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936477_0 | Bluma L. Trell, whose unbridled enthusiasm brought ancient Greece alive to a generation of New York University students even as her meticulous research into ancient coins had given scholars their first definitive view of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, died on Tuesday at a nursing home in Englewood, N.J. She was 94 and had lived until last year on Bleecker Street in Manhattan. If the very sight of her, a small woman standing in front of her class with her endless gray hair piled in ropes on top of her head like an ancient diadem, had not been enough to get their full attention, few of her students were likely to be daydreaming once Dr. Trell opened her mouth, got her arms moving and began expounding on the intricacies of Greek culture, literature and language with a passion few encountered in a teacher before or since. Indeed, once she got wound up, it was easy to forget that it was, say, the Temple of Artemis, and not Dr. Trell herself, that was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. But for all the depth and range of her knowledge and the intensity of her enthusiasm for the Greek world, Dr. Trell came to the classics late. The daughter of Max Popkin, a successful portrait painter who helped establish the Grand Central Galleries, Dr. Trell grew up in a genteel Bohemian atmosphere in New York, surrounded by music and art, none of which explains why at the age of 21 she received a law degree from New York University and embarked on a decade of private practice. But Dr. Trell, an independent-minded woman, made no secret of why she abandoned the law: it bored her, as the classics most assuredly did not. (Another choice she made in 1924 proved more lasting: she entered a marriage with Max Trell, a screenwriter, that ended at his death last year.) Why Dr. Trell picked the classics is not clear, but after returning to N.Y.U. for a bachelor's degree in 1935, she continued her studies, teaching at U.C.L.A. during a Hollywood sojourn with her husband before returning to N.Y.U. to obtain a doctorate in 1942. Along the way she had been influenced by Karl Lehmann at N.Y.U.'s Institute of Fine Arts to specialize in the study of ancient coins, whose depictions of temples and other monuments and buildings were often the best, if | Bluma L. Trell, 94, Professor And Expert on Greece, Dies |
937867_0 | RESEARCHERS in Maryland have found that women who take estrogen after menopause are much less likely than those do not use the hormone replacement to develop Alzheimer's disease. The risk of developing the disease was reduced by more than 50 percent among the hormone users, said the researchers from the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda and the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore. Their findings, reported in the June issue of the journal Neurology, add to a growing body of evidence that estrogen can benefit the aging brain. Previous studies have indicated, for example, that estrogen acts as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent that can inhibit age-related deterioration of brain cells. The hormone also stimulates the growth of neurons that release acetylcholine, an important transmitter of nerve messages in the brain. Other agents that have been linked to a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease include vitamin E, which is also an antioxidant, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen and naprosyn. The new study does not prove that estrogen protects the brain. To establish such proof requires a large long-term study in which some women are randomly assigned to take postmenopausal hormones while others are not. Such a study is now being done under the sponsorship of the Women's Health Initiative, a major Government project. But the results will not be known until sometime in the next decade. The current report came from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging, a project of the national institute that is in its 40th year of observing various aspects of aging in more than 2,000 people. The estrogen-Alzheimer's arm of the study involved 472 women who were observed for more than 16 years. The participants were examined every two years over the course of two and a half days, during which the researchers assessed their use of estrogen replacement and administered physical and cognitive tests. JANE E. BRODY HEALTH WATCH | Estrogen and Alzheimer's |
937897_0 | The Irish Republican Army's contemptible murders of two Protestant policemen are not only a tremendous setback for the cause of peace in Northern Ireland, they pose an immediate danger to Northern Ireland's people. Every summer, Protestant groups hold marches commemorating a 1690 Protestant victory over Catholics. The marches, which peak in early July, are often routed through Catholic neighborhoods, setting off a spiral of injury, looting, property damage and sometimes deaths. The I.R.A. murders this week took place very near the site of last summer's worst riots, and seem designed to provoke retaliatory violence from the largely Protestant groups loyal to London. All sides must scramble to prevent violence this year. Even before the murders, the British Government had taken some constructive steps to defuse the tension. The Secretary for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, has repeatedly met with residents, both Catholic and Protestant, urging them to speak to each other and reach a compromise on parade routes. The largest parade group, the Orange Order, wrote a letter to residents of a Catholic neighborhood where violence was particularly bad last year, explaining its desire to march. Catholics wrote back, but the two groups still will not talk face to face. Catholic leaders, for their part, should cancel a confrontational outdoor festival planned to coincide with the Orange Order march and persuade residents to protest peacefully and avoid baiting police. Last year's violence, among the worst in decades, was exacerbated by the behavior of Northern Ireland's largely Protestant police force. When police banned a march through a Catholic neighborhood, Protestants rioted for four days. The police then gave in and allowed the march. Catholic riots followed. This year the British Government needs to take responsibility for parade routes and crowd control strategies rather than leaving such decisions to Northern Ireland's police. It must also act upon an internal British police investigation that concluded that Northern Ireland's police were poorly trained and equipped during the marches. Prime Minister Tony Blair should also ban plastic bullets, which the police have not used elsewhere in Britain. Police fired nearly 6,000 of these potentially deadly bullets during last year's marches, nearly 90 percent of them at Catholics. Mr. Blair is right to repudiate the I.R.A.'s murders by cutting off all formal contacts with Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing. The I.R.A. will have to embrace the peace process and begin a real cease-fire before Sinn Fein | Marching Season in Northern Ireland |
938280_2 | last year brought terrible violence. And the policemen were killed not far from Drumcree. The evident design was to arouse a Protestant backlash and strengthen the determination of Protestant ultras to march through Catholic neighborhoods. That in turn would lead more Catholics to give up hope in peace negotiations and turn them to the I.R.A. The strategy has a certain political logic to it. But recent decades have shown that terror will not move Britain to turn its back on Northern Ireland. Britain bears a heavy responsibility in history for its policies toward Ireland. It invaded the country over the centuries, suppressed its people and colonized the North. But the Protestants of Northern Ireland are a reality today that cannot be wished away. No imaginable Irish government would want to absorb them against their will. In truth, the only way to the normal life that practically everyone in the North wants is by negotiation. But is there any point in negotiation after the I.R.A. outrage? I put the question to former Senator George Mitchell, who for two and a half frustrating years has presided over talks intended to bring about a new constitutional settlement. I reached him in London, on his way to a resumption of the talks in Belfast Tuesday. ''You just can't give way to despair,'' Senator Mitchell said. ''The timing of this attack was particularly egregious, but even with this I don't believe it's hopeless. ''Two things have to happen. First, the marching season has to pass without serious incident. Second, in our talks we have to end the procedural wrangling and get to substance. Both are difficult, but not impossible. ''People obviously have deep differences, even hatred -- but they don't want to go back to violence.'' Senator Mitchell's first point, getting past the marching season, will require unusual restraint on the part of Orange Protestant groups. The marches, for many, make a primal statement: The land on which we march is ours. Which is to say, again, that the beliefs and fears of Northern Ireland do not always fit the logic of comfortable outsiders. The hope has to be that the parties now in the talks will make enough progress -- Senator Mitchell's second point -- to draw in the I.R.A. The price of its admission would be a genuine suspension of violence: a chance for the habit of peace to grow. At Home Abroad | 'You Can't Despair' |
938381_0 | A chart caption yesterday with an article about benefits of hormone replacement therapy after menopause misidentified the group of women for whom the risk of death was reduced in a study. It was women currently taking hormones, not those who had taken them for 10 years. | Corrections |
939806_1 | stop the advance of deserts. At the Cairo Conference on Population and Development, we reaffirmed the crucial importance of cooperative family planning efforts to long-term sustainable development. Here in America, we have worked to clean up a record number of our toxic dumps, and we intend to clean 500 more over the next four years. We've passed new laws to better protect our water, created new national parks and monuments, and worked to harmonize our efforts for environmental protection, economic growth, and social improvement, aided by a distinguished Council on Sustainable Development. Yesterday I announced the most far-reaching efforts to improve air quality in our nation in 20 years, cutting smog levels dramatically and, for the first time ever, setting standards to lower the levels of the fine particles in the atmosphere that form soot. In America, the incidence of childhood asthma has been increasing rapidly. It is now the single biggest reason our children are hospitalized. These measures will help to change that, to improve health of people of all ages, and to prevent as many as 15,000 premature deaths a year. Still, we here have much more to do, especially in reducing America's contribution to global climate change. The science is clear and compelling: We humans are changing the global climate. Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at their highest levels in more than 200,000 years and climbing sharply. If the trend does not change, scientists expect the seas to rise two feet or more over the next century. In America, that means 9,000 square miles of Florida, Louisiana and other coastal areas will be flooded; in Asia, 17 percent of Bangladesh, land on which six million people now live, will be lost; island chains such as the Maldives will disappear from the map unless we reverse the predictions. Climate changes will disrupt agriculture, cause severe droughts and floods and the spread of infectious diseases, which will be a big enough problem for us under the best of circumstances in the 21st century. There could be 50 million or more cases of malaria a year. We can expect more deaths from heat stress. Just two years ago here in the United States in the city of Chicago, we saw the tragedy of more than 400 of our citizens dying during a severe heat wave. No nation can escape this danger. None can evade its responsibility to | Clinton on the Global Environment: Some Progress but Much More Still to Be Done |
939812_0 | At a moment of danger and despair in Northern Ireland, Britain's new Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has removed a key obstacle to an eventual negotiated peace. Mr. Blair dropped his predecessor's insistence that the Irish Republican Army agree to a timetable for turning in its weapons before the I.R.A.'s political wing, Sinn Fein, could be admitted to peace talks. He now agrees that a schedule for disarming Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups can be negotiated while talks proceed on an overall settlement, a sensible compromise proposed by former Senator George Mitchell 18 months ago. Sinn Fein still cannot join the talks until the I.R.A. renounces terrorism, something it shows no sign of doing. Just last week, I.R.A. gunmen murdered two Ulster policemen. But Mr. Blair is right to make clear that the only thing now keeping Sinn Fein from the table is the I.R.A.'s own decision to pursue terror rather than peace. It took courage for Mr. Blair to make a new conciliatory gesture to the I.R.A. barely a week after the latest Ulster murders. It was no easier for David Trimble, who heads Northern Ireland's main Protestant party, to accept the British offer. Neither man has illusions about the I.R.A.'s readiness to abandon terrorism. Both understand that the goal of the latest I.R.A. attack is to inflame tensions just before the start of Ulster's ''marching season,'' when Protestant parades through Catholic neighborhoods frequently provoke violence. For now, peace talks must go ahead without Sinn Fein. That leaves Ulster Catholics represented by the province's nonviolent Social Democratic and Labor Party. If there is a faction within Sinn Fein that believes in peaceful negotiations, its members must persuade the I.R.A. to give up on terrorism. Failing that, they should make a clean break with the organization. Mr. Blair has opened the way for serious negotiations. Those who exclude themselves from the talks do so because they reject peace. | Tony Blair's Irish Peace Plan |
937242_1 | the other third-grade teacher, was a streak of navy blue moving among attentive students she was leading in an ethics discussion that related the preserved seahorse and worm specimens on her desk to endangered species in the Amazon rain forest. The two teachers could not be more different in their methods: Mrs. Collins is a traditionalist and Mrs. Schutz embraces a freer approach. Yet the pupils of both classes at the school, 75-25 Bell Boulevard, made the same impressive gains on this year's citywide reading test after disappointing results last year. In part, the gains result from the school's innovative pairings of teacher with students, said the principal, Susan Sherer. Rather than ask teachers to alter their styles, the school assigned their classes based on student personality and learning styles. ''These two teachers are very different,'' Mrs. Sherer said in an interview. ''One's like meat and potatoes and the other is like Faberge. Some children we know respond to more creative teaching and other children respond better to a structured level.'' In both classes, 88 percent of the students scored at or above grade level, up from 72 percent last year and compared with 49.3 percent citywide. Mrs. Sherer said the innovative matching of students to teacher was one of several changes the school made, including adopting a new series of reading books. In her classroom last week, Mrs. Schutz let the discussion flow in unexpected directions. In a discussion of the class reading on the Amazon rain forest, one student, Dmitri Coutsevelis, 9, pointed out the preserved marine life mounted in plastic on his teacher's desk and asked, plaintively, ''Why does anyone have to kill them just to put them in there?'' ''Sometimes we sacrifice a little bit so the world can learn,'' Mrs. Schutz said. In Mrs. Collins's class, students dissect story structure by diagramming books like ''The Rooster Who Learned Japanese.'' They keep their comments focused on the day's lesson. Last week, they learned about the function of a rooster's comb, its diet and how its crow sounds. Astrid Taran, 8, read aloud from the text, enunciating carefully, her hot pink fingernails skimming along the paragraphs. ''In my class children learn to look for details, in what they read, write and live,'' Mrs. Collins said. ''But every teacher here has his or her own methods. School's not what it used to be.'' HALIMAH ABDULLAH NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: BAYSIDE | One Aim, 2 Methods, Scores Rise |
937115_0 | To the Editor: On April 15, I had a humiliating experience at the Delta Shuttle at Washington National Airport. The approaching hallway is divided into two lines, one for USAirways and the other for Delta. The staggered X-ray machines are separated by a glass partition. Most of the passengers were not detained. My bags were chosen for inspection. The inspectors did ask my permission and I really had no objections. Then a male inspector lifted each of my belongings out, holding them up to eye level to inspect them. Behind him was the glass partition and a long line. I was forced to face these people as my belongings, including underwear, were held up in my face. My humiliation was reflected in their faces. Once he had emptied everything, a female inspector helped stuff my belongings back. Yes, President Clinton was in New York that day and I believe there was a politician on my plane. Inspections may perhaps have been beefed up, but there is no reason for invading someone's privacy for all to see. Why couldn't I have been taken to a more private area for the inspection? Since there was a female inspector there, shouldn't she have made the inspection? DONNA B. JAMES New Canaan, Conn. Kimberly L. King, a spokeswoman for Delta, responds: We apologize for any embarrassment Ms. James experienced. The safety and security of our customers, employees and facilities are a top priority. Yet Delta requires sensitivity and respect. We have contacted our security contractors and have identified how this situation might have been handled in a more considerate manner. | Baggage Search |
937012_1 | wildlife here more visible. Had the jaguar been in the forest, not in the grass, the chances of spotting it would have been greatly reduced. Also, when the wetlands, rivers and water holes shrink in the dry season, from late December through April, the landscape may look less inviting, but birds and animals cluster around them. Most important, because the owner of Hato Pinero, Antonio Julio Branger, banned hunting on his property in 1950, the wildlife is not as shy or skittish as it might be elsewhere. Hawks stayed on tree branches to have their pictures taken at fairly close range. My husband, Richard, and I did not need binoculars to see the black skimmers open their pincerlike beaks as they fished for dinner on a palm-studded lagoon. Late one morning, after returning from birdwatching, we had a conversation with Mr. Branger, who is now 72 and has a hacienda on the property. He said he started working on his family's ranch nearby when he was 15 and, like other young men, also hunted. By the time he was in his 20's he decided he did not like hunting, he said, and bought his own ranch and banned hunting. ''It took three or four generations of these animals before they began to lose their fear,'' he said. About a third of the ranch (hato means ranch) is used for breeding and raising about 15,000 head of cattle. The rest is wild, largely flat with some hills. Naturalists and graduate students from universities in Venezuela, the United States and elsewhere, and from such organizations as the Smithsonian Institution and the World Wildlife Fund have been coming to Hato Pinero for more than a decade to study the birds, animals and plants. The Branger Foundation supports a biological station on the property and is trying to establish more stations. Two biologists from the University of Florida at Gainesville, with funding from the National Geographic Society and the Wildlife Conservation Society, are heading a three-year program to study jaguars and pumas on the property to find a way for these predators to coexist with other ranchers and farmers in the region who would just as soon shoot any that attacked their livestock. ''We lose about 100 of our cattle a year to predators, but we have to maintain the equilibrium of nature,'' he said. ''I am also worried that Hato Pinero will become | In Venezuela, A Refuge On a Ranch |
937007_3 | so on. Other attacks occur when someone makes the mistake of getting between a mother and her cubs. Only 2 percent of attacks are unexplainable, she assured me. Still, there had been two fatal maulings by grizzlies just weeks earlier in a state park near Anchorage, and two bears had been shot in a native village on the other side of Admiralty Island after they had threatened a group of frightened children. There had been another fatal mauling on the Noatak River while I was in Alaska, after a man apparently startled a sow with cubs. The seriousness with which the brown bear must be treated was underlined by the 12-gauge shotgun Cinda carried. The other weapon in her arsenal was ''bear mace,'' primarily cayenne pepper dust. One unfortunate tenderfoot, taking the term ''bear repellent'' literally, had apparently sprayed himself liberally before setting out. Our guides assured us that they had never had to spray a bear, and that a bear had never been shot at Pack Creek. The Forest Service issues only 24 permits a day for Pack Creek during the peak viewing season, which corresponds to the salmon run in July and August. We saw only seven other people the whole day we were on Admiralty. According to Cinda, only about 1,400 people visit the site in a season. Staying in a tight group so no curious bear could come between us, we walked along the beach toward the wide mouth of Pack Creek, where mothers and cubs usually gather to fish. We passed the ruins of a wooden house and outbuildings that had been occupied by a hermitic squatter who had lived there from the 1950's until he died in 1990, tolerated by the Forest Service since he didn't bother the bears (or vice versa). We spotted several ''day beds'' -- indentations the bears had made for resting -- and bear tracks in the wet gravel. Putting my size 8 foot next to one pawprint, I judged its maker to be a size 10. The foot had the long, elegant toes and claws of the brown bear, as opposed to the shorter, more curved claws of the black bear, which is common in southeast Alaska but not found on Admiralty. Before we reached our destination, we began to see them. A mother and three cubs were sauntering toward the river, and suddenly two more cubs shot out | Bigger Than the Average Bear |
937008_0 | RESPONSIBLE tourism does not safeguard only plants and animals. With the boom in eco-tourism (as well as in adventure and educational travel), trips to areas where indigenous peoples live apart from the industrial world are of increasing concern. A number of watchdog organizations have sprung up to offer guidance to tour operators and independent travelers who want to leave only footprints and to avoid even that, if footprints might disturb. There are also books to guide the conscientious. The nonprofit Eco-Tourism Society, a five-year-old group in North Bennington, Vt., considers eco-tourism a segment of the nature tourism market, and offers this definition: ''Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people.'' This group does not operate tours; it wants to help people find their way instead of taking them by the hand. Like other organizations, it stresses the informed consent and participation of local residents as the starting point for responsible tourism in less developed areas. Don Montague, head of the 20-year-old South American Explorers Club, a membership group for individual travelers, says a prime issue is how much of the tourist dollar goes to the local people. The club does not offer tours, but distributes first-person reports on tours or independent trips taken by other members. Dr. David Pearson, a professor of zoology at Arizona State University in Tempe, discussed two projects in Ecuador as illustrating the crucial nature of local participation. One is the Limoncocha Biological Reserve in eastern Ecuador. In the 1970's, this area was accessible only by missionary plane or canoe; it then had breathtaking views of Amazonian flora and fauna. A road was built in the late 1980's, bringing colonists, and although the Government declared the site a biological reserve, the use of dynamite in fishing wiped out the fish and alligators in the lake. This site is now a sad memory, Professor Pearson said, one that ''I do not want to see again.'' Rejecting Roads Recently, he said, an awareness has developed that the formula ''if you build it, they will come'' is not a recipe for sustainable development. He cited the Kapawi area, near Ecuador's southeastern border, where the Achuar Indians rejected roads and cattle as part of development. Professor Pearson said the Achuar knew change was inevitable but wanted to control it. An Ecuadorean company, Canadros, approached the Indians' president, offering $2 million to develop | Learning How To Tread Lightly |
937286_0 | To the Editor: The irony of the Roman Catholic Church's dilemma over the growing decline in male priests and its concomitant resistance to ordaining women was graphically placed in side-by-side news articles on June 8. One can't help but wonder what it will take for the church to recognize that it was through the faith, gifts and ministry of women that God became flesh, the Gospel was preached and the church was formed. (Sister) ARLENE FLAHERTY Blauvelt, N.Y., June 10, 1997 | Let Women Be Priests |
937064_9 | a variety of approaches to woo recruits. Nine months ago Telephonics built a $20,000 gymnasium at a plant and liberalized vacation time. Standard Microsystems has gradually increased the number of stock options for new employees and is evaluating a program to compensate workers with benefits other than cash like stock awards, day care and flexible hours. Personnel executives said they were stepping up recruiting campaigns. At Software Engineering, with 103 employees, recruitment costs are running $10,000 a professional, up from $1,200 to $1,500, according to the company. For the first time, Software Engineering has posted jobs at at SUNY at Stony Brook, C. W. Post and Hofstra, and it is listing jobs on employment sites and chat rooms on the Internet. The company says the time to find an applicant has risen, from one to six months. GEC Marconi Hazeltine has been advertising in newspapers and on the Internet and participating in job fairs, and it plans to restart recruiting at colleges. Telephonics has used television appearances, open houses, radio advertisements and large ads in the help-wanted sections of newspapers. A vice president, Richard Hartig, said, ''We're all fighting the battle the same way.'' One approach is working with colleges, as companies offer internships with the goal of attracting full-time employees. Campus job fairs are also thriving. One at SUNY at Stony Brook in April drew a record 117 employers, compared to 75 previously, and the university said it had drawn a huge response to a new focus on campus interviewing. Of the 237 local and national companies, including prominent corporations like Microsoft, that contacted the career placement center this year, 99 were looking for engineering and computer science majors, 32 wanted technical and nontechnical students, and 106 were in the market for nontechnical graduates. Colleges are reporting that applications for engineering and computer programs are rising. Polytechnic said the freshman class in those disciplines rose, 27 percent to 112 students, and applications increased an additional 30 percent for 1997. At SUNY next fall, 100 students will enter as engineering majors, up from 86 in 1996 and 81 in 1995. A projected 130 freshmen will chose computer science and information systems, compared with 101 in 1996 and 73 in 1995. Briarcliff College, which has a satellite campus in Bethpage, has expanded its offerings, including retraining in computer languages. David Isacowitz, president of the New York Software Industry Association and head | Software Jobs Filling Gap Left by Military Contracts |
