difficulties because millions must be spent on marketing and technology to build a subscriber base to attract ads. Mr. Ardai wrote to the subscribers affected by the latest Juno limitation and suggested his motive was not profits, but keeping the service widely available. He asked those subscribers who could afford it to pay $2.95 a month to upgrade their service so they would be helping to subsidize the accounts of members who cannot afford service. ''You will be helping us to move closer to this important goal,'' he wrote, of providing ''free E-mail services to all Americans.'' NEWS WATCH |
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1086616_1 | The Way We Live Now: 2.21.99 -- The Ethicist; Other People's E-Mail | of fiction, if you deal with actual people, trust is required. Coworker, soldier, spouse: each stakes a claim to privacy; each tacitly agrees not to abuse it. No embezzling, no stealing military secrets, no adulterous liaisons. (The shock of infidelity, after all, is as much the anguish of trust violated as it is outrage at sexual boundaries transgressed.) Your colleague has violated her part of the bargain, but you will not improve your circumstances by violating hers. So what to do? In a few days, send a memo to the boss: ''I've been thinking about the project, why it didn't work and what we can learn.'' In writing, in private, in pencil, with a chance to revise, you'll behave better than you would in a showdown. Acknowledge your own shortcomings in the project. Consider how it might have been handled differently. Do not criticize your deceitful coworker; your boss probably already thinks less of her for blaming you. Do not confront the coworker either; after all, you shouldn't have been reading her mail. Tactics like hers may seem like a routine feature of office life -- just as much as casual Fridays and inevitable Mondays -- but you can transcend such treachery, at least on paper. Above all, resist the temptation to seek rougher justice. Sure, you could spill a cup of coffee into her keyboard, and thereby destroy the instrument of her perfidy. But office coffee is always weak; you must be strong. ''Our friends in Manhattan are big on letting their 4-year-old boy play naked when they visit us in the country. We're all for free-and-easy, but we've got a 9-year-old boy who's starting to cringe. ''Are we obliged to just wait and hope, or is it O.K. to tell them to cover the kid?'' Given how prickly people can be, back-seat parenting s a hazardous act. If your friends are sensitive and considerate, they won't mind your raising the subject; then again, if they were sensitive and considerate, they'd have noticed your son's discomfort on their own. So you might try something more oblique. Do you have a particularly hideous relative who enjoys cavorting naked? (If you don't, I can provide you the names of several of mine who love country weekends.) Drop remarks like ''When in Rome, do as the modest and toga-clad Romans do.'' Casually mention that ''this time of year, the lawn is crawling |
1086651_0 | 'Last Supper' Site To Close for 3 Months | The refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie housing Leonardo da Vinci's ''Last Supper'' in Milan will close from March 1 to May 27 for completion of a restoration that began two decades ago. The painting can be seen by visitors during Holy Week from March 30 to April 4. The delicate operation on the fresco was necessary because the masterpiece began disintegrating soon after it was completed in 1498, mostly as a result of the artist's unfortunate choice of medium: not conventional fresco, in which the paint is applied to wet plaster, but tempera applied to dry plaster. Reports from as early as 1517 spoke of its deterioration. The fresco underwent a number of restoration attempts and touch-ups throughout the centuries, and the refectory that houses it was badly damaged in 1943 when a bomb demolished the roof of the building. This most recent restoration began in the late 1970's and has involved dozens of specialists and technicians. This is the first scientific restoration of the masterpiece, following a careful scientific analysis, where the restorers are removing rather than adding to the fresco. ''Our hope is that it will be longer lasting than earlier attempts,'' said Pietro Cesare Marani, a fine-arts expert who has been closely involved in the project, ''but we aren't presumptuous enough to believe that it will last forever. Nothing lasts forever.'' TRAVEL ADVISORY |
1086593_0 | In Battle of Bags, Confusion Rules | THE airlines are all driven by the same need: to get passengers aboard smoothly, latch the luggage bins and take off on schedule, without alienating the customers who are dragging their belongings aboard. In addition to the unarguable safety problems created by overloaded luggage bins and obstructed aisles, late flights cost airlines profits. But in the domestic-flight carry-on luggage wars, the airlines are setting varied rules. The results are confusing, and particularly maddening for the passenger in a rush whose bag is deemed one too many for the cabin and has to yield it. The evolving tug-of-war at the boarding gate is partly caused by passengers' fear of losing checked luggage, a possibility that increases with the number of connections. Pilfering from luggage is also a worry. And even if nothing evil happens, there is the irritating wait for bags at the carousel. And some people truly cannot check everything: families with toddlers must have diapers and bottles on hand, and for speed in debarking, usually take the opportunity offered by early boarding to get strollers aboard. Flight attendants may initially let them pass, but may have to reverse themselves in the crunch. And parents are not the only ones: researchers need to keep original materials in sight; antiques and fragile acquisitions are not always packable for checking. Of the eight major airlines, four -- Northwest, American, Trans World and Southwest -- fall into a semitough category of enforcing their carry-on rules but not going out of their way to do so. Continental and US Airways appear to be the most carry-on-friendly. United and Delta, both enforcing size rules with templates outside their security barriers, are the toughest. A Boss Took Notice The differences are so pronounced that late last year, Continental -- which is enlarging the luggage bins on 184 MD-80's, 737's and 757's -- sued Delta for what it considered overzealous enforcement. As it happened, last fall, Gordon M. Bethune, the chief executive of Continental, was at the San Diego airport, where his airline and Delta share a concourse, where Delta had installed its metal template. Carry-on bags had to fit through the hole -- 9 inches high and 14 inches wide -- and if not, they were taken away for checking. Mr. Bethune watched as some Continental passengers, unable to get their bags through, according to David Messing, a Continental spokesman, ''experienced great frustration.'' Continental, which has |
1086983_0 | On Campus Today, Boys Can't Be Boys | To the Editor: Your Feb. 19 editorial ''Rethinking Fraternities'' ignores the larger context in which colleges are eliminating fraternities and sororities. Throughout the country colleges have changed their focus from merely providing a strong liberal arts education to viewing their students as charges whose lives and character are theirs to mold. Dartmouth's decision is in line with this philosophy. While I have no particular stake in the Greek system and understand the sentiments behind this policy change, as a Dartmouth student I feel there needs to be a debate about whether this paternalism is wise and whether it interferes with a school's pedagogical mission. For a school that doesn't require education in the classics, Dartmouth may be eliminating the only Greek most students ever encounter. DAVID SCHLEICHER Washington, Feb. 19, 1999 |
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1086549_5 | Space-Time: The Final Frontier | appeared to be five different string theories competing to describe the same world. Greene shows how, in the past few years, physicists have made a strong case that these are simply different views of a single underlying theory -- five blind men looking at the same elephant. This more than anything is what has impressed many of the skeptics. But as enthusiastic as he is about the theory, which he himself has contributed to, Greene doesn't gloss over the potential pitfalls. In the past, theoretical breakthroughs -- like the ''eightfold way,'' a scheme for arranging the bits and pieces of the subatomic world -- have become accepted only after they predicted new particles, or other phenomena, that were later found by experimenters. Not only has string theory not been verified, it has not even been developed to the point where it can make precise, testable predictions. WHEN these forecasts do come, as Greene is optimistic that they will, verifying them will not necessarily require an accelerator the size of the universe. He suggests many practical experiments that might indirectly indicate whether or not the theory is on the right track. Not everyone will find these convincing. But even quarks, now considered gospel by particle physicists, have been detected by only the most oblique means. Superstrings aspire to supplant quarks as crude approximations of a deeper physics. Like all popular science writers, Greene is burdened with the task of having to start from scratch, explaining ideas about relativity and quantum mechanics that were current in the 30's. (Imagine having to spend a hundred pages of every book about baseball reviewing the terminology of the game.) But with Greene this familiar ground is well worth retreading. Rather than recycling the tired old set pieces science writers too often fall back on, he develops one fresh new insight after another. Some of his examples, involving George Burns and Gracie Allen floating around in space suits or having a drink at the H-Bar (a physicist's joke), are a little silly. And toward the end of the book, the tower of abstractions gets harder and harder to ascend. But that comes with the territory. In the great tradition of physicists writing for the masses, ''The Elegant Universe'' sets a standard that will be hard to beat. George Johnson is the author of ''Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order.'' His ''Strange |
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1086191_4 | Sargent's Dazzling Sensuality | now: a fop with an uneven tan line. But who was he to Sargent? Certainly not a joke. The picture pays homage to portraits of arrogant young men by the great Mannerists Bronzino and Pontormo, and it is elevated beyond caricature by the sheer brilliance of Sargent's handling, his smooth application of translucent layers of white on white. No one did this better than he. The subtext of the picture, if any, therefore seems to be entirely formal. It says that style, raised to a sufficient peak, can become substance: the message in many of Sargent's pictures. Some of his portraits delve deeper. The one of his friend Henry James expresses something of the heft and articulation of James's prose. But mostly Sargent was satisfied to dazzle. His views of Venice from the 1880's explore in various ways the bravura device of darkened figures in murky spaces against a lighted backdrop. Sometimes a ray of sun cleaves the space stunningly. Young Venetian women, like Greek koure, glide through silent squares. They are part of the scenery, and ultimately as remote and exotic as the city itself, which, after all, exists for outsiders while remaining fundamentally closed to them. You might say, looking at his Venice pictures, that Sargent's legacy is in large part to the history of modern travel. He presents us with paradigms of tourism that for almost a century have been the stuff of middle-class dreams and highbrow travel brochures. A quality of nostalgia attaches to them. He shows us how light ricochets off the Grand Canal and sparkles against white stone, turning it pink and periwinkle. In a series of Venetian watercolors (he was the second best American watercolorist, after Homer), we see a tourist's perspective, views from his gondola as it carried him past the usual sites: the Scuola di San Rocco, San Marco, Santa Maria della Salute. Venice suited him because it was a kind of living theater, with everything on the surface. In some of his scenes, he actually seems to present the tight piazzas and narrow alleys as stage sets, skyless, the figures boxed in and thrust forward, as if leaning toward the footlights. His sense of the stage matched the era's general embrace of spectacle, and it affected his portraits no less than his other pictures. His sitters often seem to perform in the sense that they look improbably suave, affecting their |
1084688_3 | Hunk, He-Man, Mensch, Milquetoast: The Masks of Masculinity | pressures influenced what Mr. Cohan calls ''the masculine masquerade'' he finds in movies of the 1950's, which he examines in the on- and off-screen images of actors like Grant, Bogart, Brando and William Holden. ''Though men have supposedly been invisible, looking at how their bodies appear in film can reveal the same kind of shifts that looking at the female body in film does,'' Mr. Cohan said recently, giving as an example the contrast between the exoticism of Rudolph Valentino and the athleticism of Douglas Fairbanks. The roots of masculinity studies as a field can be traced to the mid-1970's, when a group of men, mostly social psychologists, began using feminism to examine their own lives. Out of that effort came the first two anthologies of scholarly articles on masculinity and a national conference on the subject. By the late 1980's, a couple of professors in sociology and history departments were teaching courses on manhood and masculinity, relying on stacks of photocopies for the reading. Since that time, there has been a steady stream of books and articles on the subject, including ''Manhood in America: A Cultural History'' (The Free Press, 1995) by Michael Kimmel, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who teaches a course on masculinity and edits a quarterly journal for the field. In an article titled ''The 'Flabby American,' the Body and the Cold War,'' Robert L. Griswold, a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma who has also written a history of fatherhood, recently explored national concerns about the male body as being a repository of social ills during the cold war period. Mr. Griswold wrote that promoters of physical fitness under the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations hoped ''to revitalize manhood so that it could better meet the Communist threat to national survival.'' He added, ''Cold wars could not be fought with soft bodies.'' In ''Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body,'' (Temple University Press, 1993), Peter Lehman, a professor of media arts at the University of Arizona, suggested that the taboo against showing the penis in film and other media has reinforced patriarchal notions about its power. Mr. Lehman contends that the penis appears commonly only in very limited contexts: It is visible in pornography, where it is always intended to be impressive; and it features regularly in humor, usually in jokes implying |
