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905034_1 | bulldozers. Volunteers from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance have set out to visit and document these byways, mile by mile, as a step toward legally challenging the claims and preserving the wilderness potential. Earlier this month in Arch Canyon, near the town of Blanding, one such road lay invisible, if indeed it could be said to exist at all, beneath two feet of snow. The trailhead was two miles beyond the paved highway, an hour's hike up a graded but unplowed road that rose through pinon and juniper and big cottonwood trees. Where the graded road ended, a slender, rough track continued, crossing a frozen stream and disappearing around a bend, beyond the remnants of ancient Anasazi cliff dwellings and up the rugged canyon. The Wilderness Alliance, which for years has been pressing an ambitious proposal to preserve the canyons, wants thousands of acres in these parts to be set aside. But in the summer, this canyon is a playground for four-wheel-drive and all-terrain vehicles that can penetrate for miles up the canyon. And if the definition of a road includes anyplace an off-road vehicle has left its mark, then, the local government says, this canyon's rough-hewn bottom is a bona fide county right of way and its existence precludes making Arch Canyon and its surroundings part of a wilderness, where machines would be forbidden. Even more striking was another trail that off-road vehicles sometimes climb, up a steep gorge carved by the Colorado River in Moab, just outside Arches National Park. The only things that marked this perilous hard-rock track were the scars from spinning rubber and the stains of oil that had bled from the lacerated underbellies of the vehicles. ''If this is a road, then the only wilderness we would be left with would have to be surrounded entirely by cliffs,'' said Scott Groene, issues director for the wilderness group. But his view seems to be held by only a minority in Utah, where about half of the group's roughly 20,000 members live. County governments are opposed to setting aside vast tracts as wilderness, believing that mining, ranching, recreation and other uses of the land are in Utah's best economic interest. The state's delegation in Congress agrees, and along with the counties the lawmakers are taking advantage of peculiar old laws about what qualifies as a road. Back in 1866, Congress passed a law called Revised Statute | In the Utah Wilderness, A Question of Definition |
905090_0 | To the Editor: The conclusions drawn by the panel of experts convened by the National Institutes of Health on guidelines for mammography screening in women between the ages of 40 and 50 are irresponsible (''Mammogram Talks Prove Indefinite,'' front page, Jan. 24). The consensus of no consensus, that ''each woman should decide for herself,'' is not only vague but also defeats the purpose of the conference, which was meant to help health insurance companies set benefits. It is likely that a result of this ambiguity will be an unwillingness by health insurance companies to cover mammography screening for women under 50, period. This can be viewed as tragic, as there is overwhelming scientific evidence indicating the importance of regular mammography screening for women between the ages of 40 and 50. Although the incidence of breast cancer in women between ages 40 and 50 is less than that of women over 50, accounting for one-fourth of the diagnoses of breast cancer each year, the progression of the disease in younger women is more rapid. The panel's statement is supported by questionable arguments. For instance, it expressed concern over the potential for breast cancer development as a result of the radiation from mammography. This argument seems extreme, as most scientists are aware that the carcinogenic potential of irradiation to the breast reaches its peak for women at age 20 and that there are little data signifying hazards to women over 40. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women between the ages of 35 and 54. One would hope that a suggestion from a panel of experts would be more encouraging to physicians and to women to err on the side of caution and to be more concerned with saving lives than with the most cost-effective solution. KARIN G. COIFMAN Assoc. Dir., Maurer Foundation for Breast Health Education Cold Spring Harbor, L.I., Jan. 24, 1997 | Women Benefit From Breast Screening in 40's |
900709_2 | reporting bias because they relied on women to tell the truth about whether they had had an abortion. The studies typically compared the abortion histories of a group of women who had breast cancer with a group of comparable women who did not. The breast cancer victims, as subsequent research showed, were far more apt to admit they had had an abortion, presumably because they wanted to give the doctor all relevant facts that might help in their treatment. The other women were less honest, presumably because they considered the abortion embarrassing. The Danish study got around this inevitable bias by relying on official records rather than the testimony of the women. Abortion has been legal in Denmark since 1973 and mandatory registries are kept of births, cancer cases and abortions. The Danish researchers examined the records for 1.5 million women, of whom 280,000 had had abortions, some more than once. Over all, these women were no more likely to develop breast cancer than women who had never had an abortion. The only uncertainty was a suggestion that women who had abortions in the second or third trimester did have an increased risk of breast cancer, but the number of women in this category was too small to warrant firm conclusions. The Danish work has also been challenged on the ground that even the registry does not fully eliminate bias because women with recent abortions have not had time to develop cancer and older women may have had abortions before the registry started. Further research is needed. But for now, this study shows that women need not shun a first-trimester abortion for fear of developing breast cancer. The other study, involving 249 gulf war veterans, was more suggestive than authoritative. Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center surveyed veterans of a Navy seabees unit about their health, asked them about possible exposures to chemicals, and performed neurological tests on 23 ill veterans and 20 healthy controls. They found subtle differences in neurological function and concluded that some of the impairment may have been related to pesticides, chemical warfare agents or anti-chemical medications. But the small size of this study and the possibility that only the sickest veterans participated undermines its authority. Research on multiple chemical exposures in the gulf war is in the early stages and will require more comprehensive follow-up, perhaps comparable to the Danish abortion study. | Abortion and Gulf War Studies |
900693_2 | valley'' behind. An official estimate for the first four years has put the program's construction costs at $810 million, most of it for the pumping station, which must lift the Nile water as much as 175 feet from the surface of Lake Nasser, the world's largest man-made lake, to the starting point of the canal. The rest of the money will provide for the construction of what may become the world's longest canal, a concrete-lined channel that will cross a moonlike landscape of golden sand and rocky outcroppings before beginning to link the oases far northwest of Toshka to form the New Valley. The Government has said the total cost of the program will be about $2 billion. But the foreign companies that the Government has asked to join in the project have yet to submit bids. Nor has the World Bank completed its assessment. And although only a few will do so for the record, foreign experts and some of Mr. Mubarak's critics at home have questioned the wisdom of trying to create, in effect, a second, miniature Nile. Farouk al-Baz, a prominent Egyptian geologist who teaches at Boston University, has warned that the canal's path across the searing desert could squander water through high rates of evaporation. Some foreign economists have asserted that Egypt's money would be better spent in further efforts to reclaim land along the Nile than in trying to coax greenery from the Western Desert. For the first time since the Aswan Dam was completed in 1970, rainfall this winter in the Ethiopian highlands has filled Lake Nasser to capacity, sending water over a special spillway into the Toshka basin here, some 30 miles north of Abu Simbel, where the temple of Ramses II was relocated in the 1960's to prevent its immersion. The cost of pumping water into the canal will remain low as long as the lake level remains high. But experts say that in the long run, Egypt can ill afford to devote the five million cubic meters a year that the project would consume. By agreement with the Sudan and Ethiopia, through which Nile headwaters run, Egypt is entitled to 55.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water a year. Even without the new canal, it is already using every drop of that and more (last year, recycling permitted the consumption of an extra 7.5 billion cubic meters). This left only a | Nile-in-Miniature Tests Parent's Bounty |
900694_0 | Secretary General Kofi Annan, who took office last week under intense American pressure to reform the United Nations, told the organization's staff today that he planned to decentralize power but not slash jobs. ''Arbitrary staff cuts that weaken essential capabilities'' do not improve the organization, he said. ''Sometimes, it must seem that the United Nations does nothing but reform,'' Mr. Annan told staff members gathered in the General Assembly hall and those watching or listening worldwide. ''What we have to do now is not undertake more half-measures or rush to embrace new changes. We must take stock. We must look at ourselves from top to bottom, so that this time we can use reform as a tool to make this organization more effective and successful.'' Although Mr. Annan, who is from Ghana, has been in office for only a week, he has begun to create an atmosphere that will not only make speaking out easier for officials but will also encourage administrators to deal swiftly with employees against whom serious charges of misconduct have been made. Turning in his speech today to the nearly bankrupt state of the organization, Mr. Annan, who has taken strong positions on the moral obligations of the United Nations, said money cannot be saved at the expense of lives. ''It is not reform, when for lack of funds we have to turn our backs on massacres and suffering and the collapse of civil society,'' Mr. Annan said, a reference to the organization's financial difficulties, caused in large part by members' failures to pay their assessed contributions. The United States is the biggest debtor, owing about $1.3 billion. Officials will watch to see how his approach to change in the organization will play in Washington, where the Clinton Administration wants to show Congress quick results and hard evidence that the United Nations is slimming down under Mr. Annan's leadership. Congress has not only withheld funds, but has also attached certification procedures to disbursements. At the moment, a payment of $100 million, already authorized, is awaiting State Department certification that the United Nations is staying within its no-growth budget. Other money ready for disbursement is being held up by demands that the Administration certify progress in the inspector general's office. Mr. Annan is to visit Washington on Jan. 23 and 24 at the invitation of the White House. On that visit he is expected to address the | New U.N. Chief Promises Reforms but Says He Won't Cut Jobs |
904196_3 | on Feb. 1, say that Congress should restore such benefits for some legal immigrants, particularly those who cannot be expected to work or to become United States citizens because of their age or physical or mental impairments. Republican governors, working with Speaker Newt Gingrich, helped write the welfare bill and lobbied successfully for its passage. ''They had a party position, and they all had to stay with it,'' said Mr. Moynihan, who tried, with limited success, to rouse concern in Albany last year. Another Democrat on Capitol Hill, speaking on the condition that he not be identified, said: ''Republican governors who were clamoring for this bill six months ago are now urging the repeal or softening of some of its biggest money-saving provisions. Where were they last summer?'' In a confidential draft of its new policy, the governors' association expresses concern about the effects of the welfare law on immigrants who were in the United States on Aug. 22, but who cannot meet the citizenship requirements because of age or disability. ''These individuals should not be barred from Federal Supplemental Security Income and food stamps,'' the draft policy says. In the development of domestic social policy, governors have played an influential role in recent years, proposing compromises that appeal to both Congress and the President. The new draft policy on welfare represents a significant change from the careful neutrality of the governors' last statement, in February 1996, which neither endorsed nor opposed the restrictions on benefits for immigrants. Had the governors spoken out last year, they might have dissuaded Congress from imposing some of the restrictions on benefits for immigrants. Jerry W. Friedman, Assistant Secretary of Social and Health Services in Washington State, said: ''Most of the welfare reform debate focused on work and employment and training opportunities. Denying services to legal immigrants was just not part of the mainstream debate.'' Likewise, Gary K. Weeks, director of the Oregon Department of Human Resources, said: ''The pressure to move a welfare bill through Congress as quickly as possible caused us not to look at the impact and consequences of these provisions as deeply as we might otherwise have.'' But now, said Gary J. Stangler, director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, ''the reality has begun to set in'' as governors realize that they will lose large amounts of Federal aid for immigrants. In addition, state officials have discovered that they | G.O.P. Governors Seek to Restore Immigrant Aid |
904166_2 | one of confrontation to conciliation. Herve de Charette, the French Foreign Minister, this week described the bid for Naples as a ''proposition'' rather than a ''demand.'' In an interview published Thursday by The Financial Times, he said, ''If we succeed, I don't see the French staging a celebration on the Champs Elysees, any more than, if we fail, they are going to march on the Bastille.'' An official close to Mr. Chirac said tonight that his national security adviser, Jean-David Levitte, was in Washington consulting with the Clinton Administration on the issue. Mr. Chirac, the official said, was sticking by his position that, if France was not satisfied on the Naples issue, it would not rejoin the NATO military command structure it pulled out of in 1966, despite a pledge a year ago to do so. An American diplomat in Brussels said, ''They are really holding the line on the Naples issue, but they've started a charm offensive.'' Mr. Chirac's aides said he looked forward to receiving the new Secretary of State, Madeleine K. Albright, in the Elysee Palace when she makes her first European trip, probably next month. The French hope that her trip re-establishes cordial relations that had soured in her predecessor's final months in office. A NATO official said that the allies would soon have to decide whether to proceed with the reorganization without the French if the Naples issue is not quickly resolved. The prevailing American view is that the French got themselves into trouble by making a patently unacceptable demand, one that the new Defense Secretary, William S. Cohen, again rejected in his confirmation hearings this week. Mr. Chirac's decision to resume nuclear testing to modernize the French deterrent caused a world outcry in 1995, but before he ended the testing permanently a year ago, his Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, made a gesture to Germany by offering ''concerted deterrence'' with France's European allies. Germany forswore nuclear weapons of its own after World War II, but, according to a recent book by Alain Peyrefitte, spokesman for the late President Charles de Gaulle, it reached a secret agreement with a French Government of the 1950's to produce atomic arms jointly. De Gaulle told Mr. Peyrefitte that he rescinded the accord when he became President in 1958. More recently, Germany has had practical joint control with the United States over the American nuclear weapons stationed on its soil. | France and Germany to Discuss Joint Nuclear Deterrent |
904194_1 | clear strategies for teaching children who struggle to read -- and a cautionary tale for schools that would mainstream learning-impaired children without making careful plans for their instruction. Ten years ago, Congress directed the N.I.H. to increase its understanding of learning disabilities and how reading develops. The agency financed a series of studies that have followed about 2,500 young children, some of them for as long as 14 years. The studies, which employ brain imaging and other techniques, are conducted at several universities. The data show that a startling one in five American children have what the research director, G. Reid Lyon, terms ''substantial difficulty'' learning to read. Contradicting a common stereotype, girls and boys were equally affected. Reading problems are just as common among children of above-average intelligence as among those who are slower. Impairment is found almost as often in children who grew up being read to as in those who grew up without a book in sight. Reading-impaired children are considerably more likely to drop out of school. Of those who graduate, fewer than 2 percent attend a four-year college. The symptoms are varied. Some children labor over words, sounding out syllables and mispronouncing them. Others say the words easily but fail to comprehend them. N.I.H. researchers say the problem lies in the parts of the brain that process the written word. For many children the disorder is hereditary. For others the problem is insufficient exposure to language and reading. Nevertheless, about 96 percent improve after intensive help. American educators recently engaged in a bitter and spurious debate about the relative merits of the ''whole-language'' approach, which often immerses children in literature at the expense of phonetic drill and practice, and the phonics approach, which provides drill and practice in phonetics and grammar. But the N.I.H. has concluded that both literature and phonics practice are necessary, for impaired and unimpaired children alike. The phonics component is vital for the 40 percent of children for whom word recognition is difficult. These findings underscore the need to do a better job of training teachers. The N.I.H. researchers found that fewer than 10 percent of teachers actually know how to teach reading to children who don't get it automatically. This should shock everyone, from the President and Congress to the local school board. The country will need to do better if its children are to have any chance at all. | Teaching Johnny to Read |
902599_0 | THIS WEEK | Crazy Critters |
901482_3 | protectively destroying suspect vehicles with explosions that boomed across the city. Most of the calls proved to be hoaxes, intended, the police say, to terrorize civilians and emphasize that the I.R.A. is still able to place bombs where and when it pleases. Catholic nationalists, who want closer ties with the Irish Republic, as well as Protestant unionists, who want to remain part of Britain, have condemned the attacks. ''We don't want to go back to the dark days again,'' said Jim Rodgers, a unionist city council member. ''It's like the bad old days again,'' said David Davin-Power, the chief correspondent here for Dublin-based Irish national radio and television. People here say they feel that a new crisis is building that could further impede the peace talks that began here in June and that are to resume on Monday. The talks have been in check because the I.R.A. ended its 17-month cease-fire last February with a series of attacks in England and Northern Ireland. Britain and Ireland have said Sinn Fein cannot attend the talks until the I.R.A. resumes its cease-fire, and Britain says there would have to be a waiting period to determine whether the I.R.A. intends to quit violence forever. The I.R.A. indicates that it will not restore the cease-fire unless it is guaranteed that the move would result in the immediate inclusion of Sinn Fein in the talks. There is little expectation that this circle can be squared until after British parliamentary elections, which must take place before June. Until then, the best that officials say they can expect would be that the violence would get no worse. John Hume, the leader of the mainstream, predominantly Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party, notes that in the I.R.A. policy statement there is a promise to cooperate in a ''meaningful process.'' But most experts say the statement is another way of saying Sinn Fein must be allowed into the talks immediately, without conditions. ''I can see the logic in the Republican position,'' said Paul Arthur, a political science professor at Ulster University. ''In their low-intensity war the I.R.A. is using violence to communicate, to say we haven't gone away -- we can switch it on and off. ''This keeps the activists relatively happy and united. But this is dangerous. One operation goes wrong and leads to an atrocity, killing civilians, and the whole thing spins out of control.'' Belfast Journal | 'Like the Bad Old Days' as Fright Revisits Ulster |
901502_2 | - Skylab in the 1970's, the Salyut series in the 70's and 80's, Mir since 1986 - but a giant permanently manned station enscounced in a superstable orbit is still decades away at best. As for the moon, there are no active proposals for colonization or manned visits of any kind. Both NASA and the Russian space program have reoriented themselves toward much cheaper unmanned probes for planetary exploration. Manned trips to Mars survive as a subject of discussion but little more. None of this contraction is born of technological limits; the means exist or could readily be developed to do nearly everything in space that the film imagined. Scarce resources and the uncertainty of material reward are the limiting factors: Space is no longer a frontier to be explored just because it is there. SPACE-BASED BUSINESS THE VISION *A Pan American passenger space shuttle, complete with a flight attendant who retrieves a pen floating weightlessly away from a snoozing passenger. THE REALITY Pan Am itself, which had playfully accepted reservations for its first commercial flight to the moon before and during the film's theatrical run, ran into earth-bound trouble and sank into bankruptcy in 1991. The 93,001 moon flight reservation cards received before the list was closed in 1972 were bought, along with other memorabilia, at the airline's bankruptcy auction by a group of exemployees who want to open a museum dedicated to the line's glory days. A new, more modest airline now flying under the Pan Am name has no present plans for moon flights. Dreams of commercial ventures like moon-based mining and manufacturing have given way to more practical but still speculative ideas about using the weightlessness of orbit for tasks like growing crystals that cannot be made on earth. PICTUREPHONES THE VISION Audio-only telephones replaced by two-way audio-and-video calling THE REALITY Picturephones are the very model of a technology-driven future vision that came to nothing. Early prototypes were demonstrated at the 1963-64 World's Fair. It took another two decades and the development of digital signal processing to make them practical. But AT&T and other developers have yet to find a way to make the public want them. There is one narrow application where picturephones of a sort have caught on: Businesses use video teleconferencing to cut the cost and inefficiency of constant travel to meetings. A video link between two fixed points used for showing one | 'I Have the Greatest Enthusiasm for the Mission' |
901545_1 | fixed sum, based on the statewide average. The cost ceiling may be necessary. But New York and other states need to bear in mind that some of the surge in learning-disabled children is genuine -- the result of broad social trends, among them teaching techniques that make it difficult for disabled children to learn in mainstream classrooms. Federal law mandates special education for children with a host of physical and psychological disabilities, like dyslexia, speech and hearing impairment. The Government also lists an oddly named category called ''specific learning disability,'' defined as ''a disorder of one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding language or in using language.'' The broadness of that description allows many districts to cram special education classes with students who are disciplinary problems or slow learners. This trend toward warehousing accelerated as budget cuts stripped away teaching assistants, counselors and special instructors who once kept problem children on track. In New York City, under 10 percent of students are classified disabled, slightly under the statewide average of 11 percent. But more than 100 districts statewide exceed 15 percent, with many approaching 20 percent. The numbers are alarming because students who enter special education rarely graduate from high school. Learning disability experts agree that many districts are guilty of over-referral. But many of the same experts argue that the increase in the learning-disabled population also has real antecedents. Middle-class mothers who once spent much of the day reading to and socializing with their children now work outside the home. Teen-age mothers who stay at home often lack the education or interest needed to prepare children for learning. Disorganized schools, poorly equipped classrooms, unqualified teachers and other conditions that hurt unimpaired children are devastating to children with learning difficulties. Some educators argue that children who have difficulty learning are ''curriculum disabled'' by teaching strategies that promote vague goals like self-esteem over traditional skills. One spokeswoman for this view is Phyllis Bertin, director of education at the Windward School in White Plains, N.Y., a private school for the learning disabled. Windward succeeds with students who performed poorly in public schools. It renovates their reading skills and then sends them back. Ms. Bertin and her colleagues are incensed by the ''whole language'' system of reading that swept America during the 1980's. The approach, they say, often forsakes phonics, grammar and the drill-and-practice many children need to become | Betrayed in the Classroom |