937081_4 | and members of the Kent Land Trust and Housatonic Valley Association will participate. Admission to each program will be $15. Reservations, directions and more information may be obtained by calling (203) 562-6312. JOLLY ART Jane de Jonge's jolly, jolting art, appropriately titled ''Fun and Games and Telling Time,'' is on display at Art/Place in Southport's westbound railroad station through June 29. No respecter of tradition, Ms. de Jonge hangs things on walls, puts them on turntables, and composes them out of an endless array of found and fabricated objects, creating a bouncy form of orderly chaos. She has studied at the Kunst Schule von Diveky in Zurich, and she received her Bachelor of Arts from Mount Holyoke College and a Master's from Columbia University. Viewing hours are on Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 4:30. The number for more information is (203) 255-9847 UNUSUAL CERAMICS Claudia Olds Goldie's ''Imelda's Dilemma,'' a sort of Everywoman contemplating shoes and other examples of life's detritus; Kerri Buxton and Brad Taylor's turquoise teapot with bedroom eyes, and Geoffrey Wheeler's sweetmeat dish that takes its cue from folk art are a sampling of the ceramics to be found at the Guilford Handcraft Center show from 10 to 5 on Route 77 in Guilford. The 61 artists were selected by two artist-jurors. William Daley, professor emeritus at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, is represented in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the National Museum of Korea. Wayne Higby, professor of ceramic art at Alfred University and honorary professor at Jingdahzen Ceramic Institute in China, is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. The number for more information is (203) 453-5947. EASING MENOPAUSE Nina Shandler's new book, ''Estrogen: The Natural Way,'' contains 250 recipes that are said to ease the symptoms of menopause without resorting to hormone replacement therapy, which is believed to increase a woman's risk of breast cancer. Ms. Shandler will talk about her book and demonstrate some of the recipes at R. J. Julia Booksellers, 768 Post Road in Madison on Tuesday at 7 P.M. This is the latest of several cookbooks and articles on diet and health that she has had published. Admission is free but reservations are required by calling (203) 245-3959. ELEANOR CHARLES | CONNECTICUT GUIDE |
937015_0 | The 1997-98 season of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, one of the world's shrines of the lyric drama, will probably be the last before the 219-year-old building is closed for extensive repairs and the installation of new stage machinery. According to city officials, the building will be reopened early in the new millennium. Until the renovations are complete, the resident company will perform at an alternative site, which the city is seeking. The noble, neo-classical opera house, on a piazza opposite City Hall, was built between 1776 and 1778 by Giuseppe Piermarini, the great architect from Umbria. He was the chief urban planner of Milan under Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, whose vast domain included a chunk of northern Italy. Piermarini'a opera house, which was inaugurated with ''Europa Riconosciuta'' by Antonio Salieri, the friend and rival of Mozart, won instant praise for its marvelous acoustics. The building owes its name to a church, sponsored by a 14th-century noblewoman from the house of the Della Scala of Verona, that formerly occupied the site. La Scala was heavily damaged in Allied air raids in 1943, but repairs were made and performances resumed in 1946 when Arturo Toscanini conducted ''La Gazza Ladra'' by Rossini. A spokesman for La Scala said next season's program, which will begin Dec. 7, will be announced in early summer. Information: (39-2) 72-00-37-44; fax (39-2) 877-996. Ticket prices are expected to be similar to those of last year, from $20 to $180 for regular performances, and from $75 to $938 for the inauguration gala. PAUL HOFMANN TRAVEL ADVISORY | La Scala to Go Silent Next Year for Repairs |
935113_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Eager to Bite the Hands That Would Feed Them'' (Week in Review, June 1): I have a physical disability but, unlike the people you profile, I find nothing to celebrate. Many of us who are physically challenged and want to be cured want this so that we can fit into the mainstream of society. You say that the Disabled in Action Singers perform ''Let the Children Stare'' to convey the message that ''no good is served by ignoring disabilities.'' I take exception. It is unnerving to be in a restaurant or shopping mall and have children point and stare. Staring implies no acceptance of disability. Gone are the days when children are taught that such behavior is rude. What happened to common courtesy? ISA KOOPER Lynbrook, N.Y., June 4, 1997 Disability Calls for Acceptance, Not Celebration | To Fit Into Mainstream |
934154_0 | The police said today that the Irish Republican Army threatened new violence this weekend in the Roman Catholic area of Poleglass in West Belfast. In a separate incident, the police said, an off-duty policeman was beaten to death early this morning by Protestant men outside a bar in the Protestant town of Ballymoney, north of Belfast. The threatened and actual violence came as the stalled Northern Ireland peace talks were scheduled to resume here on Tuesday. In the West Belfast incident, the police said that a person using a recognized I.R.A. codeword had told a radio station that I.R.A. guerrillas abandoned a van carrying a land mine in the Catholic Poleglass area late Saturday afternoon because there were too many people on the street. The police, suspecting the kind of trap the I.R.A. has often used, did not go to the area immediately, and the van was burned by children. Police said this morning that they found a detonator wire and 1,000 pounds of homemade explosives in the charred van. Officials said the incident might have been an attempt to embarrass the Northern Ireland police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, as it celebrated its 75th anniversary over the weekend. Local leaders of Sinn Fein said the fact that the police did not come to the area for more than 12 hours after the report showed that the police do not properly patrol Catholic areas. Drastic reform of the constabulary, which is 93 percent Protestant, is a demand Sinn Fein makes regularly to the Government of this predominantly Protestant British Province. The I.R.A. action Saturday was, in the view of some officials, a rebuff to President Clinton, who said of the peace effort in London last Thursday: ''Again I urge the I.R.A to lay down their guns for good and for all parties to turn their efforts to building the peace together. You can't say, 'We'll talk and shoot. We'll talk when we're happy and shoot when we're not.' '' | Renewed Violence Strikes Ulster As Talks Are About to Resume |
935632_4 | the working world in recent months are also making do or even flourishing. Following are four tales from the trenches that offer hope and guidance to those just now trading in their diplomas, caps and gowns for briefcases and business suits. Rental Clerks Joining a Fraternity With 12-Hour Days Few parents who squirrel away money for years to pay college bills picture their children hanging up a hard-won diploma behind a rental car counter, but about 10,000 moms and dads will watch it happen this year. Indeed, Enterprise Rent-a-Car is probably hiring more members of this year's graduating class than any other company. The 5,000 graduates scheduled to join Enterprise will be paid $22,000 to $30,000, depending on where they live, and all will start out behind the counters of the company's 3,000 branches around the country. Most graduates who join Enterprise -- along with their parents -- must first get over the idea of working for a car rental company. ''Recruiting is tough,'' said Andrew C. Taylor, president and chief executive of Enterprise, based in St. Louis. Some of those who accept jobs have a hard time breaking the news to their families. ''What do you think their parents' reaction might be?'' Mr. Taylor asked. Still, satisfied Enterprise hires said they found the jobs refreshing because the company is so entrepreneurial, offering responsibility and a chance to move up quickly. Mr. Taylor's company tends to hire men and women who are a lot like him -- friendly, clean-cut and active at college in fraternities or sororities or team sports. Oh, and they must not be too proud to clean cars from time to time, either. ''The management of this business started behind a rent-a-car counter,'' Mr. Taylor said, telling how he recently pitched in to vacuum a car during a visit to a busy Enterprise branch. Consider William D. Lucy, 25, who was a member of Delta Chi and played intramural volleyball and flag football at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield. He graduated last year with a 3.2 grade-point average, with a major in marketing and a minor in management. ''I did not go to college thinking I wanted to rent cars,'' Mr. Lucy acknowledged. Instead, ''I saw myself going into business.'' The affable Mr. Lucy, who likes to grasp your shoulder when he shakes your hand, had several sales jobs to choose from, but Enterprise looked the | Jobs May Be Plentiful, If Not So Glamorous |
935393_0 | PICK up a newspaper, turn on the television, and someone is discussing menopause. But for all the information available about it, questions remain. How does one decide whether to treat menopause, and if so, how? What are the health needs of menopausal women? Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, an obstetrician and gynecologist in New Haven, offers her thoughts in ''What Every Woman Needs to Know About Menopause: The Years Before, During, and After'' (1996, Yale University Press). Dr. Minkin, a proponent of estrogen replacement therapy as a way for women to avoid heart disease and bone loss, also advises her patients to exercise and says taking vitamins couldn't hurt. Dr. Minkin wrote the book with a patient who is also a writer, Carol V. Wright, to answers the questions that patients ask about menopause. A graduate of Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Minkin has been in practice for about 20 years. She also lectures to medical students and doctors in training and is an author of a humorous book on menopause, ''What's Stopped Happening to Me?'' (1990, Carol Publishing Group). Dr. Minkin lives with her husband and two young children in Guilford. In an interview at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where she was attending a woman in labor, Dr. Minkin talked about menopause. Q. When should a woman start thinking about menopause? A. I have seen women as young as 35 go through menopause, although that's exceptionally early. I've also seen women as late as 59 go through menopause, but the average is 50 or 51 in the United States. One thing I think all women of childbearing years should be doing is getting a good calcium intake aiming towards 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day and keeping oneself in good shape: not smoking, not drinking excessively. Q. What is perimenopause? A. Perimenopause is the term for the years right before menopause. (The technical definition of menopause is going one year without a menstrual period.) Perimenopause are the years before that when a woman's likely to be developing symptoms, like menstrual irregularities, heavy periods, light periods, close together, far apart, all variations. One can get symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, mood swings, bladder dysfunction, vaginal dryness. Q. What can a woman do about the symptoms? A. There are certain known triggers for many women. Things like caffeinated beverages, hot beverages or spicy foods, being in a warm room. A lot | Making a Case for Estrogen Replacement |
935707_1 | Pope's approval; and debate, often impassioned, about the ordination of women has never ceased at many levels of church life. But the precise focus and sober tone of this professional body's resolution lends theological weight to the widespread criticism of the Vatican's ruling. By a vote of 216 to 22, with 10 abstentions, the group endorsed the conclusion of a 5,000-word, tightly argued study of the Vatican Congregation's position. The study had been submitted last June to the society's 1,300 members and extensively revised since. ''There are serious doubts,'' the conclusion read, about the grounds that the Vatican had given for maintaining that the teaching on ordination was infallible and part of the ''deposit of faith,'' something to which all Catholics must assent. The meeting here called for ''further study, discussion and prayer regarding this question.'' The entire study was commended by the society's nine-member board, which also endorsed its conclusion. The 1995 Vatican ruling did not contend that the Pope had himself declared the church's position on ordination infallible, exercising the solemn papal authority of teaching infallibly. Instead, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith based its ruling on other, older grounds for infallibility -- that it had been taught universally by the bishops, was based on Scripture and had been constantly upheld in Catholic tradition. The study released here declared that ''legitimate questions can be raised about each of these reasons, and their probative force.'' The study argues, for example, that the majority opinion among biblical scholars is that Jesus chose men as his Twelve Apostles for ''their symbolic role as 'patriarchs' of restored Israel'' and not because he meant them to be prototypes of the ordained priestly ministers whose offices were defined much later in the church's history. The study recognizes that traditionally women were not ordained as priests or bishops but says the argument that the traditional practice is decisive is open to question in this case because so much of it, including many of the ancient writers cited in Vatican documents, was based on the conviction, which the church now rejects, of female inferiority. Leaders of the society went out of their way to couch their arguments in tones respectful of church doctrine and not set themselves up as what many called ''a counter-magisterium'' -- an academic rival to church authorities. ''There's not a theologian here who would deny these Roman documents are authoritative | Catholic Theologians Urge Discussion on Female Priests |
935387_1 | airplane sensors with colored tape, reducing the chances that it will be left behind. But a report by the United States Federal Aviation Administration said Peru is one of more than 20 nations that fail to meet aviation safety standards for oversight as established by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency. The United States Embassy in Lima has prohibited Government employees from flying Aero Continente since receiving what it said was ''information that the airline has been operating aircraft with unsafe engine conditions,'' which the Embassy said constitutes an unacceptable risk. Although the State Department issued a public notice announcing the Aero Continente ban last August, the restriction was not widely known among American travelers, many of whom have continued to fly Aero Continente without incident. Word of the United States restriction began circulating recently in the diplomatic community here, prompting inquiries from journalists. Carlos Morales, Aero Continente's president, said in an interview that he was puzzled that the United States Embassy has maintained its boycott, especially since the airline had provided the embassy and the F.A.A. with a detailed report showing its engines are safe. Mr. Morales said the inspection was conducted by the Air Transportation General Direction, Peru's equivalent of the F.A.A. Mr. Morales said the United States ban was based on a single observation by an embassy computer technician, who witnessed a stalled engine during an Aero Continente flight. But last year, in a flagrant violation of international air safety standards, two teen-agers rode in the cockpit of an Aero Continente flight from Lima to Tarapoto, about 400 miles northeast of Lima. Flight attendants instructed them to ride in the cockpit because the flight was overbooked and their seats were needed for adults. And poor maintenance and service and what appeared to be security breaches were obvious on recent Aeroperu flights between Lima and Buenos Aires. Before boarding one Aeroperu flight, passengers were told that for security, they would have to identify luggage that had been checked at the counter. Airline attendants said that unidentified luggage would not be loaded (carry-on luggage was X-rayed). But many passengers did not identify their luggage and received their bags after the flight. On another flight, cockroaches were found in lavatories and fleas in blankets, which were not wrapped in plastic. Aeroperu officials said that such reports were rare, and that the airline cleans its planes after every | Embassy Ban Rekindles Air-Safety Fears in Peru |
935766_5 | found twice as many sites as he did when he first looked in January. Often, the commercial sites charge $6 to $10 a page. Compounding the problem is the number of papers that are posted on academic or personal home pages. Dorian Berger, who just finished his freshman year at Harvard University, said he had posted a number of his papers on the Internet so they could be read by more people. He said it soon become clear that his site had become a favorite of students trawling for good reports to copy or lift material from. ''I am now getting E-mails from people from around the world asking for papers on every conceivable topic,'' Mr. Berger said, whose papers include ''Confucianism and the Rise of Industrialism in East Asia'' and ''Darkness in Shakespeare's Macbeth.'' ''I feel that I am some type of multinational cheating company when all I wanted to do was offer my papers as research information to people on the Internet.'' While some educators are alarmed, many say the benefits of the Internet far outweigh the limitations. Bruce Leland, an English professor who is director of writing at Western Illinois University, said the sites were a challenge to professors to do their jobs better. He said teachers were unlikely to be fooled if they tailored assignments to work done in class, monitored the students' progress -- from outline to completion -- and were alert to papers that were radical departures from a student's past work. ''I don't want this to be yet another reason for people to say, 'Yes, the Internet is something evil that's corrupting our youth,' '' Professor Leland said. He added that many on-line papers were so bad that no one was likely to benefit from them. ''Everyone who is mortal has at least one flaw,'' begins one less-than-A-quality paper on ''Macbeth.'' ''Some are more serious than others. For example, some people have addictions to gambling, while other people can't remember to put the milk away after they use it. After a while, though, a person's flaws come back to haunt them. The tragedy 'Macbeth' is no exception to this.'' Still, the term-paper sites are a reminder that the Internet is far more of a mixed blessing than it sometimes appears to politicians. ''If this is the information superhighway,'' said Mr. Berger, the Harvard student, ''it's going through a lot of bad, bad neighborhoods.'' | On the Internet, Term Papers Are Hot Items |
940647_1 | official opening on Saturday. ''Bureaucratic because we constantly had problems with money: there just wasn't enough,'' said Mr. Strinati, an expert on Italian Baroque art. ''Technical because it was a very difficult restoration: everything here is decorated, painted, stuccoed, and you can't touch anything that isn't precious.'' In due course, the Borghese Gallery became something of a cautionary tale, a yardstick used to measure the languorous pace of Italy's cultural maintenance schedule. ''This will be a lengthy project,'' Italian cultural bureaucrats would assure visitors, describing plans to rebuild some burned-down chapel or collapsed cupola, ''but not as lengthy as the Borghese Gallery.'' It was because of the Borghese Gallery's symbolic value that Walter Veltroni, the Italian Minister of Culture, chose to zero in on its bogged-down restoration soon after Italy's center-left government took office 14 months ago. By his account, he made a point of visiting the site once a month; others said his presence was more frequent and his role in getting the job done by June 28, the deadline he himself set last year, crucial. ''Five years ago, I didn't think that we would ever finish at all,'' Mr. Strinati said. ''We were able to because of the will of the minister. It made all the difference.'' A former editor of the once-Communist newspaper L'Unita and a top leader in Italy's largest leftist party, Mr. Veltroni, now 42, came to government with particular clout. Besides being cultural minister, he was named deputy prime minister, which has put more weight behind his mission to coordinate and modernize the use and care of Italy's formidable cultural heritage. ''Italy has the most layers of civilization in the world, and thus has a duty to be the best,'' he said in a recent interview, listing a number of initiatives his government has taken to maintain and make better use of a cultural patrimony that includes 3,500 museums, thousands of churches and hundreds of archeological sites. When Mr. Veltroni paid his first visit as minister to the Borghese Gallery in August, it looked more like a construction site than a once and future museum. The ground floor, where the statues by Gianlorenzo Bernini are on display, had been reopened to the public, but the second floor was still shut. The gallery's picture collection had been moved to temporary quarters at the San Michele museum in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome. ''Had I been | A Baroque Gem Is Restored, And All Italy Celebrates |
936198_4 | world.'' ''I still hark back,'' he said some years ago, ''to those long, soft, eminently green gallops stretching to the horizon in the slanting afternoon sun, and the late October sunlight on the warm yellow stone of the old, high stands at Newmarket. . . .'' Does it sound like a privileged life? Certainly it does. Mr. Mellon may well have been the first, and quite possibly the only, American baby to have been baptized in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. When he was due to go to Princeton and decided at a very late stage to go to Yale instead, he simply sent a telegram to Princeton, placed a telephone call to Yale and was accepted at once. But he was not at all spoiled. One of the things that he remembered fondly from his years at Cambridge was ''walking across the quadrangle in a dressing gown in the rain to take a bath.'' When he entered St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., at age 40 to learn classical Greek, he was so distressed by his problems with Euclid, a requirement for the course, that he sought advice as to his mental resources. None other than Jung himself wrote back to say that it was ''an asinine prejudice that mathematics has anything to do with the training of the mind.'' In another life he could have aimed at high office. But, as he said recently, ''for many reasons the idea of power has never appealed to me. What has appealed to me is privacy. To me, privacy is the most valuable asset that money can buy.'' Only very rarely can his abundant sense of fun be glimpsed in public. But on one of his birthdays, not so long ago, there was a small dinner at the National Gallery in Washington. Toward the end of dinner, discreet sounds of classical jazz began to be heard. Someone who looked like a senior country doctor in his 60's slipped into the room, at Mrs. Mellon's secret invitation. He was carrying an ancient piece of hand luggage, which when opened was seen to contain a no less ancient clarinet. Happening to glance in that direction, Mr. Mellon cracked an enormous smile and said: ''I don't believe it! I just can't believe it!'' And when Benny Goodman led the band for dancing, Mr. Mellon was, quite simply, the happiest man in the room. | A Longtime Champion of Culture Turns 90 |
936188_2 | Caffeine and Bones In recent years, women have been repeatedly warned that drinking too much coffee and other beverages with caffeine can contribute to bone loss and increase their risk of osteoporosis. But a new study, which involved careful assessments of the caffeine intake of 158 healthy postmenopausal women, showed no link to reduced bone density even among women who drank five or more cups of coffee with caffeine a day. The study, conducted by Dr. Tom Lloyd, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Hershey Medical Center, a division of Pennsylvania State University, examined caffeine intake and bone density in women who had no or minimal history of two other factors known to influence bone loss: cigarette smoking, which fosters bone loss, and hormone replacement therapy, which protects against it. The women represented roughly equal numbers of low, moderate and high consumers of caffeine, 90 percent of it from coffee. The researchers took into account their age, weight and usual level of physical activity, which can also influence bone density. But no relationship was found between the women's bone density and whether they drank zero to two cups, three to four cups or five or more cups of coffee with caffeine a day. Dr. Lloyd said previous studies failed to account adequately for other known risk factors for osteoporosis. The new findings were published in the June issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Low-Calorie Foods A study may not have been needed to counter the wishful thinking that eating foods with reduced levels of fats and sugars will necessarily result in a lower caloric intake and the shedding of excess pounds. But British scientists at the Institute of Food Research in Reading, England, decided to put the notion to a scientific test. The researchers, directed by David J. Mela, chose a real-life setting for their experiment. Sixty-five women 18 to 50 years old, none of whom normally ate reduced-fat or reduced-sugar foods, were randomly assigned to one of three diets: their usual diet, one including reduced-fat versions of their usual foods or one that contained reduced-sugar foods. The participants selected the foods from ordinary stores and ate them at home, where they were free to eat anything else they wanted. They remained on their regimens for 10 weeks, keeping a detailed record of their daily food intake. Those eating the low-fat foods reduced their total fat | HEALTH WATCH |