1085105_0 | A New Way To Get a Grip | OUR-wheel-drive systems have been around about as long as there have been cars. Until recently, they have pretty much worked on the same principles. But these systems have been changing as four-wheel drive has become more popular even while great strides have been made in sophisticated electronics. The latest innovation is Gerodisc, used in the new Quadra-Drive system of the 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee. This is a fully automatic, hydro-mechanical traction control device that improves traction and handling by limiting wheel spin. Gerodisc was developed by the ASHA Corporation, an engineering company in Santa Barbara, Calif. Using oil pumps in the front and rear axles and in the transfer case, Gerodisc distributes the vehicle's power to any wheel or wheels, in any proportion, to provide optimal traction. Up to 100 percent of the power can go to a single wheel, if it is only one that has grip, and the system continuously monitors driving conditions and changes the power distribution accordingly. Unlike many other systems in which power is distributed in predetermined proportions -- for instance, 50 percent to the front wheels and 50 percent to the rear -- Quadra-Drive varies the power in infinite combinations. It does so in milliseconds and requires no action from the driver. If the Jeep is crossing ice patches, the wheel or wheels with traction always have the power. Each Gerodisc oil pump is small, about three inches wide and two inches long, so it easily installed. It is also simple, durable and relatively inexpensive, in contrast to costly, sensitive electronic systems or bulky mechanical units. ASHA licenses the Gerodisc technology to companies that supply axles and transfer cases to auto makers. DaimlerChrysler has exclusive rights to the technology for one year, starting with the introduction of the Grand Cherokee last fall. ASHA says the technology will be used in some 2000 models other than the Jeep. |
1084839_1 | The Crisis Is Within | blame rests squarely on the shoulders of black men, who seduce and abandon black women, do not take seriously the vows of marriage and fail to accept responsibility for their children. Drawing on earlier sociological studies and two recent surveys of Americans' social lives and sexual behavior, Patterson offers a dazzling array of statistics to demonstrate his point. In some ways, to be sure, black sexual behavior does not differ markedly from that of whites. Contrary to popular opinion, for example, teen-age sexual activity occurs at about the same frequency for all racial and ethnic groups. (Blacks' higher rate of teen-age pregnancy arises from lower access to contraception and abortion, not looser morals.) On the other hand, the family lives of blacks diverge sharply from those of other Americans. They not only divorce at a higher rate, but are considerably less likely to remarry, with the result that a far higher proportion of black adults are unmarried than of any other group. In addition, Patterson's data show that blacks have fewer intimate friends and close family ties than white Americans (the idea of a tightly knit black community is a myth, he declares), and that their marital relations are fraught with conflict over sexual practices and the allocation of authority between men and women. Of course, the reader may legitimately wonder about the accuracy of responses to questions about adultery, sexual preferences and the like. But to the extent that they are reliable, Patterson's findings offer strong evidence of a serious social problem. When it comes to explaining the data, however, his argument is not entirely persuasive. Too often, the inferences Patterson draws from his statistics seem open to question. He shows, for example, that black women's odds of divorcing their husbands increase if their mothers went to college. Why? Black men, he surmises, want wives just like their own (presumably uneducated) mothers, so a college degree for a woman produces marital friction. Perhaps, but this discussion is entirely conjectural. Similarly, problems arise from Patterson's generalizing from the behavior of the black underclass and working poor to blacks in general. Thus, he attributes maltreatment of adult black women to a large extent to ''increasingly abusive'' patterns of child rearing. It is only toward the end of a long and highly speculative discussion that Patterson acknowledges that the situation he has just described ''refers primarily to the bottom 30 percent or |
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1084946_0 | Falling Luggage | To the Editor: Airlines should consider providing passengers with reduced ticket prices or some other benefit (such as free movies or drinks) if they opt not to carry on any luggage. In addition, there should be better security for checked luggage. Anyone getting off a plane can walk off with someone else's luggage from the carousel. If people had more confidence in the safety of their luggage, airlines would not have to worry about the carry-on problems. PAUL FEINER Greenburgh, N.Y. |
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1085096_1 | Big Stakes In On-Line Job Listings | content providers like C-Net are crowding into the business. Newspaper classifieds provide the model, but with many added twists. On the Internet, employers generally pay the sites to list their openings, which candidates can search free. Job seekers can also post resumes for potential employers to peruse. Among the advantages of Internet recruiting is global scope (though applicants can search by city or region). Job and resume listings can be updated almost instantaneously. Job seekers say the Internet also gives them the best picture of the market for their skills. Steve Garcia, 37, of Medina, Ohio, decided last October to scan Monster.com, Headhunter.net and Salesseek.com. He plugged in his desired income, his skills and his preferred job locations. He soon zeroed in on a job posted at Monster.com. Within two weeks, he came to terms with a real estate company called Real Select, where he now is a district sales manager. Although on-line sites would not give success rates for placing job seekers, they point to their huge resume files as evidence of their popularity. And no longer are most of the job openings and candidates in high-technology areas. The larger sites offer jobs ranging from corporate management to entry-level positions at McDonald's. Monster.com said that three years ago, 97 percent of its listings were in technology, compared with about half today. Its users are now split evenly between men and women, typically in their mid-30's and in mid-career, but fairly new to the Internet. ''We're seeing newbie users come on like never before,'' said Jeff Taylor, chief executive of Monster.com. Newspaper companies do not plan to concede defeat. Career Path is backed by eight of them, including the New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company, the Tribune Company, Knight-Ridder and Hearst. It gathers 300,000 job listings, primarily from its 83 member newspapers, and solicits on-line-only ads as well. Career Path, in Los Angeles, has begun its own marketing campaign, led by full-page newspaper advertisements on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday. Stephen Ste. Marie, the company's chief executive, said it would spend $15 to $20 million in marketing this year, up from almost nothing during 1998. ''This really is a watershed year,'' he said. ''The stakes have gotten pretty high, pretty quickly.'' Monster.com, of Maynard, Mass., owned by the recruiting agency TMP Worldwide, lists 175,000 jobs. Mr. Taylor said that in the two weeks after its own |
1088089_0 | National News Briefs; Direct Phone Service To Cuba Is Cut Off | Cuba suspended direct dial telephone service connections with the United States today, saying it would not restore the link until a Cuban telephone provider received money it was owed by five American telephone companies. A spokeswoman for AT&T, which operates over half of the 1,020 circuits affected by the cut-off, said that the company had been forced to re-route calls to Cuba through third countries and that if customers were persistent, they could get through. But some who tried to call said they were unable to get through despite trying for several hours. Since November, about $19 million in payments to the Cuban phone service have been delayed because of a lawsuit by the families of four fliers who were shot down and killed by the Cuban air force in 1996. Judge James Lawrence King of Federal District Court here ordered the Cuban Government to pay $187.6 million to the pilots' families. Since then, the families have been trying to collect the money from frozen Cuban assets and payments to Cuba for the telephone service. |
1088087_0 | Where to Try Texaco | To the Editor: You are to be applauded for your opinion that Texaco should be tried in a United States court rather than an Ecuadorean one (editorial, Feb. 19). Of course, Texaco would prefer to settle the matter in Ecuador, a small country that relies heavily on oil production for 60 percent of its income. Texaco and other oil companies must be held accountable for the long-term devastation they have caused. It would be revealing to know how much of the ''cleanup'' money Texaco gave to the Ecuadorean Government in 1995 actually trickled down to help the indigenous people. The health of the inhabitants of the Amazon rain forest, as well as the subsistence fishing from which they survive, have all been severely damaged as a result of rivers contaminated from oil extraction. SUSANA SEDGWICK New York, Feb. 22, 1999 |
1088030_0 | World Briefing | EUROPE RUSSIA: YELTSIN MEETS CHINESE PREMIER -- Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, far left, and President Boris N. Yeltsin met in Moscow and discussed ways to improve trade between their two countries. It was the first visit to Moscow for Mr. Zhu, China's key figure on economic policy. Russian officials conceded Moscow would fall short of Mr. Yeltsin's goal of increasing annual trade to $20 billion by 2000. Michael R. Gordon (NYT) BRITAIN: CHAGRIN OVER REPORT -- The Government faced new embarrassment over a report into police racism when it had to withdraw a section that named secret informants in a racist murder of a black teen-ager. Hundreds of copies had been sent out before officials realized they contained names and addresses of witnesses who had come forward in confidence. Hours after the report was published a roadside memorial to the victim was vandalized. (Reuters) GREECE: OCALAN AIDES LEAVE KENYA -- Three aides of the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan who had been stranded at the Greek Embassy in Kenya were flown to a military base near Athens. The three Kurdish women, the youngest reported to be 19, had been afraid to leave without assurances for their safety. The women were among the last people to see Mr. Ocalan before he was seized by Turkish agents on his way to Nairobi airport. (Reuters) SPAIN: BASQUE REBELS OPTIMISTIC -- In its fifth communique since declaring a cease-fire last September, the Basque guerrilla group E.T.A. lauded what it called advances toward Basque independence. But Interior Minister Jaime Mayor Oreja said the announcement showed only that the rebels now control all Basque nationalists, even the moderates who do not espouse violence. Al Goodman (NYT) GERMANY: BIRTHS ON THE DECLINE -- The number of people born in Germany fell by 3.4 percent, to 782,000, in 1998, the Federal Statistics Office said. Western German births dropped 4.2 percent to 682,000; births in the east increased 1.8 percent to 100,000. UNITED NATIONS AIDS AND THE YOUNG -- Six young people are infected with the AIDS virus every minute, the United Nations said in Geneva as it began a new campaign to slow the spread of the epidemic among the young. Nearly 600,000 children under 15 and 2.5 million people aged 15-24 caught the virus last year, it said. (AP) ASIA CHINA: 4 DISSIDENTS REPORTED HELD -- The police have detained four political dissidents in central Hubei Province |
1083129_7 | The Cybercompanion | screen will present the user with hundreds of topics, often organized into specific groups and sometimes focused with astonishing specificity: travel information for seniors, for backpackers, for motorcyclists and so on. On a site maintained by the travel book publisher Rough Guides (www .roughguides.com), a recent topic was proper etiquette for being thrashed with twigs by friendly strangers in a Finnish sauna -- not the typical information one would get from a local travel agent. Many of the sites offer chat services and bulletin boards. Chat services allow the user to converse on screen with one or more people, anywhere in the world, at the same time. Bulletin boards are used to post questions or comments that others can read and respond to at any time. Some of the commentary is banal, but occasionally the exchanges yield valuable, first-hand (if unsubstantiated) information -- avoid hotel X, don't miss restaurant Y, and Z is the cheapest place to rent gear. It is not unheard of for people to forge friendships in such forums. Although fax machines still appear to be more popular in some parts of the world -- typically where the postal systems are unreliable -- the Internet is invaluable for making reservations. Electronic mail is not a slave to time zones, and in preparing for a recent trip to Italy I discovered that my fractured Italian translated better in electronic mail than it did over the phone. The scope of the Internet surprises even technology aficionados like me. A small hotel where I vacationed in the remote Cinque Terre region of Italy, a place largely inaccessible by automobile, not only has Internet access but also its own Web page. Once in my room, however, I also discovered that while the hotel staff might have E-mail, the concept of allowing guests to have access to personal E-mail is still somewhat foreign. Hooking a personal computer to the phone system in other Italian hotels I visited was either impossible or more trouble than it was worth. On the next trip I'll leave the computer home, and look for cafes that serve Internet access along with gelato and cappuccino. For hikers, bikers and others who take the roads less traveled, satellite technology makes it more difficult to get lost. The planet is now circled by a necklace of Global Positioning System (G.P.S.) satellites that, when signaled by a hand-held receiver anywhere on |
1083236_6 | Puppets and Camps Keep Away Boredom | home. Feb. 20 from 1 to 3 P.M. $18; members, $16. Registration required for each program. Teatown Lake Reservation, 1600 Spring Valley Rd. 762-2912. PURCHASE -- Greek storyteller, Barbara Alaprantis, shares stories with children 4 through 8 about her homeland and talks about Greek mythology. Participants can attend the exhibit ''Contemporary Classicism,'' then work on an art project. Feb. 18 from 1 to 3 P.M. $5. Reservations required; children must be accompanied by an adult. Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College. 251-6112. RYE -- Valentine's Day ice skating party at Playland's ice casino. Today from 1:30 to 5:30 P.M. $5.50; children, $4. Exit 19 of I-95, follow signs. 925-2761. RYE -- ''Winter in the Woods,'' an ecology program for children divided into two groups; kindergartners and first graders in one, second through fifth graders in the other. Participants investigate the effects of winter on plants and animals, through environmental games and crafts, as well as nature hikes and other hands-on activities. Feb. 15 through Feb. 19 from 10 A.M. to noon. $100; members, $85. Registration. Rye Nature Center, 873 Boston Post Rd. 967-5150. RYE -- The Rye Arts Center is offering a musical theater vacation workshop for children 8 through 13, with participants learning an entire musical; lines, choreography and staging in one week. Feb. 15 through Feb. 19 from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M., with an informal staged performance on Feb. 19 at 7:30 P.M. $290; members, $261. Registration required. 51 Milton Rd. 967-0700. RYE -- The continuing Rye Historical Society's antique toy exhibit will interest many visitors with its display of 100 toys, including antique dolls, doll houses, toy cars and trucks, Schoenhutt circus figures, magic lanterns, a Budweiser wagon drawn by a team of horses, board games and toy soldiers. Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays 12:30 to 4:30 P.M. and Wednesdays through Fridays 2:30 to 4:30 P.M. Free admission. Square House, 1 Purchase St. 967-7588. SOMERS -- A program of barnyard tours of the farm animals and demonstrations of baking old-fashioned ''kisses'' (cookies), with sampling and recipes provided, is featured Feb. 14 from noon to 3 P.M. Free. Children 3 through 5 and their parents visit the farm and learn about its cows in a program on Feb. 18 from 10 A.M. to 11 A.M. $5 a child. Registration. ''Winterfest'' features seasonal fun with maple sugaring, snowball baking, crafts and other activities. Feb. 21 from noon to 3 |
