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106754_0 | LEAD: Special reports in this issue include: Special reports in this issue include: * How the need for credentials is bringing more adults back to college. * Where government executives go for a mid-life crisis course. * Why many students delay college for a 13th-year hiatus. * How colleges are coping with a severe housing shortage. | Special Today: Education Life/Section 12 |
106769_21 | successor, the Nobel laureate George J. Stigler, presides over it now. There have been Chicago schools of sociology and Chicago Aristotelians. ''The Closing of the American Mind'' is only the latest manifestation of a trend. It reflects a fierce iconoclasm, a resistance to prevailing liberal ideology, that life in Chicago seems to promote. The university's conservatism reflects its original mandate to preserve the best that has been thought and said. ''Bloom's book and its enthusiastic reception are a testament to the pervasive (but not yet sufficiently noticed) influence which a group of Chicago-based intellectuals have been having on American politics, economics, law and literature,'' noted Alexander Nehamas in The London Review of Books. ''We are in the process of seeing the emergence of a Midwestern philosophy.'' But philosophy, as Bloom would be the first to admit, isn't for general consumption - especially a book as difficult as his own, written, Paul Wheatley says, in ''Social Thought style.'' So why is ''The Closing of the American Mind'' so popular? Who's reading it? Educators? Parents who want to find out what's wrong with their children? Five hundred thousand people with a special interest in Heidegger? My own theory is that Bloom appeals to the perennial student in so many of us - that yearning, after years out in the busy world, to restore for a brief moment the innocence of our undergraduate days, the long nights in the library spent struggling through ''The Social Contract.'' His book is about the joys of education: how to live in the world without losing one's soul. Bloom is a Socrates figure; he wants to go among his pupils debating the great ideas. And Chicago is his Athens. ''I'm not a writer,'' Bloom confides to me one day. It's dusk, and we're heading across the quad, past the beautiful Gothic buildings with their fake leaded windows. ''My life is not a theodicy. It's a series of accidents that add up to a unity.'' What happened was that he wrote a book ''about a life I've led'' -and with such ardor, such passionate intensity, that people listened. Anyway, what matters is what always matters in these stories: his 87-year-old mother is proud. ''My parents were always kind of, you know, nudging me at the edges.'' He laughs his nervous laugh. ''I think this finally satisfied her. You know, to have a son who could speak his mind.'' | CHICAGO'S GRUMPY GURU |
106528_2 | the same effect as ''throwing gasoline on a hot fire or rubbing salt in a festering wound.'' Chief Mears suggested a less inflammatory send-off, like ''Hope you don't see me again,'' or ''Sorry, better luck next time.'' ''Almost anything will do,'' he said, ''except 'Have a nice day.' ''I hope these positive suggestions will help you as you conduct your daily chores next year,'' the letter concluded. ''In the meantime, from the bottom of my heart - have a nice day.'' Logs, Killington And Bear Secrets KILLINGTON, Vermont's largest ski area, is bearish on its home state. The reason: bears. The state and the ski area have gone to court over whether Killington has a legal right to know about the bears that live in its mountains. In a suit filed in Washington County Superior Court on Dec. 21, Killington charged that the state is violating its own right-to-know law by withholding information the ski area needs to appeal an environmental ruling. A hearing has been set for Jan. 19. ''We are looking for information on bear habitat, especially as it related to Killington property,'' said Craig Tomkinson, director of corporate communications for Killington. But the state contends that its information on Killington's bears is exempt from the right-to-know law because it may come up in a lawsuit filed by the ski area. ''We are saying the bear-habitat material is protected because it is relevant to litigation,'' said Stephen Sease, director of planning for the state Agency of Natural Resources. ''I can't comment further because the case is in litigation.'' The dispute began last spring when Killington petitioned the district environmental commission for permission to cut logs on 3,000 acres of land it owns in the town of Mendon. The company also asked to build a four-acre pond on some adjacent land. Against a backdrop of intense local opposition to Killington's plans, the commission denied both requests on the grounds that the logging would adversely affect the bear population. Mr. Sease said biologists were particularly concerned about losing a valuable stand of beech trees. Black bears eat beech nuts in the fall. In preparing to appeal those rulings, Killington asked the natural resources agency to turn over any information it had on wildlife habitats as well as other documents pertaining to Killington. In his reply Jonathan Lash, secretary of the agency, told Killington that some of the files would be | NORTHEAST JOURNAL |
106690_3 | from these new students, whose careers and schedules may preclude regular commuting to campus. 'There's a Redefining Taking Place' ''There's a redefining taking place of who is and can be a college student,'' said Jay Hershenson, vice chancellor for university relations at the City University of New York, which has 250,000 undergraduate and graduate students. ''The so-called nontraditional student is no longer nontraditional at City, and soon won't be at many more colleges across the country, either. Instead it will be the 19-year-old who's just graduated from high school and is attending college on a full-time basis.'' Oddly, there is no ''typical'' adult college student, except by the criterion of age. If they have anything in common, according to Eudora Pettigrew, president of Old Westbury College of the State University of New York, it is a combination of ''persistence, motivation and experience.'' All this perseverance on the part of older students sends a strong signal about the importance that the ''right credentials'' assume for a broader range of occupations. Today more and better-educated people vie for a finite pool of jobs and promotions in a workplace buffeted by economic competition on a global scale. That worldwide competition has generated widespread corporate restructuring, including countless takeovers and subsequent downsizing, that have eliminated hundreds of thousands of American jobs in such industries as steel, oil, high technology, agribusiness and now, increasingly, on Wall Street. One consequence of this turmoil has been the dissolution of many workers' sense of attachment to their jobs and loss of confidence about the future, according to Samuel M. Ehrenhalt, Middle Atlantic regional commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers, he said, are repeatedly being reminded that they must keep abreast of advances in their fields if they are to be eligible for jobs they want. That message compelled Denise Rollins, after a decade working for companies involved in international trade, to return to college in 1984 by enrolling in Howard's program called the University Without Walls, which is specifically for adult students. Ms. Rollins, now 35, dropped out of college in the early 1970's. At Howard, she learned French while earning a bachelor's in economics. Last year she earned a master's from the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Now a Foreign Service officer in the State Department's Latin American-Caribbean bureau, she deals with private-sector trade matters. She said of her two degrees: | The Baby-Boomers Change Courses |
114789_10 | city) can sample the rain forest by walking a few blocks from the central city Post Office. At Brisbane's Expo 88, in what must be the most extraordinary feat of high-tech forestry ever, an area the size of a football field will be actual forest, complete with ground mists, daily rain, 2,000 orchids and hundreds of birds. There will be no building to house this marvel, nothing to keep the birds from flying away - though, of course, they will not do so. HOW is this being done? For the past five years, whenever fresh trails were being laid through the rain forests, all trees removed were carefully preserved for transplanting. Ferns, orchids, mosses, fungi and vines are easily propagated and grow at phenomenal rates in Queensland's climate. So a kind of ecological miracle is in progress on the banks of the Brisbane River in the heart of a city of a million people. For the real addict, however, the subtropical rain forest around Brisbane is not sufficient. One has to head a thousand miles north to the true tropical forests, which are denser and even more spectacular. Kuranda, Lake Eachem, Lake Barrine - three rain forest jewels on the Atherton Tableland - are little more than an hour's drive west from Cairns. Another spot, an hour's drive north of Cairns, is Mossman Gorge. Back in 1963, my first year as a high-school teacher in Mossman, the gorge was undiscovered, just another bit of jungle with a white-water river coursing through it. On steamy Saturdays I used to walk the three miles from the little sugar-cane farming town and sit on a rock in the middle of the foaming gorge and watch the forest life. Now international celebrities own cottages and farms in Mossman (they grow avocados, kiwi fruit, pomegranates), and there are luxury tourist cabins butting up against the trees and creepers, within sound of the rushing water. Those of us addicted to the rain forest return as frequently as we can, because every trail, every road, every logging foray changes the ecology forever. Only half of what was in Australia before the arrival of European settlement 200 years ago now remains. See it while it still flourishes. Signposts for exploring the state's tropical rain forests Near Brisbane The rain forest closest to Brisbane, capital of Queensland and site of Expo 88, is at Mount Glorious. It's a drive | The Spell of the Rain Forest |
114401_1 | we're seeing is an excellent start, but I think there are some real tough problems to deal with,'' Mr. Beisiegel told the meeting, held at the New London Cooperative Extension Station in Norwich last Monday. Mr. Beisiegel said he would like to see plastic-foam containers, typically used at fast-food restaurants, banned, an idea that state officials are considering. Others at the meeting urged that more items be added to the State Department of Environmental Protection's proposed mandatory recycling list, including tires, plastic food containers and food scraps for composting. All municipalities must recycle 25 percent of their waste by Jan. 1, 1991, under a law passed by the General Assembly last year. The law was aimed at prolonging the life span of landfills and reducing the amount of garbage that must be burned. The Environmental Protection Department must now draft regulations that specify what items must be recycled. John Freedman, a member of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, which lobbied for the recycling law, expressed concern at the meeting about a lack of monetary penalties in the proposed regulations. Lois Hager, the recycling coordinator for the environmental department, conceded that ''enforcement may be difficult.'' The department plans to rely at least partly on a strong public-relations campaign to inform the public, municipalities and garbage haulers about the requirements of the law. Mr. Freedman also said the proposed regulations would make it easy for towns and cities to obtain waivers to the recycling requirements. The waivers might be sought by towns that have contracts with garbage-to-energy plants that require them to deliver a certain tonnage of garbage to keep fees low, a situation Mr. Freedman termed a disincentive to recycling. Landfills and incinerators will be prohibited from accepting items that the department decides must be recycled. Residents will have to separate their trash into three categories under the proposed regulations: newspapers, office paper and cardboard; glass and metal food containers, and nonrecyclable garbage. In most places, yard waste -leaves and branches but not grass clippings - scrap metal, waste oil and car batteries will have special pickups, as is the case already in many communities. Connecticut will have one of the broadest recycling programs in the country once the regulations are in place and the new law is in effect, Ms. Hager said. ''Connecticut is trying to do something that probably hasn't been done anywhere else in the country,'' she said. | TOUGHER RULES ARE URGED AT FIRST RECYCLING HEARING |
114385_0 | LEAD: Empty Apartments Empty Apartments Question: Is it true that landlords of rent-stabilized apartment buildings cannot increase individual apartment rents when leases expire if 10 percent or more of the building's units have been kept vacant? . . . G. P., Manhattan Answer: No. The fact that an owner has withheld apartments from the market has no bearing on the rents for the rest of the units. ''There is no connection between warehousing and rent,'' said David Fishlow, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, referring to the practice of keeping apartments off the market in anticipation of a conversion to co-op or condominium ownership. ''The rent increases as specified by rent-control and rent-stabilization regulations would still apply.'' Mr. Fishlow said that there are no laws that compel landlords to rent apartments. The only penalty associated with the practice of warehousing relates to the possible conversion of a building to a co-op or condominium. According to Mr. Fishlow, if the Attorney General's office finds that more than 10 percent of the units in a building have been vacant for a period of five months or longer immediately preceding the submission of a red herring - the initial conversion plan - for co-op or condo conversion, the agency will reject the plan. Renting From N.Y.U. Question: I have lived in a rent-stabilized apartment owned by New York University since 1971. When my lease became due this year the university sent me a three-year lease with an increase of 20 percent. When I complained that the guideline increases call for a 3 percent increase on one-year leases and a 6.5 percent increase for two-year leases, I was told that the university, as a nonprofit institution, was no longer bound by the rent-regulation guidelines. Is this true? . . . W. R., Manhattan Answer: If your apartment is in a rent-stabilized building that the university owns, but it is not university housing, then your rent increases would still be subject to the guidelines. According to Thomas R. Viola, a spokesman for the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, there is a fairly new regulation that exempts nonprofit institutions from rent regulations. But the exemption only pertains to housing that is used solely by those associated with the institution. If you believe that the rent increase is not justified, you should file an overcharge complaint with the district rent office of the Division | Q and A |
114766_2 | 1978. Last week, the Public Service Company of New Hampshire, whose embattled Seabrook nuclear plant has stood as a symbol of the environmental opposition to the American nuclear industry, filed for bankruptcy. A Continuing Commitment Despite their own extensive environmental movement, many European countries, lacking the fossil fuel resources of the United States, have refused to turn their backs on nuclear power. France, which now obtains 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, and Belgium, which obtains 60 percent, hardly seem to have been affected by Chernobyl. (Though France is now building plants at the rate of only one every two years, compared with one a year in the 1970's, the reduction is explained by slower economic growth.) Although Chernobyl steeled the resolve of British environmentalists, Britain, after much debate, just gave approval to build the first in a series of six new plants. ''What drives countries to nuclear power is economics and the desire not to be energy dependent,'' said Morris Rosen, a senior official with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. In its quest for independence, France has become the leader in nuclear reprocessing - taking spent fuel rods from nuclear plants and recycling the uranium and plutonium. France's huge La Hague facility in Normandy is the world's leading reprocessing plant. In a sense, the plant has been too successful, producing more of the troublesome plutonium than can be accommodated. The reprocessing facility was built to provide plutonium fuel for breeder reactors -an advanced type of power plant that, in theory, never needs refueling because it makes more plutonium than it consumes. But the construction of breeder reactors is far behind schedule - they are very expensive to build and the supply of the uranium that fuels conventional reactors has been less expensive and more reliable than had been anticipated. Complicating matters is that Superphenix, France's $4 billion breeder reactor, the world's largest, has not been operating since May. ''Reprocessing has turned out to be a disaster for the industry,'' said Colin Hines, an anti-nuclear campaigner for the environmental organization Greenpeace. The danger of plutonium becoming too easily available has convinced American officials to eschew reprocessing plants and breeder reactors. But like the Americans, the Europeans are also having problems finding places to store the growing mountain of nuclear waste. Although some nations are making room for low-level waste, the big problem is finding a site | Safety Issues Test Europe's Faith in Nuclear Power |
114515_4 | protect the Indians from the diseases - smallpox, influenza and malaria - that arrived with the white man and repeatedly decimated their communities. One justification given by the Portuguese Government for expelling the Jesuits was to ''free'' the Indians from authoritarian control. Once they were gone, however, the royal Governor in Brazil established what became known as the directorate system, appointing ''directors'' to run the Indian villages. Mr. Hemming quotes the English poet Robert Southey as noting that ''the directors were usually a set of brutal fellows, who solicited the appointment for the sake of extorting what they could from the miserable Indians.'' The Indians in turn resented being sent on long trips to collect wood, being ordered to work the land and being assigned as boat paddlers, and they often fled back to the jungle. By the end of the 18th century, it was clear that the directorate was a failure and it was abolished. But with its abolition came the disbanding of the Indian villages, and the Indians lost their rights to their communal lands. ''Loss of land was as devastating to a tribe's survival as the most virulent epidemic,'' Mr. Hemming says. ''Without sufficient land, a tribe could not feed itself by hunting, fishing, gathering or shifting agriculture. But land meant far more than a mere source of food. It was the basis of all tribal tradition, ancestral burials and patriotic fervour.'' In some regions at various times, churchmen and officials tried to protect the Indians. But it was almost impossible to control the violence on the country's distant inner frontiers. Rather, it was up to the Indians to learn to defend themselves, and some, such as the Botocudo, the Kayapo and the Kaingang, did so with such success that major military expeditions were launched against them well into the 19th century. Perhaps more remarkable, though, was the so-called Cabanagem rebellion, involving Indians and mestizos; it began in Belem in 1835 and spread along much of the Amazon until it was violently suppressed four years later. ''Modern historians have hailed the Cabanagem as the most profound rebellion against the injustices of nineteenth-century Brazil,'' Mr. Hemming declares. There were no similar popular uprisings after that, and the penetration of Brazil's interior continued. In the Amazon, a rubber boom that began in the mid-19th century sent thousands of people up previously uncharted rivers in search of the native rubber | WAR, DISEASE, SLAVERY AND POISONED WELLS |