940470_2 | a Zen Buddhist priest who founded the Project on Being With Dying in Santa Fe, N.M. ''By the time a kid gets into high school, he has seen 20,000 homicides on television,'' she said. ''Death as a mystery to be embraced, entered into and respected has been profaned in our culture.'' Courtesy of the assisted-suicide debate, the concept of a good death has now emerged, though many experts reject the phrase as simplistic. Dr. Ira Byock, president of the Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, prefers ''dying well.'' Dr. Timothy Keay, an end-of-life care expert at the University of Maryland, says ''the least worst death.'' There is no blueprint, however, for a good death. Death can't be neatly packaged with a red bow. It is messy, irrational, most often filled with sorrow and pain. More than two million Americans die each year; there are as many ways to die as to live. And so unanswerable questions arise: Not only what constitutes a good death and how can it be achieved, but who, ultimately, it is for -- the person dying, or those going on living? ''I'm a little cynical about this whole notion of good death,'' said Dr. David Hilfiker, the founder of Joseph's House in Washington, which cares for homeless men dying of AIDS. ''Death is really hard for most people. Why should people who are dying have to have a beautiful death? That's putting the burden on them to have some kind of experience that makes us feel good.'' Indeed, said Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, the author of ''How We Die,'' the patient's needs often get lowest priority. ''A good death,'' he said, ''is in the eye of the beholder.'' In centuries past, a good death was celebrated in art and literature as ars moriendi, the art of dying. Death marked salvation of the soul, neither an ending nor a beginning but, like birth, part of the cycle of life. ''True philosophers,'' Plato wrote, ''are always occupied in the practice of dying.'' Buddhism is filled with stories of Zen masters who write poems in the moments before death, embracing it as the only time in life when absolute freedom may be realized. In the Middle Ages, Christian monks greeted one another with the salutation Momento mori, remember that you must die. Today, it seems, most Americans would rather forget. Asked their idea of a good death, they say, | Embracing a Right to Die Well |
940487_0 | By the end of 1998, anyone with a mobile telephone will be able to place and receive calls to or from almost anywhere on Earth -- even the Tibetan plateau, the Patagonian pampas or a central African rain forest. But the price of this convenience may be high for radio astronomers charting the mysterious ebb and flow of matter throughout the universe. For more than a half-century, radio signals from the depths of space have told astronomers at least as much about the cosmos as have the rays of visible light collected by optical telescopes. Highly penetrating radio waves are emitted by any object warmer than absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) and therefore give scientists a window on the dark, invisible matter that probably makes up most of the mass of the universe. But more than ever, radio astronomy is being threatened, by low-altitude satellites serving operators of paging devices as well as by global cellular telephones. Television broadcasts and many other forms of radiation, including the kind emitted by garage-door openers, increasingly intrude on frequencies that radio astronomers regard as vital. The radio astronomers' concern at the moment centers on a new global communications system based on a network of satellites being put into orbit by a group of companies called the Iridium LLC. Some tense weeks for the astronomers lie ahead as the 54 remaining satellites of the $5 billion Iridium mobile communications system are launched into orbit from the United States, Russia and China. The first five Iridium satellites in the 66-satellite system were successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on May 5, and seven more were launched on June 18 by a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur space center. From July 22 to July 29, the Iridium consortium, led by Motorola Inc., will turn one of the new satellites to maximum power so radio astronomers at the Greenbank Radio Observatory in West Virginia and other observatories in the United States and Europe can measure the resulting interference with their ultrasensitive telescopes. Other partners in the Iridium consortium include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Sprint. The conflict between astronomers and commercial radio users arises because both groups continue to find new uses for radio frequencies that formerly were more or less ignored. Although the Federal Communications Commission in the United States and similar international watchdog groups try to protect radio frequencies heavily used | Cost of Wide Phone Service May Be Astronomer Static |
940168_7 | cruelest part is that, since the disease tends to be the most virulent in its younger victims, few have prognoses as favorable as mine: cancer is the No. 1 cause of death among women in their 40's. This is not a trend I want to be a part of. Nima said her practice has shifted from mostly postmenopausal to mostly premenopausal women since she began in the early 80's, and only partly because young women prefer a female surgeon. ''At first we thought the rise was because of exposure to DDT,'' she said, ''but women like you are too young for that. So no one knows why: pesticides, pollution, environmental estrogen released from plastics. Most tumors respond to estrogen, so earlier menarche and later childbearing might increase the risk somewhat by exposing the breasts to more monthly hormone cycles. There's a lot of speculation but no answers.'' I asked her if there was anything I could've done to prevent this. ''Maybe it would've helped if you'd had babies when you were 18,'' she said, arching her eyebrows. ''But that's not exactly good public policy.'' Jan. 22 I've been a busy little research bee, calling cancer hot lines, combing the hospital's public access library, spending hours on line. I seek control by gathering information. I found pictures of reconstructed breasts on the Web: it looked as if someone had shoved one of those plastic salad bowls you get in school cafeterias under the woman's skin and there was a huge scar across it. Other pictures, with the reconstructed nipple, looked better. Still, they were pretty upsetting. It's nearly impossible to find information about women in their 30's; we're usually lumped into an all-inclusive ''under 50'' category. Apparently, though, I'm one of about 12,000 under 40 who will be told she has breast cancer this year, up from 5,120 in 1970. Much of the jump is because there are simply a larger number of women in their 30's than there used to be, which means more young women who could get cancer. Whatever the case, that's a lot of people. No one can fully answer my questions about radiation, either. It seems to slightly increase my chances of getting cancer again someday in my other breast. Even without the radiation, because I was diagnosed so young the chances of that are now 25 percent: one of the biggest risk factors for getting | 35 and Mortal: A Breast Cancer Diary |
939107_0 | ABE HIRSCHFELD, the parking magnate and real estate developer, is known for his quixotic political campaigns and for his brief, eccentric reign as the publisher of The New York Post. But now Mr. Hirschfeld has distinguished himself in yet another way. He has received a patent at the age of 77. Mr. Hirschfeld's idea is simple, and one that he contends offers an inexpensive way to make high-speed train travel a reality in the United States: remove the steel wheels from trains and replace them with rubber tires. High-speed trains being developed in Europe and Japan can cover 200 or more miles an hour. The most sophisticated of those rely on magnetic levitation, which is an expensive technology that requires not just new trains but also the laying of new track. Mr. Hirschfeld said that his plan would require only that the wheels of existing trains be replaced. His patent covers two tire configurations. One is L-shaped, much like steel train wheels. The other is U-shaped and wraps around the rail of the track. ''Every vehicle on the road today, whether it's a baby carriage or a motorcycle or a truck or a car, has rubber wheels,'' Mr. Hirschfeld said. ''Even planes land on rubber wheels. The only reason trains have steel wheels is that when the train was invented rubber tires didn't exist.'' Although his concept has not yet been tested, Mr. Hirschfeld contends that the use of rubber tires would allow trains to travel more than 150 miles an hour on existing rails. Would the rubber tires pose a greater hazard of derailment? Mr. Hirschfeld does not think so. He said the patent also covered a sensor system that would make instantaneous tilt adjustments in response to curves in the track. Mr. Hirschfeld received patent 5,582,110. A New Genetic Test During Pregnancies Thanks to procedures like amniocentesis and chorionic villus testing, a woman can learn early on in her pregnancy whether the baby she is carrying has debilitating or life-threatening problems. But the procedures themselves, both of which involve sticking a needle into the mother's abdomen, pose a small danger to the baby. Dr. Robert Ledley, a distinguished medical pioneer who this year was awarded the National Medal of Technology, has come up with a simple blood test that he thinks will yield the same information. He received a patent for his method last week. The method relies | Replacing steel wheels with rubber tires may be the road to making high-speed railways a reality. |
939134_0 | To the Editor: While we have known for some time that hormone replacement therapy is medically useful in women (front page, June 19), there has been little recognition of its benefits on a major quality-of-life issue. There is preliminary evidence that the daily estrogen dose taken before bed improves sleep quality. With large numbers of older people reporting sleep disturbance and fatigue, this possible benefit should not be ignored. SURA JESELSOHN Bronx, June 19, 1997 | For Some Women, Estrogen Has Only Benefits |
939133_0 | To the Editor: It was gratifying to read (front page, June 19) that a report from The New England Journal of Medicine confirmed the benefits of estrogen replacement therapy for postmenopausal women. The therapy significantly decreases the overall mortality rate and the mortality rate from coronary disease, and it lessens the incidence of osteoporosis and Alzheimer's disease. Together, these benefits outweigh the modest increase in deaths from breast cancer that occurs only after prolonged therapy. But the effect of estrogens is more favorable than that. In a recent editorial in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, I reported that the medical literature to date strongly suggests that women who do not consume alcohol have no increase in the risk of breast cancer when they take estrogens. Such women derive only benefits, with no disadvantages. BARNETT ZUMOFF, M.D. Seattle, June 20, 1997 The writer is chief of endocrinology and metabolism at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. | For Some Women, Estrogen Has Only Benefits |
939131_0 | To the Editor: I was surprised to see that the report on college tuition (Education page, June 18) focused largely on cutting a college's operating costs. If I were a college president, I'd find it hard not to cut the very costs that create opportunity: expensive programs for returning adults whose high school educations didn't prepare them for college; for students who want to be nurses or physical therapists, and for deaf or blind students who need sign language interpreters. Thirty years ago colleges could rely on cheap lectures and students just out of high school. Cutting costs will cut opportunities. Students, their parents and colleges need more money, not advice. ARNOLD SILVERMAN Merrick, N.Y., June 18, 1997 | Pay for College Learning, Not Bureaucracy |
939112_2 | companies that view fixed-wireless technology, as it is known, as a sure bet to steal customers from local phone providers. These companies have snapped up little-used licenses for frequencies at the upper end of the radio spectrum, which they say will enable them to beam voice, data, and video signals at extremely high speeds. All customers have to do to get the service is put small antennas on their roofs. ''In a sense, the Information Age is being held back by a lack of capacity,'' Mr. Mandl said. ''I happen to think our digital microwave technology will be one key way to solve that equation.'' Despite the months of busy preparations, however, Mr. Mandl's dream is still mostly untested. Fixed wireless is theoretically feasible. But industry experts say it is far from certain that Teligent will be able to build wireless networks across the country and offer service at prices that will lure customers away from their local phone companies. Then there is a phenomenon called rain fade. ''The big problem with microwave is that when it rains, your phone sometimes disconnects,'' said William O'Brien, a consultant at Geo Partners Research, a strategy consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. Teligent believes its engineers have solved the rain-fade problem. But even so, the company faces a hard slog before it will become a genuine competitor to the Bells -- or even to more established alternative local phone providers, like Teleport Communications Group or MFS Communications, which was acquired last August by Worldcom. ''This is a 10-year play, not an 10-month play,'' said Jack B. Grubman, a telecommunications analyst at Salomon Brothers. Mr. Mandl got his first taste of the patience required for start-ups soon after he joined the company last fall. Teligent's original licenses were in the 18-gigahertz band, which is also used by the military for systems to control the targeting of ''smart'' bombs and which lies roughly midway between the frequencies employed by satellite television providers like DirecTV and those used by police cars for radar guns. But Mr. Mandl quickly ran into trouble because Teledesic, a global satellite communications venture backed by Craig McCaw and William H. Gates 3d, also had a claim on the 18-gigahertz band. And Teledesic said Teligent's signals would interfere with its satellite transmissions. Last march, the Federal Communications Commission sought to resolve that dispute by moving Teligent to the higher-frequency 24-gigahertz band. As a | Dropping a Sure Path to the Top To Follow a Technological Dream |
939256_6 | receptor abounds in the urogenital tract. ''This is exciting because it addresses the longstanding puzzle of why estrogen helps treat incontinence in postmenopausal women, when the bladder has so few alpha receptors,'' said Dr. Gustafsson. ''So it might be estrogen receptor beta that's important here.'' Equally striking, the endothelial cells lining the walls of the blood vessels are as rich in beta receptors as they are in alpha receptors, a finding that could help explain why estrogen is so good for the heart. Until recently, most people believed that the hormone's cardioprotective benefits were mostly indirect, the result of its favorable impact on cholesterol metabolism in the liver, said Dr. Michael E. Mendelsohn, director of the Molecular Cardiology Research Center at the New England Medical Center in Boston. ''That's clearly not the whole story, and may not even be the majority of the story,'' Dr. Mendelsohn said. Instead, estrogen works directly on blood vessels, through at least two estrogen receptors, and possibly through another mechanism too. As Dr. Mendelsohn and his colleagues showed in the May issue of Nature Medicine, estrogen also appears to protect the cardiovascular system in ways having nothing to do with estrogen receptors, possibly by acting directly on cell membranes and changing the flow of charged ions. However it operates, estrogen does all sorts of desirable things for the cardiovascular system, including blocking the aggregation of platelets that can plug up arteries, and inhibiting the tendency of endothelial cells to proliferate in response to injury, a misguided reaction that can dangerously narrow the blood vessel. And though it is aging women who are now urged to take estrogen replacement therapy, the hormone does not discriminate against the hearts of men. At the Endocrine Society meeting this month, researchers from Australia reported that when men with coronary artery disease were given estrogen before exercising, they were able to exercise longer and showed fewer abnormalities on an electrocardiogram. But men are not likely to agree to chronic administration of estrogen so long as it has feminizing side effects like causing gynecomastia -- male breast growth. ''There's intense interest in designer estrogens now,'' said Dr. Mendelsohn. ''If you could come up with a compound that was vaso-specific, you might be able to treat men.'' As a study published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine made clear, current hormone therapies for postmenopausal women are also far from | New Respect For Estrogen's Influence |
939294_1 | a sexually violent offense because of a mental disease or defect. . . . Hendricks appealed, claiming, among other things, that application of the act to him violated the Federal Constitution's due process, double jeopardy, and ex post facto clauses. The Kansas Supreme Court accepted Hendricks's due process claim. The court declared that in order to commit a person involuntarily in a civil proceeding, a state is required by ''substantive'' due process to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the person is both (1) mentally ill, and (2) a danger to himself or to others. The court then determined that the act's definition of ''mental abnormality'' did not satisfy what it perceived to be this Court's ''mental illness'' requirement in the civil commitment context. . . . Kansas argues that the act's definition of ''mental abnormality'' satisfies the ''substantive'' due process requirements. We agree. Although freedom from physical restraint ''has always been at the core of the liberty protected by the due process clause from arbitrary governmental action,'' that liberty interest is not absolute. The Court has recognized that an individual's constitutionally protected interest in avoiding physical restraint may be overridden even in the civil context. . . . States have in certain narrow circumstances provided for the forcible civil detainment of people who are unable to control their behavior and who thereby pose a danger to the public health and safety. We have consistently upheld such involuntary commitment statutes provided the confinement takes place pursuant to proper procedures and evidentiary standards. It thus cannot be said that the involuntary civil confinement of a limited subclass of dangerous persons is contrary to our understanding of ordered liberty. . . . A finding of dangerousness, standing alone, is ordinarily not a sufficient ground upon which to justify indefinite involuntary commitment. We have sustained civil statutes when they have coupled proof of dangerousness with the proof of some additional factor, such as a ''mental illness'' or ''mental abnormality.'' These added statutory requirements serve to limit involuntary civil confinement to those who suffer from a volitional impairment rendering them dangerous beyond their control. . . . The thrust of Hendricks's argument is that the act establishes criminal proceedings; hence confinement under it necessarily constitutes punishment. He contends that where, as here, newly enacted ''punishment'' is predicated upon past conduct for which he has already been convicted and forced to serve a prison | Excerpts From Opinions On Status of Sex Offenders |
937579_0 | To the Editor: Your news article on the tax-cutting plan (''Pressured, House Chairman Modifies Tax Plan,'' June 12) mentions ''a package of tax breaks for college costs.'' What the article does not mention is the disastrous ramifications of the plan for graduate students. This effect would come from the proposed elimination of Section 117(d) of the Internal Revenue Service code. This section currently provides tax-free status to the tuition portion of scholarships and fellowships received by students who are teaching or research assistants. The way these scholarships for graduate students work is that the tuition is paid internally within the school and the student is given a monthly stipend of about $1,200. As the tax code stands now, students receive about $1,000 per month after taxes, in exchange for a 60-to-80-hour workweek. Without the shelter of 117(d) and a tuition cost of $25,000 a year (money that the student never sees), students would have to pay a total of $7,400 in taxes, resulting in a net income of $7,000 a year or $583 per month. We are already a struggling class, paying a substantial opportunity cost so that we can make the scientific breakthroughs that maintain this great country's status as a technology leader. SUMIT BASU Somerville, Mass., June 12, 1997 The writer is a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tax Plan Gives Most Relief to the Middle Class | Students Would Lose |
937491_0 | Senator, we're sitting here drinking coffee and having a peaceable discussion about the draft amendment to the Constitution, just passed by the House, that would allow states to ban the burning or other desecration of the American flag. I'd like to show you that such an amendment is not just mistaken -- counter to the sense and spirit of the Constitution, of the First Amendment. I'd like to show you that it is meaningless. Here I have an envelope with a first-class stamp on it. It shows an American flag, part of the flag anyway. And it's been canceled. A big, old-fashioned thump of a cancellation, smearing black ink all over that flag. Is that desecrating the flag? Here's an uncanceled stamp, same issue. I place it in my saucer and set a match to it. Is this desecrating the flag? Senator, suppose three weeks from now my neighbor's 7-year-old draws a picture of the Fourth of July parade with an American flag being carried down the street, and later that afternoon -- the kid says she doesn't mind, she drew better ones -- I twist up that paper and use it to help light the charcoal in the barbecue. Have we desecrated the flag? Artists, for instance Jasper Johns, have painted detailed American flags, and some of those paintings go for a lot of money. I wouldn't want to burn a Jasper Johns. That's another kind of desecration, the money and all. But suppose I paint -- as best I can, ruling all the lines first, using the right colors -- a picture of an American flag. And suppose when the paint dries, I unpin it from the drawing board and take it along to a political protest meeting and burn it publicly there. This political statement may make some people angry, but is it desecrating the flag? Or perhaps I take pieces of red, white and blue cloth, cut them and sew them, a la Betsy Ross, into an American flag. Except that I put in only 12 stripes. And I take that along to the protest demonstration and try to start it burning. Cloth doesn't burn all that well, but I get arrested for desecrating the flag. What happens at the trial when I lay out the remains of what I tried to set alight? It's true that none of these objects were ''real'' flags. So take | Waiving Our Freedom |
934866_0 | To the Editor: Thomas Geoghegan (Op-Ed, June 3) did an excellent job challenging conventionally held wisdom that getting a college degree guarantees its holder a well-paying job. However, he ignores an essential element in the equation. Instead of artificially raising wages for non-college jobs, as Mr. Geoghegan argues, we should instead raise the quality of a standard high school education. One of the reasons a bachelor's degree is in demand is that a high school diploma has become a debased document that in no way assures employers that its bearer has the basic skills they require. The majority of American college students are not spending four years in bucolic isolation pondering the great books, while the football team practices in the distance. Instead, many commute to state and city schools to augment their lacking secondary school educations with basic skills like analytical writing and problem solving. President Clinton's proposal to make two years of college ''universal'' will only extend the problem by further displacing the burden of basic education from high schools to colleges, which are increasingly picking up the slack. It's unrealistic to expect average working Americans to be out of the work force for two to four years more than necessary just so they can acquire the knowledge they should have been taught in grades 9 through 12. If a high school diploma were a guarantee of an educated and adaptable worker, then its holders would be better able to demand the wage increases Mr. Geoghegan writes of. AMANDA MARKS Los Angeles, June 3, 1997 | Lift Education Standards, and Wages Will Rise |
948793_1 | some idle Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own. Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. | A Column That Was Only Written, Never Delivered |
950707_3 | of all cases reviewed in Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Texas. But the comparable figures are less than 35 percent in Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada. Ms. Daniels rejected the criticism, saying, ''We monitor the quality of decisions. We have no indication that they are inaccurate.'' President Clinton, who signed the welfare bill on Aug. 22, 1996, recently persuaded Congress to soften some provisions, including restrictions on benefits for legal immigrants. But he did not resist the new standards for children's disability benefits. Kenneth S. Apfel, associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, supervised preparation of the rules setting stricter standards. In May, Mr. Clinton nominated him to be Commissioner of Social Security. Senators of both parties said they would question Mr. Apfel about the disability program at his confirmation hearing. In a recent letter to the President, Senators John H. Chafee of Rhode Island, a Republican, and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, a Democrat, said the eligibility criteria being used to evaluate children's disabilities were ''far more severe than is required'' by the 1996 welfare law. They asserted that ''the Administration has misinterpreted the intent of Congress in reforming the Supplemental Security Income program for children.'' Jonathan M. Stein, general counsel of Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, who has represented scores of disabled children, said, ''Congress set a somewhat stricter standard, but the Administration has misinterpreted it and applied it in an arbitrary, anarchic way, with extraordinary variation among states.'' Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a longtime advocate for people with mental disabilities, is lobbying Congress and the White House to revise the rules, which she said were ''unfair to children with mental retardation.'' The Federal benefit payments are used to pay for treatment and social services, to make structural changes in houses and offset wages lost by parents who stay home to care for disabled children. Administration officials said savings to the Federal Treasury would fall far short of projections if the disability rules were as lenient as opponents of the cuts have proposed. Most of the decisions to terminate disability benefits were made by state officials who work under contract with the Federal Government, using Federal standards. They do not see or interview the children getting benefits. Parents may ask the Government to continue paying benefits while they appeal. But Thelma L. Jackson, the great-aunt and guardian of a boy in Philadelphia who is | After a Review, 95,180 Children Will Lose Cash Disability Benefits |