901647_0 | To the Editor: In his Jan. 12 Op-Ed article, Conor Cruise O'Brien missed the point regarding the peace process in Ireland. The peace process is not disintegrating; it is already dead. And the British Government, not the Irish Republican Army, killed it. There was a legitimate peace process going on in Ireland for 17 months. The cease-fires called by loyalist and republican paramilitary organizations represented the best chance for ending a centuries-old conflict. The Government of Ireland, a nation where Mr. O'Brien served as a government minister, joined with the United States in bringing forward the opportunities offered by the initiative led by John Hume, the Social Democratic and Labor Party leader, and Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. Britain rejected those opportunities. The British Government did nothing to help bring the conflict to a point where meaningful discussions could take place. Instead, it continually changed the conditions for Sinn Fein's entrance into the talks led by former Senator George J. Mitchell, while doing nothing to create an environment that supported resolution. Now that same Government rings its hands in mock concern. Mr. O'Brien is correct in stating that the Irish Republican Army cease-fire was declared complete, not permanent. If it was permanent, there would be no need for peace talks, because a surrender would eliminate the necessity for further talks. Weapons still reside in the hands of the British forces and loyalist paramilitary, too, not just the republican paramilitary, as Mr. O'Brien mentions. The presence of 20,000 British combat soldiers in the northeast section of Ireland does not constitute an opportunity for peace. Britain did not use the cease-fire to recall these troops. Now it says that bombings, killings and death threats against nationalists by loyalist paramilitaries do not constitute a breaking of the cease-fire of the Combined Loyalist Military Command, the Protestant paramilitary umbrella group. This illogical thinking not only squandered the peace process, but also got Ireland into this war that still exists after more than 800 years of British repression. DENNIS M. PREBENSEN Stratford, Conn., Jan. 13, 1997 | Irish Peace Process Is Dead, Thanks to Britain |
901668_1 | end British sovereignty in predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland. ''More people are lifting the telephone,'' said an official in the Northern Ireland Office, which administers the province. ''They are voting with their fingers. They've prevented quite a lot of nasty incidents. There is a tide running against the terrorists.'' The officials pointed to the public warning to informers issued over the weekend by the I.R.A., which acknowledged that informing was on the rise and threatened that its Belfast Brigade would ''take action against anyone placing the lives of our volunteers in danger.'' Politicians, experts and ordinary Catholic residents of Belfast said the reason for the rise is the I.R.A.'s resumption of its campaign of violence in Northern Ireland, where people had enjoyed peace for more than two years after the I.R.A. and Protestant paramilitaries declared cease-fires in 1994. The I.R.A. broke its 17-month cease-fire last February with a series of bomb attacks in England. But the increase in informers did not begin until the outlawed guerrilla organization began to attack again last autumn in Northern Ireland. In October there was an I.R.A. bomb attack on the British Army headquarters at Lisburn, 10 miles south of Belfast, which killed one army officer and wounded 30 people, some of them civilians. But on New Year's Eve a planned bombing, with a van holding 1,000 pounds of explosives, of Belfast Castle, a restaurant and meeting hall run by the City Council, was aborted, the police said, when they were called by an informer. In recent weeks, other attacks have been prevented by informers calling the special telephone number that is painted on the ubiquitous police Land Rovers that patrol the city. On Friday the I.R.A. tied up traffic in Belfast with about 20 hoax bomb warnings that kept the police and army troops rushing around. None of the vehicles indicated by the hoaxers turned out to contain explosives, suggesting that the guerrillas were responding to decreasing support among Catholics here. One Catholic resident said it was no secret in Catholic nationalist areas that many Catholics who once connived at I.R.A. violence were turning against it. The resident said people in Catholic neighborhoods usually knew the local I.R.A. operatives, and sometimes watched them load cars with weapons. Some Catholics, the resident said, have begun not only to inform on the Provies, as they are called, but to upbraid them in street encounters, saying things like | As More Catholics Turn Against I.R.A., the Number of Police Informers Rises |
904389_2 | contain the following features: Theme Cover: Each monthly cover will show a typical moment of drama in suburban life, such as trying to push a loaded three-wheeled supermarket cart across the ice on a half-plowed parking lot, or putting out the weekly recycling in a thunderstorm. Our models will eschew fake glamour. They will be ordinary suburbanites in their ordinary clothes. (See Fashion Pages below). Our Homes will be a section about suburban homes and home design. It will feature in rotation the four basic suburban home designs, interviews with developers and the men who hammer on the sheetrock. Each month Our Homes will deal with a current controversy. For example: should you clean out the garage and put the car in, even if it means having the whole lawn covered in junk? Or should you keep the garage shut and leave the car on the lawn? The Gardening Section will cover such hot issues as the creative use of backhoes and railroad ties, installing outdoor colored lights, and the basics of CPR. Each month, some aspect of gardening esthetics will be examined, such as how to arrange decorative objects like abandoned refigerators and plastic toys. Adventures in Lawn Care will be a regular column by our very own lawn care professional. Our Landscape: The center spread will be a picture postcard display of one suburban landscape. Each month we will focus on a different theme: malls, parking lots, quick lube establishments, new developments, highway exits and so on. History and Tradition: So we don't forget our roots, Suburban Life will feature the heroic odyssey of our ancestors from Brooklyn and Queens, celebrate the life and achievements of William Levitt and explain why ''Colonial'' and ''Victorian'' mean something different in the suburbs from what they did in history class. The Fashion Pages: An exciting collage of the latest in blue jeans, sneakers, baseball caps and ski jackets. What to wear to King Kullen, the post office, or the mall, and how to add drama to that tired old wardrobe by creative layering. The Social Pages: Valuable advice about how to behave and dress for the Multiplex. Stylish singles bars and keg parties everyone wants to be seen at. How to avoid a failure of good manners in public places (special interviews with Suffolk and Nassau County police officers). The Sporting Life: Our guide to the best TV channels, with controversial | A Magazine for All Long Island |
904358_1 | even heard of it.'' He learned of it a few years ago while reading a wheelchair magazine. ''I saw a picture of a sled,'' he recalled. ''And I decided to get one. My first came from Canada. My second from Minnesota.'' On Long Island there was no team to play with, let alone compete against. ''Everybody knows about wheelchair basketball,'' he said. ''But few know about sled hockey. So I decided I'd skate by myself. At first no rink would let me on during the public sessions. They were afraid people would fall over me. Then they saw me skate and realized I could move better than a lot of the people out there.'' Now it is hard to get him off the ice. A marketing and job-counseling specialist at the National Center for Disability Services in Albertson, Mr. Fitzgerald practices on his lunch hours. ''The center is really good about letting me take my breaks together,'' he said. ''And the rink is really good about giving me the time. I skate about six to eight hours a week.'' He also skates with a disabled children's team. ''They were the only team I could find,'' he said. He later found another adult, Victor Calise of Ozone Park, who was paralyzed two years ago after a motorbike accident. They train together, and both are on the national team. ''But we are the only New Yorkers,'' Mr. Calise said. ''We have to go to Wisconsin next week to play a game.'' ''We would love to find more Long Islanders,'' Mr. Fitzgerald said. ''Anyone who is interested should call me at the center at 747-5400.'' The rules of sled hockey, he said, are the same as the National Hockey League's. ''Except there's no tripping,'' he said. Full contact is allowed, ''but you rarely see a fight. The only thing we have left is the use of our arms. If we break one of them we're out of action for months. Looking like kayakers on ice, Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Calise practiced their skating. Watching was Jennifer McGarry, 20, of Valley Stream, who was holding onto the boards as she tottered along. ''They're pretty talented,'' she said. ''The way they uses their arms.'' ''A lot of people are amazed when they see us,'' Mr. Calise said. ''Sometimes people surround us,'' Mr. Fitzgerald added. ''On Long Island we're like the pied pipers of the ice | LONG ISLAND JOURNAL |
904356_3 | meeting'') has given de Waal's work an impact outside his specialty, from Congress (where Newt Gingrich included de Waal's first book, ''Chimpanzee Politics,'' on the reading list he gave Republican freshmen in 1994) to psychology and psychiatry. His semipopular books marry data and speculation to compelling narratives about striking animal personalities. At the same time, the fundamental premise of de Waal's work - that what animals do can explain what humans do - remains a subject of bitter dispute. For example, at a 1992 meeting, Frederick K. Goodwin, then head of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration, noted that half of all male monkeys die violently before adulthood and said, ''That is the natural way of it for males, to knock each other off.'' A few moments later he added, ''Maybe it isn't just the careless use of the word when people call certain inner cities jungles.'' Goodwin was quickly attacked by the Congressional Black Caucus and other politicans and resigned. It wasn't just the racist connotation you could see in the remark that sank him, but also the suggestion that human behavior could be explained by animals' conduct. Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative John D. Dingell released a letter that said, ''Primate research is a preposterous basis for discussing the crime and violence that plagues our country today.'' Many cultural critics would agree. After all, what past generations have seen as natural - second-class status for women, racist societies - has turned out in retrospect to be a projection onto nature of what those societies believed. In ''Primate Visions,'' a book about the science and culture of primatology, Donna Haraway, a professor in the University of California at Santa Cruz's history of consciousness department, calls de Waal's portraits of chimpanzees a product of his time. He has depicted, she writes, a world where 'primates became model yuppies.'' Clever-sounding point, de Waal replies, but it depends on the notion that we can't know anything about animals except our own preconceptions. A good experiment can show that animal relationships are real, not just a projection of the researcher's psyche. For instance, in a series of experiments in 1995, de Waal and his students would put two capuchin monkeys (a species that primatologists sometimes call South America's version of the Chimpanzee) into separate test chambers side by side, with only mesh between them. They'd then give one animal a bowl | Are Apes Naughty by Nature |
904648_1 | by each passenger on domestic flights, and how often a bag misses the passenger's flight or vice versa. Bag matching assures that no one can check a bag without boarding a flight. The airlines say that requiring bag-matching at busy hub airports would cause chaos. But members of the commission are divided about what decision to make given the lack of evidence. Some want to recommend full bag matching, and others are skeptical that bombs in checked bags are much of a threat to domestic aviation. Bag matching is already required on international flights, but not domestic ones. Brian M. Jenkins, a terrorism expert who has presided over some of the meetings, said the commission's task was to recommend a package of imperfect technologies and techniques, including bag matching, profiling of passengers and screening for explosives. Taken together, these would make putting a bomb on a plane more difficult. ''Some recommendations are going to be very precise and very complete. Some may say, 'Look, we know this is the right direction, we know this is the goal we want to get to, we have a sense of some options on how to get there, in terms of technolgoy, financing, organization and so on, but we cannot in the time we have sort it all out.' '' When the commission was established, a few days after a Paris-bound Trans World Airlines flight exploded off Long Island last July 17, killing 230 people, it was presumed that the jetliner had been bombed. But investigators now say there is a conspicuous lack of evidence for that theory. The commission is considering making recommendations on various issues besides security, including air traffic control equipment and aging jetliners. Without the ability to make a strong recommendation on bag matching, the commission's strongest security recommendation may be on forming a profile of passengers to determine which ones should be scrutinized more carefully, a step that civil liberties advocates oppose. Gregory T. Nojeim, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said bag matching was a more effective first line of defense, because ''if you have baggage match the only thing profiling is good for is suicide bombs.'' The commission faces decisions on other issues, including whether airline employees should have to submit to criminal background checks, a step that was on the list of preliminary recommendations in September, and how airmail could be screened for bombs. | Panel on Air Security May End Without Reaching a Consensus |
904352_0 | TOTALITARIAN REGIMES, having a lot to fear from photographers, control what can be seen and shown. Democratic regimes, having a lot to fear from photographers, control what they can, stage-managing public life as a set of photo ops. So what happens to photographers when they suddenly slip out of the net of totalitarianism into the wide sea of democracy? Sometimes they discover that freedom has its own limitations, and sometimes they encounter currents of history that are tricky for anyone to navigate. In 1989, the fall of the Berlin wall abruptly opened Western markets to East German photojournalists who could find a way into them. The East Germans already had talent to spare; what they needed, overnight, were new coping skills. Some photographers who had been secure enough in a narrow life were undone by an excess of opportunity. One group that has succeeded in the brave new world is an agency called Ostkreuz, formed by seven East German photographers after reunification. The radical changes in professional and personal life that swept in threatened more than once to overwhelm them, but they managed to thrive in the jungle of Western commerce largely because they were smart, they were good, and they had a telephone. Other photographers in the East found themselves incommunicado without the perks of modern technology. The outdated East German phone system had a limited number of telephones and lines to the West. When the wall fell, the East was suddenly hot news, but no one could get through. Ostkreuz invested in a radiophone; it rang like a cash register. Then they bought file cabinets for a couple of dollars apiece from the Stasi, the former secret police, and went into business. But Communist states had not trained their citizens to operate in an open market, to compete, to understand credit. Suddenly photographers could have better equipment, decent film (East German color film was so untrue to life that West Germans coveted it for its artistic effects), cars, bigger apartments and ruinous debt. Instantly they needed more assignments. Pooling their varied skills and styles, the Ostkreuz seven all managed to earn a living, which was a miracle then and still is. Sibylle Bergemann and Ute Mahler take portraits, photo essays and fashion pictures. Werner Mahler specializes in semi-abstract, color landscapes, Jens Rotzsch in color images of travel, Thomas Sandberg in serious, rather old-fashioned black-and-white photo essays, Harf Zimmermann | Surviving Freedom After the Wall Came Down |
899418_1 | problem and banned its distribution. Yet some commercial nurseries still sell the plant. The hope is that the feeding of a leaf-eating beetle, galerucella, may mean the demise of loosestrife. Over the past four years, 25 states have cooperated in a beetle release program. According to a recent issue of Hort Impact, a monthly published by the plant science department of the University of Connecticut, 77 sites where loosestrife has run rampant have been identified in the state. The survey encompassed more than 154 acres and the loosestrife populations were concentrated mainly in the watersheds of the Connecticut and Housatonic Rivers. The plant offers no support to wildlife, but rather inhibits their habitat. Donna Ellis, who is the department's state survey coordinator for the Coooperative Agricultural Pest Survey, obtained 2,400 beetles from Cornell University. They were released at Mirror Lake, University of Connecticut, and at Haddam Meadows State Park. It is hoped that the beetles will multiply naturally and, of course, feed voraciously on the purple loosetrife. The beetle's efforts will be monitored for a long period of time, 5 to 10 years to learn if the program is effective. Additional beetles will also be released in new sites in the state. Here's some more good news: Devastation of wild populations of small bulbs in the Mediterranean region has been gradually brought under some degree of control. Residents of these regions have long dug the bulbs as part of their livelihood, sending the bulbs out to wholesalers for export sales. As a result, many of the wild bulb populations have been greatly diminished. The positive news comes from a village in southern Turkey, Dumlugoze. The village, in the Toros Mountains, propagated 50,000 bulbs of snowdrops and winter aconites in local gardens and exported them. The Dumlugoze initiative was reported in a recent issue of Traffic USA, a newsletter of the World Wildlife Fund. The project is part of a program called Indigenous Propagation of Threatened Turkish Bulbs Project, the aim of which is to reduce the pressure of collection on wild bulb populations -- encouraging families instead to cultivate bulbs in their gardens for export. Turkey has long been known to have a rich heritage in flora, and has been attractive to plant collectors and traders for many centuries. As a result, many of the unique and delicate wild bulbs of the region have had a precarious existence. However, according | A New Year's Look at a Little Good News |
899419_1 | problem and banned its distribution. Yet some commercial nurseries still sell the plant. The hope is that the feeding of a leaf-eating beetle, galerucella, may mean the demise of loosestrife. Over the past four years, 25 states have cooperated in a beetle release program. According to a recent issue of Hort Impact, a monthly published by the plant science department of the University of Connecticut, 77 sites where loosestrife has run rampant have been identified in the state. The survey encompassed more than 154 acres and the loosestrife populations were concentrated mainly in the watersheds of the Connecticut and Housatonic Rivers. The plant offers no support to wildlife, but rather inhibits their habitat. Donna Ellis, who is the department's state survey coordinator for the Coooperative Agricultural Pest Survey, obtained 2,400 beetles from Cornell University. They were released at Mirror Lake, University of Connecticut, and at Haddam Meadows State Park. It is hoped that the beetles will multiply naturally and, of course, feed voraciously on the purple loosetrife. The beetle's efforts will be monitored for a long period of time, 5 to 10 years to learn if the program is effective. Additional beetles will also be released in new sites in the state. Here's some more good news: Devastation of wild populations of small bulbs in the Mediterranean region has been gradually brought under some degree of control. Residents of these regions have long dug the bulbs as part of their livelihood, sending the bulbs out to wholesalers for export sales. As a result, many of the wild bulb populations have been greatly diminished. The positive news comes from a village in southern Turkey, Dumlugoze. The village, in the Toros Mountains, propagated 50,000 bulbs of snowdrops and winter aconites in local gardens and exported them. The Dumlugoze initiative was reported in a recent issue of Traffic USA, a newsletter of the World Wildlife Fund. The project is part of a program called Indigenous Propagation of Threatened Turkish Bulbs Project, the aim of which is to reduce the pressure of collection on wild bulb populations -- encouraging families instead to cultivate bulbs in their gardens for export. Turkey has long been known to have a rich heritage in flora, and has been attractive to plant collectors and traders for many centuries. As a result, many of the unique and delicate wild bulbs of the region have had a precarious existence. However, according | A New Year's Look at a Little Good News |
899417_1 | problem and banned its distribution. Yet some commercial nurseries still sell the plant. The hope is that the feeding of a leaf-eating beetle, galerucella, may mean the demise of loosestrife. Over the past four years, 25 states have cooperated in a beetle release program. According to a recent issue of Hort Impact, a monthly published by the plant science department of the University of Connecticut, 77 sites where loosestrife has run rampant have been identified in the state. The survey encompassed more than 154 acres and the loosestrife populations were concentrated mainly in the watersheds of the Connecticut and Housatonic Rivers. The plant offers no support to wildlife, but rather inhibits their habitat. Donna Ellis, who is the department's state survey coordinator for the Coooperative Agricultural Pest Survey, obtained 2,400 beetles from Cornell University. They were released at Mirror Lake, University of Connecticut, and at Haddam Meadows State Park. It is hoped that the beetles will multiply naturally and, of course, feed voraciously on the purple loosetrife. The beetle's efforts will be monitored for a long period of time, 5 to 10 years to learn if the program is effective. Additional beetles will also be released in new sites in the state. Here's some more good news: Devastation of wild populations of small bulbs in the Mediterranean region has been gradually brought under some degree of control. Residents of these regions have long dug the bulbs as part of their livelihood, sending the bulbs out to wholesalers for export sales. As a result, many of the wild bulb populations have been greatly diminished. The positive news comes from a village in southern Turkey, Dumlugoze. The village, in the Toros Mountains, propagated 50,000 bulbs of snowdrops and winter aconites in local gardens and exported them. The Dumlugoze initiative was reported in a recent issue of Traffic USA, a newsletter of the World Wildlife Fund. The project is part of a program called Indigenous Propagation of Threatened Turkish Bulbs Project, the aim of which is to reduce the pressure of collection on wild bulb populations -- encouraging families instead to cultivate bulbs in their gardens for export. Turkey has long been known to have a rich heritage in flora, and has been attractive to plant collectors and traders for many centuries. As a result, many of the unique and delicate wild bulbs of the region have had a precarious existence. However, according | A New Year's Look at a Little Good News |
899716_12 | based on increasingly strong evidence, is that in humans, too, the SCN is one of the major centers where circadian rhythms -- although not sleep itself -- are produced. And yet circadian rhythms, even though they appear to originate in the brain, don't affect the brain alone. Nor do the circadian clocks (there is evidence of at least two) simply switch on at night and off in the day, or vice versa. The body's circadian rhythms are always functioning, but they produce different outputs at different times in a cycle that, left on its own, without light input or behavioral cues, lasts slightly longer than 24 hours. In fact, the very idea of circadian rhythms has the effect of uniting waking and sleeping into a single, carefully equilibrated system, so that it becomes impossible to ask what sleep is for without asking what waking is for. It also becomes impossible to imagine that humans have somehow escaped the evolutionary imperative of their environment. Circadian rhythms attune the human organism to the external environment, but they also coordinate the internal operations of the body. To argue that humans have somehow evolved away from the constraints of their environment ignores the fact that the human body is always to a certain extent producing its environment -- a bodily environment that is extraordinarily stable, as it is in all mammals. IT IS 7:57 A.M. on the Dan Ryan Expressway. A Wednesday. ''I-94 East,'' the signs read, though the lane I'm in, like the neighboring lanes, is bearing due south. Other drivers seem discomfited, but they know exactly how long it's going to take to get where they're going, and I don't. Again and again, I-94 divides into local and express lanes, and that is what time seems to do as morning overcomes Chicago. Every minute splits into local and express, and not a single person in Cook County takes the local. Like flight controllers, the radio traffic-jocks call out coordinates, indecipherable to a visitor. Along the rail platforms, waiting Chicagoans look out across the tumid lanes of I-94. The rain beats down. The wind blows. The towers of downtown Chicago stand entangled in a low ceiling the color of charcoal and pigeon. Darkness is piling up toward winter, the season of long nights, but the city is hardwired into a different kind of time: market time, phone time, Web time, grid time, tube | Awakening to Sleep |