114521_1 | to interpret it. The messages that resulted were as diverse as the rules that created them were elaborate. They might predict the life and fate of an individual, a city or a state; they might simply define auspicious times to start a building, pick a medicinal plant or invest money. In all periods astrologers found attentive listeners and generous patrons. And though their predictions often proved wrong, they and the art they practiced rarely suffered any loss of profit or esteem. Like modern economists, premodern astrologers deftly uncovered ex post facto the hidden factors and unknown data that supposedly accounted for their mistakes; like the economists, they had their reward in still larger fees for the next forecast. S. J. Tester's ''History of Western Astrology'' surveys astrology from its origins to around 1700, more text by text than issue by issue. The author, who died in 1986, knew the primary sources - especially the classical ones - and had read many modern studies of his subject. His lucid, well-informed and concise book tells a coherent story that until now had to be pieced together from primary and secondary sources of diverse age, aim and value. In doing this, his book fills a large and rather surprising gap. As it makes clear, most readers - and, in fact, most scholars - have a far feebler grasp of astrology than of any other discipline so central to Western culture. Admirers of astrology think it was created thousands and thousands of years ago by Egyptian and Babylonian sages. Critics of astrology may disagree about its age but usually agree about its Eastern place of origin. They consider it an alien excrescence on Greek culture, at once a sign and a cause of the tragic retreat from rationalism that took place after the time of Thucydides and Socrates. Tester, who had taught classics at Bristol University, uses the classic work of Otto Neugebauer and other modern scholars in exposing both views as false. Astrology was Hellenistic, not archaic, in origin and as Greek as wine with goat cheese sprinkled on it. Indeed, as Tester shows, astrology came into being at the same time as Greek planetary theory - with which it shared the premise that what happens on Earth is messy, unpredictable and inferior, while what happens in the heavens is regular, precisely predictable and therefore superior. Hipparchus, the first great Greek astronomer, apparently | READING THE FRIENDLY SKIES |
114396_3 | paper. The final images resemble aerial photographs, but are created, manipulated and modified with less effort, time and cost. An aerial survey of the state made by airplane, for example, would require 250 individual photographs, pieced together manually, a year of toil and $225,000. The same job can be done by satellite remote sensing with the tap of a few buttons for $10,000. Moreover, the remote sensing image reveals fundamental information - like temperature - that is invisible by aerial photography. With special filters and computer enhancement, a map prepared by remote sensing can indicate landscape disturbances (like plowing or mining), individual forms of vegetation and even changes that take place between satellite global circumnavigations (which occur every 16 days). Remote sensing can: * Measure plant vigor (and monitor the effect of, say, a power station's hot-water discharge on surrounding vegetation). * Tip off commercial fishermen to where the largest catches are likely to be found. * Ascertain the depth of a snowpack for skiers. * Spot water contamination even underground. * Assess the extent of defoliation by insects like gypsy moths. * Help spot rich mineral deposits. * Inspect toxic-waste sites from afar, eliminating the hazards of on-site examination by humans. * Fight forest fires by seeing through dense smoke cover to reveal zones of greatest fire intensity. * Forecast crop yields (and therefore, perhaps, commodity futures prices). Until now, the center has obtained nearly all its remote-sensing data from satellites of the United States. But recently the French launched a satellite (called SPOT, for Systeme Probatoire d'Observation de la Terre) that returns images of far greater clarity than those of United States satellites, and the center has begun to rely on them. ''Russia has just put its data on the world market, too,'' said Dr. Airola, ''and its images are even sharper than those of the French. We are looking into the possibility of purchasing Russian data, too.'' Since President Reagan announced that restrictions on U.S. satellite-image sharpness were being lifted, Dr. Airola said, ''we are reviewing all of our options.'' ''It really kills me that the U.S., which pioneered remote-sensing technology, has lost its lead, due to specious national security concerns,'' he said. Within the next three to five years, Dr. Airola said, Brazil, Canada, India and Japan will also have remote high-sensing satellites aloft, all transmitting images superior to those now provided by the United States. | SATELLITE MAP CENTER PLANNED |
114513_0 | LEAD: THE BOOK AND THE BROTHERHOOD By Iris Murdoch. 607 pp. New York: Viking. $19.95. THE BOOK AND THE BROTHERHOOD By Iris Murdoch. 607 pp. New York: Viking. $19.95. LET us not burden Iris Murdoch's ineffable new novel with the fact that it is her 23d, nor with a reaffirmation of her absolutely unique place in the tottering profession of letters. For this is that rarest of fictions these days: a social and political novel that is not journalistic, a novel of ideas that is not ideological, and a deep exploration of national character that is not parochial. While it details unsparingly the fragility of modern human relationships, the book is finally a triumphal celebration of literacy as a social bond - a theme that no doubt will come as a shock to a modern audience. The book is set in contemporary England, one of the most depressing and pathetic places on the face of the earth. Nevertheless, we deeply sympathize with all of the characters and even come to admire most of them. ''The Book and the Brotherhood'' (in which women feature most prominently) traces a group of intelligent if confused and lazy contemporaries, known as the Brotherhood, from their halcyon days at Oxford through middle age; the group is united in its fascination with the charismatic David Crimond. Crimond is writing a book, a revolutionary utopian tract of political philosophy, and his engagement is inversely proportionate to his acolytes' lapsed political faith. Nevertheless, they band together to support him financially in his lonely endeavor. A sociologist would find a lot of cheap thrills here: the baleful bond of Oxford days, vaguely bisexual men and de-eroticized women stumbling through a series of affairs into wizened bachelor / spinsterhoods, the process of how we come to fall in love with old friends, and above all, the strange fascination of the English upper middle classes with Communists of their own social credentials - the remnants of inherited wealth subsidizing the remnants of revolutionary ideology. It is the very stuff of satire - and yet, never once does Miss Murdoch stoop to easy ridicule or fall back on the easy cliches of black humor. In fact, there is a kind of modern heroism embedded in her book. David Crimond is one of the most interesting characters in recent literature, embodying that peculiar combination of puritanism and passion of the old-fashioned British intelligentsia, | LEFISTS IN LOVE |
108226_0 | LEAD: OF all the Christmas gifts exchanged on Capitol Hill last month, few attracted more interest than the biodegradable plastic bags Senator Tom Harkin included in the baskets of Iowa farm products that he delivered to colleagues. The bags, which are designed to decompose after a year or two, are at the head of a growing list of industrial products made with corn, the nation's largest and most important crop. OF all the Christmas gifts exchanged on Capitol Hill last month, few attracted more interest than the biodegradable plastic bags Senator Tom Harkin included in the baskets of Iowa farm products that he delivered to colleagues. The bags, which are designed to decompose after a year or two, are at the head of a growing list of industrial products made with corn, the nation's largest and most important crop. Across the country, laboratories and factories are grinding, processing and shaping corn into a wide variety of products that include water-absorbent filters, de-icing materials to replace road salt, molded plastics, chemical additives and adhesives. The corn-based products, representing a rare combination of ingenuity and foresight, could signal the start of an important economic transition for American agriculture. Developing new products from corn, soybeans, cotton and other crops could reduce surpluses, raise farm income and bring down the cost of the Government's agricultural subsidies, which have reached almost $50 billion over the last two years. By making more goods from biodegradable farm products instead of from petroleum-based plastics, the nation could lower its oil import bills, shrink city garbage piles and reduce pollution. The notion of using crops for things other than food and fiber is as old as agriculture. Cotton lint is used in the manufacture of some explosives. Tobacco is ground up to make a natural insecticide. Casein, a milk protein, is an ingredient in many adhesives. Last year, 340 million bushels of corn, almost 5 percent of the harvest, was turned into ethanol fuel. Despite these successes, the number of products made from crops is still surprisingly small. Researchers have focused on developing larger yields, not alternative uses. And it has been easier to make commercial products from other materials, particularly petrochemicals. But the momentum of the oil age may be slowing as lawmakers and the public recognize the economic and social costs of petrochemicals. Moreover, a new era of biological development is taking shape as researchers learn to | NEW INVENTIONS FROM THE CORNFIELD |
108440_0 | LEAD: My recollections as an obstetrics-gynecology practitioner in the early 1970's, at the time the Dalkon Shield was marketed, may be of interest. Patients who had been on the pill were so persuaded by articles in feminist magazines extolling the virtues of the shield that they would demand the shield and threaten to leave my practice if I did not oblige them. My recollections as an obstetrics-gynecology practitioner in the early 1970's, at the time the Dalkon Shield was marketed, may be of interest. Patients who had been on the pill were so persuaded by articles in feminist magazines extolling the virtues of the shield that they would demand the shield and threaten to leave my practice if I did not oblige them. (You are poisoning my body, they would tell me.) Fortunately, I never liked the look of the shield, and so put in only one or two. ROBERT H. TICHELL, M.D. Rochester | THE PRIVATE PAIN OF INFERTILITY |
108432_0 | LEAD: BLOWGUNS, FEATHER ORNAMENTS, shrunken heads: artifacts from past and present cultures of Amazonia, the tropical rain forest area of northern South America, are being assembled in the Hall of South American Peoples, which New York's Museum of Natural History is to open in October. Complementing an exhibit of Andean archeology, the hall's ethnographic display includes 1,000 Amazonian artifacts that were selected, over two years, from more than 15,000 in the museum's collection by Robert L. BLOWGUNS, FEATHER ORNAMENTS, shrunken heads: artifacts from past and present cultures of Amazonia, the tropical rain forest area of northern South America, are being assembled in the Hall of South American Peoples, which New York's Museum of Natural History is to open in October. Complementing an exhibit of Andean archeology, the hall's ethnographic display includes 1,000 Amazonian artifacts that were selected, over two years, from more than 15,000 in the museum's collection by Robert L. Carneiro, curator of South American ethnology, and Laila Williamson, a staff anthropologist. ''We went through four storerooms of stuff,'' Carneiro says. ''You look at every artifact with a fresh eye.'' Organized topically (individual display cases will be devoted, for example, to housing, hunting and fishing, food preparation), the exhibit is intended to provide the broadest of cultural lessons. ''One possibility was to organize according to individual villages,'' Carneiro says. ''But we decided there'd be too much overlap.'' The male mannequin above, representative of Brazil's Rikbaktsa Indians, is from the adornment case. Friendly (''a very nice group,'' Carneiro says), the Rikbaktsas are deep-forest dwellers, undiscovered until the late 1950's; the costumery remains contemporary. His necklaces are stringed seeds. His earlobe plugs are sanded wood. His nose ornament (its feathers once were a macaw's) comes apart and fits through a perforated septum. His Pan-pipe is made from a harpy eagle's quills. The mannequin was designed and cast in plaster by Ivan and Elliot Schwartz, of Brooklyn, from the model of a city street vendor. ''He's of mixed American Indian background,'' Carneiro says. ''No model we can get here has the right kind of feet. The Indians don't wear shoes, so their toes splay out.'' WORKS IN PROGRESS | Evoking the Amazon |
108130_6 | destiny of ruling the world and to warn him of some of his predecessor's errors. The eloquence and splendor of the style are in keeping with what the imperial philosopher might have written himself, and the supposed monograph is not interrupted by unlikely recollected dialogues or dramatically re-enacted episodes. One can enjoy the illusion of reading a recently unearthed historical document. TO my mind the greatest achievement of what she called her ''meditation upon history'' lies in the sense conveyed of the essential loneliness of the man who has gained the supreme power and learned to use it humanely. It is a loneliness that his situation thrusts on him, but it is also a condition that he seems to need and almost desire. He cannot bear to be dominated by another human, and he comes to fear that even love will threaten his necessary independence. When love does bind him, toward the end of his reign, it is almost in nonhuman form. Antinous, the beautiful, muscular boy, silent, sultry and utterly adoring, seems more like a faithful hound, and when he drowns himself in the belief that his sacrifice will prolong his master's life, it is as if he finally isolated Hadrian from the rest of humanity, condemning him to the solitude of the leader who has had the hubris to emulate a god. Here is the beautiful passage describing the Emperor's resistance to his passion: ''I was beginning to realize that our observance of that heroic code which Greece had built around the attachment of a mature man for a younger companion is often no more for us than hypocrisy and pretence. More sensitive to Rome's prejudices than I was aware, I recalled that although they grant sensuality a role they see only shameful folly in love. . . . In this passion of a wholly different order I was finally reinstating all that had irritated me in my Roman mistresses. . . . Fears almost without justification had entered that brooding heart; I have seen the boy anxious at the thought of soon becoming nineteen. Dangerous whims and sudden anger shaking the Medusa-like curls above that stubborn brow alternated with a melancholy which was close to stupor, and with a gentleness more and more broken. Once I struck him; I shall remember forever those horrified eyes. But the offended idol remained an idol, and my expiatory sacrifices began.'' | ON POWER AND HISTORY: WHAT MARGUERITE YOURCENAR KNEW |
108153_1 | Porter is perfectly faithful to Mr. Todorov's style and intention, as were her translations of ''Theories of the Symbol'' and ''Symbolism and Interpretation,'' the two previous volumes in the trilogy of which this is the final part. This said, ''Literature and Its Theorists'' is now at our disposal and we can begin, along with Mr. Todorov, by asking: what, after all, is the purpose of criticism? Judging by this enterprise, it is a rather muted intellectual autobiography in which Mr. Todorov, reviewing those critics he has savored in the past, now serves them up in a critical sauce. The results are seminarlike synopses ranging from Roman Jakobson to Roland Barthes and passing through other luminaries such as Sartre, Maurice Blanchot and Mikhail Bakhtin. Mr. Todorov discovers faults in all of them. These thumbnail interpretations of a lifetime's work, rather than engaging the reader in an open and constructive dialogue, tend to close off discussion. In this way, the author is faithful to the 18th-century passion for classification, where proof of one's genius rested in the discovery of categories one might fill with all of human knowledge. The 18th century is significant here, given Mr. Todorov's reading of those contemporary critics who have merely updated positions held by the philosopher Immanuel Kant and by the literary critic Karl Philipp Moritz, who stressed the examination of the literary work rather than playing on its relations to outside references. Mr. Todorov sees his analyses as an unfinished Bildungsroman, and that approach raises certain questions for a reviewer. Shall I praise this reductionist presentation as one man's ''pony'' to certain 20th-century critics? Shall I call into question the exclusion of some of the most significant readers of our time, such as Freud, Heidegger or even Georges Bataille? Or should I just appreciate from the grandstands the retrospective joustings of Mr. Todorov against a multitude of influential critics? Let me illustrate the pleasures and perils of Mr. Todorov's personal views of critical theorists. On one side are the successors to the Russian Formalists, who claimed that poetic language existed in a world apart from the practical language of communication (French criticism is indebted to Mr. Todorov's translations of these early 20th-century thinkers). The Formalists' heirs, critics such as Barthes, insist that the poetic text was a self-generating verbal mechanism independent of all cultural contexts. At the other extreme, critics and writers such as Brecht, Sartre | WHAT CRITICS HAVE DONE, AND HOW WELL |
108116_3 | good Japanese manners dictated - held up and scrutinized and admired my loving-hands-from-home packaging before unveiling the contents. On my return to the United States, newly aware of the many constraints, I looked for a token of appreciation for a Japanese woman who had been kind to me. I thought a designer scarf Gift-giving goes beyond national boundaries. would be personal and not excessive. Luckily, I happened to look at the corner of one scarf before making my decision. Almost all of the scarves by Italian designers sported a ''Made in Japan'' label. Finally, we did discover the universally acceptable gift for many Japanese occasions. Not to put too fine a point on it, most Japanese love a bottle or two of Scotch. They grin. ''Scotch, for me?'' European friends require a different strategy. Maple syrup has proved to be an interesting American novelty. It definitely appeals to the Dutch sweet tooth, but is difficult to integrate into the French cuisine. Here, too, there have been pitfalls, primarily with transporting the stuff. The cans are heavy. If there are many stops, it becomes tiresome to glug and gurgle up and down flight after flight of steps. The final blow to the maple syrup solution came recently when I was stopped in an airport because the X-ray had picked up a small tin in my hand luggage. To the uninitiated Air France employees it looked and shook suspiciously like a bomb. No more maple sugar, I thought, as I presented the ''bomb'' to my hostess later that day. Now what am I to bring? ''You carried this from the States for me?'' she asked. I'd heard that phrase before. ''All the way for me?'' That was it. What was important was not the blueberries, the pottery, the scarf, the maple syrup. What mattered was that we had looked forward to the meeting, had searched for a suitable gift and had found room for it in our tightly packed, stripped-down luggage. Gift-giving is an international language; it brings moments of closeness that transcend national boundaries. There is the universal lift that both sides experience when the gift is offered, the elation of ''You brought this for me,'' the climax of shared pleasure as the contents are revealed. Finally, for both giver and receiver, the knowledge that the simple token will trigger the essence of the event and friendship in memory. WESTCHESTER OPINION | THE RIGHT GIFTS TO TAKE ABROAD |