1083350_2 | Watching the Clock | F. Pike, the rector of St. George's, and one of his parishioners, Anne S. Eristoff, saw us off on on our journey. Ms. Eristoff is a descendant of J. P. Morgan, a founder of the church. We followed Louis Torres, the church custodian. It was an exhilarating climb. Chill drafts swept through the broken windows. Once Mr. Torres and his helpers chased out the crazed pigeons, there was an eerie calm. What a place to dream, to look out on the city through the face of a clock, to imagine everyone below moving to a rhythm of time that did not exist up here. In the tower, time was stopped. Of course these clocks should work. It was a civic responsibility. Few street people have watches, yet most of them need to get to medical and social services on time. There are few alarm clocks in cardboard houses. The clockmaster was right. Mr. Schneider examined the motor, which was controlled by a computerized basement panel. Years ago, the original shafts and gears were replaced. The motor needed oiling and depigeoning. Mr. Schneider said that Mr. Torres had done remarkable work on the motor, especially since there were no instructions. The big, expensive job, he said, would be cleaning the tower and replacing the windows. When Mr. Torres volunteered to take on the difficult, dangerous task of painting the clocks' numbers and hands, Mr. Schneider and Mr. Bernardin glanced at each other with the delight of those who are cuckoo over clocks. Back down on the street, Dr. Pike thanked the climbing party. Mr. Bernardin floated a plan to engage the community in paying for the restoration. He was already involved in such efforts for a clock in his hometown of Lawrence, Mass., and for a Yorkville clock, currently being repaired in Utah. ''Wouldn't it be simpler,'' Mr. Schneider asked, ''to call up the J. P. Morgan company, or one of your parishioners who has a big checkbook?'' Dr. Pike smiled. You could hear his mind ticking. In last Sunday's column, an overcooked sentence implied that an incident at Gramercy Tavern happened recently; a manager insulted a guest who had sent back a salmon entree by returning it to her in a doggie bag. Actually, it happened five years ago. Although the owner, Danny Meyer, would not confirm it, one assumes that the offending manager now serves with the fishes. COPING |
1083301_0 | Special-Ed Mainstreaming Carries Disadvantages | Stephen Berman, supervisor of the Long Island office of special education for the State Education Department, is quoted as saying about the plan to mainstream special-education students, ''This is absolutely an educational plan'' [''Special Education: Mainstreaming to Surge,'' Jan. 24]. I totally disagree. It will not be more educational and it will cost more money. Mainstreaming means that students with handicapping conditions attend a regular school. But Boces facilities will still remain open. At the end of the day, Boces teachers will return to a Boces building. They need office space to write their reports and telephones to contact parents and other agencies. These schools and their administrative staffs will be maintained even though they will not be used to full capacity. Transportation expenses, a very costly part of special education programs, will be increased with this plan. The cost of the developmental, corrective, and other supportservices given to special-education students will go up as specialists delivering one-on-one services -- speech therapists, physical therapists, etc. -- spend more time traveling between assignments and less time working with students. Is it the long-range plan of the State Education Department to put Boces out of business? I'd rather see Boces reinvented for the 21st century. JANE GOLDBLATT East Northport |
1083264_0 | PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL | |
1146966_0 | Population and Anarchy | To the Editor: Re ''Weakness in Numbers'' (Op-Ed, Oct. 18): I disagree with Robert D. Kaplan's argument that high population growth makes many countries ''increasingly hard to govern except through tyrannical means.'' Why, despite the tremendous growth in world population, has the standard of living of most people in the world (including India and China) increased? And despite its being the most populous country, why is China on the road to becoming one of the world's most powerful economies? Anarchy is not caused by increasing population, but largely has to do with a country's willingness to give its people opportunities to make their lives better. ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY Edison, N.J., Oct. 18, 1999 |
1147103_0 | In Third World, Unwanted Fertility | To the Editor: ''Putting Fertility First'' (Op-Ed, Oct. 20) ends by posing the wrong question: that ''population controllers must decide whether their desired end -- reducing fertility in the third world -- justifies the coercion that would be required.'' Answer: Of course not. The real question is, By what authority do population controllers dare to try to control any woman, anywhere, in the matter of family size? The effort to exercise such control is totalitarian in concept and unacceptable. ANNE S. CONNELL St. Louis, Oct. 20, 1999 |
1147102_0 | In Third World, Unwanted Fertility | To the Editor: Mary Ann Glendon and Mary Haynes (Op-Ed, Oct. 20) argue that since nearly all childbearing in the developing world is the result of the desire by parents for large families, only forced birth control will bring fertility rates down. They dismiss as flawed the concept of ''unmet need.'' Yet the experience of countries like Mexico, Thailand, Kenya and Tunisia shows that purely voluntary reproductive health (including family planning) services have helped to bring about some of the most rapid declines in fertility on record. We have learned that without development, desired fertility remains high. But we have also learned that there is much unwanted fertility in the developing world. STEVEN W. SINDING New York, Oct. 20, 1999 The writer is a professor of clinical public health, Columbia University. |
1146972_1 | Jack Lynch, 82, of Ireland; Eased North-South Tensions | aid gradually helped Ireland become one of the world's 25 richest nations, with an unemployment rate half the European Union average. Mr. Lynch was Prime Minister, or Taoiseach (TEE-shuck), from 1966 to 1973 and from 1977 to 1979. In 1969 he resisted pressure from his party, Fianna Fail, and from many people in Ireland to send troops across the northern border to protect Catholics in Londonderry who were under attack by the police and Protestant paramilitaries. Hopes of militant nationalists had been raised when he said, ''It is clear the Irish Government can no longer stand by and see innocent people being injured, or worse.'' British officials found the remark inflammatory, but Mr. Lynch never did order troops to invade the northern province. He also established field hospitals along the border for Catholics coming south to avoid violence in the north. In 1990, after he had retired from politics, Mr. Lynch said sending in the troops, a tactic that he considered to persuade the United Nations to send a peacekeeping mission, could have killed 250,000 civilians and soldiers in an Irish-British war. When Mr. Lynch had traveled to Belfast earlier to discuss peace with British officials, the flamboyant Protestant leader and self-professed anti-Catholic, the Rev. Ian Paisley, led a group of Protestant politicians in pelting Mr. Lynch's car with snowballs. But by the late 70's Mr. Lynch was talking about peace and tolerance with Margaret Thatcher, then the British Prime Minister. He had also assuaged British misgivings -- while provoking Irish Republican anger -- when he dismissed Charles J. Haughey from his Cabinet in 1970. Mr. Haughey, who succeeded Mr. Lynch as Prime Minister in 1979, was accused and acquitted in an Irish court of plotting to send guns to northern Catholics. Mr. Haughey, whose finances are now under scrutiny by two special tribunals and who is alleged to have taken millions of dollars in gifts from business executives and loan write-offs from banks, declined today to discuss their differences, saying only that Mr. Lynch ''had a capacity to reassure the public.'' The current Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, said of Mr. Lynch, ''His firm leadership saw the nation through a period of great political tension and turbulence, and his outstanding work to gain Irish membership in the E.E.C. changed forever the way we see ourselves as a nation.'' Mr. Lynch is survived by his wife, Mairin, The Associated Press reported. |
1147051_3 | A Drought, a Flood And High Water Bills, Too; Service Complaints and Land Feuds Plague New Jersey's Biggest Water Company | and Lake Tappan. Three towns -- Old Tappan, Haworth and River Vale -- are preparing to spend $6 million in local, county and state taxpayers' money to buy 58 acres to block housing development. In past campaigns by preservationists, the company agreed to preserve about 400 acres in exchange for a $25 million increase in its water rates, which are among the highest in New Jersey. ''United Water's a bully,'' said Burton Hall, a writer and the director of the River Vale Neighborhood Association, a group fighting a proposed town house complex in pine forests next to Lake Tappan's dam. ''We're so concerned about people burning down Amazon rain forests, and here in our own backyard, we're trashing our environment. When it comes to the water people drink, greed has to be somewhere far down the list of priorities.'' But Mr. Henning, the water company spokesman, said state regulators and environmental officials decided in the early 1980's that 600 acres of buffers were no longer needed, because townwide sewer systems had replaced leaky septic tanks around the reservoirs. The fallout from that decision has lasted years. The squabbling over land is most intense in River Vale, a community on the western shores of Lake Tappan, because, town officials said, United Water is balking at selling the town about 35 acres of pine forest, where a developer wants to build 265 town houses. ''That's the stone wall we face,'' said Roy S. Blumenthal, the town administrator. The town wants to preserve the forest, he said, but ''their attitude is just do it their way.'' ''I've been here 28 years,'' Mr. Blumenthal added, ''and it's always been that way.'' Customers are also wary of the pending sale of the company and what that will mean for its water rates. In August, a French water company that already owned about a third of United Water's stock agreed to buy the company for $1.7 billion. United Water has yet to file with New Jersey's regulatory agency, the Board of Public Utilities, for approval of the sale. Under the agreement, United Water's stockholders are to receive $900 million for their shares, Mr. Henning said. The French company, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, will also assume $800 million of United Water's debt, Mr. Henning said. Critics of the company say United Water always gets its way with the utility board. In particular, they point to the board's |
1144904_1 | The Six Billion Mark | opportunities. Without such modernization, population growth would have been higher than it is now. In a single generation, fertility rates have declined in virtually every nation. Industrialized countries have seen birthrates fall from 2.8 children per woman in the 1950's to roughly 1.6 today. In the developing world, birthrates have dropped from 6.2 children per woman to slightly less than 3. Over the next several decades the world's population will continue to grow, but more slowly, reaching 8.9 billion in 2050, and stabilizing at about 10 billion in 2200. This scenario is a far cry from the dire predictions about the population explosion commonly made in the 1960's. Even so, population growth will occur mostly in the poorest nations that are least prepared to deal with worsening population pressures on the environment, water supply, food production and social infrastructure. One of the great lessons learned in the past three decades is that controlling population growth is inextricably tied to development strategies that improve gender equity, expand education for women, increase access to reproductive health care and give women more economic power. All these factors help enable women to choose to have smaller, healthier families. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo set a broad agenda focused on these objectives, which were agreed to by 179 countries. Many nations are now trying to put these population development goals into practice. But financial support from the industrialized nations has been lacking. The Cairo Conference estimated that $17 billion would be needed annually for population and health activities, with about two-thirds coming from the developing countries themselves and one-third from international donors. But total funding from international donors in 1997 was less than $2 billion, far short of the goal. The United States remains the leading donor in family planning programs, but its support has been declining in recent years. Anti-abortion rhetoric continues to be used in Congress to limit aid for international family planning programs. The challenges facing developing nations are enormous. Even now, nearly 600,000 women die annually during pregnancy, more than 350 million women do not have access to a range of effective contraceptive methods, and 600 million women cannot read or write. These conditions remain big obstacles in achieving population stabilization. Unless international funding increases, the next billion people may be consigned to lives of privation in countries where resources are already stretched to the limit. |
1144932_0 | Workers Rescued After Fall From Scaffold | Two construction workers were knocked off scaffolding in midtown Manhattan yesterday and left to dangle 70 feet above the ground in their safety harnesses until firefighters rescued them. But the rescue was marred by a behind-the-scenes dispute between firefighters and a police officer over who should handle the rescue at the Park Towers South apartment building on 315 West 57th Street. The accident occurred at 10:30 A.M. after hundreds of bricks came showering down on the workers as they were repairing the rear wall of the building, several bystanders said. The aluminum scaffold was pushed away from the wall by the falling bricks, and the men fell off. ''When we turned around, it was like stone rain coming down on them,'' said Jackson E. Joseph, a bricklayer who was working on a scaffold two floors above. ''I was so glad to see they were alive.'' For 15 minutes, construction workers and firefighters scrambled to reach the men, who were swinging back and forth below the scaffold. The firefighters secured their rope lines inside apartments on the eighth and ninth floors and pulled the men to safety. One of the workers, Nardeo Sami, broke his right hand and was taken to Saint Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center for treatment. Mr. Sami was reported to be in stable condition yesterday evening, said Jasmin Collazo, a spokeswoman for the hospital. The other man, whose identity was not released, was not injured. While firefighters were saving the construction workers, a dispute broke out over who should handle the rescue. According to sources in the Fire Department who spoke on condition of anonymity, a police officer with the Emergency Services Unit disregarded a fire official's request not to interfere with the rescue. Instead, these sources said, the police officer headed to the ninth floor and shoved aside Fire Department Lieut. Vito Emmanuele, who was blocking the door to an apartment with firefighters working inside. Lieutenant Emmanuele complained about pains in his back and neck and tingling in his toes, and was taken to the Bellevue Hospital Center emergency room, where he was treated yesterday afternoon, the sources said. They would not say what happened after the officer pushed the lieutenant. Lieutenant Emmanuele could not be reached for comment yesterday afternoon and the Fire Department did not return phone calls. Inspector Michael Collins, a spokesman for the Police Department, declined to identify the police officer involved, |