899470_0 | CHICKEN soup may or may not cure the common cold. But just in case there are any doubts about another common assumption, ''It's not what you know, but whom you know,'' a new study could dispel them. Stanford and Columbia universities have just released the results of a two-year study that looked at the hiring practices of 80 Western branches of a large bank -- the name of which was not disclosed -- and found that job applicants who were referred by employees had a big edge in getting interviews and in being offered jobs. During the period of the survey -- January 1993 to March 1995 -- the bank received 5,568 applications to fill 326 entry-level jobs like personal banker, mortgage consultant and teller. Even though only 441, or less than 8 percent, of the applicants were referrals, 351 of them, or 80 percent, were interviewed and they received 115, or 35 percent, of the jobs. The study found that the key difference between applicants with referrals and those without was simple: the former had important information about the bank and the skills it wanted; the latter did not. Roberto Fernandez, an organizational behavior professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business who conducted the study with Kathryn Neckerman, a sociology professor at Columbia, said employees who referred applicants had also advised them about what to emphasize in resumes and when to submit those resumes. ''This shows that having inside information from personal contacts can help guide you through the hiring process,'' Dr. Fernandez said. ''It's like getting married; it's always better to know more information about the person ahead of time.'' Eva Wisnik, president of Wisnik Career Strategies, a career consulting firm in New York, said such information could be vital. ''The person with the best information will have the best job opportunities,'' she said. ''Having this information makes someone sound like an insider even if they're not.'' Preliminary results from the study also showed that employees who had received referrals ultimately proved to be better suited for their positions. For companies, that can mean less turnover and reduced recruiting costs. For employees, referring friends can sometimes lead to cash bonuses. The bank in the study, for example, encourages its employees to make referrals by paying them up to $1,000 if a person they recommend is hired and stays with the bank for at least three months. The Hyatt | In a Job Hunt, It Often Is Whom You Know |
899731_4 | Robinson, from the touring company Hollyford Valley Walk Limited, would be our guide for the first half day. He told us what clothes to bring -- well broken-in boots are essential -- gave us a brief overview of our itinerary, and passed out small backpacks to carry clothes, toiletries and a boxed lunch. The next morning Phil drove us in a small bus to the trail head, about an hour away. On the bus we met the rest of our party, Susan and Brad Foster and their 14-year-old son, Charley, of Memphis. They were experienced backpackers and lively and delightful companions. After stopping for coffee, doughnuts and a few last-minute supplies at Gunn's Camp, owned by the grandson of one of the early settlers of the Hollyford Valley, we shouldered our packs and set off. In a few minutes we were in the depths of what looked like a tropical rain forest. Ferns as tall and thick as trees crowded the edge of the trail. Rata trees with orange blossoms, purple fuchsia and the slender fronds of the rimu, a graceful evergreen, lent an exotic feel to our surroundings. The complex song of the bell bird and the liquid trill of the gray warbler were often heard. We were in a rain forest all right. The average rainfall in Fjordland is about 200 inches a year. While we were on the trail -- in early fall in that part of the world -- we were fortunate to enjoy clear skies and bright sunshine. But every few hundred yards, we crossed a wooden bridge over a small stream. At many points, a narrow suspension bridge, suitable for one person clinging to the side cables, traversed a broad creek. Small waterfalls tumbling down the slopes into the valley were so commonplace that after a while we stopped pausing to admire them. The water is so pure that we were assured it was quite safe to drink. It was cold and delicious. But the forest of the Hollyford Valley is not tropical. At nearly 45 degrees south latitude we were as close to the South Pole as northern Maine is to the North Pole. Had we been in North America the ecological setting would have been boreal forest. The temperatures were in the low 70's. What gives the area its exotic flavor is that much of the flora is found nowhere else on | A Hiking Trip Proves Sweat Free |
902020_1 | sought to mend its strained ties with Jewish groups worldwide. Jean-Pascale Delamuraz, the Minister of Economics, apologized today for his comment last month that Jewish groups had engaged in ''blackmail'' when they demanded that the Swiss set up a fund for Holocaust survivors. Mr. Delamuraz, who was President last month under Switzerland's rotating cabinet system, said in a letter to the World Jewish Congress that he was ''very sorry'' and that he had been misinformed about what Jewish organizations were requesting. The Union Bank of Switzerland flatly denied today that any ''interesting'' documents had been destroyed, saying the historian was ''100 percent confident that none of the materials are related to the Holocaust.'' The company also said that the bank's management had known nothing about the shredding and that the action had nothing to do with the broader controversy over Nazi money. But bank executives were at a loss to explain how the historian, who has not been publicly identified, could have taken the action, particularly given the new law. ''The historian made his judgment that these documents had nothing to do with the present discussion about the Holocaust -- nothing, and that is the point,'' Gertrude Erismann-Peyer, the bank's senior spokeswoman, said in an interview today. Jewish groups here and in the United States asked a series of questions today: Why had the bank begun destroying potentially relevant documents precisely when Swiss banks are under intense pressure worldwide to provide information about their dealings during the Nazi era? Why had the bank chosen this moment to uncover a cache of documents that had laid untouched in a vault ever since 1945? How could the historian have possibly been unaware of the implications of destroying documents? ''The material now under investigation might be of historical interest or it might not, but that is not the point,'' said Werner Rom, head of the Israeli Cultural Center of Zurich. ''The issue is that we have a law that became effective Dec. 13 that prohibits shredding of material that might be relevant. From a moral point of view it is absolutely not understandable that something like this has happened.'' Switzerland's banking industry has been under siege for months now from Jewish groups and from the United States, where Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, Republican of New York, has held hearings that publicized embarrassing information from American Government archives about Swiss dealings during World War | Swiss Bank Cannot Identify Papers in Cache It Shredded |
901945_7 | from catalogues like Neiman Marcus, Miss Vernon says some of them ''remind me of the things you could get in the notions department at B. Altman.'' Gone are the days when Miss Vernon's home would double as a warehouse. She will never forget the shipment of woks from China that she stored in her basement -- until the house was overrun with beetles that had nested in the boxes. David Hochberg is here now, files in hand. Cold air rushes in behind him. ''No coat, David?'' his mother asks. ''I don't wear coats,'' he replies. ''Didn't I buy you a coat, David?'' she persists. Poker-faced, he talks only business. He calls his mother Lillian. ''Who else are our customers, David?'' she asks, after recalling Frank Sinatra's purchases of monogrammed lint removers. The answer is surprising: Arnold Schwarzenegger (plastic shoulder shields for suits), Barbara Bush, Yoko Ono, Billy Idol, Robin Leach, Mia Farrow (children's toys), Princess Caroline of Monaco (a Wild West costume for her daughter) and Steven Spielberg (a tool caddy). Miss Vernon is quick to add that every one of their customers is important, not just the famous ones. ''When someone writes and says, 'This gift is the greatest,' it's like going on the stage and having someone clap their hands for you,'' she says. Of course, sometimes merchandise bombs. Like this season's Leaning Tower of Pisa shaker for grated cheese and a pillow that reads, ''A woman who is looking for a husband has never had one.'' But Miss Vernon is undeterred. ''The world is filled with wonderful things that you can't get to, and our things are from around the world,'' she says. ''When I came to America, I loved Woolworth and the 5-and-10-cent stores. I felt comfortable there. The things they sold were pretty, usable and made you happy. I think what turns me on is the pleasure people get from buying things. ''I also like 'what ifs?' What if we spent $4 million to expand our computer system? What if we offered gift certificates? To me life is a puzzle. At the end of the day all the pieces have to fit.'' Well, sure, it would be nice if they did. But when they don't, then what? She sits straight up on the couch. ''Go back and work hard fitting them again,'' she says. ''At least you're aiming for something.'' AT HOME WITH: Lillian Vernon | Sometimes a Great Notion |
905196_0 | The Central Intelligence Agency taught techniques of mental torture and coercion to at least five Latin American security forces in the early 1980's, but repudiated the interrogation methods in 1985, according to documents and statements the agency made public today. A 1983 C.I.A. manual sought to teach foreign agents ways to extract information from people without extracting fingernails. It advised against physical torture as counterproductive. Instead, it discussed using intense fear, deep exhaustion, solitary confinement, unbearable anxiety, and other forms of psychological duress against a subject as ways of ''destroying his capacity to resist'' his interrogator. ''While we do not stress the use of coercive techniques,'' it said, ''we do want to make you aware of them and the proper way to use them.'' Those techniques were taught in at least five Latin American countries during President Ronald Reagan's first term. Exactly which five is not clear, although the Reagan Administration's anti-Communist covert actions in Central America directly involved security forces in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, and indirectly the armies of Panama and Argentina. The security forces of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala worked in concert with the C.I.A. against Communist guerrillas and suspected leftists during the 1980s's. Those forces killed, imprisoned and tortured thousands of suspected enemies during the last decade of the cold war. The agency's role in training those security forces was discussed in the press and in closed-door Congressional hearings in the mid-1980's. Those discussions helped persuade the C.I.A. to privately rewrite the manual and renounce coercive interrogation techniques in late 1984 and early 1985. At about the same time, in October 1984, the agency was embarrassed by public disclosure of another C.I.A. training manual that advised the Nicaraguan contras on how to kidnap and kill leftist officials, blackmail citizens and destroy villages. The agency said the manual was the work of an ''overzealous freelancer'' on its payroll. The 1983 manual on interrogation and the 1985 prohibition against coercive methods were made public in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Baltimore Sun for a series on the C.I.A.'s relationship with a Honduran military battalion. The C.I.A.'s office of public affairs acknowledged for the first time today the agency's prior teaching and subsequent repudiation of psychological torture. The 1983 manual, under the heading ''Coercive Techniques,'' advised against ''direct physical brutality,'' which it said ''creates only resentment, hostility and further defiance'' in | C.I.A. Taught, Then Dropped, Mental Torture in Latin America |
905165_0 | Just when it may have seemed that all the important risk factors for heart disease had been identified, researchers are puzzling over what appears to be another one: a blood protein that, in some people at least, may indicate that their chances of suffering a heart attack are two or three times the normal rate. The protein appears to mark a particular risk for white men and women under 65. The substance, lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), is a form of low-density lipoprotein, the so-called bad cholesterol, which can be deposited on artery walls and eventually cause heart disease. But the exact role of Lp(a) in the development of heart disease is still unclear, and it is not certain for which people it might be a risk factor. It is also not known what can or should be done to reduce elevated blood levels of Lp(a). However, the association between Lp(a) and heart disease may help to explain why heart attacks occur in some people who have otherwise low cholesterol levels and who have no other major coronary risk factors. In the newest study, conducted among nearly 600 women 65 or younger in Sweden, those with the highest levels of Lp(a) were nearly three times as likely to experience a heart attack or the chest pains of angina as those with the lowest levels. The study, published in the current issue of Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association, found an increased coronary risk associated with high blood levels of Lp(a) in women both before and after menopause. Among the 292 women who had heart attacks or angina, blood levels of Lp(a) averaged 38 percent higher than among 292 healthy women who were otherwise comparable in age and other coronary risk factors, Dr. Kristina Orth-Gomer of the Karolinska Institute and her collaborators reported. Lp(a) levels typically rise after menopause, but not among women who take estrogen replacement therapy, suggesting that estrogen plays an important role in determining Lp(a) levels in women. In a study published last August in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Andrew G. Bostom of Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston and his colleagues linked elevated Lp(a) levels to an increased risk of heart disease in men under age 55. In that study, more than 2,000 men participating in the Framingham Heart Study whose Lp(a) levels had been measured in the early 1970's were followed for | Protein May Be Heart Risk Factor |
903746_3 | had been taken over recently by a Canadian company, Sherritt International. A huge American-made Caterpillar motor sat there, along with several mud pumps that were clearly marked as having been made in the United States, all in Cuba in violation of the economic blockade. Cuba's Vice President, Carlos Lage, seemed to best capsulize the importance of the visit when he said that the presence of the American equipment at a Canadian project in Cuba showed how ineffective the United States blockade had been. ''Canada is showing that it is possible to be a friend of the United States and of Cuba too,'' Mr. Lage said. Canada and the United States have been at odds over Cuba since the first days of the Cuban revolution 38 years ago. Washington has tried to isolate Cuba and Mr. Castro diplomatically, while imposing increasingly economic blockades. Mr. Clinton had shown signs of being willing to negotiate more directly with Cuba until two Cuban MIG's shot down a pair of unarmed civilian planes flown by anti-Castro dissidents from Miami in February 1996. Under pressure from Cuban-Americans, the President then shifted direction and signed the Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to punish foreign business executives, including Canadians, who do business with Cuba. For its part, Canada never severed its diplomatic and commercial ties with the island, arguing that close contact, rather than isolation, would help move Cuba toward democracy. Canada enjoys a substantial and growing trade with Cuba, with Canadian businesses investing in hotels, restaurants and other businesses that have been closed to companies from the United States. Last year, trade between Canada and Cuba exceeded $430 million and was growing by more than 10 percent a year. Canada sends down machinery, wheat and other products and buys lobsters, sugar and nickel from Cuba. Canadians are also among the largest groups of tourists to Cuba, with 156,000 visiting last year, a 10 percent increase over 1995. In addition, Canada provides financial support to several non-governmental organizations in Cuba, including the Centro Felix Varela, which lobbies for sustainable development and homosexual rights, among other issues, but not broader political change. ''If what the U.S. Congress wants is to see changes take place in Cuba -- and we support those changes, but go about it in a different way -- I can't see what they have to complain about,'' Mr. Axworthy said. But Marc Thiessen, a spokesman for Senator | A Top Canadian Visits Cuba, Nettling Washington |
900944_0 | A day after the Irish Republican Army formally declared that it would continue its campaign of violence to end British sovereignty in Northern Ireland, false reports of bombs kept the police busy today cordoning off sections of the city and destroying cars suspected of carrying explosives. In recent weeks, the I.R.A. has made bomb and rocket attacks on the police and British soldiers and has also issued hoax warnings of bombings in downtown Belfast. The recent attacks have stirred anxiety that Protestant paramilitaries, who are still observing their own cease-fire, might retaliate with attacks on Catholic civilians. The I.R.A.'s resumption of violence has hobbled the peace effort that began with talks in June. The I.R.A. statement on Thursday, published in the weekly Republican News, made no mention of renewing the 17-month cease-fire, which the I.R.A. broke 11 months ago. In the statement, the group justified the new violence by saying Prime Minister John Major of Britain had ''strangled'' the opportunity for peace that the cease-fire had provided. World News Briefs | Bomb Hoaxes in Belfast Disrupt the Nervous City |
900824_2 | Jacques Chirac, for the Australian efforts to save sailors in the French-organized race. The gesture came after months of strain between the two countries over French nuclear testing. Australia had been a leading critic of France's six nuclear blasts in French Polynesia from September 1995 to last January. Yet despite the diplomatic dividends, the mounting cost of sea rescues is a growing Australian concern. The opposition Labor Party wants organizers of yacht races to help foot the bills, which in the last two weeks alone have approached $200,000. While also worried about the costs, Government officials insist they have both a moral and legal obligation to help those in distress. ''Whether it's bush fires or cyclones at sea, we just go out and do those things,'' said the Defense Minister, Ian McLachlan. Yet the Government is hoping to work with France on ways to get sponsors of the Vendee Globe and other international yacht races to enforce stricter boat design standards and restrict routes to less dangerous waters than the Screaming Fifties. Those are the far-south latitudes that are the quickest way to sail from the Cape of Good Hope to the Pacific but that are also the home of some of world's stormiest weather and wildest seas. ''Without a review of race routes, Australia could be required to undertake more than its fair share of costly, time-consuming rescue missions,'' said the Minister for Sport, Warwick Smith. The three stricken yachtsmen -- Mr. Bullimore and the two Frenchmen, Thierry Dubois and Raphael Dinelli, all wearing immersion suits of thermal fabric and waterproof material -- were among 17 sailors who left France last Nov. 3. Hit by the same storm, Mr. Dubois and Mr. Bullimore, sailing only 30 miles apart, both set off emergency beacons last Sunday. Mr. Dubois, whose yacht also capsized, was rescued on Thursday by an air force helicopter. Mr. Dinelli sent distress signals on Christmas Day and reached a raft tossed to him by an Air Force Orion only 10 minutes before his boat sank. The Orion radioed Peter Goss, a British competitor, to try to reach Mr. Dinelli. Mr. Goss succeeded and the two sailed into Hobart, Tasmania, early Wednesday. Within 24 hours, Mr. Goss returned to his solo voyage. ''I am very happy in myself,'' he told reporters before hoisting sail. ''I have got lots of tea bags. I'll just go and do it now.'' | Australia Rescues Sailors, But Is Wincing at the Costs |
900823_2 | book ''Cuban Foreign Policy.'' ''But the fact they are talking about compensation at all is a significant concession, and sets a bilateral agenda for opening the door on the issue of claims,'' she added. The Clinton Administration's closest allies and trading partners in Europe and the Western Hemisphere have erected barriers to the American law. On Jan. 1, for instance, legislation went into effect in Canada that would allow Canadians to seek recovery in their courts of any losses they suffer as a result of the American legislation. Most of the provisions of the new Cuban law appear to be tit-for-tat responses to American efforts to weaken the struggling Cuban economy. For instance, the law codifies Cuba's offer to assist foreign companies that wish to camouflage their investments in Cuba to evade American sanctions. In addition, the Justice Ministry is ordered to set up special commissions at which Cuban citizens can bring suit against the United States and Cuban-Americans. These courts would be authorized to hear all claims of ''theft, torture, corruption and murder'' against officials from the era of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista who are now living in the United States. The law also allows Cubans to pursue damage claims stemming from United States military action, American-sponsored ''terrorism'' or Washington's 34-year economic embargo against Cuba. In theory, at least, a Cuban will now be able to sue the United States in a Cuban court for damages said to have been caused by the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, though obviously there is no mechanism by which a verdict could be enforced. ''Many of those provisions are highly propagandistic, intended basically for domestic political consumption,'' said a Latin American diplomat in Havana. But one clause makes it a crime for Cuban citizens to cooperate in any way with news organizations that publish or divulge American Government arguments in favor of Helms-Burton. Another makes it a crime for foreigners, apparently including news reporters, to seek or provide any information, like property registers, that could be useful in carrying out Helms-Burton. ''That's kind of a new twist, and it's something that we are very concerned about,'' said Sarah DeCosse, who monitors the Caribbean for Americas Watch, a Washington-based human rights group. ''I think this kind of repression would undoubtedly create a chilling effect in terms of the willingness of the Cuban people to speak openly and honestly to the press.'' | Cuba Measure Strikes Back At the U.S. |
905337_1 | violence in recent years. ''People's attitudes have hardened, they have polarized,'' Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said in unusually frank remarks on BBC television last Saturday. ''I'm afraid that we are on a sharp downturn at the moment. Because a harder attitude of a sectarian kind is the material, the climate, for the kind of violence that we saw last year.'' Normally, Sir Patrick, who is not running for re-election in the coming British parliamentary election and is in his last months as Secretary, tries to put an optimistic twist on his views. But his remarks on Saturday seemed a downbeat swan song, reflecting the dour state of affairs here. Seven months ago a new round of peace talks began in Belfast, involving all the political parties in the north except Sinn Fein, the I.R.A. political wing. There was widespread hope that the I.R.A. would restore the 17-month cease-fire it broke Feb. 9 with a series of attacks in England and later in Northern Ireland. Such a cease-fire would have opened the way for Sinn Fein to be included in the talks, which are unlikely to produce significant agreement without the I.R.A. representatives at the table. Now, the talks are stalled in anticipation of the British parliamentary elections to be held before the end of May, as Northern Ireland's 13 Protestant and 4 Catholic members of the British Parliament and potential challengers seek political advantage. This makes compromise at the talks risky. The chairman of the talks, former Senator George J. Mitchell of Maine, presided over two days of talks on Monday and Tuesday, then adjourned them for a week when it became clear that the parties were taking even harder lines on basic issues, like how to deal with the issue of disarmament of the overwhelmingly Catholic I.R.A. and the Protestant paramilitary groups that have held to the cease-fire they announced in October 1994. The atmosphere has been roiled in recent days by the province-wide debate on the new book. Mr. Mullan, a former international aid worker who returned from Africa to Londonderry, gathered 700 witness affidavits on Bloody Sunday that had been largely ignored by the British inquiry, headed by Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Widgery, that investigated the killings 25 years ago. The statements support the familiar assertions of Catholic politicians, and ordinary people, that the troops fired at the backs of nonviolent demonstrators | With Talks Fragile, Book Embitters Ulster's Mood |
905310_0 | A DESIGN company was born one morning six years ago when Graham Berg had a flat tire on his bike. ''I changed the inner tube, took the old one home, and used it to hang my speakers,'' he said. ''That led me to play with alternative uses for tubes and other bike parts.'' His company, Resource Revival, in Portland, Ore., collects 3,000 pounds of used bicycle parts a month from 150 shops in 17 states. Parts that can be re-used on bicycles are given to groups that ship them to third-world countries, but pedals, handlebars and the like that are beyond repair find new life as artistic and functional objects, from sconces to coffee tables. ''We're happy, the materials are happy, and the people we collect them for are happy,'' he said. Bicycle wheels and gears can be made into a decorative window grating (left). Mr. Berg will create custom gratings for windows or skylights, or to hang on walls, for a fee of $210 plus $28 a square foot. The chain picture frame, right, is $48. Available from Resource Revival, (503) 226-6001. Currents | Bicycle Parts Are Lovely. Who Knew? |
905317_4 | joining the class, Dr. Dienstag said, ''they did have to have an intact ability to write.'' He added, ''I asked them to write something for me.'' The class now varies in size from three to five members. ''For some people, probably the largest group, the actual ability to write is impaired,'' he explained. ''They might seem verbally intact but if you put a piece of paper in front of them and ask them to write something, they may not be able to do it.'' Another obstacle is that patients' mental abilities will decline over the course of the workshop. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, a gradual but fatal brain disease that afflicts four million Americans. And the writing program will not help stave off the loss of memory, Dr. Dienstag said. The program is scheduled to run for three years -- the length of a $105,000 grant from the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund -- but it is unlikely that any current members will be able to participate that long. The effects of Alzheimer's vary from person to person. The mental and physical deterioration can occur swiftly or over a period of years. Dr. Dienstag said that the first signs are often a loss of short-term memory and the ability to perform complex tasks, like balancing a checkbook. Intellectual functions may falter next and be accompanied by disorientation over things like telling day from night. As the group left a recent meeting, one member could not figure out how to exit a revolving door. All of which makes the sense of accomplishment that the class provides particularly important. It comes at a time when the participants' families and friends -- and perhaps even the participants themselves -- believed they could no longer be productive. But long-term memory -- the sorts of memories the class writes about -- is usually intact until the later stages of the disease. ''I can't write really well, but then we found out we can if we have something to say,'' said Mrs. Mudd, who added that she also finds the camaraderie of the group vital. ''It's wonderful to be with them and hear what they say.'' Indeed, the workshop is as much about providing support as it is about creating beautiful sentences. The discussion starts with the work just read but often moves on to the class members' efforts to deal with their condition. | Writing That Can Strengthen The Fraying Threads of Memory |