953290_0 | To the Editor: Jane E. Brody (Personal Health, Aug. 20) asserts that the common objection to hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women -- ''it's not natural'' -- should be laid to rest because the 77-year life expectancy of women today is equally unnatural. It is this misuse of demographics that should be laid to rest. When women's average longevity was only 40 years, it was because of deaths during infancy, childhood and childbirth. Most women who survived these hurdles lived well past menopause. What is new is that more of us are now surviving well past menopause and to old age. After the reproductive years, ovaries cease producing eggs but continue to produce the kind and amount of estrogen that postmenopausal women require. The decision whether to take hormone treatment should be a woman's choice in consultation with her physician and based on her values, preferences and medical and family history. PAULA B. DORESS -WORTERS Newton Centre, Mass., Aug. 21, 1997 | Questions on Estrogen |
953280_2 | studies of phytoestrogens in menopausal women, it may be necessary to consume as much as a cup of soy protein powder (or its equivalent in other soy products) a day. Furthermore, the isoflavone content of soy products and other beans can vary widely depending upon how they were grown and processed. Without a laboratory analysis of each product, it is not possible to know how much of these chemicals may be in a particular food. Keep in mind, too, that while hormone drugs have been tested for decades for safety and effectiveness in tens of thousands of women, what is known about plant-based estrogens comes largely from studies in laboratory animals and small groups of women tested for only weeks or months. Also, the evidence thus far suggests that food-based estrogens may not provide all the known benefits of estrogen drugs, especially the ability of the drugs to protect bones against osteoporosis and their apparent ability to preserve brain function and ward off Alzheimer's disease. Weak estrogens do not have the same actions as the strong hormones that the body produces. This can be a benefit or a detriment, depending upon the hormonal status of the woman and the tissues being considered. Thus, in a premenopausal woman who produces an ample supply of estrogen, phytoestrogens can suppress estrogen and progesterone production and interfere with natural estrogen activity in some tissues, especially the breast and uterus. While such inhibition may reduce a woman's lifetime risk of developing cancer of the breast and endometrium, it may also cause infertility by interfering with ovulation or implantation. In a woman past menopause, however, weak phytoestrogens may supply just enough of an estrogenic effect to reduce the frequency and severity of hot flushes, vaginal dryness, mood swings and other common menopausal symptoms, while still protecting the breast and uterus from undue estrogenic stimulation. Dr. Claude L. Hughes Jr., an obstetrician-gynecologist and researcher into environmental and dietary estrogens at Duke University and Durham Regional Medical Center, emphasized that just because plant hormones are natural does not necessarily mean they are safe. ''Cobra venom, arsenic and cyanide are natural, but personally I avoid them,'' he remarked. What Is Known As for health benefits, Dr. Hughes said, ''there is suggestive epidemiology and some supportive animal studies, but there are still no long-term human clinical trials.'' What do these studies show? Studies at Bowman-Gray University in Winston-Salem, N.C., among | Personal Health |
951719_0 | WOMEN of a certain age are justifiably confused. One day they hear that taking postmenopausal estrogen may cut their risk of Alzheimer's disease by more than 50 percent. The very next day, another study links the long-term use of postmenopausal hormones to a 50 percent decline in deaths from heart disease but also a 43 percent increase in breast-cancer deaths. Since breast cancer is the disease most feared by American women -- even though it is far from being the biggest cause of death among them -- it is easy to understand why most postmenopausal women are running scared. Only about a quarter to a third have chosen to use hormone replacement and of those, only about half will stay on the therapy for more than a few years. Should the hormones be taken? If so, for how long? Those questions are not easily answered. Definitive statements about benefits and risks, and how they might apply to individual women, cannot be made now. That must await the results of long-term studies now in progress, and full results may not be available for more than a decade. Meanwhile, one million women every year enter menopause and face the ''should I or shouldn't I'' dilemma, and they have to make their decisions based on less than complete evidence. That evidence has at least one clear message that is unlikely to change as further data become available: decisions about postmenopausal hormones must be based on each woman's personal and family medical histories as well as her emotional comfort with taking or not taking the hormones. Assessing the Benefits Last spring, researchers from the New England Medical Center in Boston published an analysis demonstrating that for most women, hormone replacement was more likely to extend life than shorten it. The exception was women with no known risk factors for heart disease or hip fractures but with two close relatives with breast cancer. If a woman has even one coronary risk factor like high blood pressure, diabetes, low levels of protective HDL cholesterol or cigarette smoking, benefits of long-term hormone use would outweigh her risk of dying of breast cancer, the analysis indicated. You might note, however, that most of the coronary risks the researchers considered -- and two they failed to take into account, obesity and physical inactivity -- can be favorably affected by changes in living habits. A healthier way of life might | Personal Health |
951791_3 | the city's financial control board. But Dr. Brimmer, the son of a sharecropper who went on to teach economics at Harvard and to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, is not inclined to explain himself. ''I don't engage in public debate,'' he said. ''Why should I produce drama when I can produce action?'' A1 A Failure of Supervision A fire begun and nourished by oxygen generators caused the crash of a Valujet plane in Florida last year, but the accident, which killed 110 people, ultimately resulted from supervisory failures by the airline and the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board said. A16 Counsel Named for Inquiry The chairman of the House committee investigating Democratic fund-raising practices selected a new chief counsel, Richard D. Bennett, who was the United States Attorney in Maryland in the Bush Administration and one of scores of Federal prosecutors replaced by President Clinton in 1993. A17 Cuba Feared U.S. Invasion Intelligence documents provide evidence that Cuba's President, Fidel Castro, put his military forces on high alert after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy because he feared that the United States would blame Cuba and launch an invasion. A18 Catholic Pastor Resigns A priest criticized for suggesting that parents shared responsibility for any sexual abuse of 11 boys by another priest has resigned as a church pastor and will hold no church offices, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas said. The pastor, Msgr. Robert C. Rehkemper, 73, once the diocese's No. 2 official, was a witness in a civil trial in which the jury awarded $119.6 million to 10 men and the family of a man who committed suicide at age 20. The jury found that the diocese had ignored evidence of abuse and then tried to conceal it. The diocese is appealing. (AP) NEW YORK/REGION B1-8 Police Torture Allegation Is Issue at Mayoral Forum The allegations that New York City police officers savagely attacked a Haitian immigrant 11 days ago emerged as central issue in the mayoral campaign as three Democratic candidates used a televised forum to pummel Mayor Giuliani and his law-enforcement policies. B1 Police Commissioner Howard Safir said he would move more black officers into the Brooklyn precinct rocked by the torture allegation, including officers who had been sent to Haiti to wean that police force away from such abuses. B3 Taxi Drivers in Protest Several hundred yellow cabs streamed down | NEWS SUMMARY |
951721_5 | can have the best coffee or ice cream or tomatoes.'' If the country finds itself in the grips of an all-out tomato mania, it will not be the first time. In the 1830's, amid claims about its miraculous health benefits, the largely ignored tomato suddenly became the ''queen of the vegetable market,'' said Andrew F. Smith, the author of ''The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture and Cookery'' (University of South Carolina Press, 1994). By 1840, ''anyone who enjoyed good culinary products prided themselves on the tomatoes they grew and served,'' Mr. Smith said. As much as anyone can pin it down, today's tomato craze started in the late 1980's, as word was spreading about the taste and beauty of heirloom vegetables available through members of the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa. The exchange was founded in 1975 to preserve older types of fruit and vegetables by storing seeds in a central bank and encouraging people to grow them. The idea of heirlooms caught on, and commercial seed companies began offering them, too. Mr. Baldwin traces his own tomato upturn to the late 1980's, when he first offered heirloom tomatoes -- including the legendary Brandywine -- in his seed catalogue. His customers reacted with great enthusiasm, he said, and sales have increased every year. ''The demand seems to continue unabated,'' he said. Even Williams-Sonoma, the specialty kitchenware retailer, has been selling the popular plant by mail, offering a five-pack of heirloom seedlings on the same catalogue page as pricey Calphalon cookware. ''They've been very popular,'' said Donata Maggipinto, food and entertaining director at Williams-Sonoma. ''We see them as part of a larger trend where people are harking back to foods and types of cooking that were popular years ago.'' The pull of times past is indeed a stirring force in the tomato's widespread worship. With many heirloom varieties, seeds were passed from generation to generation; they can die off if no one saves or grows them. ''I like that connection to the past,'' said Ms. Redmond of Maine, a schoolteacher turned stay-at-home mom. The breadth of tomato choices is another part of the thrill. In these days when a tomato is no longer a predictable red sphere, one type is almost never enough. Gardeners order 6 to 12 kinds at once from seed companies. Every year, a few varieties become the rage. ''It's sort of like, what are this | The Tomato, Singing Its Siren Song |
951413_0 | The Geron Corporation, a small California biotechnology company, says it has cloned a gene believed to play a key role in cancer and age-related diseases, raising hopes about possible new treatments. The news, which came late last Thursday, caused the company's stock price to more than double the next day. In an article published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, researchers at Geron and the University of Colorado said they had successfully cloned the gene for the human telomerase catalytic protein, which is thought to play a key role in the regulation of cell life span, functioning as part of a molecular clock. Since the discovery of telomerase, its presence in tumor cells has raised hopes that it may offer a pre-eminent target for anticancer drugs. ''The cloning of the active center of telomerase is a major milestone that sets the stage for more fully understanding the molecular genetics of aging and cancer,'' said Thomas R. Cech, a Nobel laureate and professor of biochemistry at the University of Colorado in Boulder, who collaborated with the Geron scientists. Geron's stock closed at $14 on Friday, up $7.50, with 12.5 million shares traded on Nasdaq. Analysts were struck by the size of the gain on a day the market over all fell sharply. While the article's publication is significant for Geron, which has staked its future on the relevance of telomerase to cancer, such a scientific breakthrough is still many years removed from a potential drug, specialists said. Michael Sheffery, a securities analyst with Mehta & Isaly, said: ''The cloning of the catalytic subunit of telomerase is the sine qua non for this company because this is the element that is a good pharmaceutical target. Having said that, this is a paper in Science. We're not talking about having a pharmaceutical, or even a lead. They have a target; now they have to start making bullets.'' Jim McCamant, editor of the Medical Technology Stock Letter, said investors should remember that the time between a scientific discovery and a potential drug is usually at least seven years, with many opportunities for failure along the way. The doubling of a biotechnology company's share price is rare, but ''almost inevitably it's on a discovery, not something that will make you money,'' he said. Geron, which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., was founded four years ago to develop drugs for cancer and age-related diseases, | Biotechnology Company Says It Has Cloned a Cancer Gene |
951416_2 | from this version of the gene. Therapeutic treatments based on BRCA1 (gene therapy, for example) are expected to be based on healthy versions of the gene. Leslie Alexandre, Oncormed's vice president for corporate affairs, said the BRCA1 sequence patented by Oncormed was important because it was prevalent in the general population. ''If you're a pharmaceutical company and you're investing a huge amount of money targeted at this gene, you want to know that the treatment you're creating will elicit the same response in the majority of the population,'' she said. However, Oncormed, which does genetic testing for breast cancer, does not plan to develop any new therapies itself. ''We plan to license the patent,'' Mr. Gallegos said. Following a landmark Supreme Court decision on genetic engineering in 1980, the Patent and Trademark Office has routinely granted patents on human genes. Even so, the practice remains controversial, with religious groups and (in the case of the breast cancer gene) women's groups protesting the practice. Companies defend the patents, saying that without the promise of exclusive rights, they could never afford to make the risky financial investments in new therapies. Oncormed received patent 5,654,155. Diving for Treasure In the Kitchen Sink It has been a standard sitcom plot, from ''I Love Lucy'' onward. The housewife places her ring on the edge of the sink while she washes the dishes and, oops, it seems to have gone right down the drain. Noki Iida and Richard Rodriguez have patented a way to retrieve such lost rings and other valuables. It consists of a clear plastic jar that attaches to the trap at the bottom of the U-shaped bend in the waste pipe that leads out of a sink drain. ''The water goes down through the jar in a whirling motion,'' Mr. Iida said. ''The water will go right on through while an object like a ring will drop down and get trapped by a stainless steel coil inside the jar.'' The jar can be unscrewed from the drain trap, the lost item retrieved, and then the jar put back, where it stands ready to rescue the next valuable. Mr. Iida, of Phoenix, and Mr. Rodriguez, of Tempe, Ariz., are planning to manufacture the trap, which they expect to retail for $12 to $15. They received patent 5,638,557. Patents are available by number for $3 from the Patent and Trademark Office, Washington, D.C. 20231. Patents | A dark horse has scored a victory in the race to commercialize a gene linked to breast cancer. |
950104_1 | of their father and mother, Marilyn, who died of cancer several months after the killing, were ''pleased that the long-standing litigation has been settled amicably.'' The P.L.O. also settled litigation with a New Jersey tour operator, which brings to an end litigation that also lasted nearly 12 years and included disputes over the P.L.O.'s legal liability in the United States and whether the P.L.O. Chairman, Yasir Arafat, would agree to provide a pretrial deposition in the case. The Palestinian permanent observer at the United Nations, Nasser al-Kidwa, said: ''We have always said that the Palestinian Liberation Organization had nothing to do with this tragic event and we maintain of course that position. I think both sides should feel comfortable and it's good to achieve things peacefully.'' Some experts said they believed that the timing of the settlement was related to current Middle Eastern tensions. ''It certainly removes a major thorn at a moment when for the first time in quite some time the focus in the peace process is on whether the P.L.O. is doing enough to combat terrorism,'' said Robert B. Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ''There is certainly no percentage in it for the P.L.O. to have a jury trial in the United States or any type of trial on its continuing connections with terrorism,'' Mr. Satloff said. The lawsuit was originally filed by Mr. Klinghoffer's widow, who had gone on the Mediterranean cruise with her husband in part to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary. They and 15 other American and British hostages were taken at gunpoint in the 52-hour ordeal that ended with her husband dead. The other hostages were terrorized but freed unharmed. The Klinghoffers' lawyer, Jay D. Fischer, did not return telephone calls yesterday, but Rodney E. Gould, a lawyer for the tour operator, Crown Travel, said both plaintiffs felt they had strong cases and would have been happy to go to trial,. ''I think that had we tried the case, we would have been successful,'' Mr. Gould said. ''My view is that had the Klinghoffers tried their case, they would have been successful and would have gotten a large award.'' The lawyer for the P.L.O., Ramsey Clark, said there were settlement talks that almost resulted in an agreement in late 1995 and early last year, in which the P.L.O. would have helped to fund a peace institute created | A Settlement With P.L.O. Over Terror On a Cruise |
948590_1 | Chinese out of work before a well-functioning labor market could steer them into new jobs. It is uncertain how many market-based rules that govern tariffs, quotas, subsidies and other trade barriers China is willing to swallow. So far the Chinese have made only timid offers to the United States, which has assumed the lead in negotiating terms of China's entrance into the W.T.O. Beijing's hesitation is unsurprising. It already reaps, without making concessions, the benefit of ''most-favored-nation'' status, in the United States and most other countries, which guarantees that exports from China are taxed no more than exports from any other country. Membership would therefore give the Chinese little economic advantage. To Beijing, the lure of membership is political. President Jiang appears to covet the political glow of leading China, which will soon be the world's largest exporter, into its rightful place in the club of international traders. Membership is also important to those Chinese officials who want to embrace markets as the driving force of the economy. Once China is a member, these officials can use the threat of W.T.O. sanctions as a hammer to hasten reform. China may also anticipate the day when its exports bump against protectionist forces abroad and it will wish to invoke international sanctions from inside the W.T.O. For the West's part, membership offers an effective way to side with Chinese reformers in converting China to an economy governed by rules subject to international judicial proceedings. The United States would no longer have to play the role of a bully threatening sanctions for Chinese trade violations and could instead let an international body resolve disputes. That would deflate trade and political tensions between the two countries. Despite nearly a decade of negotiations, the fractured Chinese leadership appears unready to embrace a specific schedule of steeply lower tariffs and elimination of other trade barriers like restrictions on the right of foreign companies to sell products in China or of foreign investors to export products from China. The West will not demand that China turn itself into a clone of the West by privatizing state-owned companies. But it will demand that China, like other members of the World Trade Organization, end subsidies for state-owned companies that are used to promote exports and block imports. China has not made up its mind to accept the Trade Organization on its terms. The West can wait until it does. | China's Resistance to Fair Trade |
948566_1 | mounting livestock losses in areas where cattle and horses venture too close to the water, and rising demands from the public to reinstitute at least limited forms of the crocodile hunt. Twenty-two species of crocodile are distributed among 100 equatorial and subtropical countries. They include the American alligator, South American caimans, Indian gharials, the Nile crocodile (a stalwart of Tarzan movies) and a host of slender-snouted freshwater varieties. But the Australian saltwater or estuarine crocodile, known to zoologists as Crocodylus porosus, outstrips all others in size, making it the largest living reptile on earth. Males sometimes reach 20 to 23 feet in length and weigh up to a ton. Females run half that length and weight. Australia is the southernmost extreme of the range of these animals, which stretches from the east coast of India, across to the Philippines and Caroline Islands and down through Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. They can live in the sea, tidal rivers or completely freshwater rivers, swamps and billabongs. In Australia, they exist not only in the sparsely settled Northern Territory but also in the far north of the Australian states of Queensland and Western Australia. Crocodiles are intimately involved with the culture and traditions of the Australian aborigines and figure prominently in aboriginal stories and myths and in ancient rock art. Some aborigines still eat the eggs and meat. Others refuse to kill them. With so many more crocodiles around now, graphic signs have proliferated to warn of the dangers of swimming or wading in saltwater creeks, touring or fishing from open boats, gutting fish on boat ramps or camping near the water's edge. One of the more sensational fatalities occurred 10 years ago on a concrete causeway over the East Alligator River, about 100 miles southeast of here. A local guide, Terry McLoughlin, was pointing out crocodiles to tourists. As the tide rushed up, he slipped and fell. A crocodile bit his head, killing him almost instantly. Because aborigines consider the animal sacred, it still thrashes around in those waters today. Of 31 recorded attacks since 1971, 18 have been fatal. Most are swimming accidents, although one man in 1993 was pulled out of a boat at night and killed. Between 100 and 200 crocodiles have to be removed annually from Darwin Harbor. So far this year the count tops 60, said Bill Freeland, deputy director of the Parks and Wildlife | Australia's Prolific Crocodiles Throw Their Weight Around |
952801_0 | In the middle of the night on Aug. 13, 1967, two backpackers were killed in their sleep by grizzly bears in the rugged back country here. So Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks, the only two Federal parks that have large populations of grizzly bears, decided to make the bears back off. A decline in the number of injuries caused by bears since those 1967 attacks indicates that the change in policy is working. The parks decided that many bears were a threat because they had lost their fear of humans after years of feeding in dumps and eating handouts along the road. So dumps around the park were closed over the course of a few years. There was tougher enforcement of rules that prohibited feeding the bears and required backpackers to keep food away from them. The deaths in 1967 ''were a wake-up call,'' said Steve Gniadek, Glacier's wildlife biologist. ''We needed to change our ways. And we have.'' Four more people had been killed by 1987 in Glacier National Park by bears used to handouts of food. But park officials say an aggressive bear management policy has largely restored grizzly and black bears to their place as wild animals that fear humans. Though there have been three deaths caused by bears in the park in the last decade, those were not committed by bears accustomed to humans. ''We have gone from 48 bear-inflicted human injuries before 1970 to an average of 1 per year now,'' said Kerry Gunther, a bear management specialist for Yellowstone National Park. Attacks these days are ''surprise encounters when people run into bears with cubs,'' Mr. Gunther said. Policy changes ended the Yogi Bear era in the parks, when lines of cars gathered in ''bear jams'' in which people fed marshmallows and hot dogs to bears along the road or people sat on bleachers at the dump to watch bears feeding. Now, if a bear aggressively approaches a staff member or visitor in Glacier or Yellowstone, it is likely to get a face full of hot pepper spray. A primary weapon in the effort to keep bears at bay is a small, pressurized can of capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers, which irritates the bear's lungs and eyes. It recently came in handy in Glacier National Park when a grizzly bear charged at the park naturalist, Dave Casteel. He sprayed the animal with capsaicin | Parks Succeeding in Program To Keep Bears From Humans |
952517_5 | and helps with hot flashes during the day and night sweats. The problem with evening primrose oil is that if a woman has a history of breast cancer, then evening primrose oil can actually make that worse. Q. Are there double-blind controlled studies that prove that these things work, or is it at this point anecdotal -- you've seen benefits in your patients? A. There have been some double-blind studies in terms of using herbs for treating hormone imbalance in women. Q. What kind of results are you seeing in your patients? A. We had one woman who had a problem with significant ovarian cysts who was going through menopause. We really worked on building her up nutritionally, and, of course, her gynecologist was following her and did a sonogram of her ovaries. When she went back for a follow-up visit, they told her it had actually cleared up. In some cases, a woman will get a complete stopping of the hot flashes and sweats and in other cases a significant reduction. Q. How can you be sure that the improvements are not because of better eating habits or the fact that you have gotten them to stop smoking or to exercise? A. I've had some people who have not changed their diet but who have gone on the supplements, and their results are nowhere near as dramatic as the ones who really do the exercise and change their diet and take the supplements. But they have had an improvement. Q. How controversial is all this? A. What is important is that I want to let people know a couple of things: if someone has symptoms of osteoporosis and it's very bad, then, of course, that's when estrogen-replacement therapy should be indicated. But a lot of doctors will tell a woman who is about to enter menopause that you have to go on estrogen immediately. Have they checked her hormone level to see if she really needs it? Is she having symptoms? Even if she's not having symptoms, they're still recommending it. They're saying it's going to prevent heart disease, but a lot of those factors are genetic. So check out your heart, get a bone-density scan before going on estrogen replacement. And do weight-bearing exercises to prevent osteoporosis. Q. What about taking calcium? A. There are some calciums that are much more effective than others, such as those made | Promoting Nutrition During Menopause |