1146446_7 | How the Church Aided 'Heretical' Astronomy | rings that still bear his name, as does a $3.4 billion spacecraft now speeding toward the planet. Around 1655, Cassini persuaded the builders of the Basilica of San Petronio that they should include a major upgrade of Danti's old meridian line, making it larger and far more accurate, its entry hole for daylight moved up to be some 90 feet high, atop a lofty vault. ''Most illustrious nobles of Bologna,'' Cassini boasted in a flier drawn up for the new observatory, ''the kingdom of astronomy is now yours.'' The exaggeration turned out to have some merit as Cassini used the observatory to investigate the ''orbit'' of the Sun, quietly suggesting that it actually stood still while the Earth moved. Cassini decided to use his observations to try to confirm the theories of Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer who had proposed in 1609 that the planets moved in elliptical orbits not the circles that Copernicus had envisioned. If true, that meant the Earth over the course of a year would pull slightly closer and farther away from the Sun. At least in theory, Cassini's observatory could test Kepler's idea, since the Sun's projected disk on the cathedral floor would shrink slightly as the distance grew and would expand as the gap lessened. Such an experiment could also address whether there was any merit to the ancient system of Ptolemy, some interpretations of which had the Earth moving around the Sun in an eccentric circular orbit. Ptolemy's Sun at its closest approach moved closer to the Earth than Kepler's Sun did, in theory making the expected solar image larger and the correctness of the rival theories easy to distinguish. For the experiment to succeed, Cassini could tolerate measurement errors no greater than 0.3 inches in the Sun's projected face, which ranged from 5 to 33 inches wide, depending on the time of year. No telescope of the day could achieve that precision. The experiment was run around 1655, and after much trial and error, succeeded. Cassini and his Jesuit allies, Dr. Heilbron writes, confirmed Kepler's version of the Copernican theory. Between 1655 and 1736, astronomers used the solar observatory at San Petronio to make 4,500 observations, aiding substantially the tide of scientific advance. ''It's a great topic,'' Dr. Heilbron said from Belgium, adding that he was planning to write at least one more book on the hidden influence of the solar observatories. |
1146501_0 | Warner-Lambert Signs Up a Partner to Work on Cancer Drug | Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. said today that it had entered a collaborative agreement with the Warner-Lambert Company to jointly develop and market a new cancer drug. Warner will pay Onyx, a biotechnology company based in Richmond, Calif., up to $155 million. Onyx has developed a novel therapy that uses a genetically modified virus to kill cancer cells. The drug has been tested in more than 200 patients, and Onyx said it expected to begin a Phase 3 trial converning head and neck cancer by the end of the year. The Food and Drug Administration typically requires three phases of trials before considering a new drug for marketing approval. Onyx shares closed at $8.875, up 25 cents, in Nasdaq trading. Warner-Lambert shares closed at $70.5625, up $2.6875, on the New York Stock Exchange. Analysts said the deal was a critical one for Onyx, which had only enough cash to survive another nine months and could not afford to finance the Phase 3 trial without assistance. The deal, together with the acquisition earlier this year of Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc., helps move Warner-Lambert further into the area of oncology. According to the terms of the deal, Warner-Lambert will make a cash payment and equity investment in Onyx over the next two years totaling $15 million and will provide $40 million for the Phase 3 trials and other ongoing studies for the drug, currently known as ONYX-015. Warner-Lambert will also provide support for the research and development of two new additional products. In addition to the committed money, more than $100 million could be payable to Onyx on the achievement of milestones like positive trial results or marketing approval. Onyx and Warner-Lambert will co-promote ONYX-015 and the two new products in the United States and Canada, and will share equally in resulting profits. Warner-Lambert will commercialize the products in the rest of the world and will pay Onyx a royalty on net sales. Onyx has a previous agreement with Warner in which it supplies biological targets and screening tests for the development of conventional cancer drugs. Drugs resulting from that agreement will be marketed by Warner with Onyx receiving a royalty. ''In the end, we've had such a great relationship with Warner-Lambert that we have a great deal of comfort in this arrangement,'' Hollings Renton, Onyx's president and chief executive, said in a telephone interview. Onyx-015 is an adenovirus that has been genetically altered so |
1146438_2 | Brain Tumors: Elusive, Varied and Not Always Deadly | elsewhere in the body -- although, as in Kathleen's case, the primary cancer is sometimes not detected until after the metastatic brain tumor has been found. Lung, breast and colon cancers, as well as melanomas, often spread to the brain. There has been much speculation about the possible causes of brain cancers, and especially their apparent increase. About 5 percent are hereditary. Among suggested environmental factors are low-energy electromagnetic fields from objects like cellular phones, power lines and household appliances, although considerable research into the matter has yet to yield any definitive evidence of such a risk. To be sure, high-dose radiation delivered to the head, including therapy for brain tumors, can increase the risk of brain cancer. There is no link, however, to low-dose radiation delivered through diagnostic X-rays or workplace exposure to ionizing radiation. But industrial chemicals may be a problem. Workers regularly exposed to substances like acrylonitrite, vinyl chloride, formaldehyde, lubricating oils, N-nitroso compounds, phenols, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and organic solvents develop brain tumors with greater than average frequency. Pregnant women and parents of infants should be especially careful to avoid such chemicals because animal studies indicate that exposure in utero and in infancy incurs the greatest risk. Also, pregnant women would be wise to take supplements containing vitamins C, A, E and folate through their pregnancies. A three-continent study indicated that the children of women who took such vitamins were half as likely as the children of nontakers to develop brain tumors before age 5. Benign brain tumors can often be treated successfully, although there may be lasting effects, depending on size and location. But because the most common type of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme, is fast-growing and highly invasive, and because early symptoms of brain tumors often mimic other problems, delaying diagnosis, brain cancer is associated with a five-year survival rate of only 30 percent. This rate is half that for cancers over all, but still much better than the survival rates for cancers of the lung, pancreas and esophagus. The problem with brain tumors is their ability to grow silently for years and, when they finally do produce symptoms, become confused with other problems like migraine headaches, inner ear problems, epilepsy or stroke. For example, Kathleen, who had speech problems and drooling, thought at first she might have had a stroke. If everyone with symptoms like headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, memory loss, personality |
1146461_2 | Manual Addresses Needs Of Children in Disasters | nutrition, psychological stress and children's vulnerability to land mines. Dr. Errol Alden, deputy executive director of the pediatrics academy, said children have such particular needs that they should be addressed early in a relief process, ''not as an afterthought.'' Dr. Olness also says there has been more awareness in the last decade that children, particularly those separated from their families, need protection from adults who would subject them to sexual and emotional abuse, particularly in refugee situations. Dr. Alden agreed. ''You must first secure the safety of children in disaster situations where the rules and structures of society break down and kids are vulnerable to predators who would abuse them,'' he said. He noted that the manual had been endorsed by the International Pediatric Association, based in Paris, which represents some 150 children's health groups worldwide. ''The pediatricians of the world, who don't always concur on every issue, agree on this manual and hope it is made more widely available.'' In addition to the book, the initiative is expanding access to a weeklong course developed by Dr. Olness to train relief workers in managing pediatric problems during humanitarian emergencies. Dr. Olness said the program had applied for grants to take the course overseas so that relief workers in other countries could be trained to teach others about children's health issues. The American Red Cross says it recognizes the special needs of children in natural disasters and is increasingly enlisting volunteer mental health professionals to help people cope with the stress. ''In the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd,'' said Leslie Credit, a Red Cross spokeswoman, ''we had almost 250 mental health workers deployed in North Carolina, New Jersey and other hard-hit areas trying to educate people on how to deal with loss and stress, including how it affects children differently than adults.'' Children, like adults, react initially with fear, disbelief and stress, she said, and later may experience frustration, anger, depression and problems with sleep and appetite. In addition, children may start acting younger than their age, such as reverting to bed-wetting and thumb-sucking, and suffer nightmares and fear of being separated from their parents, Ms. Credit said. The Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute, in Skillman, N.J., is providing corporate support for reproducing and distributing the manual worldwide. Printed copies are available for $12.50 by calling (877) 565-5465. It will also be accessible on the Web next year at this site: www.jnjPediatricInstitute.com |
1145094_3 | Private Eyes in the Sky Go to Court | and nations race to launch satellites that can offer 1-meter resolution. In the past, most civilian services offered 10-meter resolution. (The resolution figure is a rough measurement of the size of the object that can be seen on an image.) ''It's going to be fantastic,'' Mr. Johnson said. Dr. Landgrebe said he was looking forward to the EO1, a new satellite that will offer about 200 to 300 spectral bands of information. Each band is really a number indicating the intensity of a certain color emanating from a certain spot. Televisions, for example, use three bands of information -- cyan, magenta and yellow -- to display images. More bands give scientists better information to analyze the plants and minerals being photographed by the airplane. Marijuana plants, for instance, may reflect distinctive shades of green and red that show up in 2 of the 300 different spectral bands. The police might search for illicit crops by looking for locations that show high amounts of those particular colors. Mr. Johnson said his company was excited about this extra spectral data because it could help in investigating disputes about pollution and ground water. Information about the type of vegetation and the temperature of the ground can help track the flow of water in such cases. But the extra information could also muddy the water. Stefanie Tompkins, a satellite imaging expert who works in northern Virginia, pointed out that the extra information could be confusing because one scientist could emphasize certain bands in creating an image, while a scientific expert for a rival in a legal proceeding could emphasize different bands. That could lead to strikingly different images from the same data. ''You can make something look very significant, but in some cases it could be an instrument artifact,'' Dr. Tompkins said. ''In some cases, it's something real, but it's not as big a deal. You can stretch or enhance a certain feature.'' While many members of the public are eager to have high-resolution information, military and intelligence officials worry that easy access will promote spying. They have lobbied to restrict these satellites. Mr. Johnson understands their hesitations but argues that the new information is too valuable to bottle up. ''I think the compromises are already in the works,'' he said. ''The advantages of using satellite information will be too great for the intelligence community to keep a lid on the technology.'' WHAT'S NEXT |
1145129_0 | World Briefing | EUROPE TURKEY: FORBIDDEN TO LEAVE -- A woman from a religion-oriented party was forbidden to leave the country while a prosecutor draws up charges of subversion against her. The politician, Merve Kavakci, was elected to Parliament this year but forbidden to take the oath of office because she insisted on wearing her Muslim head scarf. Later, after it was discovered that she had failed to disclose she held an American passport, she was stripped of her Turkish citizenship. Stephen Kinzer (NYT) BRITAIN: ULSTER TALKS IN LONDON -- The leaders of Northern Ireland's political parties taking part in the peace settlement review under former Senator George J. Mitchell are meeting for two days at an undisclosed location in the London area under an agreement not to speak with reporters in an effort to help focus efforts to break the stalemate. Warren Hoge (NYT) NORTHERN IRELAND: 'BLOODY SUNDAY' ANONYMITY -- The inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killing of 14 civil rights protesters by paratroopers in Londonderry 27 years ago granted anonymity to all soldiers present at the shootings. Relatives of the dead said they deplored the decision, but a Ministry of Defense spokesman said, ''It provides a crucial measure of protection for all military witnesses who could have been subjected to the threat of terrorist reprisal.'' Warren Hoge (NYT) BELGIUM: 6 MORE APPLY TO EUROPE -- In a move to accelerate the expansion of the 15-nation European Union, the executive commission in Brussels proposed that six more nations be allowed to start membership negotiations. Talks are under way with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Malta. The commission has now agreed to consider eventual membership for Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Malta. Marlise Simons (NYT) GREECE: DEPORTED CHRISTIANS WELCOMED -- The Government announced it would welcome a group of 25 Christian pilgrims, 18 of them Irish, who were deported from Israel as a doomsday cult and then refused entry to Cyprus. A spokesman for the group denied they planned a mass suicide attempt in Bethlehem. (NYT) RUSSIA: ZHIRINOVSKY'S NEW BLOC -- Vladimir Zhirinovsky set up a new bloc to run for Parliament after his Liberal Democratic Party was barred from December elections. Facing an Oct. 24 registration deadline, Mr. Zhirinovsky had a congress of two political parties with which he is closely associated form the Zhirinovsky Bloc, which will submit its papers today. (AP) MIDDLE EAST SYRIA: PESSIMISM ON |