108403_1 | a summer camp a year in advance. With a trip overseas, a lot depends upon trust and reputation. And reputation is not an easy matter, since there may be three or four layers at the top of a program before you reach the company that actually charters an airplane or bus. In the last couple of years at least, there has been a spot of firm ground for parents of secondary school students. A new pamphlet, ''Advisory List of International Educational Travel and Exchange Programs, 1988,'' its third edition, is particularly helpful. It evaluates 36 programs for teen-agers who want to study or do volunteer work overseas for a while, and for foreign teen-agers coming to the United States temporarily. It also provides a lot of helpful information on evaluating programs other than these 36, particularly on the crucial question of finding out whom you are really dealing with. The organization that publishes the booklet, the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel, is a nonprofit group that grew out of a 1982 Government effort to encourage youth exchange programs. The council has been supported in its infancy by the National Association of Secondary School Principals and has the endorsement of the State Department. The United States Information Agency says inside the booklet cover that ''this list provides the best information on many of the quality exchange programs available to young people interested in travel and study abroad.'' This agency also underwrites free distribution of the 104-page booklet. There are more than 36 such programs in the world; a program achieves listing in the booklet only by requesting it, sending specified material, including evidence of financial stability, to the evaluating committee and submitting a fee of $150. The council emphasizes that the programs that are passed upon are not rated against each other or even against those not in the booklet, but only on whether their materials meet the council's basic standards and whether their programs are within reaching distance of their sponsors' objectives. They make a presumption that the organizations will deliver what they promise, although the booklet includes a coupon that solicits information from participants in any program. The 36 listed programs are the survivors of 55 that initially sought evaluation; some dropped out of the process to repair deficiencies, according to Douglas W. Hunt, the chairman of the council's board of directors, and a dozen or so | Shopping for Study Programs |
111807_1 | five years, again rolled forward positions yesterday in expectation of still higher prices later this year and next. Traders in world sugar futures, which are at their highest price level in five years, again rolled forward positions yesterday in expectation of still higher prices later this year and next. Domestic sugar prices, which are insulated from the world market by high tariffs and import fees that keep raw prices at roughly 22 cents a pound, are not expected to be directly affected by shifts in the free market, at least for the foreseeable future. In any event, spot March futures dipped six-tenths of a cent a pound, to 10.07 cents, while the near May contract rose nine-tenths of a cent, to 9.85 cents. Gains in contracts for October to March 1989 ranged from 0.15 to 0.29 cent a pound. Almost all futures are trading near contract highs reached earlier in the week. The narrowing of price spreads this week between the near and more distant delivery months is evidence that traders are still shifting out of nearby contracts and into the more distant deliveries. For example, the spread between the near March futures and the March 1989 delivery narrowed to 0.22 cent yesterday, from 0.40 cent the day before and 0.69 cent on Tuesday. Expectations of shortages in foreign sugar supplies have also led to unusual hedging and speculative activity on the New York Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange. A seat on the exchange sold for $100,000 yesterday, up from $70,000 the day before and the 1987 high of $58,000. The record price for a seat was $125,000, paid Sept. 29, 1980, during a period of rampant inflation. ''The rise in world sugar supplies reflects the potent combination of erratic weather and politics,'' said Nauman Barakat, senior analyst at Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Company. ''In Brazil, it is the return of the drought in the northeast that is reducing supplies. In Cuba, it has been untimely dry spells followed by uncommonly heavy rains. Indeed, only 20 of Cuba's 50 mills are operating and that is why Havana has asked its customers to defer taking 1988 deliveries until 1989 and even 1990.'' Mr. Barakat also said that political unrest in the major sugar-growing areas of the Philippines had affected supplies from that large exporter. And, the largest sugar producer, the Soviet Union, has also had weather-related problems, he said. FUTURES/OPTIONS | Sugar Traders Are Betting On Long-Term Price Rise |
113596_0 | LEAD: One of three Lebanese-born Canadian citizens accused of smuggling a bomb into the United States has pleaded guilty in Federal District Court here to two charges in connection with the incident. One of three Lebanese-born Canadian citizens accused of smuggling a bomb into the United States has pleaded guilty in Federal District Court here to two charges in connection with the incident. The 38-year-old defendant, Walid Majib Mourad, pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of conspiring to transport a destructive device across the United States-Canada border and of violating Federal immigration laws by trying to transport another defendant, Walid Nicolas Kabbani, who is accused of entering the United States illegally. Mr. Mourad could face a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each charge. The plea came on the first day of a trial in connection with the bomb-smuggling incident, which took place last October at a remote border crossing in northwestern Vermont. Mr. Mourad's co-defendants, Mr. Kabbani, 36, and George Fouad Nicholas Younan, 44, are charged with transporting explosives without a license and with unlawful possession of firearms. A Van and a Black Bag Mr. Mourad and Mr. Younan legally crossed the border in Richford on Oct. 23, telling Federal immigration officials that they planned to spend the weekend in Boston. An hour later electronic warning devices signaled the United States Border Patrol that someone had walked across the border after following the Canadian Pacific Railroad tracks. That evening Police Chief Richard Jewett of Richford said he saw a silver van parked near the tracks and man nearby who was carrying a black bag. He asked the driver of the van, later identified as Mr. Mourad, to move it, and the driver complied. Subsequently, the chief picked up the man on foot, later identified as Mr. Kabbani, and gave him a ride to the border, then returned to search the area for the black bag. Objects in Bag Described According to a court document, the bag contained ''two propane-type cylinders taped together'' and ''what appeared to be a detonating device, surgical gloves, wire cutters and a black mask.'' The Vermont state police later confirmed that the device was a bomb. All three defendants have been held without bail at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans. George J. Terwilliger 3d, the United States Attorney here, aknowledged that the authorities did not know the | DEFENDANT GUILTY IN BOMB SMUGGLING |
113656_0 | LEAD: Eleven people were arrested at La Guardia Airport and scores of departing passengers were delayed yesterday evening when about 60 people protesting racial injustice in New York City blocked traffic lanes outside a terminal building. Eleven people were arrested at La Guardia Airport and scores of departing passengers were delayed yesterday evening when about 60 people protesting racial injustice in New York City blocked traffic lanes outside a terminal building. The group, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton of Brooklyn and the Rev. Timothy Mitchell, pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Queens, held demonstrations on Dec. 21 and Jan. 20, disrupting transportation in several parts of the city. Mr. Sharpton, Mr. Mitchell and nine other demonstrators were arrested after they refused to obey a court order prohibiting them from disrupting airport activities, the authorities said. Leaders of the group said they were protesting widespread racial injustice and demanding the appointment of a permanent special prosecutor to investigate cases of racial violence. Police Surround Demonstrators Shortly before 5:30 P.M., the demonstrators, surrounded by a police escort, walked up the departure ramp at La Guardia Airport, obstructing cars and buses arriving at the main terminal building for about 30 minutes. ''We told you we were going to come here,'' Mr. Sharpton said. ''The nation has to know how this city is treating us, and is killing us.'' As the 11 arrested people were led away, about 40 demonstrators on the sidewalk began shouting slogans, including ''No justice, no peace,'' and were quickly surrounded by police officers, but no additional arrests were made. A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Bill Cahill, said airlines were alerted about the disruption so they could hold planes at the gates for passengers who might be caught in stalled traffic caused by the demonstrations. Police Contingency Plans Mr. Cahill said those arrested were taken to the police desk at La Guardia. They were released after being given summonses for disorderly conduct, a violation that is punishable by up to 15 days imprisonment, a fine of up to $250, or both. They were ordered to appear March 2 in Queens Criminal Court. A Port Authority police inspector, Charles Newman, said the Port Authority and the New York City Police Department had been working on contingency plans for several weeks, and had successfully contained the demonstration. ''We got a temporary injunction to | 11 HELD AS RIGHTS PROTEST HALTS LA GUARDIA TRAFFIC |
113034_4 | an old man with an enormous tongue. The man had a pituitary tumor that oversecreted growth hormone. As a consequence, his tongue grew so large that it would hang out of his mouth and plug his nose when he tried to sleep. The standard treatment is to shrink the tumor with X-rays, but it takes months or years to work, Dr. Reichlin said. Shortly after the man began taking the synthetic somatostatin, his tongue had shrunk to half its previous size, he said. Effect on Pituitary The other clamp, the LRH analogues, turn off the pituitary's ability to stimulate another gland, the hypothalamus, to make hormones that act on the testes and ovaries. Like somatostatin, LRH is short-acting. But researchers have developed long-acting analogues that are 15 to 150 times as potent as LRH and that last for hours. A woman who takes one of these analogues stops making estrogen. As long as she takes the drug, she is essentially menopausal. The drug can be used to treat endometriosis, in which pieces of uterine tissue appear outside the uterus and grow in response to estrogen, as well as fibroid uterine tumors, which are benign but are the leading reason for hysterectomies. A man who takes one of these drugs stops making testosterone. The drug slows the growth of prostate cancer by reducing the supply of testosterone to the tumor. Men can take LRH analogues instead of having their testicles removed, experts said. Use Against Fibroid Tumors Dr. Andrew J. Friedman of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said that the LRH analogues are not a cure for fibroid tumors, but that they may make surgery easier or less drastic. As many as 25 percent of women develop these tumors and 20 to 50 percent of them have symptoms, ranging from excessive menstrual bleeding to lumps in the abdomen to recurrent miscarriages. Doctors treat the most severe cases with surgery, often removing the uterus but sometimes excising the tumors alone. Dr. Friedman has established that fibroid tumors shrink to half their previous size when women take an LRH analog, but he stressed that the drug is not a long-term treatment because it may lead to a loss of calcium from bones, which occurs when estrogen is lacking. Dr. Friedman is now studying whether LRH analogues can reduce the surgical risk in women who want their tumors removed, but not their uterus. | 'Chemical Clamps' May Eliminate Some Surgery |
109318_1 | of its predecessor: Knowledge and control of one's body is fundamental, and women must seize their right to determine how they live as they age. Just as the earlier book emphasized pregnancy as a healthy process rather than an illness, the new book treats menopause as a natural stage of life. ''We've attempted to demystify aging, like 'Our Bodies' did with reproduction,'' said Diana Laskin Siegal, one co-author. Older women live an average of eight years longer than men. According to the 1979 census, older men are twice as likely as older women to be married. The average age of widowhood is 56, and the average widow lives for 18 years after her husband's death. The first section discusses aging well through diet and exercise. The second talks about relationships and finances. ''Women over 65 are twice as likely to be poor as men,'' said Paula Brown Doress, the other principal author. The third segment is on specific illnesses. Ms. Siegal, 56, is a public health professional living in Brighton, Mass. Ms. Doress, 49, is an original member of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective and was a co-author of ''Our Bodies, Ourselves.'' The book acknowledges that factors like the loss of a mate or physical disability may reduce sexual drive, but it stresses that people are sexual throughout their lives. ''Sex is a revitalizing and positive aspect of growing older,'' Ms. Doress said. Several women told of experiences in establishing lesbian relationships in middle age after a heterosexual youth. There is a section on masturbation and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Medical factors that particularly affect aging women, like osteoporosis, hysterectomy and urinary incontinence, are discussed in consumer terms, in which knowledge of the condition, options and other women's experiences may be used to evaluate individual cases. Each medical section has been reviewed by doctors, nurses and health-care professionals. ''Medical practictioners are not trained to deal with issues of older people,'' Ms. Siegal said. ''They view aging as an illness, whereas most older people are well.'' A long chapter is devoted to lack of bladder control, ''often the main reason women are put into nursing homes,'' Ms. Siegal said. In the book, menopause is treated as a normal life event, rather than a medical incident. It gives this advice for hot flashes: Keep a record in order to predict them, dress in layers, drink water, carry a fan, avoid alcohol | Growing Older: A Call for Self-Determination for Women |
109288_2 | is interested in ancient civilizations. ''The Greeks were the great originators; the Romans, the great imitators. And ironically, today we've been compared to the Romans, a civilization on the decline.'' ''I see this new interest in antiquity as a reaction against minimalism,'' said Michael Ward, a Manhattan dealer in museum-quality antiquities and early European art. ''The rediscovery of antiquity gives people something to feel secure about. Also, there is an attraction to what was and is grand.'' Recalling the glamour of the past is important to Jerry Van Deelen, the owner of Jerrystyle, who is considered in the vanguard of the look. ''I'm taking the old and twisting it for the 21st century,'' Mr. Van Deelen explained. ''I'm in it for the entertainment value. It's Greek, Roman and Etruscan - what I call 'ancient modern.' The idea is to spend only a moderate amount of money and get the maximum style for it.'' In Mr. Van Deelen's shop, draped canvas acts as a backdrop for a large stock of brass animal-hoofed tables, verdigris lamps and classically hewn accessories made of well-patinated copper, natural calcite, goatskin and quartz crystal. ''The idea is to take ancient concepts and see that they're somewhat recognizable, but that one is never sure exactly where they are from,'' Mr. Van Deelen said. ''The artists who are making tracks back into history and delving back into the beginnings of clay and paint are asking themselves, 'Where did it all start?' '' said Ann Nathan, the owner of the Objects Gallery in Chicago. ''They are reaching back to get their own original view.'' In Arnold, Calif., Susan Garson and Tom Pakele create painted earthenware bowls with Greek motifs, but they said their work is primarily contemporary. Their pieces are sold in shops like V. Breier in San Francisco, the Hand and the Spirit in Scottsdale, Ariz., and the Carlyn Gallery and Civilisation in New York. The mixing of disparate cultures apparently encourages a sense of humor. ''These days I seem to be combining ancient Greece and Mexico,'' said Linda Hoffhines, an artist in Chicago whose clay pieces incorporate broken bits of tile and glass. ''The Greeks were too classical for my taste, but I've always liked the Romans,'' said Hayne Suthon, the owner of Cave Canem (from the Latin meaning beware of the dog), a Lower East Side restaurant where grapevines, draped canvas and plaster walls, inlaid mosaic | Lighthearted Classics Evoke Epochs Ancient and Archetypal |
107621_1 | at least twice the world market price. The protection, combined with an influx of corn-based sugar, has also hurt companies that refine raw cane sugar. These refineries are operating at about 50 percent of capacity. Although Congress passed the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act of 1983 to help countries of that region by giving them greater access to the United States market, it has in the last five years progressively reduced their sugar quotas - from 1.1 million tons to 275,000 tons. Yet sugar still represents one of their biggest export items. Some analysts said the measure signaled a strong Congressional sympathy for these regions. The 400,000 tons is on top of the 750,000 tons that the United States will import from all sugar-growing countries this year. Backed by Domestic Industry Still, the provision had the backing of domestic cane and beet sugar growers. That is because the imported sugar will be refined in the United States, providing refiners with additional work, but will not be sold domestically and so will not compete with American sugar. It has to be shipped out in 30 days and sold at the world market price. ''We have some interest in avoiding unnecessary difficulty for Caribbean and Filipino sugar industries,'' said Eiler Ravnholt, vice president of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association, who worked with Senator Inouye's staff on the measure. The Government picks up the difference between the high United States import price for raw sugar, around 21 cents a pound, which the refiner pays, and the lower world market price, around 10 cents a pound, at which the refiner will sell the processed sugar - a tab of $100 million, based on 400,000 tons, according to trade analysts in Washington. Agriculture Department officials said they were studying the measure, which was just a small part of the $600 billion spending bill that Congress passed before Christmas. ''It's something our lawyers are looking at very closely, but we're just not sure yet about the specifics,'' an Agriculture Department spokesman said. The Reagan Administration had opposed the measure both because of the cost and the precedent of using American funds in support of foreign agricultural production. The Commodity Credit Corporation, the unit of the Agriculture Department that pays the bill, was initially set up to help American farmers. But the foreign sugar growers and the domestic refiners welcomed the measure. 'We Are Pleased' ''This only | '87 Spending Law Contained Benefit for Sugar Producers |
107461_1 | is a normal pattern that may be repeated several times during the first 10 years of life. There's nothing you can do to prevent it. It doesn't mean you're a bad parent. What should you do when your 3-year-old rejects you? First, don't do anything dramatic. Keep in mind that children are not miniature adults. ''A child can say 'I hate you!' and not mean it the way an adult would,'' said Dr. Robert B. Brooks, a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School. The connotations we attach to such words make them appear more piercing than the child intends. At age 3, a child is just beginning to deal with the subtleties of language. While he may appear to be fluent and in touch with his emotions, he is not. His vocabulary and range of experiences are limited. Although he says that he hates, he may simply feel frustrated and tired. One way to check if there may be a more serious problem than crankiness is simply to ask the child why he hates you. A preschooler probably won't be able to explain why he said it. If that's the case, your child was probably trying to cope with more than he could handle at the time. He had to do Dr. Lawrence Kutner is a psychologist, journalist and producer of television documentaries. He lives and works in Minneapolis. something to demonstrate his frustration, so he said what you didn't want to hear. If your child is frustrated, talk to him about that feeling. Help him learn that you still love him when he feels that way. If he's tired, have him take a nap or go to sleep for the evening. Be sure not to present the nap or going to bed as a punishment for what he said. Older children who say they hate you should be treated a bit differently. As children progress through elementary school, their use of language becomes more sophisticated and their range of emotions widens. They develop a greater understanding of the power of words. If you are rejected by a 9- or 10-year-old child, according to Dr. Brooks, you should explain that the statement confuses you. Ask what's going on. Your child may be feeling that he or she is a disappointment to you. Rather than risk being attacked, the child makes a pre-emptive strike. Don't respond to statements like ''I don't | PARENT & CHILD |