898924_0 | To the Editor: I take exception to your report (news article, Dec. 22) on the deforestation of Cambodia's forests as a result of the illegal export of timber. Contrary to your assertions that the Government colluded in such activities, it has taken strong actions against illegal logging by shutting down sawmills, arresting offenders, confiscating thousands of cubic meters of timber and issuing fines in the millions of dollars. To cope with the deforestation, the Cambodian Government approved the Forestry Policy Assessment proposed by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Development Program. The Government also cooperated with neighboring countries to stop illegal logging and timber export along the borders with the aim of protecting the region's common environmental heritage. Cambodia allowed the export of logs felled before April 1995 because of the limited capacity of sawmills to process logs left damaged by tropical weather. The deadline for the cessation of all exportation of logs is Dec. 31, after which such exports will contravene Cambodian law. VAR HUOTH Ambassador of Cambodia Washington, Dec. 30, 1996 | Cambodian Forests |
898956_1 | $43 million this year to beef up its enforcement staff and improve its monitoring technology. Securities regulators are increasingly using technology to their advantage by, for example, setting up World Wide Web sites that make it easy for investors to alert them about suspected fraud. The S.E.C. is getting between 30 and 40 electronic complaints a day, said John Stark, a commission lawyer who specializes in Internet fraud. But the very same technology has also made life harder for securities regulators. Instead of seeking out the handful of sleazy brokerage firms that in the past have been responsible for many manipulation cases (usually of stocks they controlled), regulators are forced to fight the many-headed monster of investor chat rooms and bulletin boards. The Internet has changed the velocity of fraud, said William McLucas, director of enforcement for the S.E.C. ''You can communicate with many, many more people in a direct and anonymous way,'' he said. The S.E.C. brought a number of cases last year involving Internet fraud, most related to fake investment opportunities. And in November the commission halted trading in the stock of Alliance Industries because of questionable material the company was publishing on its Internet site (the investment potential of paulownia trees may have been a bit rosy). Though the trading suspension has expired, Alliance's stock has not resumed trading. A more pernicious problem, regulators and investors say, is the ''pump and dump.'' Traditionally, stock promoters have used newsletters and radio shows to stir up investor enthusiasm and inflate prices; the perpetrators, who usually own shares they got for little or no money, sell them into the rising market. When the scam falls apart, legitimate investors are left holding the worthless shares. The S.E.C. has already prosecuted an Internet newsletter in one such case (involving a stock called Systems of Excellence), but Internet bulletin boards have been particularly prone to pump and dumps, for several reasons. Many people think that the Internet is a friendly community. Most people post messages under assumed names. And many people who communicate over the Internet become excited about new products, but are inexperienced at evaluating managements and do not think to check out executives to see whether they have securities-fraud (or criminal) records. It would be unfair to blame the apparent rise in stock fraud solely on the Internet. A far more important cause, regulators say, is the soaring stock market, which | Crackdown On Fraud Intensifies |
898976_1 | are more vibrant here. The staff is nice. They make you feel like a person again. ''But this is temporary help. The longer we stay here, the more time it will take for us to get the permanent help we need.'' A coalition of clergy members and private citizens opened the church shelter on Friday in response to a Giuliani administration policy to stop offering shelter automatically to people who had ''doubled up'' with friends and relatives. The city said such a living arrangement showed that the people had places to live. So, volunteers with the Sanctuary Coalition of Clergy and Citizens decided to drive a van to the Bronx, passing out fliers and spreading the word that homeless families -- up to 30 people a night -- could stay till Monday in the West End church, on West 105th Street in the Manhattan Valley section, getting advice on how to navigate the city's process. ''It seems in society right now, people have just clasped all people together,'' said the Rev. John Duffell, pastor of the Roman Catholic Church of the Ascension, who is a member of the Sanctuary Coalition. 'They're just homeless. They're not people.' ''And we're trying to say, these are men, women, and children who just have no home right now but deserve the dignity that we afford any human being.'' Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said yesterday that he thought the clergy's effort was beneficial, but added that ''in America there is no city that does more for people that are poor, for people that need housing, for people that are homeless than the city of New York.'' But others said there was still a great need for more. ''The Mayor has been saying that New York does more for the poor than anyone else,'' Father Duffell said. ''But what we're saying is it's not enough.'' The temporary sanctuary is a round in an ongoing debate over the city's homeless policy. The Giuliani administration has said that it is screening out people who have places to stay but who claim to be homeless to get subsidized housing more quickly. But in November, Justice Helen E. Freedman of State Supreme Court in Manhattan barred the city from turning people away at its Emergency Assistance Unit without adequate investigations. Though she did not strike down the policy, her ruling requires the city to prove that those who are rejected | Church Aids Families Refused by City |
900320_4 | just have taken 1,500 weapons out of the long-term arsenal of the former Soviet Union.'' At his Washington speech last month, General Butler was joined on the rostrum by Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, the retired head of the United States European Command. Since then, General Butler said, he has received letters and calls of support from active and retired officers. ''Without exception, the response has been 'right on,' completely supportive,'' said the former commander who carried out staff reductions at what used to be called the Strategic Air Command. But, today, the reception was politely cool in his old command, at the Curtis LeMay Building. Criticism of the nuclear weapons community more commonly comes from disillusioned bomb builders than from disillusioned bomb deliverers. ''We think of ourselves as an insurance policy,'' said Vice Adm. Dennis A. Jones, the deputy commander here. ''Of the defense budget, it is probably less than 4 percent. That is probably about the right amount of money to spend on an insurance policy.'' Since 1990, Admiral Jones said, the United States military budget has shrunk by a third, while spending on nuclear weapons and delivery has shrunk 75 percent to 80 percent. In the underground command center, informational slides show maps with red arcs of rockets flying over the North Pole, from Russia to the United States. Leaving judgments of intent to diplomats and politicians, Admiral Jones said the Russian Strategic Rocket Force was still capable of dropping a missile on his steel-reinforced concrete ceiling. ''Absolutely,'' he said without a flicker of hesitation. ''The Russians acknowledge in the open press and face to face that their ticket to the big time, their ability to sit at the big people's table, rides on the fact that they still have this nuclear capability. And that is, very frankly, their only claim to superpower status.'' After 37 years in uniform, General Butler is careful not to criticize his former colleagues. He agrees that disarmament should be mutual and parallel. But he also argues that new times require new thinking. The impetus for his anti-nuclear sentiments came from watching worldwide protests against France's testing of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific in the fall of 1995. ''Governments lag behind the public in these questions,'' General Butler said of the protests. ''The underlying message was: 'Look, the nuclear era is over. Don't bring it back. Let's get on with it.' '' | Former Cold Warrior Has a New Mission: Nuclear Cuts |
900225_0 | To the Editor: We fail to see the emerging international effort to isolate Cuba that the Clinton Administration reports in announcing its suspension of aspects of the Helms-Burton law that would penalize Canadian and European companies doing business in Cuba (front page, Jan. 4). The country that remains internationally isolated in its policy is the United States, not Cuba. The European Union has appealed to the World Trade Organization in its campaign to derail the Helms-Burton law. Both Canada and Mexico will present a formal complaint against the United States to the organization's dispute panel. The European Union, Canada and Mexico have passed retaliatory legislation should the United States take action against them under Helms-Burton. In December, Cuba was host to the foreign ministers of the 35-member Association of Caribbean States. The United Nations General Assembly voted 96 to 3 last year to condemn the United States law. And with Pope John Paul II scheduled visit to Cuba next year, Cuba faces little risk of becoming isolated. The United States would do well to understand better how other countries view the world if it is serious about joining international efforts. Cuba is a member in good standing of the international community despite 34 years of United States efforts to isolate it. The United States should reappraise its policy of isolating Cuba, which it is no closer to achieving than before. It is time to normalize relations with the island and to respect the sovereignty of a country that poses no threat to its neighbors. MARTHA THOMPSON MINOR SINCLAIR Ottawa, Jan. 5, 1997 The writers are Caribbean regional representatives for Oxfam-Canada. | On Cuba Policy, U.S. Isolates Only Itself |
899864_0 | To the Editor: A Dec. 27 front-page article on Radio Free Asia says our broadcasts are not heard in China. Our signals are tracked daily by unmanned remote monitoring systems in Beijing and Shanghai. Contrary to the diplomats you cite, the existence of the monitors, which are operated by the International Broadcasting Bureau, is not a secret. Monitoring reports available on the I.B.B.'s Web site show that the signal has been rated ''good'' or ''fair'' in Beijing and Shanghai. Transmission to Tibet, begun on Dec. 2, has been rated ''excellent.'' The article also concerns the Chinese journalist Dai Qing, who was interviewed about the Three Gorges Dam project and has said she does not want to do future reports for us. Contrary to your article, R.F.A. is aware of the peril faced by contributors of Chinese origin who dare to question official Chinese policies. In fact, we have encouraged the use of pseudonyms by several such contributors who report from outside China. RICHARD RICHTER President, Radio Free Asia Washington, Dec. 31, 1996 | Radio Free Asia's Signal Reaches the Chinese |
901848_3 | He is credited as a pioneer in understanding the physiology and biochemistry of the male urological and genital tract and for bringing a new level of scientific inquiring to the neglected surgical specialty of urology. Dr. Huggins applied his surgical skills to do what Science magazine called ''an ingenious'' operation on dogs. He used it to do research that improved the understanding of the role of chemicals and hormones on the prostate gland. In 1944, he performed the first complete removal of the adrenal glands as a drastic therapy for advanced cancer. In 1949, Dr. Huggins stumbled. He reported developing a simple blood test to detect cancer in its earliest stages. But the test quickly proved unreliable. In 1950, he turned to breast cancer, advancing findings made in the late 1890's that removal of the ovaries could benefit the course of cancer for some women. In 1951, he showed that breast cancers were also dependent on specific hormones. He showed that when he removed the sources of those hormones, the ovaries and adrenal glands, he could cause substantial regression of advanced breast cancers in 30 percent to 40 percent of treated women. But there was no way to predict which women would benefit from such endocrine surgery. So he urged a colleague, Dr. Elwood V. Jensen, to develop a method to identify the estrogen-receptor content of breast cancers and to use that to predict response to hormone therapy. Now all breast cancers are classified as estrogen-receptor positive or negative, an important guide to prognosis and therapy, and medications like tamoxifen that can block the effects of estrogen have become important tools in treating breast cancer. Dr. Huggins also discovered that a single injection of a chemical could quickly produce breast cancers in certain types of rats. The experimental models are known as ''Huggins tumors.'' In describing the thrill of discovery, Dr. Huggins said: ''That night I walked home, one mile, and I had to sit down two or three times, my heart was pounding so. I thought, this will benefit man forever. A thousand years from now people will be taking this treatment of mine.'' Dr. Huggins is survived by a daughter, Emily Fine, of San Francisco. His wife, Margaret, died in 1983, and a son, Dr. Charles Edward Huggins, who developed a method for freezing and thawing donated blood so it can be stored almost indefinitely, died in 1989. | C. B. Huggins Dies at 95; Won Nobel for Cancer Work |
904807_4 | that even scientists cannot understand it without visualization. Thus, video will be integrated with on-line computing on the new Internet. For example, people can walk around inside visualizations of, say, a molecule in ''the Cave,'' a three-dimensional virtual reality stage invented by Thomas A. DeFanti and Daniel J. Sandin of the University of Illinois at Chicago. ''This is very useful for working in environments you can never actually see'' Professor DeFanti said. Users stand inside a 10-foot-square virtual reality theater while two SG Onyx computers project the model of some complex interrelationships, like those involving a protein's effect on an antibody. With a virtual reality headset, the user sees a three-dimensional image of whatever is being modeled and, using an electronic wand, can manipulate the image, steering the computer's computations. The principle is no different from that behind a product like Lotus Notes, which lets remote users work on the same document simultaneously. But there is a vast difference in scale. The projects now under way include these: * An effort to map changes in vegetation worldwide, which is being run by Joseph F. JaJa, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Maryland and director of its Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. * A model of how pollution control equipment will operate inside steam boilers, with temperatures of 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Nalco Chemical's Nalco Fuel Technology of Naperville, Ill., has hired Lori Freitag, an assistant scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, to make a computational model of flue gas flow allowing Nalco officials to visualize how the fluid and gas and heat will react when its equipment is installed in various locations. * Studies of turbulence conducted by Oliver McBryan, a professor of computer science, and his colleagues at the University of Colorado. Turbulence has implications for ocean currents like El Nino, hurricanes and solar flares. *A model of an aircraft by Professor McBryan's team in Boulder with a design that they can change at will. Over the new hookup, this model can interact with a detailed air-flow model in computers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Urbana. *Software linking huge public repositories of molecular and structural biology data, situated in different cities, to be simultaneously analyzed and manipulated in real time by researchers who isolate the data they want by simply typing, for example, the name of a protein in a query box. The turbulence data collected | Now Playing in Limited Release: Internet, the Next Generation |
903054_1 | full and natural expression of love?'' Seeking answers to these questions, Ms. Baur, a clinical psychologist, explores the literature of patient-therapist relations and finds mostly cases of sexual exploitation and misunderstanding. Books about Carl Jung and Sabina Spielrein; the diaries of Anais Nin and Etty Hillesum; a biography of Friedrich Perls, the Gestalt therapist: all these describe what Freud in another context called ''laboratory explosions,'' inevitable ''in view of the kind of matter we work with.'' More recently, she finds, reports grow scarcer, more formulaic in describing predatory males who prey on vulnerable females, and more one-sided in their condemnation. But, she writes, with the increasing feminization of the therapeutic professions, abuse is likely to diminish. And with the rise of managed care, the rules against transgression are hardening. So strict is prohibition growing that ''serious considerations of the physical attraction that develops so often between doctor and patient'' are getting ''swept under the rug'' and becoming ''undiscussable.'' This distresses her because even in some of the most extreme cases she considers, she can't help detecting certain benefits in the intrusion of sex. As often as patients feel abused they also feel cared for, she insists. And as much as they are hurt they are also helped. In short, as she writes in a footnote, ''to say love makes a mess of therapy is not the same as saying it doesn't exist.'' This is not to suggest that Ms. Baur believes ''that sex can coexist with therapy.'' She warns, ''Some readers will confuse my desire to understand what happens when doctor and patient are strongly attracted to each other with approval of such liaisons, and others will be so certain that men are always abusive or women always hysterical that they will have difficulty imagining a story that can respect the feelings of both.'' But she is also afraid that the imposition of stricter rules and regulations will inevitably backfire. She writes, ''As teachers, therapists and clergy bid a distracted farewell to intimacy, and as both the helper and the helped feel the frustration of being in a managed relationship instead of real one, it is possible that the rate of blatant sexual exploitation could rise rather than fall.'' Her message might command more attention were it not quite so muddled in its expression. The author of three previous books -- ''The Dinosaur Man: Tales of Madness and Enchantment in | The Therapist and the Patient, When the Emotional Temperature Rises |
903109_1 | slightly higher rate than in the United States and, indeed, the highest in the world outside of Scandinavia. For Japan, the rapid growth of cellular phones and P.H.S. stands as a prime example of the changes that can be wrought by telecommunications deregulation, something that is being contemplated for other parts of the nation's economy. Mobile telecommunications has become a driving force of Japan's economy. Capital investment by the mobile telephone industry is expected to exceed $15 billion this fiscal year, more than the investments by either the chemical, automobile or steel industries. And earnings from the telecommunications sector are helping cushion electronics companies from the adverse effects of the collapse of memory chip prices. Japan's Government and industry are also pushing, with some success, for other countries to adopt the P.H.S. technology. P.H.S. mobile service is expected to begin this year in Thailand, and then perhaps in Australia, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Recently, China, a potentially huge market, agreed to set aside some radio frequencies for P.H.S. service. Other countries, including Argentina, Guatemala and Uruguay, will use P.H.S. technology for basic phone service because it is faster to build a wireless network than to install a wired one. P.H.S. is not likely to be accepted in the United States because such phones do not work in fast-moving cars. But P.H.S. is similar in concept to some of the personal communications services, or P.C.S., that are being introduced in the United States. The experience in Japan, where P.H.S. service has been operating since July 1995, could serve as a preview of what might be expected in the United States as American cities served until now by only two cellular phone companies are opened to as many as three P.C.S. providers. In Japan, P.H.S. phones are being sold for as little as 1 yen (or about 1 cent) to lure subscribers. P.H.S. subscriptions are being sold in convenience stores and even vending machines. Cellular phone prices have plummeted as well. But if growth is buoyant, profits are virtually nonexistent for the mobile telephone service providers, which are accumulating huge debts building their networks and subsidizing the sales of the phones at low prices. Some industry executives expect a brutal shakeout. ''My concern is if competition further accelerates, the weaker carriers may be forced to fold and we will see at that stage whether customers are happy or not,'' said Takeo Tsukada, | In Japan, Phones on Go And Talk Is Cheaper |
903116_0 | Water shortages in the next century are likely to restrain economic and social development and to be a source of potential conflict between countries, according to a new assessment by United Nations agencies. The report, prepared for a meeting in April of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, is the latest expression of international concern over the state of the world's fresh water supplies. The issue will also be addressed by a special session of the General Assembly in June that will review progress toward goals set at the Rio Earth Summit meeting in 1992. The new report referred to a United Nations committee on natural resources that noted with alarm in a report last year that some 80 countries comprising 40 percent of the world's population are already suffering from serious water shortages, and that in many cases the shortage has become the limiting factor to economic and social development. The new report itself finds that 1.2 billion poor people, more than one-fifth of the world's population, live in countries facing what it terms ''medium-high to high water stress.'' Medium-high stress means that countries are consuming from 20 percent to 40 percent of their available fresh water for agricultural, industrial or household use each year; a 20 percent utilization rate is considered safe. High stress countries consume more than 40 percent of their fresh water supplies a year. But the study forecast that by 2025, when the world's population is expected to reach 8.3 billion, with most of the increase coming in the rapidly growing urban areas of the third world, as much as two-thirds of the population will be affected by moderate-to-severe water shortages unless supplies are used more efficiently, the pollution of rivers and lakes is curbed and more waste water is purified for reuse. In its ''Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World,'' as the water study is called, the United Nations says that water use has been increasing more than twice as fast as population during this century and that the resulting shortages have been worsened by pollution. As a result, at least one-fifth of the world's people lack access to safe drinking water and more than half lack adequate sanitation. With agricultural irrigation accounting for 70 percent of all water use and the world's population growing, the United Nations forecasts increasing pressure to devote more water to food production. But it | U.N. Report Warns of Problems Over Dwindling Water Supplies |
901176_1 | and residential programs, defined autism as a nonprogressive disability that interferes with ''normal development of brain functions in areas of communications, social interaction and learning.'' By the time a child is 3 years old, autism will manifest itself in a variety of problems, from ''cognitive to social to mobility, in some cases,'' she said. The majority of autistic people, 60 to 70 percent, have some degree of mental retardation. ''No two kids are alike,'' Ms. Geisel said. ''They're hard to group, and educating them is a real challenge.'' This wide spectrum is evident in Ms. Bland's class. One boy studies math every day with ''mainstream'' second graders and reads near grade level, while another student never speaks and uses a picture book to communicate. Another boy has frequent outbursts and tantrums. New Jersey's autistic children attend about 75 educational programs, both public and private, said Nancy Richardson, executive director of the Center for Outreach and Services for the Autism Community of New Jersey. Educating these children requires a high level of training and support, Ms. Richardson said, and schools like Ridgewood's ''usually need to solicit outside expertise.'' John Campion, director of special services for Ridgewood's school system, approached Sawtelle in 1993 about educating the district's autistic children. Youth Consultation Services, the nonprofit social services agency that oversees Sawtelle, agreed to begin a three-year pilot in 1994 with two classes of six students each in Orchard Elementary School. Students attend school 11 months a year, September to July. Ridgewood had spent $50,000 to $70,000 every year just to transport five autistic children to Sawtelle and other programs outside the district, the children traveling 45 minutes to an hour each way. In addition to the savings on transportation, Ridgewood pays reduced tuition of $25,000 (Sawtelle tuition is usually $30,000), a cost borne by the school district and the state, and its students are guaranteed admission. Admission to schools for autistic children can be difficult. ''We'll have 40 appropriate referrals for two openings,'' said Anne Holmes, director of outreach services at the Eden Institute. Eden had its first consultation with a public school four years ago, and now supports programs in 20 schools, a trend Ms. Holmes attributed to increasing awareness about autism and a need to offer choices to parents. ''This is an important step for the public schools,'' Ms. Holmes of the Eden Institute said. What remains to be seen, she | In Ridgewood, a Private School Within a Public School Aids the Autistic |