1148305_0 | World Briefing | MIDDLE EAST ISRAEL: EX-TERRORIST TO MOVE -- At Yasir Arafat's request, Prime Minister Ehud Barak is permitting the former terrorist leader of a militant Palestinian political faction to move from Damascus to the Palestinian-governed Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Nayef Hawatmeh, 63, left, who as head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine was held responsible for the killing of 24 Israeli schoolchildren in 1974, says he has renounced violence and wants to take part in politics in the Palestinian Authority. William A. Orme Jr. (NYT) TUNISIA: PRESIDENT RE-ELECTED -- In a result that was never in doubt, President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali won a third five-year term with nearly 100 percent of the vote, official results showed. Mr. Ben Ali, 62, won 3,269,000 out of 3,287,000 votes cast, Interior Minister Ali Chaouch said. For the first time, two token opposition candidates took part. They got a combined total of just over one half of 1 percent of the votes cast. (Reuters) IRAQ: U.S. JETS ATTACK -- American jets patrolling the no-flight zone over northern Iraq bombed an Iraqi missile storage center south of Mosul in response to Iraqi antiaircraft fire, the United States military said. According to an Iraqi spokesman, two people were killed and seven were wounded. (AP, Agence France-Pressse) EUROPE NORTHERN IRELAND: RENEWED OPTIMISM -- Intensified talks in Belfast to break the impasse that has blocked progress in putting the peace accord into place produced guarded expressions of hope for a breakthrough this week when former Senator George J. Mitchell returns to finish his formal review. An Ulster Unionist negotiator, Alan McFarland, said, ''There is a degree of trust creeping in'' between his party and Sinn Fein, the political wing of the I.R.A. Warren Hoge (NYT) SPAIN: KEY BASQUE DETAINED -- The French police arrested Belen Gonzalez Penalva, whom authorities say represented the Basque separatist group E.T.A. at the only peace talks, held last May, with the Spanish Government since they declared a cease-fire 13 months ago. Her arrest came a day after the rebels announced tougher demands for resuming the stalled peace talks, insisting that Madrid must first agree to Basque self-determination and the withdrawal of all state security forces from the region. The Government dismissed the initiative as propaganda. Al Goodman (NYT) GERMANY: 'GREENHOUSE' MEETING -- Representatives from 168 countries opened a two-week conference in Bonn intended to cut emissions of so-called |
1148282_2 | Celestial Gamma Rays Open Window on the Heavens | ''People didn't realize that in the classical astronomy.'' The new instruments go beyond Swift and Milagro, a $3 million detector whose name means ''miracle'' in Spanish. NASA has scheduled a launch in January of the $20 million High Energy Transient Explorer, or HETE-2, which is intended to detect gamma ray bursts and relay their coordinates to observatories almost instantly. A much more ambitious NASA project, the $270 million Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope, could be launched by 2004. ''A new field of astronomy is opening up,'' said Dr. Gerald J. Fishman, an astrophysicist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center who was one of the conference's organizers. This rush of data comes as astronomers have begun closing in on the locations and reasons for the bursts. Discovered by chance in the 1960's, gamma ray bursts are detected about once a day from random points in the sky. Detectors on satellites usually make the measurements, since Earth's atmosphere is opaque to gamma rays, a form of radiation that is 100,000 times more energetic than ordinary light. For decades after the discovery of gamma ray bursts, astronomers could not determine whether they were exploding nearby, in this galaxy, or deep in space. But two years ago, observations focusing on the optical ''afterglows'' of some bursts, analogous to the dying embers of a fire, were able to fix distances to some of them. Those distances turned out to be as great as 10 billion light-years. In order to be visible from those distances, gamma ray bursts had to be the most powerful blasts since the Big Bang, the explosion under one theory in which the universe was thought to have originated. ''There's no question that gamma ray bursts are the most brilliant objects in the universe,'' said Dr. Shrinivas Kulkarni, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. More recently, observations by Dr. Kulkarni and others have suggested that the bursts might channel their energy in a beam, like a flashlight. If the beam happens to be pointed toward Earth, a brilliant flash could result from a less energetic explosion. ''We do have evidence that beaming is taking place,'' said Dr. Tsvi Piran of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Beaming would still require immense energy, Dr. Piran said. Theorists do not yet understand how so much energy can be released as gamma rays in so short a time. The ''best bet candidates,'' |
1148284_1 | Cell Phones: Questions but No Answers | and $27 million in spending, was just completed by Wireless Technology Research, an independent research group in Washington under the sponsorship of the wireless phone industry's trade association. This project supported studies by private research organizations and universities, and while it generally found little to link cellular phone use and cancer, some of the research suggested possible correlations that Federal health officials said should be clarified with further study. And the director of the project, Dr. George L. Carlo, put those concerns more strongly, saying, ''The industry should stop saying cell phones are safe without qualification when there is no proof they are and give consumers all the information so they can make intelligent choices.'' The F.D.A. announced last week that it had signed a letter of intent with the cellular industry association to look into a possible collaborative project to follow up on clues from the earlier program. ''We want to see if researchers can replicate and explain some findings from work previously done by Wireless Technology Research,'' said Sharon Snider, an F.D.A. spokeswoman. The agency said these findings needed further attention: *A hospital study that compared brain cancer patients and a similar group without brain cancer found no statistically significant association between cell-phone use and a group of brain cancers known as glioma. But when 20 types of glioma were considered separately, an association was found between phone use and one rare form. Puzzlingly, however, this risk appeared to decrease rather than increase with greater mobile phone use. *When a variety of cultured animal cells were exposed to radiation from cell phones to see if it caused cancer-inducing genetic damage, only one test battery, known as a micronucleus assay, produced a negative result on one type of human white blood cells. But these changes were seen only after 24 hours of microwave exposure, raising the possibility that the damage stemmed from heating and not direct radiation exposure. Some critics have assailed the industry and government regulators for continuing to say the phones appear safe while awaiting further studies. They say health authorities and the industry should do more to warn consumers of the dangers and limit exposure to the suspect radio signals. These critics have acquired a new ally from an unexpected quarter -- Dr. Carlo, who heads the group that carried out the industry-sponsored research program. A lawyer with a Ph.D. in pathology, Dr. Carlo says the |
1148259_1 | OBSERVATORY | Research Letters, say the new photographs show that the border between the two land forms is clearly not a wave-cut cliff, or a cliff of any kind. And there is not a beach or dune in sight either. Deeply Seeking Silicon Siliceous sponges used to be contenders. With their rocklike skeletons made of microscopic spikes of silica, the sponges built large reefs in shallow seas millions of years ago. But over the eons, the fortunes of these marine creatures have sunk, literally. Sponges with elaborate spikes now exist in deeper waters only, and those in shallow water are a mere shell of their former selves, with simpler spikes and a much less formidable skeleton. A team of Spanish scientists has figured out why this has happened. Plankton have gobbled up most of the silicon in the sea, putting shallow-water sponges on a low-silicon diet. The researchers, writing in the current issue of the journal Nature, show that the production of spikes by one species of sponge is greatly affected by the concentration of a silicon-containing acid in the water. At low concentrations, the sponge produces one kind of simple spike. At high concentrations, it produces four or five kinds, and they have tiny branches and nodes that create a more massive skeleton. Concentrations of the acid are low in shallow ocean waters, where plankton use it for their own structural needs. So shallow-water sponge species produce only the simpler spikes, and only species that have shifted to lower depths, out of the range of plankton where silicon concentrations are higher, still produce the elaborate skeletons of long ago. Sizing Up a Hurricane Hurricane researchers have become adept at forecasting the path a storm will take. Less well developed is the ability to predict how intense a hurricane will be. For help, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado are turning to what seems an unlikely instrument: the altimeter. They are using microwave altimeters on two satellites to help determine the location and size of eddies and currents of warmer water that can strengthen a storm. The instruments help researchers determine the height of the sea surface. Since higher sea levels are associated with warm-water conditions, the researchers can use the data to extrapolate sea surface temperatures and to determine the depth of warm water zones. Combined with more direct readings of surface temperatures, the |
1148281_0 | New Way Of Looking At Diseases Of the Brain | A highly respected neuroscientist has developed a provocative new theory of how the brain is organized which, if confirmed, would explain how and why the mind produces symptoms found in several seemingly unrelated disorders. According to the theory, the deep sadness in severe depression, the hand wringing in obsessive compulsive disorder, the ringing in the ears of tinnitus, the unrelenting discomfort of chronic pain and the shaking and immobility seen in Parkinson's disease all stem from the same basic brain defect: a decoupling of two brain regions that normally fire their cells in synchrony. If the theory is correct, it would explain why experimental surgical techniques involving implanting electrodes in the brain to treat Parkinson's disease and depression seem to work so well, and it would expand their application to other brain diseases. The neuroscientist, Dr. Rodolfo Llinas, a professor at New York University Medical School, presented his findings on Sunday night in Miami to some 4,000 researchers attending the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting. Although the theory has not yet been subjected to peer review, a paper describing the work was submitted last week to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and accepted for publication in just two days. Dr. Llinas is a member of the academy, which often publishes the work of leading scientists or their proteges when the ideas are new and have not yet been tested by others. ''This work is very important,'' said Dr. Edward Jones, president of the Society for Neuroscience and director of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California in Davis. ''What makes it so compelling is that it doesn't come completely out of left field. It builds on a body of work that's been growing for some time. Everyone will say wow, yes!'' Because these new insights into brain organization, if confirmed, would almost certainly promote the use of surgery to treat psychiatric and neurological diseases, other scientists urged caution in applying the theory. They are concerned because psychosurgeries that were tried 30 to 40 years ago in these same regions of the brain made many people mentally incompetent. The theory involves two brain areas -- the cerebral cortex and the thalamus -- and how they communicate. The cortex is a thickly folded band of tissue that carries out higher mental capacities in humans and other mammals. It is composed of six layers of cells that are highly |
1143350_6 | Reality Hits Singers In the Home Stretch; On a Real Stage, Bracing for an Audience | made perfect sense.'' They are helped as well by the very Americanness of the work. Not only does Mr. Bolcom draw on an identifiably American musical idiom (the influence of pop and show music is intermittently felt) but the play, of course, is a standard repertory piece from the American theater. The language is English of a particularly American vernacular, that of working-class post-World War II Brooklyn. (Hence: Louie.) The cultural familiarity is a boon to the singers, particularly in their acting, which is of paramount importance in a contemporary work that has no familiar music with which to palliate an audience and needs all its available modes of seduction: story and character as well as song. In recent decades, singers themselves have increasingly acknowledged and concentrated on the dramatic elements of their stage work, and lip service is often paid to the totality of performance. But it was a bit of a surprise to discover how focused these singers have been on the melding of text and music into drama. In interviews they had to be pressed to discuss music at all; acting was foremost on their minds. ''Catherine is between a girl and a woman,'' Ms. Rambaldi said, ''and for me it's been interesting to find when she's a girl and when she's a woman. How much does she realize what's going on between her and Eddie? It was tempting to approach her as too wise a person, because I'm older than 17. I had to check back a little bit and find the moments when she was a girl.'' (Ms. Rambaldi, who is 32 and pregnant, will sing only the first six performances; for the final three she will be replaced by a Canadian singer, Isabel Bayrakdarian.) Mark McCrory, the bass baritone who plays Marco, Rodolpho's brother and the agent of Eddie's demise, has only one significant musical moment, but it is a doozy; an aria (with lyrics by Mr. Miller) in which he channels the pain of immigrant life into his disgust with Eddie, the man who has betrayed him. The furious emotion of the moment is tempered by Marco's innate dignity and self-control. ''He's really pouring out his soul in that aria,'' Mr. McCrory said. ''What he feels, where he's coming from, and that gets channeled into his hate for Eddie. With all that emotion, maintaining that stoicism in the character is the difficult part. |
1149468_0 | After Merger, a Study of Employee Attitudes | WHEN Mount Sinai Medical Center and New York University Medical Center merged last year, the combined health center consisted of five campuses and four hospitals. ''One of our major concerns after the merger was our employees -- how can they be comfortably integrated into the new workplace?'' said Gary Rosenberg, senior vice president of human resources marketing and external relations at the newly named Mount Sinai N.Y.U. Health. But no action was taken for eight months, which was considered the shake-out period -- long enough to allow employees to develop a point of view. Mr. Rosenberg then got in touch with Sirota Consulting, a group of management consultants in the behavioral sciences, based in Purchase. ''We knew their work since we've used them before,'' he said. ''This time we wanted them to conduct a survey of the attitudes of our merged employee population, attitude being an all important direct link to performance.'' Many of the issues to be examined in the survey focused on the merger's effect on individual employee performance, said Jeffrey Salzman, the chief executive of Sirota Consulting. Mr. Salzman said of the survey: ''Which jobs needed to be restructured? Were people now willing to work harder? Were they worried about losing their jobs? Do they feel good about their work? Do they enjoy it? ''Those are some of the questions we find answers to. In this tight labor market it's more important than ever to retain employees. And how they feel about the job directly affects the bottom line.'' Since its founding in 1972, Sirota Consulting has been conducting attitude survey research for more than 300 organizations employing three million people worldwide, making assessments of each organization's employee population and customs. The Sirota database, the company's life blood, contains 200 categories on workplace topics, allowing clients to compare themselves with other companies. The computer has speeded up the process, Mr. Salzman said. What once took seven or eight months in gathering data now takes two to three months. ''We can E-mail to places in Indonesia that were almost impossible to ship to,'' he said. ''Before computers it was difficult to expand our business. There was such an enormous amount of paperwork involved. Now we expect to grow by 30 percent this year.'' With growth in mind, the company started searching for additional space but found little in Manhattan, where rents were considered prohibitive. The company moved from |