110881_0 | LEAD: The Nutrasweet Company is planning to announce the development of a fat substitute that could reduce calories and cholesterol in many foods, according to a report published in Crain's Chicago Business, a weekly publication. The company declined to comment, but a spokesman said Nutrasweet had scheduled a news conference in New York on Jan. The Nutrasweet Company is planning to announce the development of a fat substitute that could reduce calories and cholesterol in many foods, according to a report published in Crain's Chicago Business, a weekly publication. The company declined to comment, but a spokesman said Nutrasweet had scheduled a news conference in New York on Jan. 27 to announce a ''major revolution in food.'' Nutrasweet, a subsidiary of the Monsanto Company of Skokie, Ill., markets aspartame, a low-calorie sweetener sold as NutraSweet and Equal. The new product, which is reportedly derived from a milk protein, would require approval from the Food and Drug Administration. COMPANY NEWS | A Nutrasweet Product Is Due |
109068_3 | the church, had long pumped vast sums of money into the parish. Six years ago, when demolition of the building was under study, an anonymous donor described as a wealthy businessman on the Board of Trade stepped forward and promised to meet the costs of refurbishing. But disagreements ensued between the donor and the church, and, having spent some $200,000 for restoration of the main tower, he withdrew his offer. The cost of full renovation today is estimated at $3 million. And even if the building were in perfect shape, heating and other maintenance costs would likely far exceed what the parish could afford. Since the Great Fire, which spared the church while consuming everything around it, seven candles have burned day and night inside as eternal thanksgiving for what was seen as a miracle of God's protection. Now Mr. DeSanti, the elderly usher, who believes the governing board's decision to raze the church is probably the right one, still wishes there was another way. It was there, 70 years ago, that he received his first communion. Later his wedding took place there. Mr. DeSanti can remember the days when so many Catholics lived in the neighborhood that some parishioners would give 10 cents to an usher to make sure of getting a good seat for the Sunday service. Now, with the church's future looking bleak, Mr. DeSanti says, ''We can hope for a miracle.'' By DIRK JOHNSON CHICAGO, Jan. 12 - More than a century ago, struggling immigrant families, mostly from Ireland and Italy, pulled together to erect a church that matched their own gritty determination and soaring hopes. And neither wind nor fire could bring it down. The Great Fire of 1871 leveled all except a relatively few structures in the heart of the city, but Holy Family Roman Catholic Church, which had opened 11 years earlier, remained standing. And when violent storms and tornadoes vanquished other buildings, Holy Family did not waver. Now the church is due to fall, not to natural disaster but to the wrecking crane. Its inner-city congregation, poorer than ever and dwindling in number, simply cannot support it. ''It's a question of priorities: Do you provide human services or do you maintain a building?'' said the pastor, the Rev. William Spine. ''Our mission rests with providing services. The people take priority.'' The stone church has pews for 1,400 people and ceilings more than | Chicago Journal; Poverty Kills a Church That Disaster Couldn't |
111563_2 | war imaginable. In Bonn this week, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the Soviet Foreign Minister, called for the elimination of such missiles, which have a range of less than 300 miles. But the Soviet envoy quickly added that this ''zero option'' could not be concluded ''except with the participation of other nuclear states.'' This was a clear allusion to France, which is in the process of replacing its short-range Pluton system with a new missile called Hades. Officials in Paris speculated that Mr. Shevardnadze was trying to intervene in an incipient French discussion over the role that the Hades should play in deterring a Warsaw Pact attack on Western Europe. A defender of France's nuclear force, President Francois Mitterrand has nonetheless begun to play down the importance of these ''pre-strategic'' weapons in favor of missiles that can strike the Soviet Union itself. Signs of Change in France France has always been proud of its solid national consensus on military matters, but there are some signs that it is beginning to soften. A looser West German consensus was badly shaken by the debate over the deployment of American medium-range missiles in 1983; it has begun to be re-established as Mr. Kohl's Christian Democrats absorb arguments from the left-of-center Social Democrats, who fiercely opposed the American missiles. These subtle realignments are occurring just as France and West Germany are about to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a treaty that buried centuries-old enmities. On Friday, Mr. Kohl will be in Paris for the anniversary festivities, which will be marked by the unveiling of a joint military council. Pierre Hassner, a French academic authority on strategic issues, noted that in America and France, both in the midst of presidential election campaigns, evolution in military thinking was possible. Already, West European defense ministries have been confused and in some instances alarmed by a new American study called ''Discriminate Deterrence,'' which appears to revive the idea of endowing the alliance with a nuclear war-fighting capacity. 'Potential for Divisions' ''I think as it stands now there is more or less a united front against the Russians and the Germans,'' Mr. Hassner said, referring to American, French and British opposition to eliminating all tactical missiles. ''But there is a potential for divisions among the nay-sayers.'' Bonn has not so far endorsed the ''zero option,'' though it has been insisting that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization come up with a concept | Arms and Allies: NATO A-Arsenal Cuts Disputed |
111560_2 | foreign-operated civil or commercial systems.'' Details of the new policy are classified as secret. A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added, ''The 10-meter limit is no longer there. We will use whatever factors are needed to be competitive.'' Continuation of Security Experts outside the Government said it was likely the Government would still try to stop the publication of photographs that it viewed as threatening to national security. A company eager to build a satellite with 5-meter resolution, primarily for use by television networks and the print media, said it welcomed the end of the 10-meter limit. ''We're delighted,'' said Peter M. P. Norris, executive vice president of the EOSAT Company, of Lanham, Md., which runs the American Landsat satellites and sells space imagery. ''Our policy all along has been to charge ahead, hopeful that if a market developed for this product there would be a Government policy to support that.'' Last May a 51-page study by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment predicted a rising conflict between the Federal Government and journalists seeking to use increasingly sharp space pictures to report on military movements, nuclear missile installations and disasters. Already, many news organizations occasionally use pictures from commercial satellites. Today the Russians offer the world's best quality imagery, which has a 5-meter resolution. The next-best civilian satellite, the French SPOT satellite, can resolve objects down to 10 meters. The civilian-operated American Landsat satellites have a resolution no better than 30 meters. The Landsat system, pioneering by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, now consists of two aging satellites nearing the end of their lifetimes. Concern on Restriction Until two years ago, Landsat, with its 30-meter resolution, offered the only commercially available photographs from space, and had enjoyed that monopoly for more than a decade. As the French and then the Russians offered far sharper space photographs, experts inside and outside the United States Government expressed concern about being bound by the 10-meter limit and had little interest in even trying to reach it, since it had already been surpassed by others. According to a former NASA official who helped design the Landsat system, the 10-meter civil limit was developed in the late 1960's by the Defense Department, specifically with an eye to curbing future Landsat advances. In 1978 President Carter signed a secret directive limiting the power of civil satellites that is widely believed to | U.S. Ends Curb On Photographs From Satellites |
111436_1 | current therapy involves administration of estrogen. While highly effective in stemming bone loss, estrogen slightly increases the risk of uterine cancer in some women. The value of exercise to bones has been indicated in a variety of previous studies. People who are physically active, even into old age, tend to have denser bones than sedentary people of the same age. Elderly women who start exercising, even as late as 80, can slow and even reverse some bone loss. However, the kinds and amounts of exercise most effective in enhancing bone strength have not yet been established. In one new study, conducted at the University of Toronto and published last month in The British Medical Journal, 48 healthy postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to one of three groups. One group did 30 minutes of aerobic exercise (walking, jogging and dancing) three times a week; another did the same aerobic exercises plus low-intensity training to build strength for an additional 10 to 15 minutes three times a week, and the control group had no regular fitness exercise. Increase in Bone Mass After a year, women in both exercise groups showed a significant increase in bone mass compared with the women who did not exercise, but no added benefit was seen from strength training. The participants consumed an average of 500 to 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day, one-third to two-thirds the 1,500 milligrams currently recommended for postmenopausal women. In the calcitonin study, researchers sought a way to administer the hormone that would protect bones without causing undue side effects. Previous studies involved injections of calcitonin, with as many as a third of the participants reporting such unpleasant reactions as facial flushing and inflammation at the injection site. The researchers, at the University of Liege in Belgium, reported in the journal The Lancet last month that a year of treatment with intranasal calcitonin prevented the expected bone loss without causing troublesome side effects. In the study, 79 women were randomly assigned to one of two groups, one taking 500 milligrams of calcium a day alone or one taking the calcium plus the intranasal calcitonin. After one year of treatment administered five days a week, the calcium-only group had lost bone density but the group that received calcitonin as well had gained a small amount of bone. The research team urged further study of the regimen to assess its long-term effects on bone loss. | Alternative Therapies for Fighting Osteoporosis |
111466_1 | their education with high school, with or without diplomas. The report contended that Americans without advanced education are being shut out of an economy that increasingly demands specialized skills that are learned in college. At the same time, stable, well-paying jobs that do not generally require a college education, in fields like agriculture, manufacturing and transportation, are disappearing. This predicament ''threatens to undermine the transition of increasing numbers of young people into stable marriages and financially secure family life,'' the report said. ''The plight of the young person without advanced education, never easy, has become alarming in recent years,'' the report noted. ''In a fast-changing economy that demands increasingly specialized skills, these young people are in danger of being left at the starting gate.'' The 104-page report, called ''The Forgotten Half: Non-College Youth in America,'' was issued by the Commission on Youth and America's Future, a panel established by the William T. Grant Foundation, a private organization. At a news conference here today, the commission's chairman, Harold Howe 2d, said that many youths were being short-changed by public school systems that concentrate on preparing students for college. Mr. Howe, a former United States Commissioner of Education and a senior lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, said that public policy now promotes programs to help students pay for college, but that few programs help others to enter the job market, either through job-training or internships. ''Most young people who are not in college are trying their best to make it in the adult world,'' the report said. ''These young people are working more than one job at a time, living longer with parents, delaying marriage and family and seeking out new training to advance themselves.'' The report urged the Federal Government to expand training and educational programs for disadvantaged youth, like the Job Corps and Head Start. The report also called on schools to make their coursework more flexible and to encourage students who drop out of high school to return to class. It urged businesses to hire youths without college degrees in jobs that offer a chance for advancement. The report said that nationwide efforts during the 1980's to improve schools have not served youths who are less academically inclined. ''In general, the school reform reports have focused their attention on college-bound students,'' the reported noted. ''This course may be right for some but not for others.'' | Youths Finding Success Elusive Without College |
108615_1 | results so far. Population continues to grow by an estimated 2.1 percent a year, only slightly below the level of the 1970's. At this rate, India, which is estimated to have 780 million people today, is expected to exceed one billion around the turn of the century and begin closing the gap with China, which already has more than one billion people but has three times India's land mass. The most optimistic Government projections say India will not stabilize its population until the year 2050, at 1.3 billion people. This concerns the experts, who trace virtually every major domestic problem to overpopulation - from poverty to sectarian violence, unemployment and environmental degradation. ''You often hear people wonder why we are wasting so much money on population control,'' a senior official said, referring to the current five-year program costing $2.6 billion. ''My own feeling is that we are wasting the money unless we spend a lot more. Only a massive effort will solve the problem.'' A Sensitive Issue Years of experimentation have taught Indian leaders that almost no issue is more sensitive politically. In the 1970's, reports of forced sterilizations contributed to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's surprising election defeat. Subsequent governments played down the subject, and birth rates jumped between 1977 and 1982. The Government now has a two-prong strategy in population control. The first is to change people's attitudes with an extensive promotional campaign, using posters and television and radio commercials emphasizing the goal of the two-child family. The second is to improve literacy and education in general for women. Officials reason that women, who traditionally play a secondary role in families, are a great resource to be mobilized behind limiting family size. ''The perception of women about themselves and the way society perceives them will have to be changed by a mass movement,'' a recent report on family planning declared. Perhaps more decisive, officials say, will be the related effort to increase health services for mothers and children, especially among the vast numbers of rural poor. India has set targets of immunizing 82 million infants in the next few years and making anti-diarrhea treatments universal. Diarrhea is a major cause of infant mortality. But other experts say India will control its population growth only when it improves its standard of living. Even under the most optimistic circumstances, they say, this may not happen until well into the next century. | Why New Delhi's Plans Just Don't Work |
114050_0 | LEAD: For thousands of years, this small coastal area of southern India has fancied itself as a world apart, separated from the rest of the subcontinent by mountains and influenced by spice traders, missionaries and other foreign visitors. For thousands of years, this small coastal area of southern India has fancied itself as a world apart, separated from the rest of the subcontinent by mountains and influenced by spice traders, missionaries and other foreign visitors. But today the state of Kerala is drawing attention for new reasons. While most of India lags in curbing population growth, Kerala has been a dramatic exception. Everyone from Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on down has been trying to figure out why. Experts say there are two main reasons for Kerala's record. First, the state has long placed a premium on delivering health services to its families. Second, it has an extraordinary record in elevating the literacy rates and economic opportunities -and therefore the consciousness - of women. Raising Awareness of Women In a country where women are generally less well off than men in terms of health, education and family status, Kerala is cited by feminists as an example of how improving the quality of women's lives can yield far-reaching results. ''At its heart, our population problem symbolizes the powerlessness of women in our society,'' said Rami Chabbra, press adviser to the Health and Family Welfare Ministry in New Delhi. ''We must therefore activate the awareness of women - shake them up and teach them to be self-confident and assertive.'' Vijay Lakshmi, the director of public health services in Kerala, asserted that Kerala had already succeeded in this task. ''In northern India, women just do the housework and have never learned to read and write,'' she said. ''Here, women play more of a partnership in the family. They have a higher stake in deciding how many children each family has. In Kerala, a male cannot just brush his wife aside and make her a child-rearing machine.'' A 'Dead End' Elsewhere In a recent interview, Prime Minister Gandhi complained that the nation's drive to curb population growth had hit a ''dead end'' after earlier progress. ''Our birth rate came down for a while, but now it's flat,'' he said. The Prime Minister said many lessons were to be learned from Kerala's unusual success story. On the other hand, experts agree that the state's experience also | WHERE BIRTHS ARE KEPT DOWN AND WOMEN AREN'T |
113995_0 | LEAD: World sugar futures prices broke a monthlong upward trend and plunged below 10 cents a pound yesterday on indications that a tight supply situation was easing, analysts said. World sugar futures prices broke a monthlong upward trend and plunged below 10 cents a pound yesterday on indications that a tight supply situation was easing, analysts said. On other markets, livestock and meat futures moved lower; grain and soybean futures were mostly lower; energy futures advanced, and precious metals retreated. The contract for March delivery of sugar on New York's Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange settled 0.44 cent lower, at 9.98 cents a pound. Prices retreated on expectations that estimates next week from the West German statistical firm F. O. Licht will show a reduction in the world sugar-production deficit, said Debra Tropp, an analyst in New York with Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. Last week, a major British trade house estimated 1987-88 global production of sugar would fall as much as four million metric tons below consumption, Ms. Tropp said. ''However, Licht seems to have a more conservative estimate of crop damage in Brazil and India, and they are also looking for greater production in the Soviet Union,'' she said. Rumors on Cattle Livestock and meat futures retreated on a combination of technical factors and rumors that a common livestock feed additive may cause cancer, analysts said. Cattle futures began selling off in the morning in a reversal of Wednesday's advances, which had pushed the April live cattle contract to a new lifetime high, said Chuck Levitt, an analyst in Chicago for Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. Then rumors arose that several studies under way could show that sulfa methazine, a chemical often added to livestock feed to prevent pneumonia, may be a carcinogen, Mr. Levitt said. ''It couldn't have happend at a worse moment,'' Mr. Levitt said. ''The market was just ripe for a sell-off after getting into an overbought condition.'' FUTURES/OPTIONS | Sugar Prices Fall Sharply In Advance of New Report |