952462_0 | WHEN flights are delayed and the airport concourse looks like the subway at rush hour, children crawling among luggage and lines winding to pay phones, anxious travelers yearn for surcease. Alas, an airline club may not be the haven it is supposed to be. An on-the-fly examination of airline clubs in the United States shows a consistent result: If flights are held up at a major hub, the clubs are only slightly better than the public waiting areas. It's hard to find a seat without asking someone to move a briefcase, the phones are busy, the receptionists have their hands full and the ambiance is harried. When things are on schedule, people who travel a lot find much to use in an airline club. But even then comes the question of whether a club is worth $175 to $300 a year if it is not a business expense. As with a health club membership, the value derives from frequency of use. For example, for anyone who must frequently make a particular trip with a child, or regularly take a connecting flight, especially when the weather is uncertain, a club might be worthwhile. Because I travel by myself a lot, I would want a club to help me cope. I want a place to set my bags aside while I use the phone, bathroom or perhaps modem. But I recently saw that not all clubs can do this because some are outside the airport's security barrier, or on ''landside.'' When passengers leave the club to board a flight and are questioned about letting their luggage out of sight, no exception is made in security procedures. This limitation became clear at La Guardia Airport in New York. Gary Lonieski, United Airlines' manager of special services, passing the luggage cubicles in the Red Carpet Club, pointed to signs that have for a year prohibited their use. I saw families watching television with their legs buried in luggage, just like nonclub users. And no one I talked to expects security at airports to be relaxed. La Guardia's central terminal, undergoing revamping, has clubs on both sides of the security barrier. Three are landside: United's Red Carpet Club, Continental's Presidents Club and, now under renovation, Trans World Airlines' Ambassadors Club. American's Admirals Club is on the far side. Delta, Northwest and US Airways, with their own terminals at La Guardia, also have clubs beyond the | Airline Clubs: Worth the Cost? |
952458_4 | by God.'') But I confess to the odd daydream of meeting up with the captain of the Whydah, which went down off Wellfleet in 1717, and astonishing him with my deft swordplay. If the past holds mystery and romance, the present holds real and constant danger for seashore communities like the ones on Cape Cod and the islands -- which is why they make great settings for mystery stories. It's a lot more fun to read about hurricanes, electrical storms and those ferocious nor'easters like the one that ripped through Monomoy Island and tore up the Chatham coastline in 1991 than it is to live through these monsters. In Francine Mathews's ''Death in Rough Water'' (Morrow) a commercial fishing boat is trawling for codfish off the Georges Bank when one of these gales blows up, churning the ocean into a frothing mass of 20-foot waves and washing the captain out to sea. ''When a man was lost at sea, fear cut deep in the hearts of his confederates,'' observes a mourner at the Portuguese church service for the drowned seaman. ''No one who fished for a living wanted to die for it.'' I happened to be in Provincetown one summer when such a storm hit, knocking out the electrical power up and down the Cape and forcing the cancellation of the Blessing of the Fleet for the first time in 41 years. Wanting to say a prayer for the fishermen anyway, I went to a candlelight ceremony at a Portuguese church much like the one in Ms. Mathews's story, where I saw the sober faces of people who knew what it was to weather a storm. Another elemental force -- a fire fierce enough to destroy a whole town -- poses the danger in ''Nantucket Revenge'' (Lyford Books, Presidio Press). The pyromaniac in Larry Maness's thriller is caught before he can blow up the waterfront and incinerate the town. The islanders weren't so lucky in 1846, when a blaze that started in a millinery shop swept through town, burning down every structure that wasn't made of brick. On occasion, the sun does shine in the books I take on a Cape holiday. Among other authors, Philip A. Craig on Martha's Vineyard, Virginia Rich on Nantucket, and Rick Boyer, Margot Arnold and Phoebe Atwood Taylor on the Cape write the kind of regional mysteries that you can toss in the bag | Flotillas in the Mist |
952578_5 | Mother Nature is very kind, tobacco growers can turn a profit of $5,000 or more an acre. In a golden year -- no hail, wind or disease to harm delicate leaves -- farmers could realize double that amount. But growers are skittish about divulging details of acreage, crop sizes and profits. ''Even we have trouble getting statistics,'' says Rick Macsuga, marketing and inspection supervisor at the Connecticut Department of Agriculture in Hartford. ''You can't blame them because the tobacco business is so risky and competitive. Besides, a lot of growers over the years have been on a roller coaster.'' Connecticut growers claim their shade-wrapped product is every bit the equal of cigars from Cuba -- which contributed some seeds to the Connecticut pedigree decades ago. Today, the growers point out, the economically hard-hit Cubans don't have the resources to adequately fertilize or to age their tobacco as they used to in their heyday. ''A Cuban cigar is still a great smoke,'' says Mr. McNamara. ''Comparing Connecticut and Cuban cigars is like comparing two great French wines. But the fact is Cubans are not pampering their tobacco like we are.'' And pampering is an understatement. In April, growers plant seedlings in greenhouses. In May, they painstakingly transplant them to the tented fields, using both men and machines. The tents are designed to filter out about 25 percent of the sunlight. The space between plants and rows is calculated down to the inch -- as is the distance between rows of leaves in curing sheds. Around July 1 the harvesting begins. Approximately three leaves per plant are harvested every week until the plants' 18 or 20 leaves -- dark green, silky and slightly sticky -- are stripped off the stalks by the end of August. Everything about tobacco growing and processing is carried out with the precision of a military campaign. ''Do you hear that snapping sound?'' asks Mr. Nunez as workers pluck leaves. ''Two or three days ago you would not have heard it. The tobacco would not have been ready to be picked -- it wasn't talking to you.'' Workers are trained to deftly snap off the leaves at the very base of the stem with thumb and forefinger. The leaves are so easily bruised that too much finger pressure is enough to reduce a leaf to interior binder material rather than the top-grade wrapper. Even the tiny pink flowers | A Premium Crop From the Shade |
952455_3 | and women's brains both have receptors for testosterone, but beyond signaling a fetus to develop a male body, no one knows what testosterone does in the brain. Men's and women's brains also have receptors for the estrogens, which have a huge variety of effects, making estrogen-replacement therapy for post-menopausal women a balancing act: less heart disease and Alzheimer's, more cancer; less osteoporosis, more sexual desire. Testosterone lowers people's immune functions, makes them edgy and aggressive. One of the estrogens stimulates people's immune systems and makes them smarter. And so on, far into the night. I get tired writing about this. I didn't get tired reading about it, though. Blum manages the tricky art of good science reporting: she has a friendly, conversational tone that is relaxing without being chirpy, she writes clearly and accessibly, and the science is all there. Her narrative carries the reader through this still-maturing subject's lack of coherence. Lack of coherence in a new science is normal. What is worrisome, however, is how much its results coincide with our current scenarios of what men and women do. Behaviors like aggression or negotiation need to be carefully defined, and I doubt that they are. And a science of ill-defined behaviors that fits neatly into cultural stereotypes needs a hard eye. Culture-ridden scientific pronouncements on the behavior of women, blacks, Jews and Asians have a long, unsavory and downright immoral past. Don't ignore the studies, Blum writes, ''but let us please acknowledge that we haven't fully understood them yet. . . . The answers are open-ended.'' Still, one answer is emerging, and it is also the book's message: that the causes of behavior are both biological and cultural and are intricately interwoven. We needn't choose which is more important. In songbirds, usually only males sing. The group of neurons in the males' brains that controls singing is six times as large as in females' brains; when scientists block testosterone in male baby songbirds, they never sing. But they also never sing if, at a precise time in their childhood, they don't hear their relatives singing. So the cause of singing is this: A male baby hears a song, which starts a process that uses testosterone to build his brain in such a way that he sings. Something about that intricacy sounds exactly right, doesn't it? Ann Finkbeiner teaches science writing in the Writing Seminars of Johns Hopkins University. | How to Tell Men From Women |
952555_0 | LONG ISLAND has a great seafaring tradition. Our ancestors arrived by ship, a perilous three-week voyage in the old days of sail. Most were heading for Spain or South Carolina. But navigation was an imperfect art in those days, and many ships were blown off course. Having set foot on dry land the passengers refused to move. In small towns on the East End, you can find groups of their descendants still obstinately convinced that this is Spain or South Carolina, still speaking Spanish and clinging to an unsuitably rural way of life. But heredity will out. Generations later, Long Islanders have rediscovered the romance of the sea. But this time they are taking no chances. Every harbor is packed with boats, but 9 out of 10 are power boats. Instead of launching out into the boundless ocean, at the mercy of the winds, where very nasty things can happen, most of these motorized sailors confine their activities to Long Island Sound. Even the most serious navigational error can result in nothing worse than the unhappy crew landing at Bridgeport instead of Northport, although this can be serious if they have luncheon reservations. The love affair with boats, like most love affairs, has grown more expensive over time. A modern motor cruiser costs more than a frigate in the War of 1812, with 30 guns and a crew of 200. Walking around marinas like Port Jefferson or Stony Brook, the landlubber can't help being impressed by all these vast plastic and chromium gin palaces, each the size of the Mayflower, rocking gently at their moorings, going nowhere. The names given to these boats sometimes suggest quite explicitly where the money came from (Miranda, HotDoctor, Codebreaker). Not all the boats in the harbor are luxurious. Some are mere hulks with engines that look as if they had been abandoned by illegal immigrants after a particularly rough passage around Cape Horn. These are the playthings of the younger set, whose idea of serious boating is to play ''last across'' in front of the Port Jefferson ferry. But the basic rule of Long Island boating seems to be excess. The old joke was that a boat is a hole in the water into which the owner pours money. Now, to keep up with the aquatic Joneses, he must pour in fancy furniture, personal jet skis, outboards big enough to shift the Queen Elizabeth | The Rising Costs of Romance on the Sea, at Full Throttle |
952284_1 | visit, scheduled for five days beginning on Jan. 21. The approval is expected to be the first of several granted to Roman Catholic groups around the country -- including the archdioceses in Newark and New York City -- for the visit. In a statement, however, the State Department said it would consider more applications to travel to Cuba case by case. So far the application by the Miami Archdiocese, which has a large Cuban-American population. is the only one formally submitted to the Treasury Department, which enforces the restrictions. The statement said future applications would be granted ''in accordance with existing U.S. law and policy and the humanitarian needs of the Cuban people.'' Officials later emphasized that the Administration would not consider a more general lifting of the economic embargo, which the United States has tightened in recent years. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the United States Catholic Conference in Washington, which has been negotiating with the Administration on behalf of the archdioceses, welcomed the Administration's decision. ''We are pleased with any initiative that facilitates the travel of people to Cuba for this event,'' she said. The Administration, which has shown a strong aversion for anything that might be seen as supporting President Fidel Castro of Cuba, has nevertheless welcomed the visit of John Paul, who has spoken out passionately against Communism and the repression of democratic rights. In its statement, the State Department said, ''The United States Government views the Pope's visit as a potentially important event in bringing to the Cuban people a message of hope and the need for respect of human rights.'' Today's decision signaled a significant easing of the embargo in spirit. While the embargo does not ban travel outright, it prohibits Americans from spending any money in Cuba, allowing only a few exceptions, including ones for journalists and people attending religious activities. The law also allows relief supplies, and the Administration also expects to permit the United States Catholic Conference and Catholic Relief Services to ship supplies that the church in Cuba will need to organize the Pope's visit, officials said today. The archdiocese has not yet completed its plans for the pilgrimage, including exactly how many passengers the ship will carry and how they will be chosen. The archdiocese must now seek visas from the Cuban Government, which indicated that while it would welcome pilgrims, it planned to screen them carefully. | U.S. to Let 1,000 Sail From Miami to Cuba for Pope's Visit |
952278_0 | The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company wanted to predict, without weeks of test drives, how its tires would perform under various conditions. So it went to the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., for help. ''Their computer models show how a nuclear weapon will react to different conditions, so why shouldn't they show how a tire will react?'' asked William Sharp, president of Goodyear's global support operations. A Federal weapons laboratory might seem an unlikely partner for a tire maker, but with the cold war over and military spending shrinking, Sandia is putting out the welcome mat to private industry. And American corporations, which have emerged in this era after downsizing as far more willing to turn to outside sources, are lining up to tap into its technology storehouse. They are using Sandia to develop new manufacturing processes, to run what-if simulations on new products, to solve environmental problems. In the process, they are helping Sandia move beyond its once single-minded focus on the arms race. For example, a consortium of 17 casting and forging companies, recognizing that few young engineers were joining the industry, asked Sandia to help it simplify software so that employees who were not engineers could create and test new casting equipment. ''None of us have the time or money to do this ourselves,'' said Robert B. Kervick, chief executive of Komtek, a casting company in Worcester, Mass. And Motorola asked Sandia to run reliability tests on computer chips without using the standard chemical cleaning agents -- the chlorofluorocarbons that destroy the atmosphere's ozone layer. ''Customers feel more comfortable buying a product whose reliability is verified by a Government lab,'' said James F. Landers, a manager in the Space and Systems Technology Group of Motorola. For Sandia, the money pouring in from its corporate partners helps keep many of its 7,642 employees -- about 800 fewer than two years ago -- gainfully employed. But the real winner, Sandia insists, is the American economy. ''National security starts with economic security, and that means helping our industries compete,'' said C. Paul Robinson, Sandia's president. Sandia (pronounced san-DEE-uh), which has operations in Livermore, Calif., as well as in Albuquerque, is not the only Energy Department lab sounding that theme. Although documents emerged last week indicating that some of the labs, including Sandia, are still hard at work on new or modified designs for nuclear arms, private-sector projects | Drumming Up Business to Survive in a World Without Cold War |
952291_0 | In a move that underscores its fervent push into agricultural biotechnology, the DuPont Company announced yesterday that it would acquire Protein Technologies International from the Ralston Purina Company for $1.5 billion in stock. Protein Technologies supplies about 75 percent of the worldwide market for soy proteins used in processed foods. Its acquisition will give the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company a strategic edge, analysts said. ''This makes a lot of sense because it puts them further downstream, into a higher-value-added business,'' James F. Hickman, an analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston, said. Investors were not as enthusiastic, as shares of DuPont slipped 31.25 cents, to $65.625, in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. DuPont also said it would take a charge to write off Protein Technologies' current research and development costs. The acquisition will dilute DuPont's earnings by about 1 percent. The deal comes two weeks after DuPont bought a 20 percent stake in Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. for $1.7 billion. Pioneer Hi-Bred has a dominant share of the corn seed market. The acquisition of Protein Technologies extends DuPont's reach in soybeans. ''DuPont is just now ramping up its plants to make improved soybean seeds, and they need to be sure they will have the access to the most customers,'' Jeffrey R. Spetalnick of Oppenheimer & Company said. That need will grow even more critical over the next few years, Paul T. Leming, an analyst with Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, predicted. ''Companies like Archer Daniels Midland or Protein International will contract with farmers to grow a specific type of soybean or corn,'' he said. ''Companies like DuPont and Monsanto want to be sure that it is their genetically engineered corn or soybeans that are being requested.'' The Protein Technologies acquisition reflects a trend that is sweeping the chemical industry, as biotechnology begins to blur the lines of demarcation between the different parts of the food chain. Until recently those lines seemed etched in stone: Chemical companies provided fertilizers, pesticides and other products that helped farmers grow more of a specific crop; farmers grew the crop and sold it as cattle feed, or to companies like Protein Technologies; they processed it into food ingredients that companies like Nestle or Borden incorporated into everything from hot dogs to ice cream to infant formula. But in the last few years, DuPont, the Monsanto Company, Novartis A.G. (the Swiss company formed by | DuPont to Buy Ralston Purina Soy Protein Unit |
953753_1 | ceding the Golan, a former Israeli official said. Mr. Rabin's purported willingness to discuss such a plan went well beyond what has widely been understood to have been his position. A3 Suspicious Blast in Russia The Clinton Administration said Russia may have detonated a nuclear weapon on a remote Arctic island in spite of its support for a moratorium on nuclear tests. The officials said ''a seismic event'' took place on Aug. 16 near Novaya Zemlya, a nuclear testing site. Moscow denied the suggestion that it had tested nuclear weapons. A7 U.N. Restricts Angolan Rebels Frustrated by years of fruitless efforts to lure the Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi to cooperate with the Government of Angola, the Security Council voted to impose an international travel ban on all senior officials of Mr. Savimbi's organization. The Council also voted to prohibit flights to areas under rebel control and banned certain contracts for the Savimbi forces. A8 France Admits 2d-Rate Status France, in a rare admission that it was a second-ranking power, would accept the global supremacy of the United States ''without acrimony,'' Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told an annual conference of French ambassadors, though he said the nation would oppose Washington when legitimate interests were at stake. While Mr. Vedrine said Paris should maintain an open and friendly dialogue with Washington, his remarks were an unusual admission for France, which often portrays itself as a rival in world diplomacy. (Reuters) NATIONAL A10-20 Joseph Kennedy Ends Campaign for Governor Representative Joseph P. Kennedy 2d announced that he would not run for governor of Massachusetts, ending a campaign that had been engulfed by controversy over his family even before it was officially launched. Mr. Kennedy said he had concluded that the race would focus not on issues but on ''personal and family pressures.'' A1 Affirmative Action Ban Begins California's ban on preferences went haltingly into effect almost a year after voters approved a sweeping end to affirmative action programs in the state. With issues of the law still to be decided by state appellate courts and the United States Supreme Court, the day was marked by protests and quiet celebration, but also by a great deal of confusion. A1 Newt Gingrich, Paleontologist Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, took one of his oddest detours ever from politics, interrupting a two-week-long national tour to fulfill a lifelong fantasy -- digging for dinosaur bones | NEWS SUMMARY |
953665_7 | area,'' Dr. Koster said. ''They may be drawn by that, but we end up succeeding in immersing that guest in a variety of other experiences.'' These include several movies as well as 60,000 square feet of exhibitions. In addition to its 3-D features, ''Web of Life'' and ''Brain Trek'' (a journey through the brain), the center is showing two films in its domed Imax theater: ''Super Speedway,'' about professional car racing, and ''Special Effects,'' playing through Sept. 30, which reveals the technological wizardry behind films like ''Star Wars'' and ''Independence Day.'' (Another Imax film, ''Alaska: Spirit of the Wild,'' opens Oct. 1.) The center's latest installation is one that Dr. Koster hopes will extend its influence nationwide. It is a new 24-hour radio station on the main floor, home to the local affiliate of AAHS World Radio, a national children's network. Formerly broadcast from Elizabeth, N.J., AAHS World Radio (WJDM, 1660 AM) features young disk jockeys and a weekly show, ''Science Fun in the Extreme,'' produced jointly with the center. ''It's like a variety-comedy program that takes an unconventional look at science and how it affects everyday life,'' said Barbara Bantivoglio, the center's vice president for marketing and communications. ''It's the theater of the mind.'' ''Science Fun in the Extreme,'' which has covered topics like gravity, time and the science of foods, was broadcast live locally for the first time this month; it is to have its national premiere on Sept. 13. The station will have ''a lot of interaction with kids,'' Ms. Bantivoglio said. AAHS World Radio's young reporters, called the Air Force, will frequently rove through the center to collect news and views. Interested children can also visit the ''Catch the Wave'' exhibit just outside the station. Showing the science behind broadcasting, it explores radio tuning circuits and speakers and includes a hands-on experiment with a magnet and spring to show how a radio wave oscillates. Even as the center is preparing for two more exhibits that open next month (''Brain Games,'' on the science of chess, Scrabble and other favorites, and ''Mysteries of the Bog''), it is also improving its current offerings. Tomorrow, Wanda L. Rodriguez, manager of science demonstrations, who likes to tell children that she gets ''to break up things and make a mess for a living,'' plans to add live insects from the center's Bug Zoo to the preshow for ''Web of Life.'' (The | The Science Center Keeps Things Buzzing |
949911_0 | THE ability of E-mail to zap messages to and from anyone, anywhere in the world -- into your face, whether you like it or not -- is inspiring some distinctly unpleasant conduct in the infosphere. E-mail is unique as a communications medium because it is faceless and voiceless but at the same time very personal. And it is easy to forge. All the textual artifacts that give E-mail its distinctive look -- its ''to'' and ''from'' memo format, its time and date stamp -- can be duplicated from any computer keyboard, with very little effort or sophistication. Thus E-mail has become a uniquely fertile medium for transmitting hoaxes and spoofs. Every week, it seems, there is a ''warning'' about a new (and usually nonexistent) computer virus supposedly being transmitted by E-mail. Or there might be a ''news story,'' like the one a few years ago about the Microsoft Corporation acquiring the Roman Catholic Church -- a hoax so widely distributed, which so many people actually believed, that Microsoft was forced to issue a denial. As a result, E-mail users find that they must be increasingly skeptical of messages received electronically. Last week, for example, I was one of countless people on the Net to receive copies of a wonderful Massachusetts Institute of Technology commencement speech credited to the novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Unfortunately, Mr. Vonnegut had neither written nor delivered the speech. Instead, someone with an E-mail account and an unfathomable agenda decided to tack Mr. Vonnegut's and M.I.T.'s names atop a column written by Mary Schmich of The Chicago Tribune, and used the altered document to start an E-mail wildfire. Or consider the following, more invidious incident: In early June, I received E-mail from someone I did not know, named Reikert, at a company called Dysson -- a message apparently related to some corporate bookkeeping discrepancies. I wrote back that he must have misaddressed the message. A few days later, I received E-mail from someone at Dysson who told me that Mr. Reikert had committed suicide. Since company records showed I had communicated with him, I was told that investigators would be in touch with me. A couple of days later, I got E-mail from another Dysson employee, saying, ''Don't be fooled, he didn't commit suicide,'' suggesting something more sinister. Another Dysson employee thanked me for cooperating, and yet another offered me a job. At some point, I wrote back | E-mail's personal impact makes it a fertile medium for perpetrating hoaxes. |