901230_2 | and speaks at industry trade shows. He also remains a member of I.B.M.'s Worldwide Management Council -- 40 senior executives who meet several times a year with Louis V. Gerstner Jr., the chairman and chief executive, to discuss broad strategy. I.B.M. executives who need to meet with Mr. Zisman apparently don't mind sitting at his kitchen table instead of in his Lotus office. ''It's as easy to come here as it is to go to Boston, and I probably serve better cookies,'' he said recently, after offering some visitors chocolate-chip cookies baked by the family's new housekeeper. Though the button-down Mr. Zisman looks uncomfortable out of a business suit, he is in many ways uniquely prepared for his new, more casual life style. At Soft-Switch Inc., the software company he founded in 1979 and sold to Lotus in 1994, he helped popularize E-mail by making software that enabled a wide variety of proprietary E-mail systems to communicate with one another. Now E-mail is his career lifeline. ''I probably spend one to three hours each day on E-mail,'' he said. ''It's incredibly productive.'' From his living room, he recently led a company task force via E-mail to determine how Lotus would develop software written in the new Java programming language. Using Notes, the collaborative software developed by Lotus, he began a monthlong virtual forum in which several top company executives discussed what Lotus should do. ''I couldn't do what I am doing without collaborative technology,'' he said. HE also has a good idea what his children are going through: Mr. Zisman's own mother died of cancer when he was 13. ''I told my daughter, 'People often say they know how you feel, but I really do know how you feel. I've walked in your footsteps.' '' Still, Ms. Ebert is a particularly tough act to follow. A full-time mother who was fiercely devoted to her children, she played a large role at the small private school they attended. At her funeral, dozens of students crowded into the church. The couple met in 1977, when Ms. Ebert worked as an aide to Mr. Zisman's adviser at the University of Pennsylvania. After Mr. Zisman received a doctorate in business administration from Penn's Wharton School of Business that year, the two moved to Boston, where Mr. Zisman taught at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But he soon grew | Job? Kids? A Sad Route To a Happy Balance |
901216_4 | foot side to side. Increased dimensions for shoulder, hip and leg room eliminate the cramped airline-coach-seat effect. Moving the transmission rearward improves handling, too. Weight is almost equally divided, 51 to 49 percent, between the front and rear tires. Enthusiasts will delight in the poised feel and straight tracking that results. When the steering wheel is moved, the reaction is instantaneous. Duality of purpose between adroit road manners and more mundane comforts pervades: the tires are sticky enough to generate cornering forces that result in Corvette-record speeds on a slalom test course. Sidewalls are also strong enough to run without air (the tire pressures are displayed on the instrument panel) until a tire is changed. The spare and jack are therefore discarded, and Corvette finally has enough room beneath its hatchback for two golf bags. This is a welcome change from the philosophy of maximum performance at all costs that scorned such creature comforts. The last-generation Corvette provided test-track numbers that delighted the automotive press. Buyers, however, disliked the harsh treatment they got on less-tended roads, and revisions were hurried into production. In 1952, as the first Corvette concept was created, Ken W. Purdy wrote in ''The Kings of the Road'' of emerging sports car phenomena. He viewed the MG TD as ''a sound beginners' car.'' It gave the expert a real ride and could be raced exactly as it came from the showroom, he said, but it also could be worked up to produce appalling acceleration and a top speed over 100 m.p.h. The new Corvette is such a car. Its overall performance is matched at the moment by only a handful of much more expensive and rarer cars like the Ferrari 550 Maranello, the Porsche 911 Turbo and the Acura NSX. And Corvette lets the driver enjoy automatic climate control and compact disks. Mr. Hill thinks Corvette can keep its cult growing by attracting the heirs of the generation that fomented the imported sports car revolution of the 50's. But the race is far from over. Toyota has just slashed the price of its 320-horsepower Supra Turbo coupe by almost $9,000, to $40,000. The Porsche Boxster and Mercedes-Benz SLK roadsters, also priced around $40,000 but lacking this kind of raw power, are now entering production. Uneasy rests the crown, wherever you think it belongs. INSIDE TRACK: Maximum muscle for the dollar, without the tattoos. BEHIND THE WHEEL/Chevrolet Corvette | A Home-Grown Revival Of the Sports Car |
898770_1 | what is behind it.'' The goal on a recent day was to get his students to judge whether the tattooed man was fit to stand trial, whether he was legally responsible for his behavior, or whether he might be considered legally insane, and whether he is in need of treatment. Dr. Berrill had evaluated the man and knew the court's ruling, but he wasn't about to tell his students until the exercise was over. ''How should the young man be handled?'' he asked the students. ''Is he really dangerous or is he only sick? Is prison appropriate or does he need medical treatment?'' First, the students wanted more information. They did not have the young man to question, so they began firing questions at their professor. Did the young man have prior problems with the law? Dr. Berrill shook his head no. Any history of psychological problems? Dr. Berrill reported that the young man had ''apparently always been an odd duck, a person who felt separated from the group and who capitalized on his oddness.'' Since his arrest, he says he has had fleeting ideas of killing himself. How did he behave when arrested? He spoke quietly and his speech was fluent, articulate and terse. His reaction was more surprise than remorse. Any other unusual behavior? He used to have fantasies of protecting people beset by attackers. Sometimes he sensed the taste of chocolate, even when he had none in his mouth. Sometimes he walked around New York City with knives strapped to his chest and arms. For half an hour, the psychological sleuthing continued: What kind of family history did he have? He was the last of several children in an Irish-American working-class family, and he had brothers who had been arrested for drug use. Was he overprotected and coddled? The young man had said he was well cared for, but it was difficult to learn whether there was true affection. Finally, the students were ready to lay out their theories. The young man showed signs of a narcissistic personality disorder or a histrionic personality disorder, some said. He might have sent the E-mail message just to get attention, adding the rape threat for shock value but not really as something he intended to carry out. One group thought the student himself had been abused. And some saw his threats as reflections of his own sexual inadequacy. Some students | Class Notes |
898742_0 | To the Editor: Your Dec. 27 front-page article describing the New York State ruling on research in psychiatric patients who lack the capacity to consent misses a crucial point. By definition, all children lack the capacity to consent, whether or not they suffer from a mental disorder. Therefore, in the case of children, this ruling can be extended to all medical research. If this occurs, a large number of important studies -- for example, the testing of experimental medications in children with leukemia and the evaluation of genetic therapies for inherited childhood disorders -- would be banned. Such an outcome would have a devastating impact on medical research in this country, which has been the envy of the world. D. P. DEVANAND, M.D. New York, Dec. 27, 1996 The writer is an associate professor of clinical psychiatry, Columbia Univ. College of Physicians & Surgeons. | Psychiatric Research |
935233_0 | New translations of Scripture and new editions of prayerbooks tend to be group efforts, the work of official bodies appointed by some larger organization or higher authority. King James I, to cite a famous example, rounded up 47 scholars who spent nearly a decade translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into what has become its most enduring English version. But sometimes a single individual feels moved to undertake production of a sacred text, bringing his or her powers of creativity to bear on its language. For example, in 1995, Schocken Books published ''The Five Books of Moses,'' a strikingly poetic translation of the books Genesis through Deuteronomy by an associate professor of Judaica at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., Everett Fox, who spent many years at the task. And last year, HarperCollins brought out ''The Book of Blessings,'' a Jewish prayerbook by Marcia Falk, a poet who lives in Berkeley, Calif. Dr. Falk's work had its roots in a series of liturgical blessings, in English and Hebrew, which she wrote from 1982 to 1996. The book has a contemporary and feminist appeal, in that it replaces traditional masculine terminology for God (i.e., Lord and King) with what Dr. Falk calls ''new images for divinity.'' Since it was published, ''The Book of Blessings'' has sold modestly, nearly 11,000 copies in a $50 hardback edition, according to the publisher. But its influence is being felt in some interesting places. One Manhattan synagogue got Dr. Falk's permission to etch a passage from her book (along with biblical verses) into the decorative windows it will put up later this year in its sanctuary. Some other passages have been adopted by individual synagogues in their prayerbooks or set to music by cantors, who lead the singing of prayers in synagogues. In their brevity, traditional Hebrew blessings have ''the potential for lyric and spiritual intensity,'' writes Dr. Falk, a former Fulbright scholar with a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Brandeis University and a doctorate in English and comparative literature from Stanford University. But she said she wanted to get away from using traditional language for God that either lends the deity masculine attributes or separates God from worshipers. The sh'ma, Judaism's essential declaration of faith, is typically rendered, ''Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One'' (Deuteronomy 6:4). Dr. Falk has written a version that begins, ''Hear, O Israel, the divine abounds | Taking a Fresh Look at Sacred Texts |
939580_0 | Prime Minister Tony Blair disclosed a new plan today for all-party peace talks on Northern Ireland coupled with simultaneous negotiations on disarming Catholic and Protestant gunmen. He challenged Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, to make an ''absolute commitment'' to nonviolence so it could take part in the talks. The issue of how to arrange a weapons handover has been cited by Sinn Fein as a reason not to enter multi-party negotiations, with the Government of John Major rejecting parallel talks and Sinn Fein demanding them as a condition for considering a cease-fire. Today's detailed initiative, a joint proposal of the Governments of Britain and Ireland, sets a timetable for the process beginning in September and ending in May. Citing ''revulsion and outrage right across the world'' over the I.R.A. killings of two policemen in the town of Lurgan 10 days ago, Mr. Blair said that patience with the organization's refusal to abandon violence was running out. ''Whatever Sinn Fein now say or do, I am determined to move on,'' he told a packed and solemn House of Commons. ''Sinn Fein know what they have to do. There is no shred of justification for carrying on as they are now.'' The leader of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, acknowledging that the Blair Government had taken positions ''in advance of those of the last Government.'' said from Belfast that he would give the proposal his ''fullest attention and consideration.'' Mr. Blair has moved vigorously in his first weeks in office to take up the search for an accord in Northern Ireland, where sectarian violence has claimed more than 3,200 lives since 1969. His Government was deeply dismayed by the Lurgan murders since they came at a time when it had restored the first contact with Sinn Fein in the 15 months since the I.R.A. ended its cease-fire; the Government and Sinn Fein had held two meetings, with a third scheduled. In addition, Mr. Blair's Secretary for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, has pursued contacts with all sides in the conflict more aggressively than her predecessors did, and a new government and new prime minister, Bertie Ahern, are coming to office in Dublin this week. Mr. Blair noted today that the killings had had repercussions for Sinn Fein's credibility in the United States, where he had just spent three days at economic summit talks. President Clinton, he noted, condemned them | Blair Offers New Ulster Deal; Key Is Disarming Both Sides |
938094_0 | Three Milwaukee-bound passengers on a stopover in Phoenix got an unpleasant surprise recently after slaking their thirst in the terminal cocktail lounge. Returning to the gate, they could only watch forlornly through the window as their plane taxied to the runway, having unceremoniously dumped their luggage in a baggage cart on the tarmac. ''We made the boarding announcement and even paged them,'' said Scott Sorensen, an America West flight attendant who worked that flight. ''In years past we might have waited, but we no longer delay flights to accommodate passengers who arrive late.'' Nor, all of a sudden, do most other airlines. In fact, if the airlines deliver on their recent promises -- or possibly threats -- not only will latecomers increasingly find the gates shut in their face, but so will passengers who arrive at what used to be considered on time. UAL's United Airlines, for example, recently warned even passengers who book seats in advance to arrive at least 20 minutes before flight time, or risk losing their assigned seats. The logic of the situation seems apparent. ''If a flight waits around,'' explained Bill Compton, a pilot who is executive vice president of operations for Trans World Airlines, ''that plane will be late all day long,'' inconveniencing passengers systemwide. But why has it taken until now for airlines to get tough on stragglers? The answer seems to be that at long last they can afford to. When they were losing more than $13 billion between 1990 and 1994, they did not dare leave late-arriving travelers behind for fear of sacrificing precious revenue and good will. Now that they are enjoying record profits ($5.1 billion over the past two years), and are packing passengers in at the highest levels in half a century, the airlines have the luxury of teaching the laggards a lesson. And they are finding that being sticklers for punctuality is good for business. ''Until deregulation in 1978,'' T.W.A.'s Mr. Compton said, ''about the only way we could compete was with a better meal or a better movie. We were like public utilities. After deregulation, it took our industry more than a decade to become competitive. T.W.A., along with everybody else, lost sight of the fact that people buy an airplane ticket to get where they're going on time.'' Keeping more closely to departure and arrival schedules also saves money -- lots of it -- that | Airlines Are Cracking Down on Delayed Departures |
938099_3 | 10 years faced a 43 percent increase in their risk of death from breast cancer. Despite this increase, those who continued on hormones had a significantly lower overall mortality rate 16 years later. Surprisingly, having a family history of breast cancer did not affect the mortality risk associated with hormone use. Among women in the study whose mothers or sisters had breast cancer, hormone replacement was not associated with a greater risk of death than among women with no such family history. In the first 10 years of hormone use, the women who developed breast cancer had lower death rates from their disease than did women who never took hormones. This may reflect a tendency toward earlier detection of cancer among hormone users, or it may result from stopping estrogen, a known promoter of breast cancer growth, once the cancer was diagnosed, Dr. Grodstein suggested. But, she said, as the women aged the increasing rate of breast cancer overwhelmed these effects and resulted in an overall rise in deaths from breast cancer, although total mortality still remained lower among hormone users. Dr. Rosenberg said the new study showed ''we really have to worry about the risk of cancer after women have been on these drugs for many years,'' adding, ''After long-term use, we're beginning to see adverse effects on breast cancer mortality.'' The study was conducted among the 121,700 women participating in the continuing Nurses' Health Study, a project that began in 1976, with researchers questioning and examining the women every two years, until 1992. The study is the largest and longest detailed examination of the mortality benefits and risks associated with long-term use of postmenopausal hormones. The participants were similar in education and health backgrounds, reducing the chances that those who chose to take hormones were healthier to begin with. When the data were analyzed taking many risk factors for disease and death into account, the outcome changed little. Previous smaller studies also found a reduction in mortality. But they asked only once about hormone use, which would not account for women who stopped its use. The new study showed that women with one or more risk factors for heart disease were likely to derive the greatest mortality benefit from hormone replacement. Over all, these women faced a risk of death half that of similar women who did not take postmenopausal hormones. The risk factors considered were a family | Hormone Use Helps Women, A Study Finds |
938513_0 | To the Editor: Thank you for bringing public attention to the dire need for financing to restore the southern half of Ellis Island (front page, June 16). The Building Conservation Branch of the National Park Service, for which I am an architect, has been involved with developing a program to mothball the southern buildings in anticipation of future rehabilitation. Though we are considering several options for the south side, we have never recognized ''stabilized ruins'' -- ruins with missing pieces and cracks evident -- as a possibility. The buildings are now in poor condition, but they are not ''decaying into rubble'' as your article suggests. To allow the buildings to decay into ruin would be an act of neglect by the National Park Service. That is why we are mothballing and stabilizing them. Unlike the Acropolis or Stonehenge, such buildings do not crumble romantically. Modern buildings make ugly ruins; they fall, and fast. It is our intention to prevent that from happening. DAVID ANTHONE New York, June 16, 1997 | Ellis Island's Ruins Are Far From Romantic |
938516_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Trying to Save Ellis Island'' (front page, June 16): In conjunction with the National Park Service, we developed a plan in 1990 to create a conference center on Ellis Island's south side. It would have preserved the buildings, except for less than 10 percent of the existing square footage, and a minimal amount of new construction was to be integrated into the landmark structures. Certain preservation groups, however, objected to any demolition, and the financing that had been arranged fell through. It is a shame that the buildings on the southern end of the island are now threatened. Leaving these once magnificent buildings as is would be a sad end to this saga. WILLIAM N. HUBBARD Pres., Center Development Corp. New York, June 18, 1997 Ellis Island's Ruins Are Far From Romantic | Failed Conference Center |
934638_0 | The stalled Northern Ireland peace talks resumed today in an atmosphere of renewed sectarian violence. The chairman of the talks, former Senator George J. Mitchell, warned all sides that continued violence and political intransigence could undermine the effort toward a settlement of the conflict that has killed 3,214 people since 1969 in this predominantly Protestant British province. The talks, involving the British and Irish Governments and most of the province's political parties, convened for the first time in three months after several days of violence and threats of violence. On Saturday night the Irish Republican Army left a 1,000-pound bomb in West Belfast in what the police said was an attempt to draw the security forces into an ambush. Later that night, a gang of Protestant men in a town north of here kicked an off-duty Protestant policeman to death after an argument in a bar about the refusal by the police two weeks ago to allow a Protestant patriotic parade thorough a predominantly Roman Catholic town. On Monday rifle shots were fired at a police station in a Catholic area of West Belfast. Today traffic in Belfast was disrupted by several false alarms that bombs were to be detonated around the city. On arriving at the talks in Belfast, Mr. Mitchell said the new Labor Government of Prime Minister Tony Blair in London gave the talks new impetus. But referring to the rising violence and the political problems, he added, ''The talks cannot go on indefinitely.'' ''I don't think anyone involved is prepared to accept another year of what we've had,'' Mr. Mitchell said later, referring to the political haggling and sporadic violence since the talks began last June 10. Responding to speculation by officials and analysts that he was getting ready to quit the talks, he said, ''I'm going to stick with it and do what I can.'' The British legislation authorizing the negotiations expires in May 1998. In recent weeks, ranking British officials have told White House officials that Mr. Mitchell is essential to the success of the talks. His warning was reflected in the remarks of other delegates. ''George Mitchell is right, time is running out,'' said Monica McWilliams of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. David Trimble, head of the Ulster Unionist Party, the largest Protestant organization in the province said, ''It is very difficult to feel any optimism at all.'' Dick Spring, the Irish Foreign | Ulster Talks Resume With Warning That Violence Can End Them |
934583_1 | time to fix their own. I help them get where they need to go. It's always been very satisfying.'' People used to wait years for the opportunity to buy a bad, overpriced Soviet car. Now they can get them on demand. They are still constantly in need of repair, though, and even newly manufactured cars become old fast here. So few skills are more honored than those required to turn a hissing heap of scrap metal back into something that can move forward without a tow truck. Russian men appear to have a special car gene. Rural priests who cannot find the keys to the church pickup have been known to hot-wire the thing, and to do it in less time than it would take a car thief in America. Soldiers put tank carburetors back together with tape. Tires are the key to the whole system. New tires used to be rare. Now they are just too expensive. Old tires are still the only ones most people can afford. That's why the vulcanization industry -- if you can call patching a tire an industry -- has become so fundamental to the success of Russian transportation. Mr. Sezikh can sometimes turn over 100 tires in a day, and can earn nearly a dollar a tire for his labors. ''I don't know how I would ever survive without these places,'' said Viktoriya Avakanra, a 37-year-old teacher who was stopping at Mr. Sezikh's place today to have her Lada wheel whacked back into something that could be described as a circle. ''I don't have any money for anything but gas. I can't afford tires. But he can always fix what's broken.'' If there is one thing left to connect this vast, disparate and inconsistent country it may be the tens of thousands of rusty vulcanization shacks that are spread across it, the mechanic's equivalent of first-aid stations. Charles Goodyear patented the rubber vulcanization process in 1844, but Russians have taken it -- melting, gluing and patching a tire -- to a level that Mr. Goodyear would never have envisioned. The shacks are everywhere. In Grozny, during the worst moments of the Chechen war, there was always a shed in the center of town where you could take your bullet-pocked car to get its tires repaired. But times are taking a toll on the freelance repair man. Oddly enough, in a country loaded with | Russia Sputters On, Patched Up by the Tire Man |
934661_0 | To The Living Section: Marian Burros's article on the lack of labels on genetically engineered food in the United States (''Eating Well: Trying to Get Labels on Genetically Altered Food,'' May 21) highlighted a number of shortcomings in the Food and Drug Administration's biotechnology food policy. Here is another. The policy recommends that companies consult with the agency, and perhaps label their products, when they move proteins via genetic engineering from known allergenic foods (like the Brazil nut) into other foods. As the article noted, the policy ignores proteins from rarely allergenic foods, like bananas, which are nevertheless serious threats to the people who are allergic to them. But the policy also ignores proteins from nonfoods, like bacteria, insects and viruses, by far the largest category of organisms currently used as sources of new proteins by genetic engineers. Since for the most part bacteria and insects have not been part of our food supply, we have no way of knowing their allergenic status. Are they like Brazil nuts? Like bananas? Especially troubling is the possibility that nonfoods could contain proteins even more highly allergenic than those currently in the food supply. The F.D.A.'s food policy should be strengthened to protect consumers against introduced allergens by requiring analysis and labeling regardless of the source of the new protein. MARGARET MELLON, Ph.D., J.D. Washington Director of Agriculture and Biotechnology Union of Concerned Scientists | Genetically Altered Food |
939382_0 | To the Editor: After reading ''Hormone Use Helps Women, a Study Finds'' (front page, June 19), I had more questions than before. We are told that hormone replacement therapy can reduce a woman's risk of death as long as she continues it. But then we learn that after 10 or more years of hormone use women face a 43 percent increase in their risk of death from breast cancer. How has it become acceptable for medicine to advocate the use of a drug that increases a woman's chances of developing any disease, let alone cancer? When and how did cancer become an acceptable ''contraindication'' for a drug? What happened to ''First, do no harm''? JUDITH ARMBRUSTER Chicago, June 20, 1997 | Hormone Therapy Risks |
939476_0 | Identified Flying Objects | |