112143_0 | LEAD: One of three white teen-agers convicted of manslaughter and assault for attacking three black men in Howard Beach, Queens, was sentenced yesterday to the maximum of 10 to 30 years in prison by a judge who denounced him for the ''hatred'' and ''savageness'' shown by his actions. One of three white teen-agers convicted of manslaughter and assault for attacking three black men in Howard Beach, Queens, was sentenced yesterday to the maximum of 10 to 30 years in prison by a judge who denounced him for the ''hatred'' and ''savageness'' shown by his actions. In an emotion-laden scene in a crowded Queens courtroom, the convicted teen-ager, 18-year-old Jon Lester, was told by Justice Thomas A. Demakos that he would have to serve a minimum of 10 years before he would be eligible for parole because his ''callousness toward the life of another human being must not go unpunished.'' 'Racism Breeds Hatred' Amid weeping and shouts of protests by Mr. Lester's family and friends -and applause and cries that ''Justice has been done!'' by black people sitting on the other side of the courtroom -Justice Demakos declared: ''What happened in Howard Beach -and make no mistake about it, no ifs, ands or buts about it - it was a racial incident that triggered off this violence.'' ''What should be obvious to everyone here,'' he said before television and photographers' cameras and 200 spectators in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens, Queens, ''is that racism breeds hatred and hatred breeds racism and it is a vicious circle.'' As Mr. Lester, a brown-haired young man of medium build, listened without visible emotion at the defense table, the 64-year-old judge criticized those who had written him urging leniency for the teen-ager, the first of those convicted to be sentenced following the guilty verdicts last month in their three-month-long trial. #1,500 Pleas for Leniency ''What disturbs me about all these letters is that there is no remorse,'' Justice Demakos said, his words carried live by some television and radio stations. He said many of the more than 1,500 letters he had received in behalf of leniency ''treat this case as a political and unwarranted conviction of the community of Howard Beach.'' ''This is not a conviction of a community'' but of the three defendants, he said in response to the letters, most of which, he added, were ''form letters'' sent in response to such | HOWARD BEACH DEFENDANT GIVEN MAXIMUM TERM OF 10 TO 30 YEARS |
112171_0 | LEAD: BASEBALL BASEBALL ST. LOUIS (NL) - Reached terms with Bob Forsch, pitcher, on a one-year contract. MINNEAPOLIS (AL) - Signed Greg Gagne, shortstop, to a one-year contract. KANSAS CITY (AL) - Signed Luis Aquino, pitcher; Jose DeJesus, pitcher; Rick Anderson, pitcher; Bill Pecota, infielder, and Joe Citari, first baseman, to one-year contracts. BASKETBALL WASHINGTON (NBA) - Activated Darrell Walker, guard, from injured-reserve list and placed Jay Murphy, forward, on list. MILWAUKEE (NBA) - Activated Larry Krystkowiak, forward, from injured-reserve list. HOCKEY MINNESOTA (NHL) - Anncounced that Dennis Maruk, center, was suspended by the National Hockey League for three games for cross-checking incident against Toronto Jan. 13. HARTFORD (NHL) - Sent Tom Martin, forward, to American Hockey League affiliate in Binghamton, N.Y. EDMONTON (NHL) - Traded Moe Mantha, defenseman, to Minnesota for Keith Acton, center. PITTSBURGH (NHL) - Called up Dwight Mathiasen, right wing, from International Hockey League affiliate. COLLEGES WEST CHESTER - Accepted resignation of Richard Yoder as athletic director. | Transactions |
112047_0 | LEAD: Drought in Brazil's sugar-growing regions sent prices of sugar futures to life-of-contract highs yesterday on the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange. Drought in Brazil's sugar-growing regions sent prices of sugar futures to life-of-contract highs yesterday on the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange. In heavy trading, March delivery settled 0.33 cent higher, at 10.40 cents a pound, after having gone as high as 10.42 cents. The previous contract high of 10.35 cents was set Wednesday. In a report published after trading ended, Brazilian sugar traders estimated that the country's current sugar crop would total 8.5 million metric tons, down from the official target of 9.1 million. Geraldo Linhares, the export director of the Brazilian Sugar and Alcohol Institute, said Brazil would be able to meet its export commitments. However, he said, no more sugar will be offered for export until the supply situation becomes clearer. Sugar futures had moved lower earlier in a bearish reaction to reports that the Soviet Union would import less sugar this year than expected. Rumors that some Cuban sugar shipments would be disrupted by crop losses contributed to the rally, traders said. Orange Juice Prices Plunge Frozen orange juice futures closed sharply lower in New York as speculators who had anticipated a freeze in Florida sold their positions. March delivery settled at $1.718 a pound, off 2.05 cents. At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, cattle futures closed mixed to higher ahead of a Government report on the number of cattle being prepared for market. Many traders evened positions ahead of the report that was released after trading ended. The report said the number of cows put in feedlots during the fourth quarter was 99 percent of the number reported in the fourth quarter of 1986. That was on the high end of trade expectations. The report implies that more cattle will be coming on the market in coming months than had been expected, and futures prices are expected to open lower Monday morning. FUTURES/OPTIONS | Sugar Prices Reach a High As Brazil Assesses Drought |
112019_4 | it is too early to judge the latest promotions. #60 Pages of Guidelines The National Association of Attorneys General, which has been dissatisfied with the level of Federal law enforcement, unanimously adopted 60 pages of enforcement guidelines that interpret state laws on deceptive advertising with regard to the airline industry. The document spells out disclosure requirements, down to the minimum size of type for printing restrictions in advertisements. The guidelines, which also cover promotions for frequent-flier programs, were developed over the past several months. The association, which has its offices in Washington, had announced that it would strictly enforce the guidelines starting Jan. 15. ''We wouldn't have written the guidelines if the airline industry had not been defrauding the public for a number of years,'' said Stephen Gardner, a member of the association's Task Force on the Air Travel Industry. He directs the consumer protection division in the Dallas regional office of the Attorney General of Texas. ''If the airlines want to create this incredibly complex fare system, fine,'' Mr. Gardner said, ''but they cannot use its existence as an excuse for deceiving people.'' He added that current advertising seemed to comply with the guidelines, but that current investigations would determine if airlines were disclosing all restrictions in a prominent manner. On Wednesday, he said that the task force had begun using its powers of persuasion, in ''a friendly telephone conversation'' with Continental, and had criticized the carrier for advertising prices for its one-way tickets when the fare was based on a round-trip purchase. ''That is like advertising the price of one shoe, when the store only sells them in pairs at double the price,'' Mr. Gardner said. Ned Walker, a Continental spokesman, confirmed the company's agreement to comply with the guidelines. ''We hope other carriers in the industry will follow our lead and join us,'' he said. Earlier in the week, Mr. Walker had said the company's advertisments complied with the spirit of the guidelines. Continental and the rest of the industry have tried to appease the attorneys general while not bowing to them. ''Clearly, Congress gave that authority to issue regulations to the Department of Transportation, and clearly, Continental is in compliance with the law,'' Mr. Walker said. Samuel Podberesky, a spokesman for the Federal agency, said the industry's advertisements ''seem to be in compliance with our rules.'' In a related matter, Congress -whose members are virtually all | Flying for Less: The Search for a Seat at the Best Possible Fare |
106295_0 | LEAD: The extraordinary cultural, historical and environmental values of the Hudson River Valley are under siege. The extraordinary cultural, historical and environmental values of the Hudson River Valley are under siege. From the George Washington Bridge to the Troy dam, the landscape is being chopped and built upon without regard for the valley, parks, scenic vistas, environmental limits, historic sites and cultural amenities. Although the Hudson Valley has major national significance, New York State, as it always has, must shoulder most of the responsibility for saving this American treasure. ''Saving'' does not mean locking up; it means preserving some acres and guiding, not stopping, growth on other acres. The centerpiece of any preservation strategy should be the establishment of a valley greenway, which would link existing corridors of private and public recreation lands and waters to provide people with access to open spaces close to where they live. Fortunately, the time is right and the means are at hand for accomplishing this. Just as important, no big new spending or grants of power would be needed. Public concern is high. Opinion polls show strong support for preservation initiatives, and passage of the 1986 state Environmental Quality Act by a 2 to 1 margin demonstrated a willingness to back opinions with money. Many individuals are donating land and granting property easements. Moreover, state government now has the tools - leadership, money, authority - to shape the valley's future. Governor Cuomo led the bond issue effort, which will produce $250 million for acquisition and protection of scenic and recreational lands where they are needed. The parks, historical sites and conservation areas already under state control are significant and strategic. And, after 20 years of aggressive cleanup, the waters of the river itself are ready for fishing and swimming. Finally, if most of the formidable array of environmental regulations were coordinated, targeted and applied forcefully, most threats to the Hudson Valley's land and water could be controlled. How would a greenway work? It would be a finger of green that would consist of a variety of elements: biking and hiking trails along abandoned rail lines; marinas and wildlife refuges; farms and vineyards; vacant lots; college campuses; golf courses; rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds and wetlands; estates; parks; hospital and corporation grounds, and even highways. The Hudson River Valley is perfectly suited to becoming the prototype national greenway. Major parts are already in place: the | For a Hudson Greenway |
106301_0 | LEAD: The Federal Aviation Administration has ruled that air carriers must enforce limits on carry-on luggage on domestic and international flights beginning Jan. 1. The Federal Aviation Administration has ruled that air carriers must enforce limits on carry-on luggage on domestic and international flights beginning Jan. 1. For most airlines, the limit will be two items in addition to a handbag, an overcoat, an umbrella, a camera, a reasonable amount of reading material, crutches and canes, an infant bag and an infant safety seat, if it is used in flight for a paying passenger. A briefcase is considered one of the two items of luggage. Here are the standards that some of the biggest carriers will enforce for the two carry-on items: Carrier Maximum Size Total (inches) weight American 10x13x23 No limit Continental Under seat: 9x14x22 No limit Delta Overhead: 10x14x36 United Hanging: 4x23x45 Eastern Under seat: 8x16x21 25 lbs. Overhead: 8x16x21 Hanging: 4x21x40 Pan Am Under seat: 9x14x22 No limit Overhead: Varies by plane model TWA Under seat: 8x16x21 70 lbs. Overhead: 10x14x35 each Hanging: 4x23x45 USAir Under seat: 8x16x21 40 lbs. Overhead: 10x16x24 Hanging: 4x23 1/2x45 Sources: Federal Aviation Administration and Air Transport Association | Guidepost; LUGGAGE ON BOARD |
112691_0 | LEAD: To the Editor: As a documentary filmmaker who longs for the easy, good ol' days when you could just walk from car to plane with your film in your carry-on bag, I might be of some help to the travelers who complain that their trip was ruined by some security officer in Austria or Hong Kong. To the Editor: As a documentary filmmaker who longs for the easy, good ol' days when you could just walk from car to plane with your film in your carry-on bag, I might be of some help to the travelers who complain that their trip was ruined by some security officer in Austria or Hong Kong. The method is simple. Most camera stores sell a lead-laminated pouch in which you can put your camera and your film. The small pouch holds up to 22 rolls of film - or a camera plus about six rolls. Larger pouches are available. Put the entire pouch in the carry-on bag and put the bag through the machine. Some security people will then inquire about the black shape inside your bag and inspect it on the other side of the machine. For large amounts of film - or to play it safe - put the entire lead-lined pouch in your checked luggage (while carrying the camera through security). Most checked luggage is put through without X-ray inspection, though in some countries they do go through the procedure with everything. In that case, your film is still protected. MEL LONDON New York, N.Y. | Airport X-Rays |
112449_2 | of us disabled by technical language, the book is admirably easy to read. Beginning with a look at the history and rise of the ''LD'' profession, the author then summarizes, in the main text and in 75 pages of notes, a large body of research, work commonly found in books written and used by the profession itself. ''Deficit'' by ''deficit,'' studies are recounted and arguments set aside as inconclusive and unwarranted. He writes: ''Most of the differences in brain activity found between normal and disabled learners are just that - differences. They are not neurological abnormalities; they are simply biological distinctions that might be found between any two groups of people with different abilities.'' There is much to be curious about when it comes to behavior differences in the classroom; the two dozen 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds who enter my classroom each year differ remarkably in nearly every attribute except their intuitive preoccupation with fantasy and play. Take storytelling, for example. Each 3-year-old approaches the idea of story in an unprecedented manner. Given the daily opportunity to dictate and act out their own stories, children invent and repeat themes vastly different from their classmates, using the widest variety of linguistic forms. Subsequent social interactions help modify the children's original imagery and language, but characteristic differences in style and content remain. No two children hear questions identically, or duplicate one another's drawings and block structures. In all things, diversity is more common than likeness. The classroom is a many-layered stage upon which teachers and children act out their roles without benefit of a reliable printed script. Long ago, for example, I observed that the closer a child is to my own background and experience the more likely I am to recognize the clues he reveals, to grasp the meaning of his words and intentions, and to ask him some of the right questions. Furthermore, as soon as I allow myself to consider his differences to be disabilities and give them a name, my relationship with him changes: my vision blurs, the child's words and actions are prejudged. Mr. Coles puts the matter into broader perspective. ''Learning difficulties, and any neurological dysfunctions associated with them, develop not from within the individual but from the individual's interaction within social relationships. Brain functioning is both a product of and a contributor to the individual's interactions, it is not a predetermined condition.'' To avoid predetermined | HELPING CHILDREN TO FAIL |
112527_0 | LEAD: The United States has funneled tens of millions of dollars to religious-affiliated schools and hospitals around the world under a little-known program administered by the Agency for International Development, The program, American Schools and Hospitals Abroad, has since 1971 quietly financed Jewish, Catholic and Protestant schools and hospitals in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. The United States has funneled tens of millions of dollars to religious-affiliated schools and hospitals around the world under a little-known program administered by the Agency for International Development, The program, American Schools and Hospitals Abroad, has since 1971 quietly financed Jewish, Catholic and Protestant schools and hospitals in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. The most sensitive part of the program has involved grants to Orthodox Jewish institutions in Israel whose primary purpose is to teach religious studies. Many of these institutions would be ineligible for Government money if they were in the United States because of the constitutional principle of separation of Church and state, according to Administration officials and legal experts. Jewish Schools in France The Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid overseas, says the purpose of the schools and hospitals program is to educate and train students, primarily in the developing world, and to adapt American educational methods to local needs in such fields as agriculture, economics, business and public health. The disclosure of the program's financing patterns in a recent article in Washington Jewish Week, a leading American Jewish newspaper, followed a widely criticized $8 million Federal grant for the construction of schools in France for North African Sephardic Jews. Despite the objections of the State Department and the Office of Management and Budget, the grant was successfully maneuvered through Congress by Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, as part of the $604 billion appropriation bill signed into law last month by President Reagan. Although the appropriation was not made as part of the schools and hospitals program, it raised larger questions about Government financing of religious institutions. Civil Liberties Group to Act Mr. Inouye has argued that the school construction grant will not be spent for religious education or teacher salaries. On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union announced it was planning to take legal action to prevent the money from being spent for the French schools. ''It's clearly unconstitutional,'' said John A. Powell, national legal director of the A.C.L.U. ''Its | RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS GET U.S. AID ABROAD |