949943_0 | Last May 24, Dr. Hassan Abbass, a Veterans Affairs Department surgeon, and his wife arrived at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland at daybreak to leave for a long-awaited Caribbean vacation. At the check-in counter, the couple were pulled aside by a US Airways official and told they would have to submit to a careful search before they could board the plane. That meant, Dr. Abbass recalled, having their bags opened and all their possessions pulled out in front of the other passengers, who did not have to undergo such a search. When they arrived in Baltimore after the first leg of their trip, their bags were segregated from the others and left on the tarmac, to be loaded onto the plane to St. Maarten only after they had boarded. Dr. Abbass said that he and his wife, Julia, were infuriated at being singled out and he was sure of the reason for it. A United States citizen, he was born in Syria, and his United States passport showed several visits to relatives there. He is one of thousands of Americans of Arab or Middle Eastern heritage who have complained that a secretive and wide-scale ''profiling'' system sponsored by the Government and aimed at preventing air terrorism has caused them to be unfairly selected for extra scrutiny at airports because of their names, birthplaces or ethnic backgrounds. Profiling, or trying to make an educated guess about who might be a terrorist masquerading as an ordinary traveler, is generally performed by check-in personnel who rely on a confidential written list of characteristics. The list is one of several tools used by airline security authorities. Others include X-ray machines, metal detectors and a new generation of chemical ''sniffers'' that can detect traces of explosives. But profiling is the only method that has raised fundamental questions of how a free society balances security considerations with civil liberties and the desire to avoid offensive stereotyping. The use of profiling at airports has also resulted in angry exchanges on two levels: at departure gates when people feel that they are unfairly being singled out, and between civil rights groups and the airlines over how frequently the practice occurs. After years of fending off complaints, the Federal Aviation Administration recently decided to require the airlines to move toward a computerized profiling system that officials say does not allow for discrimination based on ethnic background. The new system, | Arab-Americans Protest 'Profiling' at Airports |
953864_1 | Buildings, in the Stormont area of Belfast, where the talks are to start on Sept. 15. ''In reaching it I have considered carefully all of the evidence available to me about the restoration of the I.R.A. cease-fire and about Sinn Fein's commitment to exclusively peaceful methods and their wish to abide by the democratic process.'' Although officials and experts say Sinn Fein and the I.R.A. are virtually the same organization, with close coordination of political and military policy. Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, is thought to strongly influence overall I.R.A. policy. But he is not believed to be involved in decisions on guerrilla operations. Before the talks begin, Sinn Fein will be required to make a formal public declaration that it is committed to a peaceful settlement of the conflict, which has killed 3,225 people since 1969. The last victim was a teen-aged Catholic girl, Bernadette Martin, shot dead on July 15 by Protestant gunners while she slept in the home of her Protestant boyfriend in the village of Aghalee, west of here. Sinn Fein has said it will state that it adheres to the principles put forth in January 1996 by the chairman of the talks, George J. Mitchell, a former Senator from Maine. He proposed, in part, that to be admitted to the talks the parties must commit themselves to ''democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues,'' rule out the use of force to influence the talks and abide by the terms of any agreement. This means, in effect, that Sinn Fein will have to renounce the I.R.A. campaign of violence, which the party has always refused to do. The invitation to Sinn Fein was welcomed by the Irish Republic, which is co-sponsor of the talks, and by the predominantly Catholic Social Democratic Labor Party, led by John Hume. The talks involve 10 political parties and the Irish and British Governments. It is still uncertain that all the Protestant parties will agree to face Sinn Fein across a table. Some of the Protestants still say they want ''proximity talks,'' in which the parties are in separate rooms with intermediaries shuttling between them. Jeffrey Donaldson, deputy chief of the Ulster Unionist Party, the largest political organization in the province, said today that it would be ''very, very difficult'' for him and his colleagues to face Sinn Fein across a table. ''I do not believe they are | SINN FEIN IS INVITED BY BRITAIN TO JOIN NEW PEACE TALKS |
949140_0 | The space shuttle Discovery and a crew of six astronauts blasted off today on a mission to deploy a scientific satellite that tracks atmospheric pollution and to test a new kind of robotic arm that one day might aid experimenters on the international space station. The 11-day mission got off to a flawless start from the Kennedy Space Center here at 10:41 A.M., right on time despite scattered clouds and the threat of rain. Launchings without serious delays are starting to take place regularly here, a testament to good planning, management and luck. The Discovery soared to a height of 185 miles, the altitude at which it will orbit Earth. The flight is the sixth this year and the 86th since the winged spaceships first thundered aloft 16 years ago. The $73 million satellite, which the astronauts deployed this evening, is reusable and is to be retrieved after eight days in space and returned to the Kennedy Space Center when the crew is scheduled to land on Aug. 18. Its three super-cooled telescopes are to track how chemicals are eating up Earth's protective ozone layer, which blocks out harmful solar rays that can damage plants and cause skin cancer. Dr. Jack A. Kaye, an atmospheric scientist at the Washington headquarters of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said in an interview that telescopes could track ozone destroyers like hydrocarbons and chloroflourocarbons ''in unprecedented detail.'' While the ozone layer is continuously created and destroyed naturally, man-made chemicals that waft up into the stratosphere are throwing the process out of balance. The shuttle-satellite payload, known as the Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere, flew once before on a mission in November 1994. Dr. Kaye said deploying the instrument in the summer rather than winter would allow scientists to make seasonal comparisons of the rate of ozone destruction. The Discovery astronauts plan to test a new miniature shuttle robot arm designed by Japanese scientists for the international space station, on which construction work in space is to begin next year. The $87 million arm features very fine control and is about five feet long, compared with the 60-foot arm on the space shuttles. The astronauts will also point a seven-inch ultraviolet telescope out the shuttle's windows to observe the Hale-Bopp comet. The Discovery is also carrying a payload designed and built by students -- 85 undergraduates and 15 graduates of the | Space Shuttle Blasts Off and Deploys a Scientific Satellite |
949084_0 | An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found that the release of hundreds of intelligence reports on the Pentagon's Internet site for veterans of the Persian Gulf war did ''serious damage to intelligence sources and methods,'' a new Congressional report says. The report by the House Intelligence Committee, which summarized the C.I.A. findings, said that ''an enormous amount of documents'' was declassified ''in a relatively short amount of time'' and posted on the Internet before the documents were adequately reviewed to determine whether their release might jeopardize intelligence-gathering methods. The specific findings of the C.I.A. investigation have been classified, and the House report did not offer details of the damage that may have occurred. But Defense Department and C.I.A. officials have said in the past that the documents posted on the Internet site, Gulflink, may have provided the Iraqis and other potential adversaries with clues to the identity of people who provided intelligence information to the United States during or after the 1991 war. Gulflink was established by the Pentagon in August 1995 to give veterans information about possible explanations for the health problems reported by tens of thousands of American troops who served in the gulf war. Many of the intelligence reports posted on Gulflink described the location of Iraqi stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. ''The Department of Defense directed those declassifying these documents to err on the side of declassification and post documents on the Gulflink Internet site unless instructed otherwise on a case-by-case basis, by officials at the highest level of the Department of Defense,'' the Intelligence Committee report said. The report, a summary of the investigations planned by the committee over the next year, said that ''clearly, the reported damage done to intelligence sources and methods in the case of Gulflink are directly due to these declassification criteria.'' The conclusions of the C.I.A. investigation were first reported by the newsletter Defense Week. The Pentagon said today that it planned no disciplinary action against employees who were responsible for posting the documents on the Internet. ''Any efforts that were identified were systemic in nature, and the intelligence community is working to address those,'' it said. Last year the Pentagon removed more than 200 intelligence reports from Gulflink at the request of the C.I.A., which said the documents had been declassified too quickly and disclosed too much information about intelligence-gathering methods. But it was too | Gulf War Data on Internet Harmed U.S. Spy Efforts, Report Says |
951903_4 | independence from Spain but exerted a dominant economic interest of its own there. From cigars to literature, Havana and New York were long regular trading partners. The Cuban poet and patriot Jose Marti spent time early in this century in New York City. And Cuba was a fabled spot for Americans like Ernest Hemingway. The Mafia moved in; gambling and prostitution gave Havana one form of notoriety, while the constant revolutions in Cuban music made their way north. Even the breakdown of relations after the revolution, with the Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs operation, paradoxically joined the countries together. Not only do the two countries share some of the more intense moments of the cold war, but the subsequent attempts by the United States Government to sever cultural ties has made Cuba a forbidden place that inspires more than curiosity; discovering it is like coming across a long-lost relative. For all the political oppression, the country still fascinates, and that's because Cuba and the United States share more than a few things. In some senses, President Fidel Castro has been a romantic figure to some Americans, who first saw him as a David fighting a Goliath. And in Cuba's racial mix, its cosmopolitanism, its dual respect for both its European tradition and its native identity, the country seems remarkably similar to the United States, only 90 miles away. ''I think Cuba is part of our psyche, our own historical landscape, and it inhabits part of our imagination as no other place does,'' said Mr. Anderson. ''Cuba was to parents of the baby-boomer generation where they'd go for dirty weekends or a honeymoon. The recently ended cold war imprinted Cuba in the public imagination in another way.'' Wandering Into A Parallel Universe American visitors to Havana often find themselves wandering into what seems like a parallel universe with a highly intelligent population, but one oddly untouched by modernity. There is a sense that, for all of its problems, the place has some sort of prelapsarian innocence, one that could vanish with the fall of Mr. Castro. ''There's a sense there of something we've lost,'' said Mr. Anderson. ''It's so undeveloped, it has avoided the Latin shantytown syndrome, the American cultural death due to monoculturalism, the spread of the subdivisions and the rampant overdevelopment of coasts, all the things that have devastated our own country.'' But the growing interest | Despite Restrictions, the Island's Arts Find a Growing U.S. Audience |
950259_0 | HIGHER passenger loads have helped make the airline industry profitable, but have also added to travelers' woes. A good example is the rise in misplaced baggage, the Transportation Department's term for luggage that has been lost, stolen, delayed or damaged. Last year the 10 biggest United States airlines reported almost 2.4 million complaints over misplaced baggage, an average of 5.3 for every 1,000 passengers, compared with 5.18 in 1995. Because luggage problems cost Northwest Airlines more than $3 million last year, the carrier is replacing its system for managing and tracing luggage with one that it expects will cut such costs by almost 50 percent. Called Wordtracer, the system will search for missing luggage by using 17 matching elements -- including tag number, contents of the suitcase and the suitcase brand -- compared with the 7 matching elements now used. Wordtracer can also print customer receipts in 14 languages. It is scheduled to go into operation throughout Northwest's system on Oct. 1. Airlines say that most missing luggage is recovered within three months; if that deadline is missed, a carrier is required to reimburse the passenger up to a total of $1,250. (Payment for luggage lost on international flights, based on kilograms, works out to $9.07 a pound, to a maximum $640 for each suitcase.) As for the suitcases and their contents that are never reunited with owners, many of them wind up in secondhand shops that buy unclaimed items from the airlines. Corporate Rail Riding In search of variety, a number of corporations have been holding meetings and events on the six luxury railroad cars of Railcruise America, which were designed specifically for corporate and private events. The corporate clients include Hyatt, Motorola, Anheuser-Busch, Ralston Purina and Safeco. Railcruise America, which has its headquarters in St. Louis, on the grounds of the former Union Station, says it offers the only private-charter luxury train that can travel to any rail destination in the United States. The train includes a car with a 360-degree scenic dome and a party car with a complete bar and dance floor. Earlier this year, Hyatt held a 1940's Casablanca-themed cocktail reception for some corporate clients, with live entertainment and a one-hour ride across the Mississippi. Monsanto, which has chartered the train for cocktail receptions and short trips across the Mississippi, will entertain more than 100 people in October, as part of a symposium. Microsoft will | Northwest's new luggage system uses 17 identifiers to try to reunite bag and owner. |
950261_1 | coast with 400 people on board. When the terrorists received no response to their demands they executed Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish passenger from New York City. The youngest of the hijackers shot Mr. Klinghoffer in the head and back as the American, who had suffered two earlier strokes, sat in his wheelchair. Mr. Klinghoffer and his wheelchair were then shoved into the sea. The killing was one of the cruelest of the hijacking era, and it was difficult to imagine that the Klinghoffer family could find anything but anguish in the incident. It was therefore surprising and gratifying to learn that last week the Palestine Liberation Organization reached a financial settlement with Mr. Klinghoffer's two daughters, whose mother, now dead, had sued the P.L.O. for causing his death. The undisclosed payment cannot make up for the loss of Mr. Klinghoffer's life, but it at least suggests during troubled times in the Middle East that the P.L.O. can be brought to account, at least partially. Although other targets of terrorist groups have sued their attackers, the Klinghoffer case may be the first where the organization considered responsible for an attack gave money to victims or their families. The P.L.O. has not apologized for Mr. Klinghoffer's death, maintaining that the hijacking was carried out by a rogue group. It seems likely that in settling, the P.L.O. wished to win international good will and avoid the publicity of a trial that would have explored its links with that group, the Palestine Liberation Front. P.L.O. officials were probably also aware that they might not be able to avoid paying any court-ordered damages to the Klinghoffers because the United States is a major donor to the Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately, the prosecution of the Achille Lauro hijackers is incomplete. The four hijackers were convicted by Italy in 1986, but two escaped from prison. One was caught and returned. Abul Abbas, the mastermind of the hijacking, was captured by Italy shortly after the crime but was released despite Washington's pleas that he be held for trial. Instead he was convicted in absentia. He was last seen in 1996 in Gaza when he attended a meeting of the Palestine National Council, but he may live elsewhere, possibly in Iraq. The Klinghoffer family can still hope for full justice, but they can take some solace in knowing that the P.L.O. implicitly acknowledged its responsibility by settling their suit. | Partial Justice for the Klinghoffers |
951625_0 | Weighing its aversion to Fidel Castro against its regard for Pope John Paul II, the Clinton Administration is leaning toward easing restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba during the Pope's scheduled visit there in January, officials said today. The temporary easing would allow hundreds and perhaps thousands of people to go to Cuba for the Pope's visit, now scheduled to last five days, starting Jan. 21, the officials said. The Administration also wants to allow Catholic churches and charities to ship supplies and equipment to help Catholic officials in Cuba organize the visit. While measures being considered would mark a significant relaxation of the restrictions against Cuba, which the United States has maintained for more than three decades, the officials insisted that the Administration was in no way proposing a more general lifting of the economic embargo, which the United States has tightened in recent years. ''The Secretary of State views the Pope's visit as an important development in bringing to the Cuban people a message of hope and faith and the importance of respecting human rights,'' James P. Rubin, a spokesman for Madeleine K. Albright, said today. ''And therefore out of respect for His Holiness, we are facilitating travel and the delivery of certain goods for the purpose of that trip.'' The officials could not yet say exactly how many people would be allowed to go or whether Cuba would grant them visas. But they said the Administration was prepared to grant special licenses to large groups, presumably Catholics, which would be organized by the Church. Currently, the embargo does not ban travel and the sending of relief supplies outright, but severely restricts citizens or even residents of the United States from spending money in Cuba, with few exemptions. It also requires that anyone who receives permission to travel to Cuba do so by flying there from a third country, a rule that the Administration is also considering easing. Although no final decisions have been made, the Administration has been quietly reviewing the matter for months. It is working in consultation with the United States Catholic Conference in Washington and Archdioceses from around the country, including those in New York, Newark, Philadelphia and Boston. The Archdiocese of Miami, which includes a large population of Cuban Americans, has requested permission to dispatch a cruise ship to carry more than 1,000 people to Cuba for the visit, according to other | U.S. Considers Easing Travel to Cuba During Visit by the Pope |
950463_0 | Dr. Reuben Abel, a writer on humanism and a professor emeritus of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, died on Friday at New Rochelle Hospital. He was 85 and lived in Larchmont, N.Y. After he received his Ph.D. from the New School in 1952, Dr. Abel taught for 40 years in the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science and in other divisions. After reaching emeritus status, he continued to write for philosophical journals. He nurtured a particular interest in Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller (1864-1937), who devised a philosophical system of humanism in which ''man is the measure of all things.'' Dr. Abel wrote ''The Pragmatic Humanism of F. C. S. Schiller'' (Columbia University Press, 1955), which remains in print. Another title was ''Man Is the Measure: A Cordial Invitation to the Central Problems of Philosophy'' (1976). Its publisher, the Free Press, reissued the book this year as part of a series commemorating its own 50th anniversary. Dr. Abel was known among his friends and colleagues as a man of diverse interests, including ethics, logic, esthetics and linguistics. He was versed in eight modern and classical languages, sang with the Dessof Choirs and was an inveterate writer of letters to newspapers and other publications, often bringing about changes with his arguments and contributions from his own readings. An example was his discovery of the transitive verb cathect, derived from the Freudians' term cathexis, which was used to describe the notion of an investment of libidinal energy. Dr. Abel came across the term in his literary and scientific readings in the 1940's and proposed it as an entry to the editors of Webster's New International Dictionary. While Freud wrote in plain German, his English disciples and translators reached into classical Greek to concoct the term. Dr. Abel found that Alix Strachey, a Freud pupil, had invented the companion-verb ''to cathect'' by back-formation when she translated his ''Inhibitions'' in 1936. Webster's responded, saying it was weighing his opinion that the term had come into ''fairly common use.'' It conceded the point in 1950 in an addendum to its Second Edition, when it added cathect as a verb meaning ''to invest with libidinal energy.'' He was born in New York City and graduated from Columbia College in 1929. He received a law degree from New York University in 1934 and a master's in social science from the New School | Dr. Reuben Abel, 85, Professor Of Philosophy at the New School |
950508_2 | who didn't like where Mr. Campbell had parked. The officer, Richard D. DiGuglielmo, has been charged with second-degree murder. * The near-fatal attack on Lebert Folkes, a 29-year-old Queens man who was dragged from his sister's car by police officers and shot in the face at point-blank range. The cops said they thought the car was stolen. It was not. The next day police officials apologized for the shooting. There are many, many cases of savage abuse of civilians by police officers. Seldom are the officers charged with a crime and in most cases they are not even disciplined. Thousands upon thousands of lawsuits alleging police brutality are filed against the city and millions of dollars each year are paid to settle such suits. But little is done to prevent these hideous miscarriages from occurring. Only in the most extreme cases will the public hear critical comments from the Mayor or Police Commissioner about the behavior of the police. And the vast majority of the cases are ignored by the media. The message that is picked up by the average police officer is clear: Brutal behavior will be tolerated, if not encouraged. That is an affront to the majority of officers who do their jobs legally, courageously and well. More important, it undermines the faith of New Yorkers in the Police Department as a whole. Most important, this tendency to give a wink and a nod to most instances of brutality results in the grievous harm and sometimes the death of human beings who have done nothing to warrant such vicious treatment. A great deal is being made of the fact that Mayor Giuliani has not rushed to the defense of the officers accused of attacking Mr. Louima. His usual inclination is to support the police no matter what, and whenever possible to draw an impenetrable curtain between evidence of police misconduct and the curious eyes of the public. Maybe this case is sensational enough to result in a sustained and honest look by the Mayor and the Commissioner at the extent of police brutality in the city. They could stop a great deal of it, thus saving lives. Denunciations after the fact are not enough. Cops who cannot or will not control their violent impulses are a menace. And so are public officials who have the power to do something about those officers, but choose not to. In America | One More Police Victim |
950479_13 | continues to grow by 18 million a year. Although populous northern states like Uttar Pradesh, with 140 million people, have been reporting lower growth rates in recent years, the absence of effective government birth-control programs has put India on track to surpass China as the world's most populous nation sometime in the 21st century. By then, perhaps around 2025, India is expected to have a population of at least 1.3 billion. The failure to control population growth is most often blamed on Nehru's daughter, Mrs. Gandhi, who encouraged a disastrous experiment with coerced sterilization during the Emergency of the 1970's that was overseen by her son Sanjay. The experiment ended with the collapse of Mrs. Gandhi's flirtation with dictatorship, but a lasting consequence of the popular anger has been that Indian politicians ever since have treated birth-control programs as taboo. Because national wealth has to expand by more than the rate of population growth of 2 percent a year just to keep the economy growing, the government's failure to act on population has crippled its ability to redress many of India's vast social problems, especially education, which many Indians consider to be the key to all other progress. In the 1950 Constitution, the new rulers set 1960 as the deadline for universal primary education, but government figures four decades later show that 33 million children of school age, about one in three, have never been to school, and that about half of all students never reach secondary school. Women are worst affected, with a literacy rate of 39 per cent, against 64 per cent for men. At least 70 million Indian children under 16 end up in child labor. Another legacy of the Nehru years is India's huge military establishment. Although reliable figures are hard to pin down, Western experts say that India's armed forces and a network of paramilitary police forces have a strength of at least four million men, and cost more than $10 billion a year, as much as the Government spends on health and education combined. To this must be added the huge expense of India's covert programs to develop nuclear weapons, along with the missiles to carry them. Although left-wing critics often complain that the country's military might offends Gandhian principles of nonviolence, there is little dispute about the issue in mainstream Indian politics. For one thing, the expense is justified by the need to | India's 5 Decades of Progress and Pain |