937659_6 | six months or more for the same object to reappear over the telescope. Most newer radiotelescopes are elements in arrays of relatively small dish antennas that can be pointed anywhere in the sky. Computers combine the signals received by all the antennas in an array to yield data and radio images. But none of these arrays include antennas nearly as huge as the dish antenna at the heart of the Arecibo telescope, nor does any offer the exquisite sensitivity of the upgraded Arecibo instrument. A disadvantage of the original Arecibo system was that a spherical reflector, whether it is an optical mirror or the perforated metal sheeting covering a radio reflector like that of Arecibo's dish, cannot bring rays to focus at a single point. The focus of a spherical reflector is smeared out myopically along a line rather than at a point, and this produces a troublesome blur called spherical aberration. To focus radio rays sharply for the Arecibo telescope, a system of movable tubular ''line feeds'' was used before the upgrade, each one collecting radio rays along the line of focus and combining them at a single point. The line-feed system meant, however, that when the telescope was observing objects off center, only a part of the big dish was available to collect their rays, so the telescope rarely realized its full potential. That drawback is now cured. The new system at Arecibo does away with inefficient line feeds and exploits a scheme devised in the 17th century by James Gregory, a Scottish scientist who showed how two extra reflectors added to a spherical reflecting telescope could greatly sharpen its vision. It took many months of computer modeling and engineering to design the warped and asymmetric shapes of the Gregorian reflectors for the new telescope. Rays of radio waves from the sky first strike the big spherical dish antenna and are reflected upward. They next enter a gaping hole in the bottom of the suspended receiver dome and strike the secondary reflector, a 72-foot-diameter metal structure with a nonsymmetrical concave face; it looks something like the gigantic fragment of an egg shell. This reflector refocuses the rays and sends them downward to a tertiary reflector 26 feet wide, which also has a nonsymmetrical concave shape. Finally, the tertiary reflector brings the beam to a tight focus above it at a spot where the rays impinge on a sensitive | A Once-Mighty Radiotelescope Moves Back to the Cutting Edge |
937666_0 | FIVE years ago, in the largest gathering of its kind in history, world leaders meeting at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro signed binding treaties designed to prevent dangerous human interference with the earth's climate system and to protect living species. They also adopted a nonbinding blueprint to guide countries in protecting a deteriorating global environment while at the same time promoting economic well-being. Next Monday, 70 heads of state or government will gather at the United Nations to take stock of progress since Rio and to discuss where to go from here. But United Nations reports prepared for the meeting have already rendered a judgment: with some important exceptions, environmental trends have changed little since the Rio gathering. The most notable exception, interestingly, is in an area not dealt with at Rio: population growth. Thanks to factors like contraception, education and the enhanced status of women, fertility rates are declining more rapidly than had been expected in all regions of the world. The latest United Nations projections show that the populations of many countries, including some developing ones, will stabilize within the next generation or two. But other countries still face high growth rates that will strain their resources, and the world population as a whole is expected to reach 11 billion before stabilizing some time in the 21st century. It now totals about 6 billion. At the same time, according to the United Nations assessment, food production continues to rise, and most people are living longer and healthier lives. These gains are threatened, however, by a growing scarcity of fresh water and a loss of topsoil and productive farmland. According to the United Nations accounting, a third of the world's people do not have an adequate supply of clean water, and two-thirds will be deprived of it by 2010 unless action is taken. Some 3.7 billion acres of farmland -- nearly 30 percent of the world's vegetated surface -- are now degraded to some degree. Air and water quality is generally improving in rich countries. But despite substantial reforestation in those countries and a recent slowing of deforestation globally, forest loss continues worldwide. Each year, according to the United Nations, an area the size of Nepal is cut or burned. Ocean pollution threatens the health and livelihood of the two-thirds of humanity living near coastlines, and about 60 percent of commercial fisheries are overfished or fully fished | 5 Years After Environmental Summit in Rio, Little Progress |
937666_1 | resources, and the world population as a whole is expected to reach 11 billion before stabilizing some time in the 21st century. It now totals about 6 billion. At the same time, according to the United Nations assessment, food production continues to rise, and most people are living longer and healthier lives. These gains are threatened, however, by a growing scarcity of fresh water and a loss of topsoil and productive farmland. According to the United Nations accounting, a third of the world's people do not have an adequate supply of clean water, and two-thirds will be deprived of it by 2010 unless action is taken. Some 3.7 billion acres of farmland -- nearly 30 percent of the world's vegetated surface -- are now degraded to some degree. Air and water quality is generally improving in rich countries. But despite substantial reforestation in those countries and a recent slowing of deforestation globally, forest loss continues worldwide. Each year, according to the United Nations, an area the size of Nepal is cut or burned. Ocean pollution threatens the health and livelihood of the two-thirds of humanity living near coastlines, and about 60 percent of commercial fisheries are overfished or fully fished and in danger of depletion. Toxic chemicals still pose significant threats. Under the two binding treaties signed at Rio, substantive progress has been scant. The Convention on Biodiversity has been ratified by 161 countries (not including the United States). This treaty obligates governments to take action to protect plant and animal species, but species are being extinguished and their habitats are being destroyed at what the United Nations calls an ''unprecedented'' rate. The climate treaty has been ratified by 166 countries, including the United States. But few developed countries, also including the United States, are expected to meet the treaty's initial goal of capping emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide at 1990 levels by 2000. Despite that, talks are under way on even stronger steps that would further reduce emissions of the gases. Two more sessions of the talks are scheduled in Bonn before a final session in Kyoto, Japan, in December. As the negotiations proceed, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide continue to grow, and mainstream scientists say that if they are not reduced the world can expect a warmer climate and widespread climatic disruption in the next century. On this page are snapshots of some major aspects of | 5 Years After Environmental Summit in Rio, Little Progress |
937666_2 | population as a whole is expected to reach 11 billion before stabilizing some time in the 21st century. It now totals about 6 billion. At the same time, according to the United Nations assessment, food production continues to rise, and most people are living longer and healthier lives. These gains are threatened, however, by a growing scarcity of fresh water and a loss of topsoil and productive farmland. According to the United Nations accounting, a third of the world's people do not have an adequate supply of clean water, and two-thirds will be deprived of it by 2010 unless action is taken. Some 3.7 billion acres of farmland -- nearly 30 percent of the world's vegetated surface -- are now degraded to some degree. Air and water quality is generally improving in rich countries. But despite substantial reforestation in those countries and a recent slowing of deforestation globally, forest loss continues worldwide. Each year, according to the United Nations, an area the size of Nepal is cut or burned. Ocean pollution threatens the health and livelihood of the two-thirds of humanity living near coastlines, and about 60 percent of commercial fisheries are overfished or fully fished and in danger of depletion. Toxic chemicals still pose significant threats. Under the two binding treaties signed at Rio, substantive progress has been scant. The Convention on Biodiversity has been ratified by 161 countries (not including the United States). This treaty obligates governments to take action to protect plant and animal species, but species are being extinguished and their habitats are being destroyed at what the United Nations calls an ''unprecedented'' rate. The climate treaty has been ratified by 166 countries, including the United States. But few developed countries, also including the United States, are expected to meet the treaty's initial goal of capping emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide at 1990 levels by 2000. Despite that, talks are under way on even stronger steps that would further reduce emissions of the gases. Two more sessions of the talks are scheduled in Bonn before a final session in Kyoto, Japan, in December. As the negotiations proceed, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide continue to grow, and mainstream scientists say that if they are not reduced the world can expect a warmer climate and widespread climatic disruption in the next century. On this page are snapshots of some major aspects of the global environmental picture. | 5 Years After Environmental Summit in Rio, Little Progress |
937737_1 | hopes that Britain's new Labor Government will be able to recharge the peace effort in Northern Ireland are all but dashed. For the last year, representatives from all sides of the Irish question -- except Sinn Fein -- have been holding formal talks on how to end the violence and improve prospects for Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein has been barred from the talks because the I.R.A., which is pressing for an end to British control of the province, broke a cease-fire agreement in February and has continued a campaign of violence in Northern Ireland and on the British mainland. Until it reinstates the cease-fire, the British and Irish Governments have said, it will not be allowed a seat at the table. The talks, which are being led by George J. Mitchell, a former United States Senator, have limped along in fits and starts; Mr. Mitchell recently warned that they could not go on ''indefinitely.'' But with the election last month of Tony Blair as British Prime Minister, there appeared to be a new impetus for peace. In two recent meetings between Sinn Fein and British Government officials, the sides had been able to lay out their positions, with the British continuing to press for a resumption of the cease-fire. After the killings today, however, a third such meeting was called off, the Northern Ireland spokesman said. ''We've said all along that the talks with them would depend on circumstances on the ground,'' he added. John Bruton, the Irish Prime Minister, said the shootings proved that neither Sinn Fein nor the I.R.A. was committed to peace. He said he saw them as ''a deliberate answer saying that, despite all the fair words spoken in public and private, we will continue to use violence whenever and wherever it suits us.'' Prime Minister Blair called the killings ''an absolutely appalling act of brutality'' and said he could not understand how Sinn Fein could ''talk peace'' while I.R.A. violence continued. ''Their cynicism and hypocrisy are sickening,'' he said. ''Their actions defy normal understanding. It is difficult to interpret this latest attack as anything but a signal that Sinn Fein and the I.R.A. are not interested in peace and democracy and prefer violence.'' Mo Mowlam, the British Secretary for Northern Ireland, said in a statement that the Government would ''not be intimidated into weakening our resolution to bring about a peaceful Northern Ireland in which | I.R.A., Killing 2 Policemen, Cripples the Irish Peace Talks |
936034_0 | To the Editor: Thomas Geoghegan's anachronistic premises about college education are best revealed in his closing reference to a ''Golden Age'' when wages were tied to manufacturing, not education (''Overeducated and Underpaid,'' Op-Ed, June 3). The most valuable economic resource is no longer the land or labor of an industrial economy but the skilled intelligence essential to a global marketplace. Not only are the first two years of college required for economic viability in the 21st century, but for lifelong learning as well. While high tuition can make college a high-risk investment for an individual student, tax-supported public education lowers the cost and guarantees dividends for the nation. ANGELA BODINO Somerville, N.J., June 4, 1997 | 'Golden Age' of Wages |
936058_1 | Ireland. His own party, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, did well in the recent Irish and British parliamentary elections. More significantly, the new British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the probable new Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, are likely to push for a Northern Ireland peace settlement. With Bill Clinton in the White House, all three Governments sponsoring the Northern Ireland peace effort are now led by men with whom Mr. Adams has declared he can work. That auspicious alignment puts a powerful burden on Mr. Adams to deliver promptly the unequivocal I.R.A. cease-fire he has long promised if the sponsoring Governments demonstrate good faith. Since the I.R.A. broke an earlier cease-fire in early 1996, suspected or confirmed I.R.A. attacks have killed at least five people and injured hundreds. The I.R.A.'s return to violence forced the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the all-party Northern Ireland peace talks that began a year ago and resumed last week. Little progress can be expected without Sinn Fein's participation, which in turn depends on a resumption of the I.R.A. cease-fire. Britain's new Government has already made a conciliatory gesture by allowing its officials to meet with Sinn Fein representatives twice last month. It is also working to minimize provocations in Northern Ireland's coming season of parades celebrating past sectarian battles. But it is unreasonable to expect any British government to admit Sinn Fein to the peace talks until the I.R.A. repudiates its terror tactics and demonstrates that a new cease-fire will be reliably maintained. Nor can representatives of Northern Ireland's Protestant majority, whose participation is essential to any peace agreement, be expected to sit down with Sinn Fein until they can be assured that a new cease-fire will be lasting. Mr. Adams's attempts to put primary blame on former Prime Minister John Major of Britain for the breakdown of the I.R.A. cease-fire was a crude attempt to deflect blame from the I.R.A. itself. Similarly, Mr. Adams's implication that John Bruton, the defeated Irish Prime Minister, was responsible for the negotiating stalemate conveniently ignores the Bruton Government's efforts to win new British inducements for an I.R.A. cease-fire. However sympathetic Mr. Blair and Mr. Ahern are to legitimate Catholic or Republican grievances in Northern Ireland, they cannot move the peace talks forward in the face of continued I.R.A. terror. Now is the time for Mr. Adams to show he can deliver a cease-fire. | Gerry Adams Runs Out of Excuses |
938597_1 | in ''U.S.S. Pennsylvania Off Gibraltar,'' painted decades after the fact in 1870. Such a painting brings in its wake items like an enlisted man's hat from the U.S.S. Constitution and a nonnautical sterling silver box presented to the captain of the H.M.S. Cherub on the capture of the U.S.S. Essex. Everyone is fascinated by models of ships and the show has one of the U.S.S. Constitution complete with an elaborate network of rigging. Other military conflicts in which the first part of the exhibition indulges are Matthew Perry's opening of Japan to the West and the Civil War. Winslow Homer began his career as an engraver for Harper's Weekly during that war, and the show features his ''The Approach of the British Pirate Alabama.'' In the 19th century, trading was a tumultuous affair and yielded art with such vivid titles as ''Decks Awash,'' ''Becalmed Off Elsinore'' and ''Rescue of the Ship Winchester by the Steamer Washington, 2 May, 1854.'' A serene, glassy harbor thickly populated by boats of all sizes and a small settlement with buildings climbing the hills in the background, characterize ''View of Hong Kong,'' an 1870 painting by an unknown Chinese artist. Accompanying exotica includes a tiny but frightening pair of Chinese slippers made for a Chinese woman's bound feet. Working the Seas brings a double fascination. A wealth of navigational instruments has been assembled, including a barometer, an inclinometer, a chronometer and other tools with names that can boggle the untrained mind. Viewers can anticipate the visceral thrill of encountering whales and the havoc they can cause before finally being subdued. An undated scene by an unknown artist shows the constantly repeated event of the aquatic mammals treating sailors' rowboats like toys asking to be smashed. But the sailors' efforts did result in scrimshaw among other products, and a compelling item is a small wheel made from whale bone and used for marking pie crust. Nothing but blue skies characterizes Sailing for Pleasure, though sometimes inventive clouds interrupt. Much local material appears in this section, including trophies awarded by Indian Harbor Yacht Club. A link with contemporary high art is forged with the information that the Mermaid design that decorates he hull and spinnaker of Young America, which challenged for the America's Cup in 1995, was designed and painted by Roy Lichtenstein. The second exhibition at the Bruce, ''Light on the Garden,'' consists of 40 lush | Paired Up for Summer: Boats and Gardens |
938862_0 | To the Editor: Your call for an end to the use of plastic bullets in Northern Ireland (editorial, June 18) is welcome. Their use has been condemned by the European Parliament, Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups. The victims of these deadly bullets include not only the 16 killed but also the dozens who have been maimed. However, your call for Britain to turn a deaf ear to Sinn Fein after the deaths of two Protestant police officers undermines the peace process. Five Roman Catholics were killed in the past year, but no such appeal was made to end talks with Protestant groups. ANDY SOMERS President Irish-American Unity Conference Washington, June 19, 1997 | Deaf Ears in Ireland |
938548_4 | '' Dr. Henderson said. ''But the message is, 'It will work equally badly.' '' Most patients, he said, ''want a sense that there is something their doctor believes in.'' Dr. Albert Mulley, who is chief of the general medicine division at the Massachusetts General Hospital, said it would be a mistake to assume that patients, men and women, who left decisions to their doctors were lazy, ignorant or cowed by authority. Dr. Mulley, who has devoted much of his career to studying ways to help patients make informed choices, said he had only gradually come to understand the significance of what psychologists call ''regret theory,'' which explains why it is reasonable for most patients to refuse to take sole responsibility for their medical fate. If a choice turns sour, if a cancer appears in a woman in her 40's who decided against a mammogram, if a woman who spurned postmenopausal estrogen treatment develops osteoporosis, then the easiest response, psychologically, is to blame someone else. ''There is a fair body of literature, and even more common experience, to suggest that bad outcomes feel worse if you made the choice yourself,'' Dr. Mulley said. So, he said, many patients try to get enough information to be sure that whatever choice their doctor suggests is in the right ball park. Then, he said, ''they're very happy to lay off the responsibility.'' Others, he said, will learn enough to decide for themselves what they think the right choice is. If their doctor advises them differently, they will find another doctor who says what they want to hear. That way, the doctor can still be responsible for the patient's decision. Doctors themselves may try to dilute their responsibility. Dr. Karlin said she urged patients to get a second opinion when there was a question regarding the best course of treatment. ''A lot of them say, 'Look, I don't need to talk to someone else,' '' she said. ''But I insist.'' Dr. Ursula Goodenough, 54, a cell biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said it was fear of regret that drove her to have mammograms every two to three years since she was 40. Dr. Goodenough said her risk was low -- she gave birth to five children, starting at an early age, and none of her relatives have had breast cancer. Yet she said that she could not help thinking, What if she discovered | Women Want Control, Just Not All of the Time |
939018_0 | When two police officers were killed in Northern Ireland and a caller to a Belfast radio station said the attack was the work of the Irish Republican Army, the British Government retaliated by calling off all further contact with Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political arm. The officers, members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary on patrol in a busy town in County Armagh, were shot in the head, both at point-blank range. When the I.R.A. quickly claimed responsibility, it seemed likely that the group was trying to cause maximum trouble before the start of the summer's ''marching season,'' in which Protestants who support continued British rule in Northern Ireland hold demonstrations, often in Catholic neighborhoods. Sinn Fein has not been allowed to participate in the formal negotiations over the province's future that are being held in Ulster because the I.R.A., which is pressing for an end to British control, broke its cease-fire in February. In recent weeks, British officials had met twice with Sinn Fein, hoping to restore the cease-fire, and the two sides had planned to meet again. SARAH LYALL June 15-21 | The I.R.A. Shuts the Door On Itself Again |
938559_3 | Bodies, Ourselves'' and demanding information, not a pat on the head by a condescending male doctor. When these women were in their 20's and 30's, their primary-care doctor was generally a gynecologist, but their needs have changed as they have moved into middle age and beyond. There is the hormonal turbulence that precedes actual menopause. There is the conflicting advice about estrogen replacement and the terror of breast cancer that dissuades women from treatment for afflictions more likely to kill them, like heart disease and bone loss. There are the diseases that come with menopause or disproportionately afflict women, among them osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, depression, lupus and irritable bowel syndrome. There are new findings about how women differ from men in their manifestations of heart disease and responses to treatments. There is the knowledge that women live longer than men and need to work toward a healthier dotage. And there are the stresses that collapse upon midlife women: careers, children, aging parents, empty nests. The Columbia center and others like it put under one roof specialists who coordinate their expertise in these interconnected physical, social and emotional problems. The centers also create an environment more like a spa than a hospital. Proponents of the concept say the team approach and focus on prevention and behavioral changes is a model that will also benefit men. Critics say this is bald marketing to a prosperous population, the gatekeepers of their family's health care, who will not only enrich the hospital with their business but will refer their husbands and children as well. The doctors and patients on East 60th Street see nothing wrong with doing well by doing good. ''This is driven both by good medicine and consumer demand,'' said Eva Anderson, the center's administrative director and a former investment banker with a specialty in nonprofit health systems. Dr. Ellen Silverstein, a Columbia radiologist, agreed, noting: ''That's what medicine has become -- marketing. But it has to be good medical practice, or it won't work.'' An example, Dr. Silverstein said, is the one-stop shopping. Here, a woman can have a checkup and a mammogram in the same visit. If the mammogram is irregular, she can have a sonogram on the spot. ''Busy professional women don't have a week,'' she said. ''They want to fit everything in today.'' That Filofax mentality is what the center's ''A Day in Your Life'' program is all about. | Is There a Doctor in the House? Whatever Kind You Need |
938965_3 | were exposed in the early 1970's, some kind of independent life has become the accepted norm for the developmentally disabled -- because it is more humane but also because it tends to be cheaper. (Developmental disability is a vague catchall term for a physical or mental impairment -- often mental retardation -- that becomes apparent in childhood and limits a person's ability to learn or care for himself.) This movement, known as deinstitutionalization, has been astonishingly powerful. In 1967, a peak of nearly 200,000 developmentally disabled people were warehoused in state institutions across America, mistreated more often than treated; today just 60,000 remain. No state has discharged as many as New York; none had as far to go. In 1967, nearly 28,000 people lived in its 20 developmental centers. Now there are 2,740 in nine centers. Every year the number shrinks. There is a consensus that, for the most part, those who have left are doing remarkably well (unlike so many of the mentally ill, whose companion deinstitutionalization movement has been far more turbulent, with all too many psychotic patients living beneath bridges or on sidewalks). Which is not to say that there are not persistent controversies and fears, especially about whether states are actually more intent on saving money than enriching lives, and so are scrimping on budgets to care for their former patients and to train and pay those who look after them. But here in the endgame of deinstitutionalization, the next move is a matter of fervid debate. For those who remain are largely the hard cases, the really different, people who are often unable to communicate or who attack themselves or others. The notion that anyone, no matter how overwhelmingly needy, can live independently has become an article of faith advanced by most professionals who work with the handicapped. They believe in the magic of the community, in an alchemy to a normal environment that, even if it is not necessarily curative, can enhance the joy and the contribution to society of even the most damaged individuals. Still, many people ask if deinstitutionalization should go much further. To these people, many of them parents of patients still in institutions, there is a segment of the population, human dynamite of a sort, that is simply best off separated from society. Some parents fear for the safety of their children out in the community; there are fears, too, | Patient's Quest for Normal Life, at a Price |