109863_4 | exports of agricultural commodities and nonmonetary gold. Imports fell $2.4 billion, or 6 percent, to $37 billion, the department said. Manufactured goods, petroleum products, agricultural commodities and gold accounted for most of the decline. Unlike exports, which bucked seasonal influences, imports were aided by them in November because it came after the October peak period for bringing Christmas merchandise into the country. Figures Not Adjusted The Commerce Department does not adjust its trade figures for either seasonal or working-day variations, another reason why the month-to-month fluctuations are so large and why analysts warn, but apparently with little success, against over-interpretation of the data. Yet it was hard to avoid concluding that the November figures are the clearest proof so far that several years of a falling dollar and the aggressive moves by American managements to streamline their companies were finally paying off in a lower current-dollar deficit, the one that the American consumers must ultimately finance. Despite the statistical variations, Allen Sinai, chief economist for the Boston Company Economic Advisers, said: ''The figures are unambiguous on the improvement in exports. It comes through loud and clear and with sirens.'' And Stas Margaronis, a Los Angeles trade specialist, said, ''The thing has peaked and it's going down.'' Mr. Margaronishas has long expressed pessimism about the nation's competitiveness and still worries about the prospects of regaining lost market share in semiconductors and machine tools. Others, however, stress that a sizable portion of imported manufactured goods, including machine tools, is related to the production of goods that later are exported. Economists also note that many American companies export directly from foreign plants, another source of statistical distortion. Gap Narowed With Japan The November deficit, which was the lowest since April, showed a sharp $1.1 billion narrowing in the trade gap with Japan, about $200 million of this from reduced imports of Japanese cars. Over all, the Commerce Department said, the deficit with Japan fell to $4.8 billion from $5.9 billion, with about three-quarters of the improvement from lower imports and one-quarter from higher exports. Some analysts had wondered whether this bilateral deficit had declined at all after Japan this week abruptly postponed reporting its December trade figures until next week. The United States also made major progress during November in cutting its deficit with three Asian countries whose currencies have not appreciated nearly so much against the dollar as has Japan's. The deficit | U.S. TRADE DEFICIT NARROWS SHARPLY AS EXPORTS SURGE |
108929_0 | LEAD: A bill that sought to establish the nation's first state commission to review and regulate products of genetic engineering was defeated here tonight by the state Assembly. With 41 votes needed for passage, the bill attracted only 26 votes. A bill that sought to establish the nation's first state commission to review and regulate products of genetic engineering was defeated here tonight by the state Assembly. With 41 votes needed for passage, the bill attracted only 26 votes. The measure was defeated after a heavy lobbying effort by a national association of biotechnology companies and Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceutical company based in New Brunswick. The company and the trade group called it unecessary. Environmental groups and several business groups supported the measure, saying it would help prevent unlawful use of living, gene-altered microbes, which some scientists believe could be hazardous. Though other states have expressed interest in establishing programs to control genetically engineered microbes, no state had considered legislation as thorough as the New Jersey measure. It was defeated on the final day of the 202nd legislative session, and 18 months after it had unanimously passed the State Senate. The measure was specifically aimed at the most controversial aspect of biotechnology research: the release of living, genetically altered microbes into the environment for such uses as biological insecticides, herbicides, crop nutrients and agents to battle frost damage. | Genetic Testing Limits Rejected in New Jersey |
110624_0 | LEAD: To the Editor: To the Editor: Your Dec. 29 front-page article on the rift among professional philosophers misses nearly all the interesting and important aspects of this upheaval. The source of the conflict is only marginally the difference between analytic and nonanalytic approaches. And Prof. Ruth Barcan Marcus's suggestion, which you quote, that it is an envious political attack on creative philosophers by dull scholars is a self-serving and grotesque fabrication. The turbulence in the philosophical world has institutional, regional, educational, economic and social causes. A good portion of the story was disenfranchisement. Because of the structure and procedures of the American Philosophical Association, the vast majority of its members could not vote at its business meetings, and the few who did were faced with a preselected, no-choice slate. The leadership of the association became a self-perpetuating elite that justified its monopoly by claiming superior professional achievements. The structure and leadership institutionalized the dominance of a few Northeastern graduate schools. This left the emerging graduate schools in the heartland and a large number of undergraduate institutions unrepresented and blocked the access of their faculties to the grants, lectures and publications that constitute professional distinction. To understand what happened among philosophers in the last 10 years, therefore, it is necessary to look not only at the many (not just analytic and nonanalytic) methods in the discipline, but also at the complex relations between teaching and research institutions, between established and newly powerful graduate schools, and between the budding academic life of the South and Midwest and the intellectual aristocracy of the Northeast. We must, moreover, expose the subtle ways in which monolithic organizations create standards of excellence and heroes, instead of merely adopting and celebrating them. And we must never forget that in the academic world position and prestige yield control over jobs, money and publication, which in turn establish and reinforce position and prestige. That there is discord in the philosophical community is not news; that new national leadership is healing our wounds is. JOHN LACHS Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University N ashville, Jan. 5, 1988 | In Philosophy's Turf Wars, They Hurl Syllogisms |
110477_3 | ''Even at its best,'' Mr. Stone writes, ''the Socratic negative dialectic provided an irrelevant standard by which to judge the competence of statesmen, tragic poets, or shoemakers in their respective crafts. Above all, it was no way to question the right of common men to participate in the government of their own lives and city.'' Because of this dark portrait, it's difficult to swallow Mr. Stone's argument whole. One wonders about his giving so little credit to a thinker who has been credited by posterity for having laid one of the cornerstones of Western thought. One is made uneasy by the author's slightly glib invocation of contemporary standards to judge the past, by his eagerness to point out in Socrates' world early versions of ''totalitarianism,'' of ''secret police,'' of ''death squads'' and of ''terrorism.'' One feels slightly bothered that Mr. Stone's indictment never comes into complete focus. There never comes a point when one feels one sees Mr. Stone's version of Socrates whole, although it must be conceded that this failing may have less to do with the force of the author's reasoning and more to do with the scattered sources of the evidence he marshals. Still, the case Mr. Stone makes is impressive. He is clearly at home with the primary literature on Socrates, whether it be Plato's Socratic dialogues, Xenophon's ''Memorabilia,'' certain comedies by Aristophanes in which the philosopher is portrayed or scattered references to Socrates in the works of Aristotle. His reasoning, though often necessarily circuitous, is persuasive, whether he is gleaning evidence from the works of Homer and Aeschylus to show what a poor choice for an archetypal ruler Socrates' nomination of Agamemnon was, or winnowing the ancient Greek language to see what the true meaning of certain key words, such as those that appear in Socrates' indictment, might be. More important, Mr. Stone's scholarship is alive and engaging. He follows his enthusiasms wherever they take him, even writing a speech consistent with Socrates' absolutist ideals that he might plausibly have spoken in his defense, had he been so inclined. As Mr. Stone writes in his prelude, ''our attempt at a new understanding of the trial of Socrates will also become a fresh look at classical antiquity. It is our yesterday, and we cannot understand ourselves without it.'' The way he writes about it, this particular yesterday seems literally to have happened the day before today. | BOOKS OF THE TIMES |
110521_0 | LEAD: Amid the national uproar over whether to release living, genetically altered bacteria into the environment, one vital development seems to have gone virtually unnoticed: a biotechnology experiment that began last year in California seems to have worked. Amid the national uproar over whether to release living, genetically altered bacteria into the environment, one vital development seems to have gone virtually unnoticed: a biotechnology experiment that began last year in California seems to have worked. But if that is a reason to celebrate, nobody at Advanced Genetic Sciences, the company that developed bacteria to prevent frost damage of crops, is pouring champagne. The future of projects to invent new farm products made from altered bacteria is now more bleak than ever, according to industry executives. Effect of Market Plunge The public's anxiety about the technology, a relentless attack by critics, and violations of Government rules for biotechnology experiments by scientists have resulted in costly delays. Furthermore, the stock market collapse in October has dried up sources of investment income and reduced the chances that new projects will be started soon. Even a series of favorable scientific reports and political decisions, including the rejection last week by the New Jersey legislature of a measure that would have established the first state regulations to control altered microbes, is considered unlikely to spur new research. Critics of genetic engineering, who consider genetically altered bacteria a potential threat to the environment, are heartened by the declining interest in the technology. 'Checks and Balances' But advocates say that in the absence of biological products for fighting insects, weeds, and diseases, farmers will continue to use vast amounts of chemical insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides that have polluted drinking water and shown up in trace amounts in fresh and processed food. ''If people are given complete and accurate information, this is the kind of development they would favor the Government and private business supporting,'' said Dr. John Bedbrook, vice president for research at Advanced Genetic Sciences. ''It's inevitably going to lead to a safer environment. The notion that our bacteria could multiply out of control is completely preposterous. There are checks and balances in nature and limits to growth.'' The long struggle to develop the bacterial antifreeze, Frostban, has battered this San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology company financially and psychologically, leaving Dr. Bedbrook and other scientists exhausted and dismayed. The company's troubles have been closely watched by | Biotechnology Lags Despite Success |
110629_1 | writers, critics, anthropologists, historians, political economists and professors of art, English and French. This is not a complaint or a criticism, just an informed conjecture. Let us understand the transition and live it gracefully. The transition itself should not come as a surprise. It can be traced to the German beginning of the 19th century and particularly to Hegel's twisting philosophy in the direction of history, culture and the thickness of social life. The Hegelian project views philosophy as prelude to social, cultural and human sciences. Nothing new here. From Thales to the Renaissance, philosophy looked like a prelude to natural science; until the end of the 19th century, a prelude to scientific psychology, and in this century, to linguistics and much of computer and cognitive science. Continental philosophy is largely dedicated to the Hegelian project. With two exceptions, the major Continentals would have resented being called ''philosophers.'' Some, such as Marx, Freud, Max Weber or Michel Foucault, thought they were doing rigorous theoretical analysis, of the scientific sort, with empirical evidence and arguments. Others, Marx and Foucault again, but more specifically Nietzsche, Sartre, Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, thought they were doing social and cultural criticism. The two exceptions, Hegel and Heidegger, thought they were doing everything. Most Continental philosophers are therefore protoscientists and protocritics of human, social and cultural affairs. Their transition from philosophy to science and criticism is complicated by three factors: One is that the canonized patrons of the movement, Hegel and Heidegger, while powerful and insightful, were terrible writers and sloppy thinkers. Trying to understand or imitate them has been a huge Continental industry, with puny results, which drained energies from more fruitful endeavors. Another destabilizing factor is the very presence and popularity of cultural and social criticism whose rhetoric is deliberately opposed to the regimented methods and discourse of science. This brings internal conflict to a Continental mind. Thirdly, social, cultural and human affairs are so messy as possibly to elude any standard scientific analysis, ever. This is bound to aggravate the domestic conflict between the scientific and the critical components of the Continental enterprise. The Hegelian drama of Continental philosophy is unfolding under our eyes. Political and institutional symptoms aside, its conflict with analytic philosophy is just a sign of a slow and painful separation for an uncertain journey. RADU J. BOGDAN Associate Professor of Philosophy, Tulane University New Orleans, Dec. 30, 1987 | In Philosophy's Turf Wars, They Hurl Syllogisms; Journey of the Mind |
111323_0 | LEAD: SUNDAY'S double bill at the Lone Star, featuring two Rounder Record acts, the Tom Russell Band and Bar-rence Whitfield and the Savages, was a study in the way music functions. Both bands, neither especially dis-tinctive, pump out American dance music. But they fill basic social needs, and by attacking different gen-res - Mr. SUNDAY'S double bill at the Lone Star, featuring two Rounder Record acts, the Tom Russell Band and Bar-rence Whitfield and the Savages, was a study in the way music functions. Both bands, neither especially dis-tinctive, pump out American dance music. But they fill basic social needs, and by attacking different gen-res - Mr. Russell takes on country, country rock, Tex-Mex, New Orleans rhythm-and-blues; Mr. Whitfield acts as an encyclopedia of black music, roving from jump and blues to soul and rock - they produce, the same way a record player or a classical musician might, music of different eras and styles. And to their credit, they have an unpretentious, fun time doing it. The greatest vernacular musicians have always been able to transcend form, forging banalities into high drama, shaping a dance beat into a socially relevant, cathartic agent. Mr. Russell, who opened the show, sang in a plain-wrapper, limited baritone. The audience took its pleasures from recognizing the trademarks of each song's style. Mr. Russell's Tex-Mex tune ''Mescal,'' with its everyday chord progressions, thumping waltz time and shiny accordion, made peo-ple shout, and by the end of his next composition, this one about cock fighting, he and his band had built up the sort of pressure that blows people onto the dance floor. Mr. Whitfield has built a reputation as a likable rhythm-and-blues wild-man. He sings with a slippery if indis-tinct voice, and he punctuates his lines with Little Richard-like whoops. More than anything, he's a novelty singer who latches onto the excesses of a song or style, and works them. Thats fine: on Andre Williams's frenetic exposition on jealousy and lying, ''Is It True?,'' he threw in a reference to Jessica Hahn; on ''Chil-lin','' a walking blues, he turned his collar up while singing in a malevo-lent, cartoon voice. He ended his set with ''Bib, Bop, Bip,'' at a gravity-defying tempo. By the time it was over, he'd sent himself into the audi-ence, walking around on his knees, hands waving as if he were at a re-vival meeting, and rolling around on the floor, | Rock: Tom Russell Band |
111109_0 | LEAD: The price of world sugar futures soared to more than 10 cents a pound yesterday for the first time in more than four years. Analysts cited fears that a storm had further damaged the Philippines' already battered sugar cane crop. The price of world sugar futures soared to more than 10 cents a pound yesterday for the first time in more than four years. Analysts cited fears that a storm had further damaged the Philippines' already battered sugar cane crop. The active buying of sugar futures on New York's Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange began on reports that a typhoon had moved through the Philippines, said Kim Badenhop, an analyst in New York with Merrill Lynch Futures. A tightening of supplies with no expected drop in demand has most traders feeling bullish about the long-term prospects for sugar, Mr. Badenhop said. The contract for March delivery of sugar settled at 10.18 cents a pound, up 0.73 cent. Sugar futures have not approached that level since Oct. 24, 1983, when the near-month contract reached 10.35 cents a pound, said Stuart Shinbein, senior technical analyst for the Commodity Research Bureau in New York. Sugar's strong advance pushed the bureau's futures index of 21 agricultural and industrial commodities up 0.90 point, to 239.31, its highest level since May 13, 1985, Mr. Shinbein said. No other commodities posted especially sharp gains or losses, he said. On the Chicago Board of Trade, prices for soybeans to be harvested this fall declined substantially on the premise that farmers would plant more soybeans in hopes of selling them for higher prices, said Walter Spilka, an analyst in New York with Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Company. Most energy futures moved higher on the New York Mercantile Exchange amid indications that members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries were curbing production and reducing their discounts on crude oil, said Bob Baker, an analyst in New York with Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. FUTURES/OPTIONS | Sugar Prices at 4-Year High On Philippine Storm News |
107239_6 | generous new incentives for larger families. Life expectancy has dropped in some of the six countries - for example, in Hungary, from an average 67 to under 65 - and families are feeling the pressure resulting from parents who hold two and sometimes three jobs apiece. In these countries, where food, health, education, public transportation and housing are heavily or totally subsidized, the squeeze on ordinary citizens is amplified by increases in the costs of some consumer goods and rents and, in the case of Hungary, a new income tax. In some East European hospitals, patients are now being asked to supply their own medicines. Pollutants Abound In the Air and Water Nowhere is the sense of deterioration more evident than in air and water pollution. For example, an official Slovak study concluded recently that Bratislava is the most severely polluted city in all of Europe. Instead of allowing the analysis to be made public, the Government pulped 2,000 copies and sought to sequester those remaining in circulation. A Czech water quality specialist confided to a visitor that Prague's drinking water contained such a high level of toxins that infants in the capital were restricted to drinking bottled mineral water. To the north in the factory town of Usti nad Labem, air pollution has reached levels that compelled local school authorities to send pupils out of town to special education facilities for four months a year. Against this background, some East European officials view Mikhail S. Gorbachev's call for ''restructuring'' as a critically needed impulse to rescue the system from itself and to reassert the supremacy of the ruling parties in areas where control is slipping away. The Communist governments in three of the six Warsaw Pact countries - Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria -have already implicitly acknowledged the need for change by introducing programs for tentative reform. Under consideration are radical shifts away from the centrally controlled economies with their top-heavy monopolies governing everything from industries to taxi companies, and even changes in the traditional one-party system of rule. There are discussions in some of the East European capitals of liberalizing the press and activating parliaments as a means of fostering more citizen participation, especially in Hungary. Explaining the context of these discussions, Mr. Csillag, an economic researcher at the Hungarian Ministry of Finance, remarked: ''This kind of socialism with its limited pluralism and a lack of political accountability has | A Vital Shadow Society: East Bloc Breadwinner |