1149386_1 | Sometimes a Great Notion | and Dostoyevsky to the historiography of the cold war. Now comes a companion volume, ''Views From the Other Shore,'' and at first glance it appears to be forbiddingly arcane. It includes articles on Chekhov and Bakhtin (the former a small gem of biographical explication), but its central figure is the 19th-century journalist and philosopher Alexander Herzen. The chapters have such cloistered, disheartening titles as ''Herzen and Francis Bacon'' and ''Herzen, Schiller and the Aesthetic Education of Man.'' Yet in many ways this book is superior to ''Toward Another Shore.'' It may be narrower in scope, but it is more coherent, even more accessible, and it provides an excellent distillation of Kelly's own thought. Her theme in this collection -- as it is in almost everything she writes -- is the intellectual crisis captured in Nietzsche's announcement of the death of God. How is modern man to live without moral absolutes or ethical foundations, in ''the absence of all final certainties''? Caught in the grip of intolerable anxiety, some, from Schopenhauer to Turgenev and onward, have succumbed to cynicism and despair. Others have retreated to traditional religions, or sought out new gods like Communism. (In America, the preferred solution at the moment seems to be the pursuit of money and a Bart Simpson wise-guyism.) For Kelly, it is the skeptical and ironic Herzen who points in the proper direction. Influenced by the empiricism of Bacon and the ''aestheticism'' of Schiller, he posited a hard moral autonomy free of all formal principles and predetermined systems, even the liberal's consoling notion of progress. His concept of freedom, like that of Chekhov and Bakhtin, was not disembodied and abstract, and certainly not irresponsible; it possessed ''a distinctive contextual thickness.'' Herzen, in Kelly's formulation, believed that individuals should be governed ''not by adherence to fixed and universal precepts, but by freely adjusting the relations between their sensual and rational drives in order to respond sensitively and appropriately to the demands of specific situations.'' They can peer into Nietzsche's abyss and laugh, joyfully accepting the risks and requirements of contingency. Deftly examining Herzen's views from a variety of perspectives, Kelly argues that he is vastly underappreciated in the West, and she is surely correct. (Just try to find any of his books at your local bookstore.) But he is also largely ignored in Russia -- in part because he was a favorite of Lenin's -- and |
1149755_1 | With Victory Still Elusive, Ulster Talks To Continue | that the Irish Republican Army begin disarming before its political representatives, Sinn Fein, can take seats on the 10-person executive that will run the new Northern Ireland Assembly. There was little of the customary accusatory tone in the public remarks by representatives of the two parties today. ''We fully understand that the question of disarmament is a huge issue for the republican movement, and it's a very difficult one for them,'' said Sir Reg Empey, a senior Ulster Unionist figure. Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, said, ''We've achieved a cordial atmosphere and I believe we've achieved a greater understanding of each other's positions.'' Unionists, who are largely Protestant, are so called because they believe in keeping Ulster as part of the United Kingdom, while republicans, most of whom are Catholics, want to see Northern Ireland ultimately become part of the Irish Republic. The peace settlement was agreed to as a way of ending decades of paramilitary violence between the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority that has cost more than 3,300 lives. The agreement created shared political structures and demanded the disarming of guerrilla groups by May 2000. Sinn Fein argues that the accord placed no disarmament condition for entering government and that the I.R.A. has proved its commitment to peace by maintaining a cease-fire since 1997. The Ulster Unionists say the I.R.A. commitment will become trustworthy only with the surrender of weapons and that it would be unthinkable to let a party into government while its paramilitary force stayed fully armed. On July 15 the whole matter descended to chaos, then farce, when the Ulster Unionists boycotted a raucous meeting of the assembly held to name the members of the new executive. Unable to create a cabinet with the required Protestant-Catholic mix, the legislature had to shut down. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, the sponsors of the peace agreement, sent for Mr. Mitchell, the chairman of the original talks. An official who has participated in the recent weeks of talks said Mr. Mitchell was a ''master deal maker'' and the only person in public life in Northern Ireland who enjoyed the trust of all sides. ''It also helps that he is an outsider,'' he added. Mr. Mitchell has spent part of each of the past eight weeks in Northern Ireland, and he has gradually narrowed the focus of his attention on |
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1149424_1 | Y2K Travel: Still Questions in the Air | are available to the Department of Transportation.'' At the other end of the scale, in Britain, the Web site says, ''a comprehensive and thorough program to attempt to identify and correct potential aviation-related Y2K-related programs will have been implemented by Dec. 31.'' The department anticipates little chance of numerous, lengthy or severe disruptions in civil aviation there, and the Web site also said that British Airways told the International Civil Aviation Organization that its Y2K preparations are complete, but that all is not perfect; the airline is waiting to receive contingency plans from some airports it uses. Destinations with caveats like that may be better bets than places with none. Eight places -- Bharain, Denmark, Hong Kong, Israel, Nicaragua, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden and Taiwan -- report being entirely ready, but nobody from outside is auditing to be sure. Thirty-eight other countries are described as having a program in place and reporting that it will be completed by Dec. 31. Those countries include the most common destinations in the developed world. And 25 more have ''comprehensive and thorough programs underway,'' but no deadline for completion. Three more have provided ''insufficient information'' to allow a judgment: the Marshall Islands, the Turks and Caicos and Uruguay. The department advises prudent travelers flying to any of these countries immediately before and after New Year's Day to plan their itineraries carefully, get as much information as possible before departure, take practical precautions for their own comfort and personal needs, and be prepared to cope with disruptions and delays. Finally, 29 nations provided no information at all. These include Iraq, Cambodia, Vietnam and Papua New Guinea. But as the Transportation Department site says in a disclaimer, ''a lack of Y2K readiness does not necessarily translate into safety problems.'' In fact, some countries do not have air traffic control radar, which is what the computers mostly control. Others have computers with histories of frequent failure, so a failure on Jan. 1 would not be much different than others that they know how to cope with. The Transportation Department document covers only 90 foreign destinations, those with direct air service to the United States. Officials hope to post data on 45 or so others soon; that would cover about 99 percent of air traffic, says David Smallen, who manages the Web page. The United States says that its system is almost entirely ready. On the first page |
1149524_16 | How a Speeded-Up Society Trickles Down to Children; From Infancy to Academics, the Race Is On | reeling. Because so many people no longer grow up with mom around the corner to answer questions or a grandmother in town who can remind them about when they walked or talked or read, parents look to their friends and their friend's children to measure progress. ''There's a lot of benchmarking going on,'' said Lora Carr, a Haddonfield mother who runs a business from her home and has a 3-year-old son and a 9-month-old baby. ''It's an East Coast thing and some of it is just first-time mom nervous stuff. Are they doing Suzuki violin after pre-school? Is your son reading yet? Everyone wants to make sure that they're doing the right thing. Their parents aren't around. They are raising their kids with what they now and they need reassurances.'' Many parents admit that they need the stimulation of getting out into the world and being with other parents. ''This is also a chance for the moms to become social,'' said Francine Keller of Mount Laurel, who takes her 2-year-old son, Michael, to Gymboree on Tuesday and Gymboree Music on Wednesday each week in Cherry Hill. It has allowed her to meet other mothers that she can get together with during the day with children or in the evening on their own. She started Gymboree when Michael was 3 months old. ''All the reading I did while I was pregnant said the first few years of life are crucial to expand his potential,'' she said. But she said she stops herself when she feels she is worrying about his development too much. After she noticed that some friends children knew their colors, she cut out circles and started teaching his colors, she said. ''Then, I catch myself and talk myself out of it,'' she said. Lisa Hurd of Haddonfield considers herself a recovering over-do it mom. When her daughter, Emily, who is now in first-grade, was 3 and 4 years old, they ran from pre-school to play group, choir, gymnastic and piano lessons along with squeezing in play dates. ''It started innocently,'' said Ms. Hurd, who worked full-time until her 30's, when she had two children. ''You start with a playgroup, then its Kinder Music, because music is good for brain development, they need to develop physical prowess so you go to gym. And they go to pre-school. Then, kindergarten comes and the real pressure starts when you add socceer |
1149873_1 | The Last Tribal Battle | As she later reported, she knew right then she would never see him alive again. An hour later, a posse of rubber tappers headed out to the spot. They found de Souza's body and saw that arrows were only part of the ordeal that had ended his life. Gashes covered his legs, chest and head; all that remained of his eyes were the dark, bloody pools of their sockets. His scalp had been sliced from his skull. The Indians that Francisca and the other children described had vanished, as if soaked back into the forest. But who could they be? Were the killers really indios bravos -- wild Indians'' -- as the locals called isolated tribesmen? Or had the children's imaginations spun out of control? The rain forest grows rumors along with species, and stories multiplied. These stories eventually reached the ears of Sydney Possuelo, the Brazilian Government's leading authority on isolated Indians. Possuelo soon traveled to the area where the murder occurred, in the far western state of Acre -- but not to solve the crime. For one thing, he was no police detective. What's more, Possuelo had little sympathy for ambushed pioneers; he knew that from Brazil's first days white settlers had ruthlessly slaughtered Indians, burning their villages and abducting their children to work as slaves. The reason he went to Acre was this: a murder by unclothed Indians has often been the first sign of a previously uncontacted Amazon tribe. If isolated people were indeed hiding nearby in the forest, Possuelo wanted to find them -- but not to punish them. He wanted to offer the tribe protection, for as long as possible, from the modern world. Anthropologists believe the Amazon shelters the world's largest number of still-isolated Indians. (The Pacific island of New Guinea is a distant second.) Since the 1970's, Brazil's Government has counted 50 sites that reveal signs of indigenous settlement -- many spotted by canvassing the rain forest from the air -- though no known tribes are thought to inhabit those particular areas. Possuelo says that these traces were left by approximately 15 tribes of the rain forest that have never been studied or, in some instances, even named by scholars. By definition, little is known about isolated Indians. Their relics surface in the most remote stretches of the Amazon, hundreds of miles from the nearest roads. It is not known whether the |
1149417_1 | The Last Tribal Battle | his back. As she turned around, Francisca saw the Indians closing in on her father. As she later reported, she knew right then she would never see him alive again. An hour later, a posse of rubber tappers headed out to the spot. They found de Souza's body, and saw that arrows were only part of the ordeal that had ended his life. Gashes covered his legs, chest and head; all that remained of his eyes were the dark, bloody pools of their sockets. His scalp had been sliced from his skull. The Indians that Francisca and the other children claimed to have seen had vanished, as if soaked back into the forest. But who could they be? Were the killers really indios bravos -- wild Indians'' -- as the locals called isolated tribesmen? Or had the children's imaginations spun out of control? The rain forest grows rumors along with species, and stories multiplied. These stories eventually reached the ears of Sydney Possuelo, the Brazilian Government's leading authority on that country's remaining isolated Indians. Possuelo soon traveled to the area where the murder occured, in the far western state of Acre -- but not to solve the crime. For one thing, he was no police detective. What's more, Possuelo had little sympathy for ambushed pioneers; he knew that from Brazil's first days white settlers had ruthlessly slaughtered Indians, burning their villages and abducting their children to work as slaves. The reason he went to Acre was this: a murder by unclothed Indians has often been the first sign of a previously uncontacted Amazon tribe. And if an isolated people were indeed hiding nearby in the forest, Possuelo wanted to find them -- but not to punish them. He wanted to offer the tribe protection, for as long as possible, from the modern world. Anthropologists believe the Amazon shelters the world's largest number of still-isolated Indians. (The Pacific island of New Guinea is a distant second.) Since the 1970's, Brazil's Government has counted 50 sites that reveal signs of indigenous settlement -- many spotted by canvassing the rain forest from the air -- though no known tribes are thought to inhabit those particular areas. Possuelo says that these traces were left by approximately 15 tribes of the rain forest that have never been studied or, in some instances, even named by scholars. By definition, little is known about isolated Indians. Their |