938949_0 | From women's clinics to breast cancer treatments to medical experts for the teen-age set, women have become the focus of medical care and health care marketing as never before. Today in Section 14, a national New York Times-CBS News survey on women's attitudes toward health, an essay by Anna Quindlen on (shhh!) menopause, Jane Brody on what women want to know about their own well-being, and a resource guide for those who want more. An expanded version of Women's Health is available from The New York Times on the Web: www.nytimes.com A SPECIAL SECTION | WOMEN'S HEALTH |
938547_0 | No medicine is prescribed more often in the United States than Premarin, the most common form of hormone replacement therapy. But some women, concerned about links between extended use of drugs like Premarin and some forms of cancer, have been trying something else: foods like soy, flax, yams and herbs that contain estrogenic substances. Those foods do not contain estrogen but affect the body in a similar fashion, said Dr. Christiane Northrup, a gynecologist who recommends these phyto-estrogens for patients who cannot tolerate pharmaceutical hormones. ''Some patients on estrogen have weight gain or headaches,'' Dr. Northrup said. ''They might have a strong family history of breast cancer, or maybe they've already had breast cancer, and they feel safer with the phyto-estrogens. ''There are similar herbs in almost every culture,'' she added. But Dr. Northrup warned that the foods are many times weaker than pharmaceutical estrogens and might not help women experiencing severe effects of menopause. Others are more cautious. The North American Menopause Society, a professional group of doctors, nurses and other experts in the field, says ''natural'' does not mean better, or even safer and that the strength of plant products can vary with factors like growing seasons and rainfall. Fredi Kronenberg, an associate professor of physiology who directs studies on alternative medicine at Columbia University, said there are no sure bets on whether the estrogen substitutes provide the same long-term benefits against heart disease and osteoporosis that many think estrogren provides. ''Multigrain breads, the grain used to make bourbon, soy milk -- there's research being done on these foods,'' Dr. Kronenberg said. ''What if you say, 'I'm going to eat a ton of soy every day'? There are no data yet.'' And as for herbal remedies, Dr. Kronenberg noted that ''women need to realize that just because it's in a health-food store doesn't mean it's safe. Women should clamor for more research on those products.'' CHECK-UPS | Estrogens au Naturel |
938889_0 | Jennifer Anne Wallace, the daughter of Anne M. Wallace of Brookline, Mass., and Caleb E. Wallace of Sanibel Island, Fla., was married yesterday to Billy Dean Dobbs Jr., a son of Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs Sr. of Madera, Calif. The Rev. David D. Holroyd, an Episcopal priest, performed the ceremony at St. Peter's-by-the-Sea Chapel in York, Me. The couple received M.B.A. degrees from Columbia University, from which the bride graduated. The bride is a consultant in the retailing and consumer products group at McKinsey & Company, the consulting concern in New York. Her father, who is retired, was a vice president of Eastern group operations in the Bryn Mawr, Pa., office of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company. Her mother is an independent management consultant in Brookline. The bridegroom, who graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles, owns and operates Formula Fund Management in New York, an investment fund company. His mother, Sue Dobbs, is a delivery nurse in the birthing center at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Fresno, Calif. His father is an engineer and conductor based in Madera for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. WEDDINGS | Jennifer Wallace, Billy Dobbs Jr. |
938617_2 | three years,'' Ms. Ganz said. ''But students don't even need to come into our office. For example, 50 percent of our seniors serve internships. Of those, 90 percent have been offered full-time jobs after graduation.'' The job fair that Manhattanville holds in cooperation with Marymount, Sarah Lawrence and Purchase every year also demonstrated the strength of the job market. ''Fifty companies attended and 44 of our students scheduled interviews with a number of them,'' Ms. Ganz said. ''So far, 10 have reported receiving offers for full-time employment. Regarding the job market, I think corporate expansion is the major factor in making the demand for recent graduates stronger than it has been in years.'' And so are beginning salaries. Starting salaries reported by 1997 Manhattanville graduates range from $20,000 in publishing to ''close to $40,000 for a sales and marketing position,'' Ms. Ganz said. And this year, college career centers have become electronic, replacing job boards and binders with the Internet, making it easier for employers and job seekers to find one another. ''All the Westchester colleges, ourselves included. are involved with Jobtrak, an on-line job listing service that works with 53 colleges in the area including all those in Westchester,'' Ms. Battersby said. ''It posts a half a million jobs for students and extends our career services not only to our recent graduates but to our alumni. Through their Web page, they can access our job openings whenever or wherever it's convenient.'' Jobtrak (http://www.jobtrak.com), a California-based company, began computerizing career centers 10 years ago and today works directly with on-campus career centers at more than 600 colleges and universities to connect students and alumni with companies nationwide. More than 300,000 employers have used Jobtrak to reach job seekers in a variety of markets for a diverse range of positions, said Kenneth Ramberg, the company's chief financial officer. ''This year, more employers than ever are using the Internet to fill jobs,'' Mr. Ramberg said. ''The number of jobs our service lists has increased by 95 percent. And out of the 168,000 jobs we listed from January through April this year, sales and marketing positions were the most plentiful, followed closely by jobs in computer science. New York area employers using Jobtrak include AT&T, Datek Securities, Kinderhook Systems, Ziff Davis and others.'' When job seekers log on to Jobtrak's Web site, they can then maneuver through areas like Resumes to submit a | A Bright Job Outlook for the Class of '97 |
938567_0 | WHAT do women want to know about their health, the possibilities of losing it and the ways of preserving it? As the recipient of dozens of letters each month from readers of this column, and as a frequent lecturer on health to large audiences of women throughout the United States, I am regularly besieged by queries about women's health issues. While in general, women's concerns are hardly trivial, I am struck by the fact that they rarely focus on the most serious health threats or the most productive preventive steps women could take. If my experience is an indication, women worry much more about breast cancer than they do about heart disease, even though they are far more likely to die of heart problems. They want to know which calcium supplements are most likely to keep their bones strong as they age, but they rarely ask about foods that could protect their skeletons from debilitating fractures. There are two very good reasons for being more alert to heart disease: Heart attacks are twice as deadly in women than in men, and doctors often miss the signs of serious heart disease and even heart attacks in women because, for some reason, the symptoms are often vague and hard to interpret. Women having a heart attack are very likely to experience breathlessness, nausea and heartburn and the diagnosis is often an anxiety attack. There is understandable confusion about menopause and hormone replacement therapy. Women are beset by conflicting recommendations: take it because it prevents heart attacks and osteoporosis; don't take it because it can cause cancers of the uterus and breast; take it because it is necessary now that women live a third of their lives after menopause; don't take it because it's not natural. Whom should women believe? How are they to make a rational decision? Until more definite facts become available, women have no choice but to decide on the basis of their individual risks, personal priorities and tolerances for the various accompaniments of menopause. Some women I talk to want to know if the artificial sweeteners they regularly consume could cause brain tumors, as claimed by one researcher, or other health hazards. What seems more pertinent is that artificially sweetened foods keep alive the desire for an intensely sweet taste, with a result that Americans now consume 20 more pounds of caloric sweeteners per capita than they did before | Personal Health |
938560_0 | A woman's life cycle can sometimes seem like an obstacle course in which she must dodge an increasing number of health threats. In reality, as medical experts point out, every stage in a woman's life has its health benefits. Indeed, women typically pass through long periods of essentially good health. Risks can be reduced if good habits are nurtured early on. And eve late in the game, women can undertake preventive measures that improve the quality of life. CHILDHOOD BRITH THROUGH AGE 6 Girls tend to be healthier than boys during the first six months of life. Language and reading skills develop earlier, as does some physical prowess, espeically during the first year. PREPUBERTY 7 THROUGH 11 A major growth spurt marks the premenstrual years. And with physical development often outpacing intellectual and emotional maturity girls may feel uneasy with who they are and what they look like. PUBERTY 12 through 17 Girls are building bones for a healthy adulthood; calcium and exercise are vital. Easting disorders begin most often between ages 14 and 18, when body image can become an obsession Sexually-transmitted diseases pose a greater risk to teen-agers than to adults because the still-developing cervix is easily infected. Pregnancy risk is high, but teen-agers do as well as, and often better than, women during labor and delivery. Overtraining in athletics can interrupt the menstrual cycle, depleting estrogen and, over the long term, bone mass. YOUNG ADULTHOOD 18 through 25 The good news: Young women, a generally healthy lot, are usually not at risk for ovarian and breast cancer. But they are increasingly smoking, putting themselves at risk for lung cancer - the leading cancer among women - later in life. TYPICAL CHILDBEARING YEARS 25 through 35 These women have a lower risk of gonorrhea and chlamydia. Pregnancy now confers health benefits that include lower risk for breast and ovarian cancer. LATE CHILDBEARING YEARS 36 THROUGH 50 Older mothers tend to be better equipped as parents: calmer, more self-aware, settled. But women in midlife are at higher risk of auto-immune diseases like lupus. MENOPAUSE AND SOON AFTER 50 THROUGH 59 One event defines menopause: no more menstruation; no more worries about birth control either, which many women applaud and some bemoan as they adjust to being middle aged and no longer child-bearing age. But in the aftermath of menopause may come distressing hot flashes, night sweats an sleep disturbances. | Life: Start Here . . . |
938555_2 | least $43 billion. Questions and worries about depression in its myriad guises are of particular concern to women. By one estimate, about 25 percent of women display at least some symptoms of dysthymia or mild depression at any given time, which is hardly surprising given that the symptom menu includes low self-esteem and fatigue. In a survey published last year of 38,000 people in 10 countries around the world, Dr. Myrna M. Weissman of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and her international collaborators found that, while the overall lifetime rates of depression vary widely across countries, women universally are at two to three times the risk of the illness when compared with their male counterparts. The reasons for women's greater vulnerability to depressive disorders remain murky and subject to perhaps predictable debate over how much to attribute to culture, how much to biology. Some experts argue that the cross-national evidence indicates an innate female susceptibility. ''I think there is no question that males and females are different biologically, and that this has something to do with the expression of emotion and the vulnerability to depression,'' said Dr. Weissman. Yet efforts to identify the source of that predilection have proved far more intricate than a matter of the old biological bugaboo, ''female hormones.'' Dr. Mary F. Morrison, an assistant professor of psychiatry and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, points out that attempts to correlate depression with levels of estrogen or progesterone in premenopausal women have failed. Beyond sex hormones, women and men may differ in their capacity to generate and metabolize serotonin, the neurochemical most strongly implicated in depressive disorders. As reported last month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from McGill University in Canada used brain-imaging scans to study serotonin production in a group of healthy men and women. They found that, on average, the men synthesized 52 percent more serotonin than the women did. But what those results mean nobody knows: some studies suggest that having too much serotonin floating freely through the brain is as bad for mood as is a deficit. Others emphasize the sociocultural aspects of depression and dysthymia, pointing out that those who suffer from depressive disorders may have reason to be dissatisfied with their lives. Indeed, whatever risks for depression women may inherit, life bequeaths plenty of new ones. Dr. Martha L. Bruce, an associate professor | As Drugs for Depression Multiply, So Do the Hard Questions |
938543_2 | Care of Women,'' and was co-author of ''The Harvard Guide to Women's Health.'' ''Pay attention to the simple things: healthy diet, getting exercise, managing stress.'' Dr. Marianne J. Legato 61, Cardiologist Her 1991 book, ''The Female Heart,'' helped bring public attention to the danger that heart disease poses for women. She is the founder and director of the Partnership for Women's Health at Columbia University's medical school, which studies the biology of sex differences. ''A woman should know that heart disease kills more American women than all cancers combined. Between the ages of 40 and 60, as many women die of heart disease as of breast cancer.'' Dr. Elizabeth Ross 44, Cardiologist Dr. Ross conducted research on women and heart disease and has led efforts to educate women about the dangers and warning signs of the leading cause of death for both sexes. Dr. Ross is also a co-author of ''Healing the Female Heart.'' ''Somehow in their busy schedules they need to carve out a healthy life style. In the long run, what determines how healthy we are are the choices we make - whether we eat right or exerice or smoke. It's important to get our priorities straight.'' Dr. Myrna M. Weissman 62, Psychiatrist Her epidemiological studies, conducted at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, established that menopause does not lead to increased rates of depression. She recently published a 10-country epidemiological analysis showing that depression seems to be increasing in adolescent girls. ''The quality of her life - that covers both her physical and mental health - and to have a long view.'' Dr. Vivian Pinn 56, Director, Office of Research on Women's Health, National Institutes of Health She was the first female director of the N.I.H. office the oversees research on women and insures that they are represented and broad clinical trials. ''Wellness and how to preserve wellness. Prevention from the standpoint of personal responsibility, as 'Do I eat right? Do I take care of my body? Do I deal with stress right?' Prevention is the key.'' Dr. Wulf H. Utian 57, Researcher Known as Mr. Menopause, he founded the world's first menopause research center in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1967. Ten years later, he moved to Case Western Reserve University in Ohio and established the Menopause Research Center, which he still directs. ''To remain active physically and intellectually, to use your body | A Dozen Who Have Risen to Prominence |
938556_2 | most books in the field, with more than 300 A-Z entries on diseases, domestic violence and eating disorders. THE NEW OUR BODIES, OURSELVES Boston Women's Health Book Collective. Simon & Schuster, 1992; $20. 751 pp. This updated version of the original on its 25th anniversary, includes firsthand accounts, detailed illustrations and articles by women's health advocates that cover all the basics - plus other topics like sexual fantasies and workplace hazards. Offers extensive resource guides listing books, videos, catalogues, community centers and advocacy groups. DR. RICHARD MARRS' FERTILITY BOOK Dr. Richard Marrs, with Lisa Friedman Bloch and Kathy Kirtland Silverman. Delacorte Press, 1997; $25.95 hardback. 506 pp. An easy-to-understand handbook about the causes and treatment of infertility. Covers current reproductive technology, like egg donation and artificial insemination, as well as emotional and financial issues. THE WOMEN'S COMPLETE HEALTHBOOK American Medical Women's Association: Drs. Robert Roselyn Payne Epps and Susan Cobb Stewart, eds. Dell Trade Paperbacks, 1995; $21.95. 708 pp. A broad collection of articles by female doctors that give an overview of preventive health care and disease diagnoses. Newsletters HARVARD WOMEN'S HEALTH WATCH Harvard Medical School Health Publications Group. Monthly. $32/year. Subscription Information: (800)829-5921. Considered an up-to-the minute resources with articles reviewed by Harvard Medical School physicians on issues like the possible links between bone density and breast cancer and the effects of estrogen on aging skin. Regular features include nutrition updates and doctors' answers to readers' questions. THE JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICAL LETTER, HEALTH AFTER 50 Medletter Associates. Monthly. $28/year. Subscription Information: (800)829-0422 Includes articles by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine doctors on topics like pain relief for arthritis and Alzheimer's disease. NATIONAL WOMEN'S HEALTH REPORT National Women's Health Resource Center. Six times a year. Free to members of the center; $25/year for individuals, $75/year for organizations. Subscription Information: (202)293-6045. Articles explain warning signs for health conditions and advocate specific prevention methods. Also includes a physician question and answer section. Internet Sites There are hundreds, if not thousands, of sites relating to women's health on the World Wide Web. Not surprisingly, the quality of information is more varied than in books or periodical. Here are some sites recommended by experts. http://www.amwa-doc.org/ The site of the American Medical Women's Association includes information about women in medicine and links to pages of the American Medical Association and the Journal of the American Medical Association. http://www.gen.emory.edu/WHSCL/med web.html The Emory University search engine | For Hot Flashes, See Chapter 7 |
938561_4 | of anemia. There are two kinds of pills: One contains estrogen and progestin; the other, the ''mini-pill,'' contains only progestin. It can thus be taken by women with a history of estrogen-dependent cancers (uterine or breast) but is less effective as birth control. Although both pills can cause irregular bleeding and some of the symptoms of pregnancy -- nausea, weight gain, headaches, skin problems and breast enlargement -- those effects are much less pronounced now that the pills contain lower doses of the hormones. Taking the pill, said Dr. Margaret Polaneczky, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, is ''safer than getting into a car.'' The trick is remembering to take it. For those who forget, birth control pills also serve as morning-after pills, with great success (the risk of pregnancy is reduced by 75 percent) and a little nausea. Dr. Trussell said that clinicians have known this for two decades. They simply have never told patients. An IUD, inserted by a doctor the day after sex, will do the same thing. And the much-awaited, much-contested Mifepristone, better known as RU-486, or the abortion pill, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is to be distributed by the Population Council, a nonprofit group. The pill is not the only way to get progestin. Norplant, a series of match-size rods implanted surgically just under the skin of the upper arm, slowly releases progestin over five years. Norplant, used by 1 percent of women of reproductive age, is close to 100 percent effective, but its side effects include erratic bleeding, weight gain, acne and hair growth or loss. And because it suppresses ovarian function, it can put an end to the menstrual period. The Norplant rods are also tough to remove. That is why Norplant II, an implant of two rods that would last three years, is in the works. The most recent addition to the contraceptive arsenal in the United States is Depo-Provera, progestin that is injected into the arm every three months. It has the same side effects as Norplant, but requires no surgery. There are some new devices on the horizon designed to guard against both pregnancy and diseases. Though many are being developed here for use in third-world nations, some of them may eventually trickle down to the United States. If all goes well, within a year Femcap will | The Contraception Conundrum: It's Not Just Birth Control Anymore |
938568_0 | A DECADE ago, the health section of any good-size bookstore featured a shelf of titles for women on pregnancy, premenstrual syndrome and dieting. Today, that shelf is groaning with books on menopause, the mind-body duality -- and dieting. As the 38 million women of the baby-boom generation begin to move out of their 40's, the titles these women are bringing to the cash register are a barometer of the collective bodily sea change they're undergoing, and the do-not-go-gentle stance they're adopting in response. What Freddi Greenberg, the editor in chief of the magazine American Health for Women, called ''an explosion'' in the number and variety of women's health books has been fueled by several factors. These include the sweeping changes in the nation's health care system, which have spurred many Americans to become more educated consumers; a growing interest in remedies outside the boundaries of traditional Western medicine, and the penchant of baby boomers for self-care. Recent top-selling titles include ''Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book: Making Informed Choices About Menopause,'' by Susan M. Love with Karen Lindsey (Random House), on on the New York Times best-seller list for seven weeks this spring; the 1994 book ''Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing,'' by Christiane Northrup, a holistic doctor (Bantam), and ''Suzanne Somers' Eat Great, Lose Weight'' (Crown), published last year. More than anything, 1997 is shaping up as the Year of the Hormone. ''It's all demographics,'' said Elizabeth Rapoport, the executive editor of Times Books-Random House and the editor of Dr. Love's book. ''The average age for onset of menopause is 51. The leading edge of the baby boomers turned 50 last year.'' The current debate over hormone replacement therapy has engendered a string of books that shares a common theme -- call it The Joy of Soy. Among them are ''Natural Woman, Natural Menopause,'' by Marcus Laux, a naturopath, and Christine Conrad, a screenwriter and editor (HarperCollins), and ''Estrogen: The Natural Way,'' by Nina Shandler, a health writer and cookbook author (Villard), both of which advocate the consumption of milder forms of estrogen found in some plants and in foods like tofu. Ms. Shandler's book, for instance, offers hundreds of recipes for transforming quivering masses of bean curd into such culinary marvels as potato latkes and chocolate mousse cake, which the author, who is 51, developed after conventional hormone therapy failed to relieve her own | For a Real Page-Turner, Check Out the Joy of Soy |
938570_4 | ''Women and Their Bodies,'' in which they distributed photocopies of their research. Seventy-five women showed up. A number of them eventually started their own sessions, while others joined the original group. Demand for the research material increased. Group members approached The New England Free Press, a nonprofit alternative press, about printing the papers. The group's members recall that some men at the press objected, saying women's health was not a suitably ''political'' subject. But the authors raised the money needed, and in December 1970, The Free Press published the first 138-page newsprint edition of what was then called ''Women and Their Bodies.'' The Free Press could not keep up with the demand. In 1971, Simon & Schuster approached the group. After much debate and attacks by The Free Press, which accused them of selling out to capitalists, the women signed on, reasoning that a commercial publisher would help them reach more women. They demanded, and got, a woman editor and a stipulation that nonprofit clinics receive a 70 percent discount. The first Simon & Schuster edition appeared in 1973. Women nationwide responded. They are still responding. As the piles of letters, and replies, have grown, so has the book -- from 276 pages in the 1973 edition to 384 in 1976, 647 pages in 1984 and 752 pages in 1992. ''We're hoping it won't get bigger,'' Ms. Doress-Worters said. ''It loses some of the intimacy.'' Menopause was not discussed in the first edition; no one in the group had experienced it. ''I became the initiate, as it were,'' said Ms. Swenson, who is 65. Menopause appeared in the 1973 edition. In 1984, a ''Women Growing Older'' chapter was added. Eventually, the collective created ''Ourselves, Growing Older'' (and, for teen-agers, ''Changing Bodies, Changing Lives''). Like the book, the group has grown. It is not actually a collective any longer; it has paid staff members and an administrative director. But despite the publication of several foreign-language editions -- and others on the way -- United States sales are not as brisk as they were. With book royalties no longer the main source of income, the group increasingly depends on individual contributions to meet its $600,000 annual budget. The collective, all white in its early years, now includes African-American and Hispanic women. The health concerns of minority women, like the higher rate of hysterectomies among African-Americans, are better reflected in recent editions. April | They Talked and Talked, and Then Wrote a Classic |