113284_0 | LEAD: THE strategic thinkers at food companies have long coveted the potentially enormous markets that would be created if a low-cholesterol, low-calorie fat substitute could be developed for use in such things as ice cream, french fries, chocolate doughnuts and potato chips. THE strategic thinkers at food companies have long coveted the potentially enormous markets that would be created if a low-cholesterol, low-calorie fat substitute could be developed for use in such things as ice cream, french fries, chocolate doughnuts and potato chips. The Nutrasweet Company, which makes the artificial sweetener aspartame, is expected to raise the ante in the fat substitute sweepstakes today with the announcement that it has developed a fat substitute. Nutrasweet's product will join one developed by Procter & Gamble, which is still making its way through the regulatory approval process. The Nutrasweet fat substitute is not expected to have to clear the same regulatory hurdles, analysts said, although the reasons for that were unclear. What food industry researchers are seeking is a substance that tastes, feels and behaves like fat but contains little or none of its potentially health-impacting properties. The use of such a substance in cooking oils and shortenings, salted snacks, fast foods and desserts could soon have a significant effect on the food industry and, probably, on consumers' dietary habits. Nutrasweet's sweetener has had a major impact on the low-calorie soft drink industry and has found widespread use as a sugar substitute in other areas of the food industry. The company wants to repeat that success with a fat substitute. Officials at Nutrasweet, a subsidiary of the Monsanto Company of Skokie, Ill., would not discuss the nature of its forthcoming announcement. But food analysts have speculated for several days that the company has a new fat substitute derived from a milk protein. Although exact properties of the Nutrasweet product are not known, and are likely to remain closely guarded even after today's announcement, Nutrasweet's entry is expected to compete with the synthetic fat substitute that Procter & Gamble has been developing for more than 20 years. Procter & Gamble has said that its fat substitute, called Olestra, is calorie- and cholesterol-free and passes through the body undigested. In addition, P.&G. says that Olestra molecules bind to cholesterol molecules in the digestive tract and remove some cholesteral and calories from other foods. Olestra would be used in Procter & Gamble's Crisco and Puritan | BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY: Advances; Junk Food That's Lean And Healthy? |
113251_1 | harassment, threats and assaults against Jews and Jewish property. Historically, incidents of vandalism have largely outnumbered harassments, threats and assaults and that was the case last year. The number of incidents of vandalism last year was 694, ranging from swastika daubings to arson and pipe bombings. This was an increase of 17 percent over the 594 incidents reported in 1986. The sharp increase, the audit said, largely reflected a 121 percent increase in such incidents in California. The audit found some of the more serious vandalism was carried out by members of a neo-Nazi hate group who call themselves the Skinheads. The group's activity last year, particularly in California, the audit said, brought the number of anti-Semitic incidents attributable to organized hate groups to 20. In recent years, no more than one or two vandalism incidents have been attributed to such groups. The number of harassments, threats and assaults was 324 last year, a 4 percent increase over the 312 such incidents reported in 1986. These included 16 assaults last year, compared with 11 the year before. Most of the harassments and threats came in the form of hate mail and telephone calls. New York's Breakdown New York, the state with the largest Jewish population, led the nation with 207 vandalism incidents, up from 186 in 1986. Of the 91 incidents reported last year in New York City, Brooklyn had the most, with 37, followed by Manhattan, with 27. Outside the city, Nassau County had the most in the state, 60, followed by Suffolk County, with 41. The remaining 55 counties in the state had a combined total of 15 incidents. California had the second highest number of vandalism incidents, 137, up from 62 in 1986. Florida was third, with 64, followed by New Jersey, with 43. The 1987 totals for both states, however, were down from 1986. Connecticut was ranked 20th, with 6 incidents, one more than the year before. The top four states for vandalism were ranked the same for harassments, threats and assaults. Mr. Foxman said that, in recent years, 29 state legislatures, including those in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, had adopted stricter laws aimed at curbing religious or ethnic vandalism. Nonetheless, he said, the 1987 figures reinforced the need for even stricter law enforcement of bias crimes, strengthened security measures for Jewish institutions and greater educational efforts to heighten public concern about such crimes. | Report Shows 12% Rise in Anti-Semitic Incidents |
113396_0 | LEAD: In a world that changes faster than the eye blinks, it is reassuring to hear from Tass, the Soviet news agency, that there's an abominable snowman, or yeti, living near the Afghanistan border. This one paid several evening visits to the camp of four researchers from Kiev, stared at them for awhile, then disappeared into a handy thicket. In a world that changes faster than the eye blinks, it is reassuring to hear from Tass, the Soviet news agency, that there's an abominable snowman, or yeti, living near the Afghanistan border. This one paid several evening visits to the camp of four researchers from Kiev, stared at them for awhile, then disappeared into a handy thicket. That's pretty bold behavior for a yeti, but something called a ye ren in China in 1984 was even bolder. The giant primate with a human face, a talent for bamboo-weaving and a laugh that'd shiver timbers, came nose to nose with a man named Li Mingzhi. Then it disappeared into a handy rain forest. Meanwhile, back at Loch Ness, Nessie - but hey, what is she doing these days? Never mind; she's sure to surface soon. Mountains may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble - but monsters, it seems, are forever. TOPICS OF THE TIMES | Staring at Monsters |
109546_2 | and Mr. Stoehr tells his story well. One's only doubt about according him so much prominence is that he doesn't seem to have been an altogether representative figure. Or rather, he was representative of the lower levels of pseudo-science - and there were other, more respectable levels. Hydropathy, for example, probably did most of those who were subjected to its watery ministrations a certain amount of good; and though it could have its hazards, they were mild in comparison with some of the treatments doled out by orthodox medicine at the time. The water-cure establishments that began springing up in the 1840's were not unlike modern health farms, and the eventual fate of hydropathy, as Marshall Scott Legan observes in his essay on it, was not so much its complete disappearance as ''its sublimation into the general hygienic cult.'' Bogus sciences could have their worthy social aspects, too. An essay on Andrew Jackson Davis, who tried to provide a philosophical basis for spiritualism, is a reminder of how closely 19th-century spiritualism, in its less sensational aspects, was linked with reform movements and the urge to improve the quality of life here on earth. And in its later manifestations, phrenology, as Mr. Wrobel shows, came to be treated as a form of political science, offering guidance about how to preserve sound democratic values. Other essays are devoted to such varied subjects as the vagaries of ''electric medicine,'' the application of phrenology to 19th-century American sculpture, and Washington Irving's reliance on his homeopathic physician (whom he and his family consulted no fewer than 598 times in the last seven years of his life). Pseudo-scientific ideas about sex provide a predictably rich crop of absurdity; in analyzing them, Harold Aspiz concentrates on the widely promoted theory that vigorous acts of conception produced vigorous children, and that eugenic improvements could be brought about by couples bottling up their passions for long periods in order to release them ''in a volcanic baby-begetting session.'' Pseudo-science was a tribute to the ever-growing prestige of genuine science in the 19th century, to a new sense that anything might be possible. It was a response, in an age of bewildering complexity, to the need for big all-embracing systems. At a time when traditional religious beliefs were being eroded, it was an attempt to stay ''in tune with the infinite'' and heal the split between body and soul. The conditions | BOOKS OF THE TIMES |
153059_7 | actual conditions in Peru.'' The State Department said that Lilly had been intimidated by the possibility that drug lords might carry out reprisals against company employees or operations in South America. However, some drug policy experts suggested that the company was at least equally concerned about assuming liability for any damage to the ecology or to people in South America. In 1984, the State Department cut short a test spraying program it was conducting in Colombia of trichlopyr, a herbicide manufactured by the Dow Chemical Company under the trade name Garlon-4, after Dow demanded indemnification against lawsuits. Initial field testing found Garlon-4 less than fully effective in any event. Mr. Gentner estimated that an average coca field has an as many as 300 plant species growing nearby. ''What are the sensitivities of these plants and can we afford to lose them?'' he asked. ''I don't think we know.'' Jay Feldman, national coordinator of the National Coalition Against Misuse of Pesticides, a lobbying group, said that Spike and most other commercial herbicides ''are all fairly broad spectrum,'' and added: ''Any time you spray from the air you're likely to get some drift. So how are you going to make sure that the peasants in these areas will be able to grow legal crops after a spraying? It's very short-sighted policy.'' Marijuana Spraying Stopped Attempts in the early 1980's to wipe out marijuana crops in the United States through the application of herbicides were halted, Mr. Feldman said, after lawsuits by his organization and others based on the potential envirnomental impact. ''We don't believe we should be exporting policies that hold to a lesser standard of public protection than we have in this country,'' he said. Mr. Rosenquist responded by saying that the concern was exaggerated, that no sprayed areas would be rendered permanently unfit for agriculture and that there would be compensation to any legitimate farmers whose crops were damaged. He added: ''If you're saying that coca farmers won't be able to make a living after we spray, that's right. That's the whole point of the exercise.'' But critics feel the effectiveness of a coca eradication program would be short-lived. ''The first year you spray, maybe there will be an impact,'' said Ethan Nadelmann, a professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. ''But then the growers will respond with guerrilla farming efforts,'' such as | U.S. Secretly Grows Coca to Find Way to Destroy Cocaine's Source |
153288_2 | the helms of their own large yachts. These were latter-day swashbucklers who prized the physical encounter with wind and sea. At the time, ocean racing featured point-to-point contests: Newport-Bermuda, Los Angeles-Honolulu, Sydney-Hobart. When this scenario finally peaked in the 1950's, the list of owner/skippers for a typical ocean race read like a page from the Social Register. In the 60's and 70's, new money and attitudes arrived. There was an influx of owners who became instant yachtsmen, content to recruit a top crew of professionals (sailmakers, one-time Olympic sailors, yacht designers), pay the bills and throw the parties. They sailed on their boats but kept out of the way. Of late, another type of owner/skipper has evolved: proud men cut from tougher cloth. Many are self-made; all are entrepreneurial and fierce, hands-on competitors. Natural leaders, they elicit hard work and inspire family-like loyalty. The rigors of running corporations seem to whet their appetites for yacht racing, with its enticing combination of physical and cerebral demands. An added fillip has been the changing nature of the contests. In recent years ocean racing has started turning away from long, point-to-point races in favor of day racing around closed courses. There, the luck factor that comes into play on ocean passages is reduced, precision crew work is critical and the highly strung boats are spared sustained pounding. Closed-course racing also takes less time away from owners' businesses. The current grand prix race boats are sloops with hulls of aluminum or a lamination of materials like Kevlar, which is also used in tire belts, and carbon fiber surrounding a core of low-density materials. The mast and boom, made of light aluminum alloys, provide delicate yet flexible support for the sails, which are nearly unstretchable patchworks of Kevlar, Mylar and Dacron. Everything on the boat is engineered to be as light as possible. Below deck, the boats are outfitted with $25,000 to $100,000 worth of computerized equipment, which measures boat speed and position and provides sophisticated navigational and tactical data. The majority of today's top racing sailors belongs to blue-chip yacht clubs because of their sailing prowess, but the membership is mostly for convenience. The boats and the paid hands who maintain and deliver them to races need a base of operations, and yacht clubs are still the best places to find crew. Norwood Davis Jr. embodies the spirit of the new racer. At 48, | A New Breed of Corporate Skipper |
153135_2 | 26 California cities and counties cast their ballots on referendums involving growth policy and regulation. Seven of the 13 slow growth measures passed; only three of the 13 progrowth measures did. Even Orange County, the conservative bastion south of Los Angeles where developers have long reigned, hotly debated Proposition A, which would have prevented further development without improvements in roadways and public services. It was defeated, but similar measures are likely in Riverside and San Diego in November. ''When my children were younger we could park in front of the bike store and restaurants,'' said Gerald D. Silver, a Nebraska-born professor of business at Los Angeles City College who is organizing a statewide coalition called Alliance to Control Development. ''Now Ventura Boulevard is beginning to look like Third Avenue in New York. The Mayor is telling us to take shorter showers. We did not know we were moving to Manhattan when we moved to Encino.'' On the surface, the main problem is traffic, according to Mark Baldassare, a sociologist at the University of California at Irvine. Beyond that is what Mr. Baldassare calls ''the gap between what people want and what they have'' in these suburban metroplexes. ''People came expecting a small-town environment and instead have been thrust into a new community that is not really city or rural,'' he says. The Tax-Cut Factor Also contributing to the movement is California's tax-cutting initiative, Proposition 13, passed 10 years ago last week. It drastically limited how much cities can tax, leading to a deterioration in roads, sewers and other urban building blocks. ''We've done it to ourselves,'' said Richard R. Wirth, executive director of the Building Industry Association of Southern California. ''We've had rapid growth, but the means to accommodate the quality of life we expect are no longer there. People are saying: 'Darn it, I've worked hard and now I can't get out of my driveway.' '' Mr. Wirth argues that the solution is not to slow growth, but to accommodate it by lifting some of the restrictions on taxing and spending. ''We did not build this country by denying opportunity,'' he said, adding that in some cases slowing development could exacerbate the effects of growth, because people might have to live even farther from where they work, increasing highway and road traffic. Cultural tensions over the recent waves of Asian and Latin American immigrants may also be fueling the | THE NEW CALIFORNIAN DREAM: CLOSING THE DOOR |
153007_0 | LEAD: The May 15 Long Island Interview with Donald Blinken, chairman of the board of trustees of the State University of New York, was a welcome boost for public higher education. The May 15 Long Island Interview with Donald Blinken, chairman of the board of trustees of the State University of New York, was a welcome boost for public higher education. Mr. Blinken, a Harvard University graduate, is to be commended for his interest and involvement in promoting an effective program of education for the young people of New York State. At City College it was taken for granted that any student who flunked out of C.C.N.Y. and went to another college automatically improved both colleges. However, I feel that Mr. Blinken takes a sanguine approach to the questions posed on the stigma of graduating from a state university as well as the opportunities that await them when they are ready to start their careers as compared with graduates of private colleges. If he were to examine the educational backgrounds of his colleagues at E. M. Warburg, Pincus & Company, I daresay he would find perhaps a few token graduates from state universities and many like himself who hold degrees from prestigious private institutions. Unfortunately, there is a real difference between a degree from SUNY and a degree from its counterparts in the private sector. I would strongly urge Mr. Blinken and other corporate leaders to provide state university graduates equal access to employment and advancement in their organizations. Let's have no illusions about the elitism of big business in employing graduates from private colleges in order to enhance its image and foster connections. SHERMAN TUFEL Retired New York City Principal Graduate, C.C.N.Y. 1949 Whitestone | End Bias on Hiring From State Schools |
153283_3 | of signing on as a graduate student last year, I started looking for a summer job in finance. It was a dress rehearsal for 1988, and it soon revealed a basic problem. I was competing for a job against people who had real quantitative, number-crunching skills that I lacked. My first interview was with an investment banker in horn-rimmed glasses and suspenders with dollar signs. He looked at my resume and said: ''Well, we have nothing in common. What do you think you are going to do, dance around the trading floor?'' I told him I would only dance on slow days. No, I did not get the job. But I did receive a fellowship that enabled me to spend the summer studying the financial markets at a bank in Japan. After the first week of school last September, companies began their recruiting presentations, and the school sought to prepare us for the coming interviews. The message was, ''This might not be much fun.'' There were workshops where we were taught how to assess our strengths and weaknesses, sessions during which we watched and then analyzed videotaped mock interviews. We were encouraged to use the placement library to study each company before an interview. We were told that some companies would ask us to take drug tests and lie-detector tests. We were told we did not have to answer such questions as, ''Are you married?'' or ''Do you plan to have children?'' School publications warned that we would encounter rejection and offered advice for coping with it. As a dancer, I was accustomed to performing under pressure. I awaited the curtain's rise. There were a few basic procedures for obtaining interviews. In the fall the school dispatched our 500 resumes to hundreds of companies. Most of the companies planning to send recruiters to the school selected one or two dozen students to be interviewed. The remaining 30-minute interview sessions, called ''slots,'' were parceled out on the basis of a computerized lottery. It was also possible to sign up each morning for any open slots that had become available because of student cancellations. The sign-up sheet was posted on the door of the placement library. ON A JANUARY MORNING I RISE at 5:30 to do my accounting homework. By 7:30 I must be at school to write my name on the open-slot list. I am wearing my interview outfit, an olive | AN M.B.A. RUNS THE GANTLET |