953101_4 | received in New Mexico, but that is artistic license. SETI scientists never use the network of dish antennas there because they are not suited for their aims. It is West Virginia where the search is reaching a new level of seriousness, nearly four decades after the Ozma project. The hunt, SETI's most sensitive and comprehensive, aims to scrutinize about a thousand sunlike stars in Earth's neighborhood. A visitor driving through the mountains quickly gets a hint of why the telescope was built there. The car radio scans endlessly, finding no stations. Optical telescopes are set atop mountains to limit atmospheric ''twinkles'' that mar observations. Radiotelescopes are put in valleys because their rocky flanks block interference from radio waves. The deep green of this valley is dotted with seven white telescopes, their dishes set at different angles. The radio quiet here is reinforced by a Federal ban on commercial radio and television transmissions. At the observatory, all vehicles are powered by diesel engines, which have no spark plugs. ''No visitor cars beyond this gate,'' a sign says. ''Ignitions interfere with telescopes.'' The 140-foot-wide telescope pointed straight up, as tall as a 20-story building. Attached high on its side was a Project Phoenix banner. Observations here began last October and have included Epsilon Eridani, one of the Ozma targets, as well as three stars recently discovered to have planets. In May, Dr. Drake spent a week at the telescope. The interior of its base houses a cavernous room dense with electronic gear and computer racks. Dr. Dreher (pronounced DRAY-er) moved back and forth among four glowing monitors, readying the telescope. ''It's excessively complicated,'' he said, typing away. The obscure command ''tkgnats'' appeared on a glowing screen. The equipment scans each target star on two billion radio channels, a job that takes hours. Astronomers pick targets and help the supercomputer judge which signals look most intriguing. It is a constant struggle to weed out transmissions from satellites, cell phones and passing trucks. ''We've built a system that's highly engineered to detect artificial signals,'' Dr. Dreher remarked, ''so we detect them by the millions.'' One oft-repeated test of observational power is to point the telescope at Pioneer 10, the most distant of human probes, now far beyond Pluto. The craft's signal, traveling at the speed of light, takes about nine hours to make its way back to Earth and the radiotelescope here. SETI scientists | The Cosmic Search For Signs of Alien Life |
953090_0 | The idea that cheap, bountiful energy can be produced by so-called cold fusion suffered another blow today when the Government of Japan said it would terminate its research, which has failed to confirm that the phenomenon exists. Japan had pursued the quest for cold fusion, room-temperature nuclear fusion, long after most governments and scientists in the United States and Europe had dismissed the concept as an illusion. Now Japan is also throwing in the towel. ''We couldn't achieve what was first claimed in terms of cold fusion,'' said Dr. Hideo Ikegami, a retired professor at the National Institute for Fusion Science in Nagoya. ''We can't find any reason to propose more money for the coming year or for the future.'' The Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which has spent 2.3 billion yen, or about $20 million, on cold fusion over the last five years, will not provide any new financing in the next fiscal year, said Shin-ichiro Fukushima, a director of the ministry's electric power technology department. A cold fusion laboratory set up by the ministry in Sapporo is expected to be shut, scientists said. In 1989, two scientists, Drs. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England, shocked the world by reporting that nuclear fusion, the process that creates the heat of the sun and the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, could be reproduced in a jar using readily available materials. They said their simple apparatus offered the prospect of virtually unlimited, inexpensive energy. But other researchers could not reliably reproduce the Utah results. The field had already fallen into disfavor by 1992, when Japan, hoping to take the lead in the technology and desperate to reduce its nearly total dependence on imported oil, decided to start its program. In addition to the Government program, about 20 major Japanese companies have been pooling money to provide $1 million or more a year for university cold fusion research. That financing is also likely to end, said Dr. Akito Takahashi, a professor of nuclear engineering at Osaka University. MITI officials and university researchers say that despite the failure to confirm cold fusion, the gamble was worth it, given the potential payoff. They said the $20 million spent was a pittance compared with what is spent on other energy programs, like nuclear fast breeder reactors. | Japan, Long a Holdout, Is Ending Its Quest for Cold Fusion |
948983_1 | Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman, and the Bosnian Muslim leader, Alija Izetbegovic. The two men ''reaffirmed the right of all refugees to return to their homes,'' a vital part of the peace accord. A3 29 Survivors at Guam Rescuers managed to pull 32 of 254 passengers alive from the wreckage of Korean Air Flight 801, but three have died. The jet's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder arrived in Washington for analysis. A8 In Seoul, Korean Air officials struggled to cope with frustrated and angry relatives of the passengers on Flight 801. A9 Cambodia Adds Prime Minister An obedient Parliament ignored a series of constitutional and procedural roadblocks and elected a new Co-Prime Minister, giving Cambodia, by various counts, either one, two or three Prime Ministers. Last month, one of the country's Co-Prime Ministers, Hun Sen, ousted the other one, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, in two days of street fighting that took scores of lives. The legislature elected Foreign Minister Ung Huot to replace Prince Ranariddh, but did not remove Prince Ranariddh from his post. A11 Australia Mortified by Report A confidential Australian report containing blunt and unflattering assessments of regional leaders has caused new strains in Australia's already difficult relations with its Pacific neighbors and has embarrassed the Government. A reporter found the report in a hotel lobby in Cairns while covering a meeting of the South Pacific Forum. A6 NATIONAL A18-29, B8 Clinton Says U.S. Deficit Will Fall to a 23-Year Low President Clinton announced that the Federal deficit is expected to drop to $37 billion this year, its lowest level in 23 years. Mr. Clinton, holding a news conference at the White House, used the new deficit projections from the Office of Management and Budget to rebut critics who had questioned whether the robust economy itself would balance the budget without the five-year plan that Mr. Clinton and the Congress put in place. A1 Tobacco Documents Opened A state judge in Florida released decades of secret tobacco industry documents that reflect discussions among cigarette company lawyers to suppress scientific research, potentially destroy documents and mislead the public about the health effects of smoking. A18 Decoding a Bacterium Scientists, in a tour de force of computer-aided biology, have decoded the full genetic instructions of the bacterium that causes ulcers and other stomach diseases and have figured out many of its cunning strategies. The advance is likely to lend new | NEWS SUMMARY |
948917_1 | nature for centuries, so it is up to us not to destroy it.'' But there are always threats, like a 380,000-watt power line, strung across giant orange and white pylons 220 feet high, that recently sprang across the hills to the southeast of Florence like a huge ski lift. Aghast at the prospect of losing views that had remained virtually untouched since the Middle Ages, neighbors in the hilly area known as the Colleramole mounted a vigorous campaign, joined by historical societies and consumer groups. The protesters insisted that they had nothing against progress, or the benefits of electricity. But in a country where eagle-eyed state inspectors are ready to swoop down with fines and denunciations for the slightest alteration to historic and artistic monuments, it seemed ludicrous that the state should deliberately bring ugliness to one of Italy's most precious spots. ''These are the hills of Florence,'' said Mario Bojola, a 70-year-old retired business consultant who headed the Colleramole area's anti-pylon committee. ''They are a legacy for all humanity.'' ''We are not saying remove them,'' said Amy Luckenbach, an American-born puppeteer who has lived for 30 years in a house once owned by Ghirlandaio, the 15-century painter. ''We are saying just find a different way to do it without ruining a landscape that has been revered for centuries.'' Italy's state-owned power company, ENEL, recently agreed to suspend further work until November while it studies burying the line. The company also promised to relocate three of the most offensive pylons and to consider repainting the giant eyesores a more esthetically acceptable shade of green. At a time when the marketing of Tuscany, its image and its products, is enjoying a boom overseas -- particularly in New York, where Tuscan Square, an emporium featuring the regions' products, is to open in Rockefeller Center soon -- the region is more sensitive than ever to the preservation and protection of its natural assets. At last count, the region in the heart of Italy, which includes the cities of Florence, Siena and Pisa, draws 32 million tourists a year, and was cited in recent surveys as one of the world's most desirable places to live. The main target of a new regional law, now under review, is the protection of Tuscany's agricultural products -- its olive oils, cheeses and wines, which include the Chianti region. To protect Tuscan producers, the region is proposing its | For Tuscans, How Can You Copyright Paradise? |
948947_1 | believe that as we pass through this period of remarkable change, the future holds far greater rewards than risks if our people, our government, and our other institutions are ready for tomorrow. In these past months, we have seen how the politics of the vital center can work to make progress on many of our most difficult problems. We ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, a landmark treaty that will protect our soldiers and our citizens from the threat of poison gas. We reached agreement in Madrid to open the doors of NATO to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, while creating a stronger partnership with Russia and Ukraine, to build a Europe that is undivided, democratic, and at peace. These past months have been a remarkably fruitful time for bipartisan action in the national interests, and I think we have to continue that work. I should mention, too, that we worked in a bipartisan fashion to maintain our normal trade relationships with China, reaching out to a quarter of the world's population while making our differences with the government over human rights and other matters clear. These are major accomplishments, all achieved with the support of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans. They have strengthened our nation. And yesterday, we took an historic action to eliminate the annual budget deficits we have been seeing, and piling up, since 1969. The first step toward that was taken back in 1993 when we abandoned supply-side trickle-down economics, opened a new chapter in fiscal responsibility with a new strategy of growth, based on reducing the deficit, investing in education and training, opening the world to trade and American products and services. Even before yesterday, the deficit had been reduced by over 75 percent as a result of this strategy. But yesterday, when I signed into law the first balanced-budget act in a generation, we know that it will add to the long-term economic growth potential of the United States. We know, too, that it includes the largest increase in college aid since the G.I. Bill 50 years ago, the largest increase in children's health since Medicaid was enacted, first, over 30 years ago. Today, I have some more good news. Our efforts have led to an even lower deficit than we had previously projected. In this, the fourth year of the five-year economic plan adopted in 1993, we now expect the deficit to drop | Excerpts From Clinton's News Conference at the White House |
954311_0 | Rioting broke out this morning at a police station in a Roman Catholic part of West Belfast as about 100 people threw gasoline bombs at the police, who responded by firing several rounds of plastic bullets. There were no injuries reported, and a spokesman for the Royal Ulster Constabulary said the reason for the violence was not clear. There was speculation in the area that the rioters were protesting the arrest last week of a neighborhood man on charges that he was engaged in terrorist activity. But officials said the violence, which lasted two-and-a-half hours, did not violate the cease-fire called on July 20 by the Irish Republican Army, which has support in the West Belfast area of Ballymurphy, where the violence broke out. That meant that the rioting did not affect the British Government's decision, announced on Friday, to invite the I.R.A.'s political wing, Sinn Fein, to take part next month in full-fledged peace talks for the first time since sectarian violence erupted in Northern Ireland in 1969. The invitation, which was immediately accepted by Sinn Fein, was made by Mo Mowlam, the Northern Ireland Secretary, who said she made her decision after determining that the I.R.A. cease-fire was genuine. Sinn Fein did not comment on the the incident today in Belfast. Its president, Gerry Adams, and two of his principal colleagues are to visit the United States in the coming week to present their position on the peace talks. With Mr. Adams will be Martin McGuinness, the head of the party's peace negotiating team, and Caimhghin O Carlain, the first Sinn Fein member to take a seat in the Irish Parliament in Dublin. He was elected from County Monaghan, on the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, in national elections in June. Mr. Adams and his party have been given White House permission not only to visit, but also to raise money for Sinn Fein's political operations. The White House had withdrawn permission for fund-raising after the I.R.A. broke a 17-month cease-fire in February 1996. The Sinn Fein members will stop in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington. In Washington, Mr. Adams hopes to meet Commerce Secretary William Daley and Samuel Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser. Mr. Adams is expected to ask for Administration help in bringing more investment and jobs to Northern Ireland. He is also expected to reassure Irish-American supporters that he | Riot Flares in Belfast, but Cease-Fire Still Holds |
954387_0 | To the Editor: As a child psychoanalyst and psychiatrist with an interest in learning disabilities, I object to Robert J. Sternberg's assertions (''Extra Credit for Doing Poorly,'' Op-Ed, Aug. 25). While any disability assistance program can be subject to abuses, such abuses do not have any bearing on the legitimacy of the disability and the needs of individuals so diagnosed. Unlike adults, children and adolescents are required to perform tasks and master skills from the range of cognitive endeavors. Adults have the luxury of dedicating themselves to their sphere of excellence and are not penalized or impeded in their career if they show no aptitude for unrelated disciplines. The argument that individuals with superior talents will emerge despite the obstacles ignores the daily humiliations and suffering of children who struggle mightily in conventional learning situations over some of the tasks demanded of them, tasks ''we grownups'' no longer face. Moreover, Dr. Sternberg shows a misunderstanding of learning disabilities if he believes that ''failing'' will help individuals with disabilities ''correct $(their$) weaknesses.'' There is no evidence to suggest that failure due to learning disabilities facilitates anything but avoidance, behavioral problems and psychological distress. KAREN GILMORE , M.D. New York, Aug. 26, 1997 Learning Disabled Aren't Seeking Excuses | Failure and Avoidance |
954185_1 | to make the phones work near them. What should be done? Add 'Trees' to Forests While driving through New Jersey this summer, I noticed many undeveloped areas. I like the idea I read about disguising them as pine trees. So why not build ''pine trees'' in those areas? DEE HICKMAN Belle Mead A Necessary Evil I recognize these towers are a necessary evil. Nobody seems to complain about telephone poles in their neighborhoods; these crash regularly with trees during any severe storm. Those towns with high-tension lines through them (those tall metal towers) don't seem to have problems or complaints. As long as the proposed towers aren't in the middle of a residential area, what's the big deal? The Department of Transportation has a plan to put them on their land. The tower isn't going to lower the esthetics any more or less than the expressway it's next to. K. C. JACKSON Teaneck An Unnecessary Evil The best solution for the power towers that support cellular phones is to stop building them. There have been many reports that people who live near these towers and use cellular phones are frequently at a higher risk of contracting brain tumors and other health problems. They are also bad for the environment, causing birds and other animals to search for new homes and habitats. LAURA COBRINIK Denville Another Kind of Hazard What about those growing statistics of people getting injured or killed while speaking on their cell phones and driving their cars? I've seen some pretty scary things myself, with drivers not paying one bit of attention to the road as they chat away. Do we need a law saying that chatters have to pull over to use their cell phones? What an outcry you'd hear about that one! KATHLEEN PACHECO Elizabeth Each week, this column summarizes responses to one question and poses another. Readers may reply to The New York Times on America Online; comments will also be accepted by E-mail to jersey@nytimes.com, by fax to (212) 556-7219, and by mail to Chatter, New Jersey, The New York Times, 229 West 43d Street, New York, N.Y. 10036. All responses should include your full name, hometown and daytime telephone number. Published messages become the property of The Times; they may be edited and may be republished in any medium. Next: Should members of public-school sports teams be required to take drug tests? CHATTER | Siting Cell-Phone Towers |
954384_0 | To the Editor: Since both my oldest daughter and I have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, I must respond to Robert J. Sternberg's Aug. 25 Op-Ed article about the disorder. He is right to be skeptical. The psychologist who diagnosed my daughter recommended that I invoke Section 504 of the 1973 Civil Rights Act to insure that she get the ''accommodations'' she needs. However, Section 504, with its broad language, is subject to misuse. I told my daughter's principal that it sounded as though, if I invoked that law, I could make him do anything I wanted. He said, ''That's right.'' I cannot emphasize enough how soft the definitions of these ''disabilities'' are: in the case of attention deficit disorder, it is safe to say that there is no adult of average intelligence who does not present symptoms. FREDERICK H. BARTLETT Mercerville, N.J., Aug. 25, 1997 Learning Disabled Aren't Seeking Excuses | Soft Diagnoses |
954195_2 | calyx (the leaflike structure at the tomato end of the stem), wrinkling skin and a color that is deep and more intense than when picked table ripe. If they have dropped off, they are probably ready. (But don't pick them and expect the seeds to mature off the vine.) If you are a hit-and-miss picker like me, you will find plenty of perfect overripe tomatoes inside the vines. If you are a conscientious picker, bypass some to let seeds develop. When the tomatoes are ready for seed harvest, get a clean glass or plastic container, large enough to hold the seed-bearing pulp. For 20 pounds of tomatoes, I use a five-gallon plastic food service bucket, although for two or three large tomatoes a bowl or measuring cup might suffice. Cut the tomatoes in half, squeeze or scoop the seed-bearing pulp into the container and discard the skins, walls and other pulp. Cover the container with cheesecloth or a mesh screen to discourage fruit flies or other insects during fermentation. Put the container in a warm place, indoors or out, where the ambient temperature is as close to 70 degrees Fahrenheit as possible, and stir several times a day. In areas where it is still warm, like California, fermentation will take place outside in 24 to 36 hours, but it can take five or six days in cooler climates. You will know the gel is fermenting and the seeds are beginning to separate when a froth forms on the surface and the liquid beneath is clear. Once you see that the seeds are separated from the gel, pour the entire contents though a sieve to capture the seeds. Leave the seeds in the sieve, and wash them well under cold running water, stirring until the gel is gone. Put the washed seeds into clear water. After several hours, the good seeds will sink and the weak ones will float; when this separation stops, discard the immature floaters. Fuzzy seeds are perfectly normal. Most seeds that are purchased commercially have been defuzzed for machine planting, but for the home gardener, that isn't necessary. To dry the washed seeds, spread them in a single layer on a flat surface. I use an old window screen, but paper towels or newspaper might be used as well. If it is still warm outside, the seeds can be left in the sun to dry; otherwise, leave | A Kitchen Garden's Legacy, Saved Year to Year |
954391_0 | To the Editor: Robert J. Sternberg (Op-Ed, Aug. 25) inadvertently identifies the major cause of the problem that the United States faces in learning disabilities: the American Psychiatric Association and its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (fourth edition). According to D.S.M.-IV, just about any human behavior is ''mental illness.'' The label ''learning disabled'' has been pinned on a million children in this country because according to D.S.M.-IV, they have ''attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.'' Why? Because they ''fidget,'' ''can't concentrate,'' ''stare out the window,'' ''daydream'' or ''won't wait their turn.'' Any of these behaviors can result in a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder. Until the public and the education establishment wake up to what the American Psychiatric Association is perpetrating in the name of help, more children will be getting the message that there is no point in trying to better themselves. MORT HARRIES Haworth, N.J., Aug. 25, 1997 Learning Disabled Aren't Seeking Excuses | Everything's an Illness |
954237_0 | INVESTING IT/Page 3/ An already well-educated couple wants to go back to school, without wrecking their finances. By Sana Siwolop. INVESTING IT/Page 4/ You might call them the Beardstown Ladies for the well-to-do, and they have the sad, miss-and-tell stories to prove it. By Reed Abelson. EARNING IT/Page 8/ A new law will require employers to get job applicants' permission before pulling their credit histories. By Anthony Ramirez. VOICES/Page 12/ For many reasons, women need to worry more about retirement than men do. But they don't, and Congress is looking at ways to change that. By Mary Rudie Barneby and Jennifer Kelly. | INSIDE |
954238_1 | a home or otherwise making more of what they earn. Here is how the equation works, said Prof. Richard B. Freeman of Harvard University: ''For an existing worker in a firm, if you can carry out an organizing drive, it is all to your benefit. If there are going to be losers, they are people who might have gotten a job in the future, the shareholders whose profits will go down, the managers because there will be less profit to distribute to them in pay and, maybe, consumers will pay a little more for the product. But as a worker, it is awfully hard to see why you wouldn't want a union.'' Over all, union workers are paid about 20 percent more than nonunion workers, and their fringe benefits are typically worth two to four times as much, economists with a wide array of views have found. The financial advantage is even greater for workers with little formal education and training and for women, blacks and Hispanic workers. Moreover, 85 percent of union members have health insurance, compared with 57 percent of nonunion workers, said Barry Bluestone, a labor-friendly economics professor at the University of Massachusetts. The conclusion draws no argument even from Prof. Leo Troy of Rutgers University, who is widely known in academic circles and among union leaders for his hostility to organized labor. ''From a standpoint of wages and fringe benefits,'' Professor Troy said, ''the answer is yes, you are better off in a union.'' His objections to unions concern how they reduce profits for owners and distort investment decisions in ways that slow the overall growth of the economy -- not how they affect workers who bargain collectively. Professor Troy points out that he belongs to a union himself -- the American Association of University Professors. Donald R. Deere, an economist at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University, studied the wage differential for comparable union and nonunion workers between 1974 and 1996, a period when union membership fell to 15 percent of American workers from 22 percent. In every educational and age category that he studied, Professor Deere found that union members increased their wage advantage over nonunion workers during those years. Last year, he estimates, unionized workers with less than a high school education earned 22 percent more than their nonunion counterparts. The differential declined as education | On Payday, Union Jobs Stack Up Very Well |