938542_0 | NEVER before have women meant so much to so many. Recognized as the health care system's biggest customers, they are being treated as such: researched and marketed to, tracked and talked about. Consider: Premarin, an estrogen replacement, is the most widely used prescription drug in the United States. From 1991 to 1992, the number of hospitals with a women's health center rose 19 percent, according to a survey by the American Hospital Association. In many cities, Atlanta and Dallas among them, hospitals are competing for pregnant Medicaid patients; among the lures are free Disney movies for the older children, infant car seats, baby showers, insulated beverage flasks and monogrammed blankets. Even the women who coalesced 30 years ago into something loosely called the women's health movement are struck by the mix of responsive medicine and commercial grasping that the 1990's have delivered. It is both more and less than these mothers of intervention bargained for. ''As a lasting legacy of the women's movement, health care is one of our shining moments,'' said Dr. Susan Reverby, a professor of women's studies at Wellesley College, who recently served on an obstetrics and gynecology advisory panel for the Federal Food and Drug Administration. While acknowledging that ''the health care system is relentless in its ability to figure out where the next buck is coming from,'' Ms. Reverby said the medical profession had become more aware of women's concerns, especially those beyond the gynecologic. ''There's much more consciousness about what women's issues are,'' she said. ''We can now talk about heart disease and about AIDS.'' But not all women applaud the results of that new consciousness. Rachel Fruchter, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn, said she was appalled that women were pursued so avidly as consumers, particularly by pharmaceutical companies whose advertisements picture radiant middle-aged women and counsel, ''Ask your doctor.'' ''The pretense that that's what the women's health movement wanted is a bad joke,'' Ms. Fruchter said. In the beginning, the women's health movement talked mostly about abortion and contraceptives. But as its baby boomer leaders have reached the age of influence -- and the age of menopause -- the health concerns of older generations have taken on new urgency. That urgency is also fueled by the fact that women are living longer -- on average, more than seven years | More Research, More Profits, More Conflict |
940037_1 | he was cleanly shaved, in line with an order Thursday by the judge, Jack B. Weinstein. Prosecutors say Mr. Gigante has headed the Genovese crime family since the early 80's. His lawyers and relatives insist that he was so impaired by mental illness that he could not possibly have been a Mafia kingpin. They also say he has suffered from serious heart disease since the 1980's. In any case, as Mr. Gigante maintained his usual blank look, the police detective, Gaetano Bruno, told the jury yesterday of an incident in the 1980's when he saw Mr. Gigante emerge from a building at the Avenue of the Americas and Houston Street with a second man who was holding Mr. Gigante by the arm. As they began crossing the street, the detective continued, they appeared to realize that they would have to hurry to beat the oncoming traffic, and they ran separately. ''When they reached the other side of the street, they looked at the cars,'' Detective Bruno said, and the other man ''grabbed Mr. Gigante's arm again.'' Prosecutors charge that Mr. Gigante has faked mental illness for decades and exaggerated his physical enfeeblement to hide his crimes and evade prosecution. They said part of the ruse is the behavior for which Mr. Gigante is best known: walking through his former Village neighborhood in bathrobe and pajamas while mumbling incoherently. Prosecutors yesterday showed jurors a series of photos of Mr. Gigante outdoors on Sullivan Street, secretly taken by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the mid-80's from a building on his block. As identified by an F.B.I. agent, Gerald King, reputed or convicted mobsters with Mr. Gigante in the various pictures included Dominick Cirillo, who law enforcement officials say has remained influential in the Genovese group, and Louis Manna, who was convicted of racketeering in 1990. But defense lawyers suggested that Mr. Gigante was merely mingling with neighbors. Among the secretly recorded tapes played yesterday was one in which the now imprisoned Mr. Gotti, in a 1990 meeting with his own lieutenants, recounts how Mr. Gigante, whom Mr. Gotti calls by his nickname, Chin, had sent him a warning that a mob informer was going to testify against him. And Mr. Gotti quoted another mobster as saying of Mr. Gigante, ''If he ain't a nut, he's faking it.'' Mr. Gotti said he told the other man, ''You don't like the idea a | Prosecution Says Spy Pictures Show Gigante as a Mafia Boss |
935886_0 | Dr. Derek Henry Fender of the California Institute of Technology, a biologist who studied eyesight and the functioning of the brain, died on May 28 at his home in Altadena, Calif. He was 78. He suffered a lengthy illness, said a spokeswoman for the institute, where Dr. Fender taught from 1966 until his retirement 20 years later as professor emeritus of biology and applied science. Much of his research was based on innovative uses of contact lenses to determine the eye's position during his experiments. He discovered that the eye sees as a result of a series of flicks and that the brain is limited in the complexity of the visual design patterns it can identify. He also found that the visual system is more acute in looking at vertical objects than horizontal ones. To learn more about how the brain works, he devised an electrode-studded helmet with which he investigated the visual cortex, in the back of the brain, and the propagation of brain waves. Born in England, Dr. Fender trained and taught at the University of Reading, where he also received a doctorate in physics in 1956. His interest in his specialty derived from service with the Royal Signal Corps in World War II, when he helped to improve radar by developing control systems for antennas and antiaircraft guns. He is survived by his wife, Sue; a son, Antony, also of Altadena, and two granddaughters. | D. H. Fender, 78; Studied Sight and Brain |
934316_4 | blunder. ''They didn't see the problem at the time,'' said Biagio Gennaro, a surveyor for the local Catholic diocese. ''But now they realize that the roof they put in was too heavy. This time it wasn't the cupola that fell, but the roof over the nave.'' What makes the latest collapse so compelling is that it did not have to happen. A year after the 1990 earthquake, $2.3 billion was allocated to southeastern Sicily by the Government in Rome to repair damage and to modify both public and private buildings so they might better withstand quakes. Although the situation had been characterized as an emergency, another year was spent preparing the list of public monuments entitled to the earthquake aid, among them the Noto cathedral, and another three years to prepare the contracts for repair work. Seven years after the earthquake, only about 20 percent of the money has been spent, said Rocco Sciara, a top aide to the Rome-appointed prefect based in Syracuse who has been charged with coordinating the cathedral restoration. In 1992, priests at the cathedral detected a series of cracks in a pillar, added in 1952 to support the new concrete roof and then hollowed out to make room for an internal staircase. State engineers put three metal rings around the pillar, and the cathedral was reopened although the area was kept closed off to the public. ''We knew there were problems,'' Mr. Gennaro said. ''We saw the cracks, but no one thought they were serious. No one said the church should be closed.'' Now the Italian Government has allocated $11 million for reconstruction of the cathedral, four times the sum set aside earlier to make it earthquake-resistant. Emergency work has been done to secure what remains of the dome and the steeple, and crews are clearing the site. They are sifting through and cataloguing each stone, both to help architects find the cause of the collapse and to help local prosecutors determine whether negligence was involved. Reconstruction will not be completed until sometime after 2000, but local residents hope access will soon be restored to the tomb of their patron saint, San Corrado Confalonieri, a 14th-century hermit. It was removed intact after the collapse. ''People are very attached to the saint,'' Mr. Gennaro said, ''and we hope he will be back in the church in August, when the rubble should be all gone.'' Noto Journal | A Ruined Church Laments Stones Left Unturned |
934291_3 | were severe. The Colorado group's forecast applies to an area encompassing the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. It is to be updated on Friday, but Dr. Gray said the update was not expected to depart substantially from the April prediction. The forecasters do not attempt to predict whether or where any of the hurricanes will strike land. The forecasts are based on an array of predictive signs and atmospheric phenomena that Dr. Gray has identified as determining hurricane activity. One is the amount of rainfall in the Sahel region of western Africa, where the small areas of low pressure that are the embryos of hurricanes first form. When the Sahel is wetter, Dr. Gray found, more embryos form. This year, the Sahel is wet. Another factor is the phenomenon known as El Nino, the huge pool of warm water that develops every two to seven years in the eastern tropical Pacific, changing weather patterns around the world. When it is in place, high-level winds blowing from the west tend to shear off the tops of developing hurricanes in the adjacent Atlantic, causing them to abort. El Nino may make an appearance later this year, forecasters say, but the Colorado group predicts that it will not do so in time to affect the hurricane picture. Other elements include the behavior of stratospheric winds that circle the globe high above the equator and weather features far remote from the Atlantic hurricane belt -- things, for example, like the temperature high above Singapore. On balance, the forecasters say, the indicators point to higher-than-average activity this year. One of the most powerful indicators, according to the new study by Dr. Saunders and Andrew R. Harris, climate scientists at University College London in Britain, is the Atlantic sea-surface temperature. Their statistical analysis found that while most of the relevant factors were indeed favorable for hurricane development in the banner year of 1995, the dominating influence was the unusually warm ocean. The temperature in the region where hurricanes develop was 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1946-1995 average, a record. The development region was 0.36 of a degree warmer than average last year and is about 0.9 of a degree warmer now. This, said Dr. Saunders, presages another active season. His study appeared in the May 15 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The researchers suggest that warmer seas cause more | Storm Warning: Bigger Hurricanes and More of Them |
933770_0 | With complaints by airlines about disruptive passengers on the rise, Government efforts to prosecute offenders are being expanded. A test program was begun at Honolulu and Los Angeles International Airports on Nov. 1, 1996, and the Department of Transportation plans to extend the program to the three major New York airports: Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark. In mid-May, Bill Mosley, spokesman for the department, said no date for the extension had been set. In the program, the Federal Aviation Administration, part of the transportation department, works with airlines, crew members, local law agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and assistant United States attorneys to see that reports of passenger interference with crew members are investigated. In addition, Sam Podberesky, in the enforcement division of the department, said that it would offer help to the airlines in rewriting the legal language on their tickets to warn that they could refuse to carry passengers found guilty of interfering. An F.A.A. report on the test of enhanced coordination was made at an international conference held by the Air Line Pilots Association. This report said that from Nov. 1 to April 30, seven United States and five foreign airlines flying into Honolulu and Los Angeles reported 24 incidents. The agency is pursuing 14 civil actions as a result. In one case, a male passenger flying from Los Angeles to Hawaii made sexual gestures, struck a female flight attendant and seized a male attendant by the arm. The suspect pleaded guilty to assault, a misdemeanor, and, according to Ed Jones of the F.A.A. security office at Los Angeles International Airport, was sentenced to two years' probation in addition to a day already spent in jail. The judge levied no fine because the passenger was unemployed. A female passenger who slapped a pilot and bit a first officer was sentenced to a day in jail and fined $750. Nancy McFadden, general counsel at the Department of Transportation, said that the agency was working on ways to let passengers know what they risked if they did not fulfill their responsibility to behave aboard planes -- possibly by spreading the information on the Internet. BETSY WADE TRAVEL ADVISORY | U.S. Toughens Program On Unruly Air Travelers |
934025_3 | ourselves as people with disabilities,'' said Steven E. Brown, co-founder of the Institute on Disability Culture in Las Cruces, N.M. ''We claim our disabilities with pride as part of our identity. We are who we are: we are people with disabilities.'' The consciousness shift can be traced back to 1962 when Edward V. Roberts, who became a quadriplegic after contracting polio, was admitted to the University of California. He had to sue to do it, just as in the same semester James Meredith sued to become the first black person to gain admission to the University of Mississippi. Mr. Roberts, a quadriplegic who attended class using a respirator, was quickly joined by other disabled students, who called themselves ''the Rolling Quads.'' Mr. Roberts went on to set up a center at Berkeley to enable students, and then the larger community in the Bay Area, to help the disabled find homes, jobs and services. He died in 1995. His example led to 300 such centers being established around the United States. These Federally financed centers have been pivotal in allowing more disabled people to participate in life. Many come together in groups like Disabled in Action, which has fought for elevators in subway stations and against telethons to aid the disabled, which it regards as hopelessly paternalistic. The Disabled in Action Singers perform such numbers as ''Let the Children Stare'' to convey the message that no good -- certainly not politeness -- is served by ignoring disabilities. For the disabled themselves, the new advocacy associations allow mutual affirmation to replace individual denial. ''When I was growing up, I was terrified of walking into a room of people with disabilities and admit I was one of them,'' Ms. Heller said. ''Now I just love being in a community of people with disabilities.'' It is not always easy. Many disabled people still don't get around much, and those who do often move slowly. Some are tired, physically and emotionally. But many say it is worth it because of the qualities they share. Carol Gill, a psychologist who was one of the first to use the term disability culture and who is a quadriplegic, says the disabled share a number of core values: tolerance for others' differences, highly developed skills at managing multiple problems and dark humor, among others. Most important, said Ms. Gill, ''Even if we have a minor disability, we're still different | Eager to Bite the Hands That Would Feed Them |
933728_3 | chief of the division of child development and human genetics at North Shore. The conditions include AIDS, the after-effects of premature births and the rarest of genetic syndromes, Dr. Meryash said. For all pediatric residents at North Shore, Project DOCC has become a mandatory part of a one-month rotation in developmental and behavioral pediatrics. The program is unique, according to Dr. Meryash, because parents direct it. Project DOCC includes three components, a parent-doctor interview, a home visit and panel discussions led by parents. An extensive interview with a parent allows the doctor to ask extremely personal questions, Ms. Weiner said, providing information that is not in medical textbooks. The home visit gives the doctors a basic understanding of caring for a chronically ill child, she said, including routines, school, siblings and communications. The mothers are also hosts for lectures for the medical staff of the hospital, during which they share suggestions about informing parents about a bleak diagnosis, expectations and how to help the children feel better about themselves. ''We want the doctors to understand how important our children are to our families,'' Ms. Hoffman said. ''We hope the doctors realize that what they say and do, and how they approach our children, really does make a difference.'' The pilot program, Ms. Weiner said, aims to train parents and professionals to present discussions, make home visits and conduct interviews. Ms. Appell asked the other mothers, ''When did you realize that this life style would be forever?'' ''It was when my son Jacob was 2,'' Ms. Hoffman said. ''We went together to a toddler class. I looked around and saw that he was the only child who couldn't walk or talk. That's when I realized this would be forever.'' ''For us, it was at a christening,'' Ms. Speller said. ''We had packed all of our medical equipment, and as we were getting out of the car I saw everyone else bounding easily out of their cars. That's when I realized how different we were.'' Having a chronically ill child affects every aspect of a family, Ms. Appell said, including marriage and siblings. The more doctors understand, she added, the more helpful they can be. ''Sometimes the only way I can cope is by dividing my life into little tolerable pieces,'' she said. ''The doctor can help with that. If I have an appointment slip for three weeks from now I have | Trying to Reach Out to Chronically Ill Children |
933699_0 | GROWING concern over the survival of the rain forest has focused new attention on the Amazonian people and their culture. At the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, ''Rather than concentrate on the biological impact of deforestation, we're focusing on cultures whose traditional life ways depend on the tropical forest habitats,'' said Richard L. Burger, director of the museum. Thus, initiation and name-giving rites are at the heart of an exhibition ''Fragments of the Sky: The Art of Amazonian Rites of Passage'' on view through Nov. 8. ''Ninety-nine percent of the materials used in their art comes from tropical forest plants and animals: bird feathers, insect wings, nuts, bark cloth, wax and animal teeth,'' said Mr. Burger, who is also curator of the exhibition. ''So clearly, once that habitat has been disrupted, not only will sustenance systems be undermined but even the basic materials used in costumes and ritual paraphernalia will no longer be available.'' The exhibition represents a collaboration of Adam Mekler's collection of Amazonian tribal art, rarely seen anywhere and now shown for the first time on the East Coast, and Peter Roe's text for ''Arts of the Amazon,'' a book devoted to the collection. Mr. Roe, a professor of anthropology, has conducted extensive ethnographic field work in the Amazon. Mr. Mekler has been studying Amerindian art for 25 years. ''It became imperative that these Amazonian objects, reflecting a widely unknown culture whose people were rapidly diminishing in number, had to be taken care of and preserved,'' Mr. Mekler said. ''This is my mission.'' Because of their perishability, ceremonial costumes and natural objects used in festivals simply decay. ''Their organic quality and the climate in the tropical forest make it difficult to preserve them,'' Mr. Burger said. ''It took exceptional effort to bring them out in pristine condition, then, once they were here, enormous care to preserve them.'' The exhibition offers an extraordinary window into the vibrant, imperiled cultures of the Amazonians, as well as an opportunity to probe shared experiences -- like ceremonies that mark transition of status in life's cycles. Opening into two halls, the effect of the exhibition is otherworldly, enhanced by sounds of the tropical forest and ceremonial flute music. Rites of passage cover initiation, name-giving rites and male and female coming-of-age rites. Particularly intimidating is a setting of 14 ritual figures clad in masks and full-body bark cloth costumes, attributed | The Amazon Celebrated At the Peabody |
933808_4 | percent of the cost of education, school officials say, and has no bearing on the capital needed for the new project. Rippowam Cisqua recently hired a new headmaster, David Blanchard, to oversee the expansion. In Mr. Blanchard's previous job, as headmaster of the Wellington School in Ohio, he completed a similar project, extending a kindergarten-through-ninth-grade program to the 12th grade. As is planned at Rippowam, one grade level was added each year. Mr. Blanchard said that while there were similarities in the job he undertook in Ohio and the one he hopes to oversee here, there are also differences. The Wellington School was established in 1982, whereas Rippowam, he said, ''has 75 years of very powerful history behind it and very strong traditions of excellence.'' He said his challenge would be to extend the successful approaches and the philosophy of the existing school into the high school. ''One of the advantages of prekindergarten through 12th-grade schools, in general, is that there is a common philosophy,'' Mr. Blanchard said. ''You treat upper schoolers very differently from lower schoolers, but there is a common approach to kids. We encourage them to develop their potential, to be independent learners, to collaborate. Those kinds of concepts start in kindergarten. It's like a farm team, and it keeps feeding up so you can build all that into the high school.'' One concern that parents have about establishing a high school is that the institution will not have any experience in obtaining college admission for its graduating seniors. Mr. Blanchard said he planned to recruit an experienced college counselor as soon as the 10th grade opened, a person who would not only get to know the children but would also familiarize the colleges with Rippowam's new program. He said the first few graduating classes would have the distinction of being pioneers, which would make them stand out in the college-admissions process. The ambitious design for the new school includes not only an academic building but also a field house, a double hockey rink, a performing arts center and 12 athletic fields. The original plan called for 14 fields, but 2 were dropped because of their proximity to wetlands. In contrast, at the shared campus of Fox Lane High School and Fox Lane Middle School -- the public schools here, which have about 1,500 students between them -- there are three athletic fields, though students also use | Private School Plans New High School |
933834_2 | (are there any that we all share or are all values subjective?) ultimately led to the question of whether lions are violent (or is violence an attribute that can only apply to humans?) and whether humans are being violent when they swat mosquitos. A self-described ''free spirit,'' who has never held a full-time job or a mortgage in his 37 years, Chrisopher Phillips basically wandered the country taking part-time teaching jobs and working as a freelance writer. Then last spring, he read a short newspaper article about a Nietzsche scholar named Marc Sautet, who in 1992 started a cafe in Paris where ordinary people could discuss philosophy. Mr. Phillips was so excited by the idea, he flew from his home in Mississippi to Paris and met Dr. Sautet. That summer, Mr. Phillips learned of a program called the Advancement of Philosophy for Children at Montclair State University and decided to enroll. Mr. Phillips decided to try the philosophy cafe concept here, and last fall persuaded Borders Books in Willowbrook Mall in Wayne to take it on. It was not an instant success. ''One night, one person showed up. I was depressed in a way,'' Mr. Phillips recalls. ''But in many ways, it was my best conversation.'' In December the Cafe for Socrates found a more congenial host in the Collage II coffeehouse on Bloomfield Avenue. The cafe began drawing bigger and bigger crowds. A few weeks ago, every seat in the house was taken, including all the space on the window seat. Mr. Phillips receives no money for leading the sessions -- his concern is starting a philsophy cafe movement in this country -- though he does charge $20 for one-on-one philosophical ''consultations.'' After the conversation -- on the subject of happiness -- many of the participants stood for another hour, chatting in small groups. ''I've been looking for a place like this for a long, long time,'' says Eduardo Bahamonde, who comes each week. He says he hasn't been involved in such consistently stimulating conversations since high school English classes. Sitting across from him was Helena Gartenstein. ''I started four weeks ago and I wouldn't be without it,'' Ms. Gartenstein says. ''Because it's so open and unpretentious.'' Mr. Phillips is encouraged by the fact that so many people make time in their week for the experience. He compares it to a church service. For heretics, perhaps. The one thing | Cream and Sugar? Philosophical Discourse? |
936523_8 | practice in the United States. Many people, especially in business, feel that is all to the good. They credit an unrestrained market in personal information as one reason for the United States' lead in the information economy. ''It's beneficial to the economy, it's beneficial to consumers,'' said Chet Dalzell, a spokesman for the Direct Marketing Association, the main trade group that is a longtime proponent of letting the industry regulate itself on privacy issues. Because the market can decide how to use personal information, he said, consumers get competitive offers of goods and services that are timely and relevant to their own lives, while businesses save on marketing costs. ''This isn't a war,'' Mr. Dalzell added. ''This is the marketplace just trying to be intelligent.'' A recent study that the association commissioned from Ciemax-WEFA, an economics consulting company, said one of every 13 jobs in the United States was the result of direct marketing sales activity, including jobs designing and selling advertising, supplying or delivering goods, and selling other support services, like customer lists and profiles, to direct-response businesses. Direct-marketing sales to consumers reached $630 billion last year, up from $458 billion in 1991. Business-to-business sales were $540 billion in 1996, up from $349 billion in 1991, according to the Ciemax-WEFA report. In other sectors, from health care to welfare, the ever more intensive use of personal information is being embraced as a way to cut costs and improve outcome, whether through employee ''wellness'' plans that discourage unhealthy life styles or through child-support enforcement programs that combine public and private sector data bases to find parents who are delinquent in child support payments. But incidents like these across the country offer glimpses of the less visible trade-offs: *At a car dealership in northern New Jersey, 15 employees used the company's access to the Big Three credit bureaus -- Equifax Inc., Trans Union and TRW Inc. -- to find strangers with good credit histories, living as far away as Alaska and Washington. They opened credit accounts in the customers' names, ordered thousands of dollars in products and left the victims to struggle to restore their credit ratings. What made the 1993 case unusual was that the culprits were caught. Quick credit and ready access to Social Security numbers have made ''theft of identity'' one of the fastest growing forms of credit fraud, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a | Personal Files Via Computer Offer Money and Pose Threat |
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