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1149749_0 | SOVEREIGN ISLANDS -- A special report.; Getting Sick on the High Seas: A Question of Accountability | Shortly after midnight last Feb. 25, James Curtis, a 59-year-old retired businessman from Maryland, was found unconscious in a public restroom aboard the Sensation, one of the 14 ships of Carnival Cruise Lines. He was revived by the ship's nurse and taken to the infirmary. Over the next six hours, Mr. Curtis drifted in and out of consciousness, all the time complaining about worsening stomach pains. The nurse and a doctor hooked him to an IV and gave him a breathing tube. But they missed that an abdominal rupture was causing him to bleed to death. Such ruptures are often fatal. But even had they recognized the blood loss, they had no equipment to give him a transfusion. ''It was like watching an avalanche coming at me and not being able to stop it,'' his wife, Irma Curtis, said as she recalled watching helplessly as he finally died at 6:50 that morning. Medical emergencies are terrifying anywhere. But when something goes seriously wrong on a cruise ship hundreds of miles out at sea, passengers are on their own more than they might imagine. Even on the largest ships -- floating towns with as many as 3,100 passengers and 1,500 crew members -- those aboard must rely on infirmaries that are better equipped for sunburn and seasickness than for heart attacks. And they are often staffed by doctors who are not qualified to work in the United States. When it comes to medical care, the cruise ships to which millions of Americans flock every year are free of any United States regulation. Though more than 90 percent of the passengers are Americans, the ships are governed by the laws of the countries where they are flagged, mainly Panama, Liberia and the Bahamas. The $12 billion industry pays virtually no United States corporate taxes and can ignore many American laws governing labor standards, the environment and security. There is no international oversight of medical care because maritime law does not require cruise ships to provide any for passengers. The result is that the fast-growing industry has been left to establish its own guidelines, which are voluntary. In response to pressure from the medical establishment, the care has improved lately. But the quality of doctors and the sophistication of equipment vary significantly. The major cruise lines have doctors, nurses and infirmaries on their ships. But the medical personnel are independent contractors, not employees, |
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1142188_4 | Art Deco on the Amazon | meant more security for me. I needn't have worried. The Belem tourist police have read the travel guides, too. Just at the entrance to Ver-o-Peso, a huge indoor-outdoor market that spreads along about a half mile of the riverfront (Belem occupies a peninsula that juts into the Amazon), a man and woman in uniform approached us. Were we going into the market? Then perhaps we would like some assistance. Casually and discreetly, the police escort followed us as we poked around the market, always maintaining a distance of about 30 paces. It was like being shadowed in a spy movie, and eventually we forgot they were there. The market hardly seemed to warrant any cloak and dagger. Loud, lively and bursting with the products of the Amazon river and forest, it buzzed with customers of all social classes, and I didn't spot a single suspicious character. The Ver-o-Peso has been in operation since 1688, when the Portuguese opened it up as a tax-gathering station in the Amazon fishing trade (Ver-o-Peso means Watch the Weight). Gradually it expanded as a market for everything from fish to meat to vegetables, fruits, medicinal plants and household goods. Even if you are familiar with the tropical fruits of, say, the Caribbean or Southeast Asia, you will not recognize half the items in Ver-o-Peso. During my treks in the rain forest outside Manaus, the guides kept reminding us that the Amazon region is the most biologically diverse on the planet. I took their word for it, but here, among piles of odd-smelling fruit and strange, bundled greens, was a biodiversity I could smell and taste. We turned a corner and stumbled on a row of stalls selling roots, herbs and tonics. The curative properties of Amazon barks and trees are one of the reasons the Portuguese became interested in exploiting the region. Today biologists continue to troll the basin hoping to discover promising biochemical compounds. It's all old news to the mandingueras, the elderly women who run these plant medicine kiosks. One mandinguera, a skinny, ancient lady who looked in her 70's, reached out and grabbed Peter by the wrist. ''Come here,'' she said in Portuguese, and pulled him over to a large whisky bottle filled with mysterious dark green herbs and a viscous liquid. ''Viagra natural!'' she chuckled. While I admired her for market-savvy labeling, I had to wonder about her sales skills. Besides |
1142510_0 | Foreign Affairs; Hazy In Havana | Walking through the Partagas cigar factory in Old Havana is like smoking a box of Cohibas without ever having to light up. You just breathe deeply as you follow the raw tobacco leaves from the lower floors where they are separated into different qualities, to the upper floors where they are rolled into different brands, to the taste-test table, where our guide, Teresa, has the job of smoking different cigars all day for quality control. The best cigar rollers make about $15 a month, an average Cuban wage. Upstairs, at a raised table in front of a room with 100 men and women rolling cigars, sits the ''lector,'' who entertains the workers by reading aloud all day -- newspapers in the morning, a Cuban novel in the afternoon. There is one bit of news everyone in the factory would like to hear -- news they are sure could change their lives and make their business explode: that Cuban-American relations have been restored and the U.S. boycott of Cuba, and Cuban cigars, has been lifted. ''What that would mean for the cigar business,'' says Teresa, her eyes wide, ''Imaginate! Imagine!'' A week in Cuba teaches you that sooner or later most every conversation with a Cuban gets to this question: When might America restore relations? Cubans know that no real opening of their system is on the horizon, so only something from over the horizon might do it. Why? Well, it's like this. For 30 years Fidel Castro had a bargain with the Cuban people: the Communist state provided all the basics of a job, education and health care, and the Cuban people provided the state with blind allegiance. But given the limitations of the Cuban economy, and the pain of the U.S. embargo, that bargain was only sustainable with the help of $6 billion a year in Soviet aid. When the U.S.S.R. collapsed after 1989, so did the aid. In order to survive, the regime has had to open up a little to tourism, a little to free enterprise -- people can have restaurants in their homes, but with only 12 seats -- and a little to foreign investment. But only a crack -- because the regime knows that if people become independent of the state economically, they will become independent politically, and that will not be tolerated. As result, what you have in Cuba today is what I would |
1143836_3 | Recurring Patterns, The Sinews Of Nature; Interest in Design Pulls Science Closer to Art | it as if it had a particular purpose, as if each of its elements were created for a reason, as if nothing about it were accidental. Kant argued that man treats nature ''after the analogy of art.'' He might have added that in constructing interpretations of nature, man also applies standards that have evolved for judging art and beauty. The mathematician J. W. N. Sullivan (who wrote an elegant book about Beethoven's string quartets) suggested: ''Since the primary object of the scientific theory is to express the harmonies which are found in nature, we see at once that these theories must have an esthetic value. The measure of the success of a scientific theory is, in fact, a measure of its esthetic value, since it is a measure of the extent to which it has introduced harmony in what was before chaos.'' Scientists from Kepler to Einstein have judged their theories not just by their success in accounting for data but also by their beauty; not just by their order but also by the kind of order they produced. Design becomes a standard for discovery. Kepler, for example, was determined to find that the orbits of the planets around the sun could be inscribed in the five Platonic solids defined by the Greeks; when the data did not support this esthetic ideal, he found something just as good: the shape of every orbit is a perfect ellipse. I If a theory's design is beautiful enough, it can inspire allegiance even when the data seem to disprove it. The physicist Paul Dirac famously proclaimed: ''It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit the experiment.'' The contemporary fascination with the artistic aspects of science taps into these timeless concerns. But the fascination is all the greater because the creation of natural pattern and design has itself become a subject of exploration in genetics and computer simulations. Arguments in cosmology, physics and mathematics have also become so abstract that even their creators must resort to physical and esthetic metaphors to explain them; the metaphors are, in fact, inextricably knit into the theory. Design becomes a standard for judging the theory as well. This is clear in ''The Elegant Universe'' (Norton, 1999) by the Columbia University physicist Brian Greene, a remarkable book that has been hailed as a classic of elegant explication. Mr. Greene argues that contemporary |
1143807_0 | WORLD BRIEFING | EUROPE RUSSIA: SCIENTOLOGY LOSES LICENSE -- A Moscow city court has revoked the license of the Church of Scientology, saying the organization violated registration laws, and perhaps tax laws, by listing bogus founders of the sect's local branch. Tax police raided the sect's center this year. Scientology officials said the revocation, which was applauded by the Russian Orthodox Church, was politically driven. Michael Wines (NYT) FRANCE: BEEF DECISION DUE -- The European Commission in Brussels said it was examining a four-inch-thick report that France has submitted to back up its decision to maintain an embargo on British beef in breach of European Union policy. The commission said its scientists would have an initial evaluation of the report ready by next Thursday. The beef embargo was imposed three-and-a-half years ago because of what became known as mad cow disease. Suzanne Daley (NYT) GERMANY: NEW COMPENSATION TALKS -- More talks on compensation for people forced to work in German industry under the Nazis will be held in Bonn Nov. 16 and 17, the Government said. An offer of $3.3 billion by German companies was rejected at talks in Washington by representatives of hundreds of thousands of concentration camp survivors. Victor Homola (NYT) THE AMERICAS CHILE: ITALY SEEKS EXTRADITION -- Italy has requested the extradition of retired Gen. Manuel Contreras, left, the former head of the Chilean secret police, on charges he gave the orders for a failed 1975 assassination attempt of Chile's former Vice President, Bernardo Leighton, and his wife who were living in exile in Rome. General Contreras is already serving a seven-year prison term in Chile for his involvement in the murder of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and an American assistant in Washington. Clifford Krauss (NYT) VENEZUELA: JUDGES FACE DISMISSAL -- Continuing its purge of a judicial system described as corrupt and inept, the National Assembly writing a new constitution has announced that more than 100 lower court judges are to be removed on charges of malpractice. The dismissals come after 22 other judges were removed by the assembly, which in August declared a ''judicial emergency,'' giving itself unlimited powers to intervene in the court system. Larry Rohter (NYT) COLOMBIA: 4 TROOPS SLAIN -- A two-day clash between army units and left-wing insurgents near a key oil field and pipeline has left at least four soldiers dead, military authorities said. The fighting took place as efforts were being made |
1148786_0 | Teen-Age Birth Rate | To the Editor: ''Teen-Age Birth Rate in U.S. Falls Again'' (news article, Oct. 27) makes clear that the challenge is how to lower these numbers even further. The solution is in a combination of the factors that have led to the decline: more teen-agers choosing not to become sexually active, more consistent use of contraceptives by those who do, programs that prevent first and subsequent pregnancies, school-based health centers, a healthy job market and educational opportunities, among other things. In-school health centers are particularly important. A study of students at Chicago high schools found that female students at schools with health centers were more than twice as likely to use oral contraception as were their counterparts at schools without health centers. HARRIET MEYER Chicago, Oct. 27, 1999 The writer is president of the Ounce of Prevention Fund. |
1147234_0 | Survey Says 78.7 Million Own Stocks in United States | The number of stock owners in the nation soared to 78.7 million people early this year, 85 percent more than in 1983 when the long bull market was getting under way. Among households, 48.2 percent now own stock directly or through mutual funds, more than double the 19 percent with such a stake in 1983, according to a survey by the Investment Company Institute and the Securities Industry Association. Despite the increased interest in stock investing, a majority of stockholders said they neither bought nor sold any securities last year. ''Nearly one in two households own equities today, and the vast majority of these investors have a buy-and-hold investment strategy,'' said Marc Lackritz, president of the securities association. The findings, based on 4,842 responses of randomly selected households in January and February, show just how much Americans are relying on stocks to reach retirement and other financial goals. The survey, which described stock ownership by income, assets, location, sex and ethnic group, also found that investors who were trading on line in 1998 were considerably more affluent than people who were trading the old-fashioned way through a broker. This highly desirable group is the target of the big brokerage firms, which are rushing to provide on-line service to compete with on-line discount brokers. The report uses for comparison stock ownership figures for 1983 that were published by the New York Stock Exchange. While the portion of stock owners has grown 85 percent in that time, the population has grown far more slowly, 15.6 percent, between 1983 and 1998. Last year, The New York Times calculated that American households had more assets invested in stocks than at any time in at least half a century and had more value in stocks than in their homes for the first time since the 1960's, based on an analysis of Federal Reserve data. The survey released yesterday by the two trade associations found that the typical stockholder is 47 years old and lives in a household with annual income of $60,000 and total assets of $85,000. Most are married college graduates; 53 percent have individual retirement accounts and 80 percent have employer-sponsored pension plans. One of the more striking findings was how many stock fund investors have multiple accounts. Twenty-two percent of people with stock mutual funds own shares in seven or more stock funds, and 26 percent own four to six funds, suggesting |