947975_0 | As school enrollments continue to swell and the nation's teaching force continues to shrink (increasingly through retirements), teaching jobs are becoming readily available. And the situation hasn't gone unnoticed by college students. Throughout the country, more and more are entering teacher education programs, particularly at the graduate level. ''People are interested in doing something that's relevant,'' said Karen Zumwalt, the dean of Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City. Teachers College received 4,700 applications for next fall, compared to about 3,100 just four years ago. ''I also think -- let's face it -- teaching is one of those few professions that provides job security.'' Enrollment in graduate education programs grew to 264,425 in 1995 from about 232,000 in 1990; the numbers dipped slightly in 1996, to 257,850, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, in Washington. Experts in teacher training say there are varied reasons for the heightened interest. Teacher salaries on average have inched up in several states, as has the public image of teachers nationwide. And career changers disillusioned with the pressures and instability of other industries have been drawn to the field. But even the youngest college students have teaching on their minds. A survey of entering freshmen last fall showed that interest in teaching rose to its highest point in 23 years: more than 1 out of 10 students surveyed by the University of California at Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute say they were interested in a teaching career. In 1982, less than 5 percent of college freshmen expressed interest in the field. Roxanne Your, 22, of Cincinnati, has wanted to be a teacher since she was in kindergarten. She entered the University of Cincinnati as a freshman four years ago, knowing that she would major in education. The University of Cincinnati has replaced its traditional four-year undergraduate teacher education program with a five-year plan, in which students spend their last year teaching a class under the supervision of a veteran teacher and university faculty. Ms. Your is now in the final year of that program. ''I've always wanted to be teacher,'' she said. ''I've never wanted to do anything else.'' But what attracts her now, she added, is not the availability of teaching positions nor the field's job security. ''It's kind of like giving something back that all my teachers gave to me,'' she said. ''Working with children -- | A Traditional Career Gains New Class |
948244_0 | Five weeks after the election of a new Government led by Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, Ireland is playing a more vigorous, but less contentious, role in the Northern Ireland peace effort. Until the recent changeover -- following one in Britain, where Tony Blair became Prime Minister in May -- the Irish Government was often in conflict with London and with leaders of the Protestant Unionist parties, which want this mostly Protestant province to remain under British control. It was also at odds with the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Sinn Fein, which wants closer links with Dublin. Now, with a new I.R.A. cease-fire entering its third week, formal peace talks, probably including Sinn Fein, are to resume in mid-September. The talks, aimed at ending years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, are being co-sponsored by the Irish and British Governments. Mr. Ahern and Mr. Blair are working together to insure that the talks do not bog down over the disarming of the I.R.A. and Protestant paramilitary groups, long a sticking point. Officials say the two men confer regularly by telephone as aides work out a format for the talks, which may have some delegates facing each other across a table, while others stay in separate rooms, kept in contact by intermediaries. ''The U.S. supports the efforts of the two Governments,'' said Kathleen Stephens, the American Consul General in Belfast, who is in contact with all sides and confers with the chairman of the peace talks, former Senator George J. Mitchell. ''We think it's essential that they work together, and we're glad they're doing so.'' The previous Irish Government, led by John Bruton, often charged that Mr. Blair's predecessor, John Major, made important decisions without consulting Dublin. Rifts between the Governments received generous attention in the press, and heightened tensions. The Bruton Government was also considered hostile to Sinn Fein and its leader, Gerry Adams, and at odds with David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, the largest political organization in Northern Ireland. Mr. Trimble repeatedly referred to Ireland's former Foreign Minister, Richard Spring, as ''the most detested man in Ireland,'' and often refused to negotiate with him. The new Irish Prime Minister, Mr. Ahern, whose Fianna Fail party has always been considered ''green,'' or favorable to Catholic Republicans, described himself during his election campaign as a defender of Catholic rights in the North. | New Leader In Ireland Is Reviving Peace Effort |
948256_4 | while thousands of German protesters tried to block the movement of fuel to France for reprocessing, and the German Army mobilized thousands of troops to protect the shipment, nobody here raised a peep. The plant's own published measurements indicate that it releases much less radioactivity into the environment now than it did in 1987. ''The impact of the reprocessing plant on its environment is practically nonexistent,'' the report on radiation levels reads. Measurements are taken yearly from 25,000 samples of soil, beach sand, ground water, local shellfish and other marine life. The technical staff of about 25 who collect the data portray an impact far less than that of normal radiation from other sources. Professor Viel said in his study that some of the incidence of leukemia might have resulted from earlier, higher levels of radiation at the plant. The operators say improved techniques have reduced levels below those permitted in the 1980's. The current Government study concluded that radioactive emissions from the plant are well below prescribed safety levels. Its chief author, Prof. Charles Souleau of the University of Paris, has attacked Professor Viel's report for causing unnecessary alarm. Nevertheless, Nathalie Geismar, who lives just east of Cherbourg with her children, 2 and 6, read about Professor Viel's report last winter and took action immediately. ''I run a cafe restaurant and I live off tourism,'' she said, ''so I'm not interested in ruining the public image of La Hague. But you can't ignore the possible danger.'' She collected 4,000 signatures from other worried mothers in Cherbourg and her town of Fermanville. They demanded more information from Cogema. Mr. Ledermann said there was nothing to worry about. Even the Greenpeace water samples, he said, only confirmed that the company was discharging no more radioactive material into the sea than the state allowed it to. He said that the site for the plant had been chosen ''in part because the offshore currents are the strongest in all of France.'' Mayor Laurent said he and other local authorities would demand a recount, so to speak, from Professor Viel. ''There have been no cases of infantile leukemia in Beaumont since 1993,'' the Mayor said. He threatened a lawsuit against the authors of the study for economic damages allegedly suffered because of its publication. Professor Viel, asked about the Mayor's threat, said he saw no reason to change his conclusions. But even Mrs. Geismar | On Normandy's Coast, an Image Disaster, or the Nuclear Kind? |
953484_0 | It's a good rule of thumb that technological solutions work better than increased regulation. Before 1920, thousands of babies died annually in New York and other large American cities from drinking contaminated milk. The solution wasn't more Federal dairy inspectors or a merger of Government agencies. It was pasteurization. The solution to the problem of food poisoning -- whether the food involved is hamburger, strawberries, raspberries, cider or some other product susceptible to bacterial contamination -- has been sitting on the shelf for most of 40 years while hundreds of thousands of Americans have been sickened and thousands have died. It is the equivalent of pasteurization, and its neglect is a disgrace. The technology is food irradiation. The Army pioneered its development beginning in 1943, and it has since passed into commercial application in some 40 countries, including limited use in the United States. Irradiation uses gamma rays from a solid radioactive source to disrupt the DNA of, and thus to kill, noxious bacteria, parasites, mold and fungus in and on agricultural products. Gamma rays are similar to microwaves and X-rays. Irradiation doesn't make food radioactive, nor does it noticeably change taste, texture or appearance. Depending on dose and on whether the food is packaged to prevent recontamination, irradiation can retard spoilage, kill germs or even completely preserve. The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association all endorse the process. The Food and Drug Administration has approved irradiation of pork, poultry, fruits, vegetables, spices and grains, although its use remains limited. Most imported spices are preserved with irradiation. Tropical fruits like mango and papaya from Hawaii are treated to kill exotic pests. Irradiated chicken is served in hospitals in the Southeast. Astronauts aboard the space shuttle eat irradiated food, including steak. Food irradiation would have prevented the illnesses caused recently by contaminated hamburger from Hudson Foods and the several deaths linked to Jack in the Box restaurants in the Northwest in 1993. It could kill the salmonella that infects up to 60 percent of the poultry and eggs sold in the United States; the deadly mutant E. coli strain 0157:H7, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have characterized as a major emerging infectious disease, and such ugly stowaways as beef tapeworms, fish parasites and the nematodes that cause trichinosis in pork. Yet the new meat inspection system now being phased in by | Food Safety's Waiting Weapon |
952101_2 | societies associated with the church around the world. Beatification will put Mr. Ozanam one step short of sainthood in Roman Catholic practice. Many of the young pilgrims wore souvenir T-shirts designed by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, a couturier who is one of many official sponsors of the week-long World Youth Day program. It will end Sunday with an open-air Mass celebrated by the Pope. The masses in the Champ de Mars greeted the Pope enthusiastically in a welcome full of pageantry. He read a list of the more than 100 countries that had sent delegations to the gathering and then read messages to many of them in their own languages. Despite the images of fervent belief evident today, a poll taken for a French Catholic newspaper, La Croix, and French television found that religion played no significant role in the lives of 63 percent of French people between the ages of 18 and 30, according to a sample of 500 people who were asked how important it was to them. The same poll found that 77 percent of French youth believed the church exercised a negative influence in the debate over abortion rights, and 64 percent thought it played a negative role in the fight against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Several dozen anti-abortion rights demonstrators calling themselves the Jerome Lejeune Foundation also forced their way today into the courtyard of the Ambroise Pare Hospital in suburban Boulogne-Billancourt, near the Longchamp racetrack, where the Pope is to celebrate Mass on Sunday. The police later ejected the protesters. Mr. Lejeune, who died in 1994, was a genetics professor who was opposed to abortion, and the Pope plans to make a private visit to his grave in a southern suburb of Paris on Friday evening, but the Lejeune family and a foundation named for him both condemned the demonstration today and said that they had no connection with it. Some critics said the Pope's visit was partly responsible for the uncomfortable conditions in the city. Bringing so many people here during a heat wave increased air pollution, they warned. Both today and yesterday, ozone levels soared so high that the French authorities took the unusual step of banning speeding on city highways, and cut fares on the Paris mass transit system in half to encourage people to leave cars at home. Most of the young people travel by subway or bus anyway. | Half a Million Fans Help the Pope Beat the Heat in Paris |
952097_0 | To the Editor: Your Aug. 15 front-page article on the cutoff of disability checks to 95,180 children fails to mention that those determined to be disabled and eligible for Supplemental Security Income are automatically eligible for Medicaid. As you say, children must also be from low-income families for S.S.I. Therefore, it is likely that many of these children were previously uninsured. Eligibility for Medicaid, which usually covers more comprehensive services for these children than private health insurance, is frequently more valuable than S.S.I. In recognition of this, Congress determined that children losing S.S.I. eligibility would retain Medicaid eligibility. But what of future uninsured poor children who will not qualify for S.S.I. under the more rigorous standards? Again, we see the troubling consequences of our failure to establish a comprehensive system for insuring that all families get the health care they need. KATHLEEN A. MALOY Washington, Aug. 18, 1997 The writer is a senior researcher at the Center for Health Policy, George Washington University. | Quick Fix Ignores Future Disabled Children |
952104_1 | this one not about the city's monuments but about its street life, about men like Mr. Intili and his two 33-year-old friends, Giovanni Pisano and Mario Giorgini, all three unemployed, who spend their summer days either on the piazza or at the beach. ''We wanted to take a dip, just like we did when we were kids,'' Mr. Pisano, who lives in a Vatican-owned building in the center of Rome, told a newspaper reporter. ''Are you all crazy?'' Mr. Giorgini exclaimed to the newspaper La Repubblica in an interview about his life in a high-rise on Rome's outskirts. ''We didn't kill anyone. My friend was hot, that's all.'' The broken tail fell into six pieces, three of which were recovered on Wednesday when the fountain was drained. Restoration experts say it will cost the equivalent of $8,400 to fix, and Culture Minister Walter Veltroni is promising that it will be done by October. In a city like Rome that is an open-air museum, protecting monuments by masters by Bernini, whose Baroque sculptures grace Rome's museums as well as its fountains, is difficult. Episodes like the damage to the Piazza Navona water creature -- some describe it as a dolphin, some as a sea monster -- only cause more debates about how to prevent vandalism, deliberate or accidental. The city's first move has been to raise the fines for bathing in its fountains -- popular practice that predates scenes from Federico Fellini's movies -- from $84 to $560. Rome's Mayor, Francesco Rutelli, has proposed making vandals go to work to fix the damage they have caused. Noted art historians have discussed creating a corps of student volunteers to patrol outdoor monuments, while the film director Franco Zeffirelli suggested corporal punishment for vandals. Asked to assess the damage, Vittorio Sgarbi, a member of Parliament who lives on Piazza Navona, said most harm would be done to Italy's image. ''Everyone abroad will know about the damage caused by these gentlemen,'' he said. ''We don't cut a very 'good figure.' '' But Aldo Ceccarrelli, a lawyer famous around the Roman courthouse for his colorful language, argued today that his latest client, Mr. Intili, who spent Wednesday night in jail, had jumped into the Piazza Navona fountain at great personal risk, and should be awarded $5,600 in damages. ''The fountain is in decrepit state,'' he told reporters. ''These things should not be kept this way.'' | A Tale of a Roman's Dip and a Lost Tail |
949720_2 | individuals to lower-tax individuals,'' said Joan Vine, the national director of employee benefits tax services for Grant Thornton, the accounting firm. There is a penalty for people who do not use all the money accumulated in the account for college expenses. Such money would be considered income and taxed at ordinary income-tax rates -- plus a further 10 percent tax. For some people, the tax bill provides other relief from college expenses. That includes a credit of up to $1,500 for the first two years of college, and then a credit of up to $1,000 -- increasing to $2,000 after 2002 -- for additional years of college. The credits would be fully available for families with incomes up to $80,000 a year and partially available for families with income up to $100,000 (phasing out for single filers would be between $40,000 and $50,000). But for the most part, people will have to choose between the credits and the educational I.R.A., because the two cannot be employed at the same time. For families in the 15 percent income-tax bracket especially, the credit, which reduces taxes dollar for dollar, could be much more attractive than tax-sheltered savings, said Clint Stretch, a partner at Deloitte & Touche. For families in higher tax brackets, the education I.R.A. would probably be more attractive. The tax law also would allow tax-free, penalty-free withdrawals from both traditional I.R.A.'s and Roth I.R.A.'s for higher education expenses of the account's owner, a spouse, a child or a grandchild, Ms. Vine said. Such withdrawals would mean that the money saved would not be available for the contributor's retirement -- the original purpose of the account -- or for the purchase of a first home. The law is written in a way so that it would be difficult if not impossible to set up a traditional I.R.A. or a Roth I.R.A. in a child's name. THE NEW TAX LAW: Amid Complexity, Opportunities Abound Correction: August 31, 1997, Sunday An article on Aug. 10 about the effects of the new tax law on saving for college referred incorrectly to a provision concerning withdrawals from individual retirement accounts for higher-education expenses. Under the law, such withdrawals from traditional I.R.A.'s are penalty-free, but not tax-free. With the new Roth I.R.A., the withdrawals are both penalty-free and tax-free, but only if the money has been held in the Roth I.R.A. for at least five years. | Socking It Away for College, With Uncle Sam's Help |
949797_0 | The British military helicopter circled noisily high above the West Belfast office where Gerry Adams, president of the Irish Republican Army's political wing, discussed the Northern Ireland peace talks he expects to attend next month. ''Do you hear that chopper?'' he said. ''That helicopter's been up there four or five days.'' Mr. Adams said the air patrol was an example of how the British Army, with about 17,000 resident troops, is continuing to maintain a strong military presence in Northern Ireland even though the I.R.A. has halted its ''armed struggle'' -- which involved shooting soldiers and police officers here and bombing civilian targets in England -- since declaring a cease-fire on July 20. If the I.R.A. cease-fire holds, the British and Irish Governments will permit Mr. Adams's group, Sinn Fein, to enter the formal peace talks, set for Sept. 15, for the first time. The British presence, political and military, is among the issues that he will be addressing at the talks, Mr. Adams said. In an interview on Friday in a small house that is used as a service center for former I.R.A. prisoners, Mr. Adams discussed the political atmosphere in Belfast, and two of the major issues to be dealt with at the talks: the disarmament of the I.R.A. and Protestant paramilitary groups and the political future of the British-ruled province. He also spoke of his planned visit to the United States early next month. As the noise of the helicopter abated, he continued, ''When we met the British the other day we argued that the pattern and concentration and intensity of British military patrols in Republican areas were provocative.'' Still, he said he did not expect the patrols to provoke new I.R.A. attacks. But he said he intends to make speeches harshly critical of British rule in Northern Ireland when he visits New York and Washington for six days beginning on Sept. 2. ''The U.S. trip,'' he said, ''is about enlisting support for a democratic peace settlement, for the notion of Irish unity, for an end to the British occupation'' of Northern Ireland, which was left to Britain under the 1921 treaty that gave southern Ireland independence. He said he will not see President Clinton, who is scheduled to be away from Washington on vacation, but indicated that the White House, which had advised him not to apply for a visa or the right to raise money | Adams Discusses His Agenda for Ulster Talks |
949586_0 | Drive to the St. John Baptist convent in Mendham where eight Sisters of Mercy of the United States maintain a ministry of hospitality and you can't help but notice the new bell tower on a hill, 140 feet tall with a gold cross on each side. Although the Episcopal sisters welcomed the addition to their property last month, the tower is not what it seems to be. For one thing, it doesn't have a bell. And the tower wasn't actually built by the convent. Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile constructed the tower in an attempt to gracefully house an antenna needed to handle the waves of cellular telephone traffic in western New Jersey and the sisters, who have faced financial troubles recently, receive a monthly rent payment. In the future, phone companies hope to rely on designs like the bell tower -- the first disguised antenna tower in the state -- to satisfy communities worried that the antennas will be an eyesore. Bell Atlantic is building a plastic Austrian pine tree for a hillside in Ringwood. A fake pine tree was recently planted in Franklin Lakes to hide antennas owned by Bell Atlantic and A. T. & T. Wireless. Kyle Mulady, director of engineering for Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile, explained how the bell tower/cellular antenna works. Q. Why bother with disguises? A. Some people are worried about the proliferation of cellular telephone towers so if we can disguise them and if we can use the same location as other telephone companies it makes it better for the community at the same time it lets us improve our service. Because we have provided cellular service for several years, we are mostly putting in antennas where our service is not as good as we want it to be. Other companies are just starting to locate antennas. If we can co-locate with other companies it is more convenient and cost-effective for everybody. Q. Which towers are disguised? A. So far, only new towers are being treated this way. A new plastic developed for use by the C.I.A. has actually enabled us to do this because radio frequency waves pass through it. Before, you couldn't put an antenna inside anything because it would block the signals. Q. How many towers are there and how long have they been there? A. Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile was one of the first to install towers in northern New | Christo Would Be Jealous: How to Hide a 140-Foot Cellular Tower |
949408_4 | poorly appreciated. Since it is correct but unintuitive, let me illustrate it here through recipes: Anyone asking for a copy of a recipe ought to realize the donor has long since stopped consulting it; he or she just improvises from memory and, over the years, has improved the cake considerably. Still, the original version is what's copied, usually with some unintentional mutations (you confuse teaspoons with tablespoons, or transcribe temperatures incorrectly). Most errors are bad news -- but no one asks for copies of those next-generation recipes, only the ones whose errors came closer to the master chef's actual practice. This dropout creates a slow convergence in copying errors toward written recipes with a combination of ingredients, amounts, times, temperatures and procedures that -- with common-sense tweaking -- will satisfy ''good taste.'' The Baldwin effect allows unrecorded tweaking from flexible behavior to secondarily drag along relevant genes (recipe items) in the long run; it's Darwinian, but at one remove. Thus relevant gene combinations ''fill in'' behind the behavioral advance. Deacon makes good use of this anatomy-follows-behavior principle in addressing tool making by larger-brained Homo species that evolved from the Australopithecines with ape-sized brains: ''The Baldwinian perspective suggests . . . that the first stone tools were manufactured by Australopithecines, and that the transition into Homo was in part a consequence rather than the cause. . . . The large brains, stone tools, reduction in dentition, better opposability of thumb and fingers, and more complete bipedality found in post-australopithecine hominids are the physical echoes of a threshold already crossed'' in behavior. ''Ultimately, all these curious physical traits that distinguish modern human bodies and brains were caused by ideas shared down the generations.'' Deacon next discusses what aspects of language could have become established through Darwinian means during hominid evolution, after first being carried along culturally. He makes the usual mistake: being overly specific. ''If symbolic communication did not arise due to a 'hopeful monster' mutation of the brain, it must have been selected for.'' But selection that favors language need not come from the success of language per se. For example, some brain circuitry is shared between planning complex hand and arm movements and complex language. Variants promoting successful hammering and throwing may also aid language ability -- and vice versa. Deacon's deep knowledge of anthropology is evident in his analysis of the development 2.5 million years ago of reproductive strategies | Talking Heads |
951270_7 | another sign of the old system breaking down. Yet the notion of traveling families gained wide currency a few years ago when a skit was performed on the Chinese New Year celebration on television, the most-watched program of the year, with 600 million estimated viewers. The skit coined the term ''population guerrillas'' for a family that moved all over China to avoid family planning officials, naming each child after a different residence. True or not, many Chinese seem to believe that there are millions of ''population guerrillas'' at work. In fact, enforcement of China's population control program varies from province to province and town to town. Many rural areas have never been able to keep families from having two, three or four children, while in others officials have been quite strict. Typically, however, women have been encouraged to get an intra-uterine device after giving birth to a first child, and to be sterilized after a second birth. Many exceptions are made, for ethnic minorities or fishing families claiming they need many hands or families whose first child is handicapped. Judith Banister, who until recently headed international programs at the United States Bureau of the Census and now teaches at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, argues that urban areas can afford some relaxation of the one-child policy precisely because they have been so successful since 1980 that the population has become distorted, with many more people in their 20's than in their teens. ''The one-child policy in general has worked very well in large cities,'' Dr. Banister said. ''China can afford some loosening.'' In Shanghai, where the penalty for an unauthorized second child is a fine three times the annual salary of the father and mother, more residents have died than have been born in the last three years. This negative population growth spurred some officials to suggest abandoning the one-child policy, though that option was rejected, said Jin Xuegong, a senior official at the Shanghai Municipal Planning Commission. For one thing, it is only negative population growth on paper, since in the same period the migrant population of Shanghai has swelled to nearly 4 million, none of them counted among Shanghai's 14 million legal residents. But in Mr. Jin's opinion, since many young urban couples are choosing not to have any children at all, it is unlikely there would be a huge population surge even if | Chinese Happily Break the 'One Child' Rule |
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