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1144294_0 | By Building a Coalition, a Utility Resolves Prickly Issues on Dams | FOR decades in the Pacific Northwest, hydroelectric dams have generated as much conflict as electricity. Many environmentalists, sports fishermen and Indian groups have opposed the relicensing of such dams and have succeeded in getting a few small ones taken down. The utilities, of course, backed by many of the businesses and farmers who depend on the cheap power, want the dams relicensed and left alone. To avoid bitter negotiations with their opponents, they have often opted for one-year license extensions. Now, one utility, the Avista Corporation, formerly the Washington Water Power Company, has found a middle ground. Over a four-year period, it hammered out a compromise with a multitude of environmental organizations, sports fishing groups, Indian tribes and Federal and state agencies. Now it has an agreement to relicense two of its largest hydroelectric dams, avoiding the confrontation and lawsuits that have held up the process for scores of other dams. The agreement, which would run for 45 years, calls for a wide-ranging, $225 million restoration program for fish and wildlife. Avista filed its application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last February and expects approval by early next year. The commission has encouraged such an approach, called alternative licensing, in recent years to speed up the relicensing process -- an important issue because 11,500 megawatts of hydroelectric power are up for renewal before 2010. In the Pacific Northwest, where the issue has been most contentious, at least four other big hydroelectric projects will soon enter the relicensing process. The biggest are the Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams on the Columbia River, with a total of 1,908 megawatts of generating capacity, for which the license, held by the Grant County Public Utility District in Washington, expires in 2005. The others are: the Chelan County Public Utility District, whose license for the Rocky Reach dam on the Columbia River expires in 2006; Idaho Power, whose license for three dams on the Snake River expires in 2005, and Portland General Electric, a unit of Enron, which has two dams on the Deschutes River in Oregon due for relicensing in 2001. About 40 percent of the cases now before the Federal agency have used forms of alternative licensing, and the agency has issued about five new licenses to utilities that have chosen the method. The collaborative effort by Avista is one of the largest and most ambitious so far. ''They did a great |
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1144250_1 | A Gloomy View of Immigration | certainly gloomiest -- experts on immigration. Mr. Borjas himself is a shining example of the classic immigrant rags to riches story. A refugee from Cuba who grew up in a Miami ghetto, he wound up with an Ivy League education and today holds a Harvard professorship. But in ''Heaven's Door,'' Professor Borjas calls for sharply restricting the number of future immigrants, especially those who, as his own family was in the early 60's, are poor, unskilled and uneducated. ''My family would never have been able to pass the test that I think would best serve the interests of the United States,'' he writes. ''There were no college graduates in my family, no wealth to prove that we would not become public charges, no particular skills that would seem urgently needed.'' Since the 60's, as Professor Borjas tells it, family ties rather than education, skills or national origin have determined which foreigners get to pursue the American dream. As a result, two-thirds of the recent arrivals have come from Latin America and Asia. Four out of 10 wind up in the bottom one-fifth of the income distribution. And, by the late 1990's, the average new arrival had two fewer years of schooling than the average native-born American. In contrast, 30 years ago, most immigrants came from Europe, and the average newcomer was ahead in education. Mr. Borjas acknowledges that, despite a ''precipitous decline'' in average skills, immigration is keeping an aging work force younger than it would otherwise be, and has, on the whole, been good for the economy. Unskilled immigrants provide employers with bargain-priced labor and provide middle-class consumers with bargain-priced services from baby-sitting to nursing-home care. But, reflecting a growing unease among economists over inequality, he argues that while immigration has increased the total economic pie modestly, the far more significant effect has been to depress opportunity and pay for the most disadvantaged native-born workers, especially African-Americans. ''The central issue in the debate therefore,'' he says, ''is not whether immigration increases the size of the economic pie; it is about how the pie is split.'' Perhaps. But immigration has not been a major reason that wages at the bottom have stagnated for more than two decades. Rather, the computer age has rewarded the college-educated and punished high school dropouts. Further, Mr. Borjas is overly jaundiced in his views. He scarcely acknowledges that unemployment is at a 30-year low, that |
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1143974_3 | Look Who's Modern Now | reported this supposedly premodern syndrome faithfully, without using the word ''retrograde'' except in quotes. By then it was 1988, and my 200-page essay was finished. Unaware of the coming hiatus -- my Cambridge history was optimistically marked as ''forthcoming'' on my vita for each of the past 11 years -- I went to London for an extended sabbatical, reviewing a lot of new books and thinking hard about how academic humanists relate to the general culture. The answer that emerged was simple. In England they do; in America they don't. I never went back to studying modernist poetry, but eventually I went back to the States, where I taught contemporary American novels, or at least the ones I had discussed in my history. Disconcertingly, they were growing less contemporary all the time. As I taught them, reviewed new fiction and judged literary prizes, contemporary novels proliferated. I felt like Tristram Shandy, waiting for a birth that was endlessly postponed while its prehistory kept growing and growing. It was obviously time to rewrite. But I noticed a curious thing as I cut and pasted in the early 1990's -- and in the middle 1990's and again last year. The themes and values in women's writing that I had discussed in my first draft had become utterly compelling to me, and the ''brilliance'' of the post-modernists seemed no longer demanding and insightful but tedious and self-indulgent in the extreme. This wasn't the result of a sudden conversion to feminism on my part; it was an esthetic and even an economic response. I could no longer see why I needed to process 700-plus pages of esoteric ''in'' jokes in order to see the meaninglessness of modern experience yet again. Authorial generosity and proportion seemed much more valuable than uncompromising irony, and I yearned for fineness of touch -- beauty -- with the hunger of a starving person. I don't think I am alone here. As a judge for the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1997, I found especially revealing the debate over Don DeLillo's brilliant ''Underworld,'' which did not win the prize. The novel opens with 60 pages of as glorious prose as may be found in any recent fiction. With its waste-manager protagonist, ''Underworld'' fits in a direct line from ''The Waste Land'' (and ultimately Dickens's ''Our Mutual Friend'') to the W.A.S.T.E. communications system in Pynchon's ''Crying of Lot |
1144018_0 | Q. & A. | Landlord's Liability in Dog Attack Q. I live in a luxury high-rise rental building on the Upper West Side. Recently, a family moved in with two vicious dogs, one a pit bull. On several occasions, these dogs have tried to attack my dog in the lobby, only to be restrained with difficulty by their owner's housekeeper. What is my landlord's responsibility with regard to protecting tenants and their pets from these two dangerous animals? . . . Steve Forrest, Manhattan. A. Thomas Higgins, a Manhattan real estate lawyer, said that under certain circumstances a landlord may be held liable for injuries caused by an animal in the building. ''The legal standard is pretty clear,'' Mr. Higgins said, explaining that for a landlord to be held liable it must be shown that the landlord ''knew or should have known'' that a particular animal had ''vicious propensities'' and that the landlord had the power to ''remove or otherwise confine'' the animal. He said that an animal with ''vicious propensities'' has been defined by the courts as one with a ''natural inclination or habitual tendency to act in a manner that might endanger the person or property of another.'' ''That means that prior attacks, bites and even barking viciously could be considered evidence of vicious propensities in a dog,'' Mr. Higgins said. He said, however, that the mere fact that the dog in question is a pit bull would not by itself create a presumption that the dog is vicious. ''At least one judge has held that a pit bull is not inherently dangerous simply because it's a pit bull,'' Mr. Higgins said. ''So, in order to establish liability on the part of the landlord, you always have to prove that the particular dog in question had vicious propensities.'' Moreover, Mr. Higgins said, even if the landlord was aware that a particular dog was vicious -- but had no legal right or ability to require the removal or confinement of the animal -- the viciousness alone would not be enough to hold the landlord liable for damages caused by the dog. Rules for Installing An In-Ground Pool Q. I am buying a house on two-thirds of an acre of land in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. I plan to build an in-ground swimming pool in the backyard. Must I hire an architect to design plans for the pool? Does the building code |
1146078_0 | October 10-16; A Bird's Eye View, for a Price | Backyard sun bathers and lovers on the beach have nothing to fear. The resolution of the world's first private spy camera, now orbiting 400 miles overhead, is insufficiently sharp to spot individuals. But it can see much else, including buildings, roads, pipelines, bridges, tanks, ships, jets and missiles. Space Imaging Inc., the private company in Thornton, Colo., that built the spacecraft, made public the world's first commercial image from space whose sharpness rivals those of military spies in the sky. A closeup of Washington showed the intersection of 14th and Constitution, cars and buses plainly visible. More orbiting snoops are on the way. Analysts see the development as a boon for geographers and urban planners and a potential nightmare for states and people with something to hide. WILLIAM J. BROAD |
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1145822_10 | Terra Incognita | is a clue that science needs to start over again from scratch and carve up the world in a whole new way. ''The physical structure of the world -- the exact distribution of particles, fields and forces in space-time -- is logically consistent with the absence of consciousness,'' he recently wrote, ''so the presence of consciousness is a further fact about our world.'' Science has been treating consciousness as something secondary, to be explained in terms of existing concepts. Chalmers believes it will be necessary to admit consciousness into science as an irreducible thing-in-itself, along with matter, energy, space and time. Then perhaps we will truly understand the universe. It seems absurd to think that this newfound quality would happen to reside only in human heads. So Chalmers has joined a handful of philosophers who reluctantly entertain the possibility that what we call consciousness might somehow pervade the material world. This notion, panpsychism (''mind everywhere''), is not so different from what the Anasazi believed -- that everything is full of spirits. And so we return, full circle, to the philosophy of Yapashi. The idea seems crazy. But so, a century ago, did the notion that a lump of seemingly inert matter holds vast amounts of energy -- the discovery that put Los Alamos on the map and almost erased Hiroshima. The modern Pueblo Indians, who trace their ancestry to Yapashi and other nearby ruins, teach that northern New Mexico is the center of the universe. Four sacred mountains, one for each direction, mark the boundaries of this mythological world. But the cosmologists, at Los Alamos and elsewhere, say there is no center. The universe, as Freeman Dyson put it, is infinite in all directions. As I look one last time at the mountainous panorama, it's easy to understand the pueblo view. The center is right here where I am standing, at the focus of my awareness. In trying to make sense of the world, we fight to overcome such parochial feelings. But future archeologists -- if they are able to decipher the scratchings we leave in our books and on our computer disks -- will probably understand, and maybe even improve upon our confusion. George Johnson is the author of ''Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith and the Search for Order.'' His book ''Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics'' will be published this month by Knopf. |
1146145_0 | Population Growth Is Our Problem, Too | To the Editor: The world's population growth has indeed slowed (editorial, Oct. 13), but the projected population of nearly 9 billion by 2050 is nothing to cheer about. The earth is experiencing the largest species extinction since that of the dinosaurs, mostly the result of human population pressures. According to the National Wildlife Federation, we will soon be losing 50,000 species a year. Global warming, directly linked to population growth, may eliminate even more species, including polar bears and penguins. Hardly the world we should bequeath to our children! And while the media portray overpopulation as a problem of the developing world, it is in fact the United States that is today the world's third most populous country and the sixth fastest growing, the result of the rising number of births and the highest rate of immigration in our history. It behooves us to lead by example and slow our out-of-control growth. KATE BURNETT Los Alamos, N.M., Oct. 14, 1999 |
1148106_3 | You've Got Mail, Indeed | the United States Navy and Western Union. ''Americans receive more unsolicited mail than any other people in the world,'' Mr. Baer said. ''They're jaded. They lack the time and patience and inclination to go through mail they didn't ask for. ''So to get them to open a piece of mail, we have to take our efforts to a whole new level of relevancy,'' he added, ''because with all the clutter, people will focus only on what they consider most relevant to them.'' To make direct mail more relevant -- and thus more effective -- advertisers and agencies are intensifying their efforts to customize the pitches they send consumers. The aim: to deliver pleas as personalized and tailored as possible to appeal to the intended recipients and minimize the anger generated by receiving unwanted, unneeded communication. That is, obviously, also the goal of Internet marketing, which many experts describe as an updated, high-technology version of direct mail. ''The common phrase we're hearing is that the Internet is 'direct marketing on steroids,' '' said H. Robert Wientzen, president of the Direct Marketing Association, which is based in New York. ''The Internet allows targeting in a more efficient way,'' he added, ''but ink on paper still provides a sensory experience and still does a good job.'' ''The secret is to build a relationship by providing people with relevant information,'' said Mr. Wientzen, who is in Toronto this week at the association's 82d annual conference, which 15,000 people are expected to attend. ''The fact we're growing at more than twice the rate of retail sales says the consumer appreciates the efficiency and convenience of shopping at a distance.'' The computer technology that makes the Internet possible is also helping direct marketers in their quest for the grail of relevancy by making it easier than ever to compile extensive information about consumers before any mail is sent. '' 'Data mining' is the term -- collecting, over time, information that allows you to figure out what people want and like and do,'' Mr. Wientzen said. ''Our path in the information age is finding the ability to market to niches, which was never economically feasible before.'' The data miners gather their information from the consumers themselves, poring over records of what was already bought and ordered: how recently, how frequently, how much was spent. ''Watch what happens when you can accurately match an E-mail address to a |
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