153407_0 | LEAD: To the Editor: To the Editor: Sister Camille D'Arienzo in ''When Will Rome Let Women Be Priests?'' (letter, May 12), a brief for the ordination of women, shows how feminist theology is irreconcilable with Roman Catholic belief. Sister Camille maintains that there is no ''scriptural impediment'' to the ordination of women. This is curious. Does the Old Testament admit of women rabbis? Does the Levitical priesthood include women? Certainly not. And while the ancient Near East fairly percolated with pagan sects, practically all of which admitted females to a priestly level, why was it that the Hebrew people and their successors in the covenant, the Christian assembly, remained alone in resisting priestesses? Indeed, the decision to allow only men into the priesthood stands out as a paradigm, evidencing the discontinuity between the pagan cults and the religion of the Book. Male priesthood is as singularly radical, when viewed against the backdrop of the ancient religions, as Hebrew monotheism itself was. There is no warrant in sacred Scripture or sacred tradition for admitting women to the priesthood. In reacting to the Vatican Declaration restricting orders to men (''Inter insigniores''), Sister Camille states, ''The papal proscription notwithstanding, many Catholics decry the sin of sexism sanctified by tradition.'' Thus it is that the 2,000-year-practice of the Catholic Church, confirmed in the testimony of the Oriental Church, of admitting only men to holy orders, is reduced to the ''sin of sexism.'' And as distressing as this revisionist theology is, it is more alarming that the drafting committee of the recent United States Catholic Bishops' pastoral letter on women, ''Partners in the Mystery of Redemption: A Pastoral Response to Women's Concerns,'' came perilously close to this same linking of the church and sexism. (Regrettably, no precision was allowed for the teaching of the church and her immunity from error to be declared, as apart from the sinfulness of her members.) Efforts to change the teaching and the practice of the church in regard to holy orders cannot succeed because they strike at the roots of Roman Catholicism: the apostolic nature of the church, her sacred tradition and her papal magisterium. What plagues the church at the present moment is a far darker error than sexism. It is the effort to engraft the alien ''politique'' that is feminism within the body of Christ. JAMES A. SULLIVAN Vice President, Catholics United for the Faith New Rochelle, | The Church Rejected Priestesses |
153032_2 | of scientific talent and financial capital never before seen in the development of a new animal drug. Along with Monsanto in St. Louis, Upjohn in Kalamazoo, Mich., and Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Cyanamid - an 81-year-old chemical concern that gained almost a quarter of its $4.2 billion in worldwide revenues last year from its agricultural products division -hopes to be a winner in the first big payoff in agricultural biotechnology. The potential worldwide market for the drug has variously been estimated at $100 million to $500 million a year. If the experiment so far has yielded spectacular results in milk production, it is also at the heart of one of the most furious conflicts in the history of American agriculture. Depending on who you listen to, John Kurtz is leading farmers toward one of the most important technological developments since the cotton gin, or he's off on a misguided tangent that will only bring grief. And it is not clear whether the new technology presents a risk to the cows. Scientists have known since the early 1930's that one reason superior cows produce more milk is that their pituitary glands produce greater amounts of a natural protein called bovine somatotropin. Researchers later showed that injecting the protein, which is a sequence of 190 amino acids, into cows would improve milk production. But the only means of collecting sufficient quantities was to draw it from the glands of slaughtered animals, a process too costly to be useful to commercial farmers. Biotechnology has made it possible to produce unlimited quantities of somatotropin, a bovine growth hormone. In the early 1980's, scientists with an Israeli biotechnology company, the Bio-Technology General Corporation, with the backing of American Cyanamid, identified in the chromosomes of cattle the gene that produces somatotropin. Through the techniques of genetic manipulation, they isolated, duplicated and incorporated the gene into the genetic structures of common bacteria, then multiplied the engineered bacteria in standard fermentation chambers and purified the protein. The engineered protein is identical, in all but a single amino acid, to that produced by cows. American Cyanamid says it plans to spend $50 million developing and marketing the hormone. The other three companies would not divulge their plans, but field trials and university studies are being conducted in at least 20 states at a cost of $10 million to $15 million annually. At least 80 and possibly as many as | BIOTECHNOLOGY'S CASH COW |
153293_5 | Chernobyl disaster was used as a chief issue in the opposition campaign for a referendum last November in which 70 percent of voters cast ballots for restrictions on nuclear energy. That prompted then-Prime Minister Giovanni Goria to declare a moratorium on nuclear power. The decision precipitated his downfall last March after work resumed on a nuclear power plant north of Rome. Ban Attempt in Germany In West Germany, four attempts have been made since Chernobyl to ban nuclear power, and a fifth is currently under way in Parliament, led by the opposition Social Democrats, who in August 1986 formally adopted the goal of eliminating nuclear energy by 1996. Though the attempt is likely to prove unsuccessful, it has focused public attention on the issue. Public opinion polls have shown growing resistance to nuclear power even in conservative ranks. In one recent poll, support for building more nuclear plants among members of the conservative Christian Democratic party dropped from 25 percent in 1984 to 15 percent last year. West Germany gets about a third of its electricity from nuclear power. Two new plants have come on line since the Chernobyl accident and three more are scheduled for completion by the end of next year, but there are no plans for future expansion. Elsewhere on the Continent the impact has varied from country to country. Yugoslavia, Switzerland and the Netherlands are among countries whose governments scrapped or postponed plans for new nuclear powers plants in the aftermath of Chernobyl. New Ministries Established At the same time, the two European countries most heavily dependent on nuclear energy, France and Belgium, have shown the fewest qualms about it. France gets 65 percent of its power from nuclear generators, and Belgium 60 percent. One permament effect of Chernobyl has been heightened preparedness for nuclear accidents. The West German Government, for example, set up a Ministry for the Environment, the Protection of Nature and Reactor Safety and charged it with preparing public recommendations in case of another disaster, while Italy established a Ministry for Ecological Affairs. The British Government is launching a system called Rimnet, or Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network, designed to provide data on contamination levels in the event of a nuclear accident overseas. Sophisticated new instruments enabled Sweden to monitor an increase in background radiation recently and to trace it to the Ignalina power plant in Lithuania, which has a reactor of the same | Chernobyl and the Europeans: Radiation and Doubts Linger |
153171_4 | stars and constellations - dim or bright but always remote. This, however, takes a hell of a lot of time, and you may easily find yourself old and gray, heading for the exit with a lousy volume under your arm. Another alternative - or perhaps just a part of the same - is to rely on hearsay; a friend's advice, a reference caught in a text that you happen to like. Although not institutionalized in any fashion (which wouldn't be such a bad idea), this kind of procedure is familiar to all of us from a tender age. Yet this too proves to be poor insurance, for the ocean of available literature swells and widens constantly. So where is terra firma, even though it may be but an uninhabitable island? Where is our good man Friday, let alone a Cheetah? Before I come up with my suggestion - nay! with what I perceive as the only solution for developing sound taste in literature, I'd like to say a few words about this solution's source, i.e., about my humble self. I'd like to do it not because of my personal vanity, but because I believe that the value of an idea is related to the context from which it emerges. Indeed, had I been a publisher, I'd be putting on my books' covers not only their authors' names but also the exact age at which they composed this or that work, in order to enable their readers to decide whether they care to reckon with the information or the views contained in a book written by a man so much younger - or, for that matter, so much older - than they are themselves. THE source of the suggestion to come belongs to the category of people (alas, I can no longer use the term ''generation,'' which implies a certain sense of mass and unity) for whom literature has always been a matter of some hundred names; to the people whose social graces would make Robinson Crusoe or even Tarzan wince: to those who feel awkward at large gatherings, do not dance at parties, tend to find metaphysical excuses for adultery and are finicky about discussing politics. Such people normally dislike themselves far more than their detractors dislike them. Such people still prefer alcohol and tobacco to heroin or marijuana - such people are those whom, in W. H. Auden's words, | HOW TO READ A BOOK |
151755_0 | LEAD: In an apparent victory for advocates of dissent within the Roman Catholic Church, an international order of nuns announced today that it had decided not to dismiss two American nuns who signed a newspaper advertisement supporting the right of Catholics to oppose the church's ban on abortion. In an apparent victory for advocates of dissent within the Roman Catholic Church, an international order of nuns announced today that it had decided not to dismiss two American nuns who signed a newspaper advertisement supporting the right of Catholics to oppose the church's ban on abortion. It was the second time that the order, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, defied Vatican requests that it take action against the nuns, and today's announcement apparently opened the way for a new round in a long dispute between the Vatican and some Catholics, especially in the United States, who believe the church should allow freer discussion of its teachings. After the order balked in 1986 at dimissing Sisters Barbara Ferraro and Patricia Hussey, both of Charleston, W.Va., the Vatican threatened to initiate its own disciplinary proceedings against the two nuns if the case was not resolved by other means. Although no official reaction by the Vatican was made public today, church leaders here previously depicted the 1984 newspaper advertisement as an egregious and unacceptable act of dissent. The Vatican must now decide whether to accept the order's reluctance to discipline the two nuns or undertake its own punitive action, such as ordering the defrocking of the nuns. Criticism of Nuns' Intransigence The two nuns, who have refused to modify their views, were sternly criticized for being ''intransigent'' in a statement issued this afternoon by their superiors, the General Government Group of the order. ''We will not move to dismissal because we believe this action would not be in the best interests of the church or the congregation,'' the statement said. But it also said of the two nuns, ''we disclaim any public statements they make on the subject of abortion.'' In a joint statement issued in Washington, the two nuns said: ''We are elated. This is an enormous victory for all women. ''The past four years of struggle have been extremely painful for everyone, but this decision makes it all worthwhile. We hope our struggle will make it easier for other Catholics to remain firm in the face of ecclesial injustice.'' Case | Superiors Refuse to Dismiss Nuns in Abortion Ad Case |
151694_0 | LEAD: * Saudi Arabia posted a $2.56 billion trade surplus last year, up from a $360,000 surplus in 1986, the Finance Ministry said. The Saudis have mounted a major effort to diversify their oil-dependent economy, developing agricultural products for export as well as for domestic consumption. Exports totaled $22.56 billion last year, up from $19.24 billion in 1986, the ministry said. * Saudi Arabia posted a $2.56 billion trade surplus last year, up from a $360,000 surplus in 1986, the Finance Ministry said. The Saudis have mounted a major effort to diversify their oil-dependent economy, developing agricultural products for export as well as for domestic consumption. Exports totaled $22.56 billion last year, up from $19.24 billion in 1986, the ministry said. Imports were $20 billion, compared with $19.24 billion. The countries accounting for the largest share of imports were Japan, the United States, Britain, West Germany and Italy. * Spain concluded an economic agreement with Buenos Aires that would inject $3 billion into Argentina's debt-burdened economy, officials said. The agreement provides for $500 million in loans; $500 million in investment credits; $1 billion in financing by Spanish companies or through joint ventures, and $1 billion in financing for investment by Argentine companies. * Turkey, which calls itself the world's largest producer and exporter of hazelnuts, has established an international union to play an active role in the global hazelnut market. The members of the group are Italy, Spain and West Germany, both importers and exporters, and the United States and France, which are solely importers. A Turkish Government official said a powerful importers' group in Hamburg, West Germany, had previously set the rules in the global hazelnut market. * South Korea's consumer prices rose five-tenths of 1 percent in May from the previous month and 6.5 percent from a year ago, the Economic Planning Board reported Friday. The board also said wholesale prices rose four-tenths of 1 percent last month from April and 1.9 percent from May 1987. The increases, which followed declines in April, were attributed partly to increases in wages and the price of cooking coal and housing rentals. * Indonesia will receive more aid from Japan to manage its mounting foreign debt repayments. The Japanese Government said Tokyo would nearly double its aid in the current fiscal year, to $2.3 billion, from $1.23 billion last year. The aid will account for almost 30 percent of Jakarta's total | GLOBAL BRIEFS |
154005_0 | LEAD: Irishwomen lately are finding a critical telephone number scribbled on the walls of public restrooms, as if the need for abortion counseling were to be considered a scrofulous underworld indulgence. Irishwomen lately are finding a critical telephone number scribbled on the walls of public restrooms, as if the need for abortion counseling were to be considered a scrofulous underworld indulgence. In a way it is, for the Irish Republic's highest courts have ruled that the national ban against abortion, firmly established in a 1983 constitutional referendum, extends beyond the medical procedure to cover counseling information as well. Most particularly, the courts have denied Irish counselors what had been their remaining resort for pregnant women curious about abortion: referral to clinics in Britain, where abortion has been legal for more than 20 years. The result, in effect since a High Court ruling last year, has clearly been a blow to Irish feminists. They are demoralized that some women must skulk about for bootlegged information and the ever more precious telephone number in London where there is special counseling for Irishwomen who arrive at an estimated rate of up to 200 a week for the abortions denied at home. ''It makes the whole situation a lot more traumatic, particularly for someone in a crisis situation who needs information to think straight,'' said Pauline Ryder, administrator of the Dublin Well Woman Center, a private, nonprofit feminist health clinic enjoined from offering referral information that opponents charge amounted to illegal advocacy of abortion. The center intends to appeal to the European Court on Human Rights, arguing that neutral access to information is a basic human right. Founded 10 Years Ago The center was founded 10 years ago on Lower Leeson Street in the headier days of Irish feminism when women successfully challenged traditional shibboleths and laws on contraception in this deeply Roman Catholic nation. ''We were riding the crest of the wave of women's rights that began in America,'' Ms. Ryder said. Since then, however, the public's more traditional preferences have been made clear in the explicit constitutional ban on abortion and, two years ago, in the defeat of the proposal to legalize divorce, a campaign that left Irish politicians warier than ever of public issues that invite church pronouncements. This was demonstrated a few days ago in the chagrin of a new political party, the Progressive Democrats, at pulpit denunciations. The party | Dublin Journal; Calling London Urgently! (for Abortion Advice) |
157016_0 | LEAD: The French Government announced today that it would organize a referendum on self-determination for New Caledonia in 10 years and offer an immediate plan of economic improvement for the Pacific colony. The French Government announced today that it would organize a referendum on self-determination for New Caledonia in 10 years and offer an immediate plan of economic improvement for the Pacific colony. The move resulted from an agreement between the rival communities on the islands - the French colonialists, who want New Caledonia to remain part of France, and the separatist Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front representing native Melanesians, who favor independence. The talks were held in Paris under the auspices of the new Socialist Government of Prime Minister Michel Rocard, which came to power in May. Mr. Rocard said both parties had agreed that the French Government would resume direct administration of the territories, abolishing an executive council of 10 members that was in charge under the previous administration. The Prime Minister also said he would propose to President Francois Mitterrand that the French people be consulted on these new measures in a referendum to be held sometime this fall. He said the representatives of the two parties to the talks would try to rally support for the new measures. Then France would organize a referendum on self-determination in New Caledonia in 1998. Tensions High in Colony There is no indication that the measures will pave the way for independence for New Caledonia, which has been ruled by France for 135 years. Only 43 percent of the inhabitants are considered native Melanesians, with the balance made up mainly of French settlers and some Asians, who have in the past favored remaining a French territory. Tensions in New Caledonia have made the territory's status the most volatile issue facing the Rocard Government since it took power. Relations between the Melanesians and France had fallen to their lowest point in years after a raid on May 5 in which French troops freed 23 French hostages taken by extremists. The attack ended in the death of 19 of the Melanesian separatists and two French soldiers. One of Mr. Rocard's first actions as Prime Minister was to send a six-member mission of clergy and laymen to repair relations with Melanesians in New Caledonia, but he has been careful to avoid all talk of independence. The leader of the Melanesians advocating independence, Jean-Marie | Paris Plans 1998 Referendum for New Caledonia |
156076_0 | LEAD: To the Editor: To the Editor: ''Spring Offensive for City Schools'' (editorial, June 1) suggests that to transfer civil service protection and limited contracting authority to a new school-construction agency would hamper New York City's Board of Education in its proposed massive building program. I strongly disagree. From our experience with patronage in city agencies and authorities such as the Off-Track Betting Corporation and the Convention Center Development Corporation, I would say the proposal to eliminate civil service is detrimental to the public. The recent expose of the job-referral system in City Hall is further proof. The decay and obsolescence of schools was not caused by a career staff but by political influences outside the division of school buildings. Basic causes were drastic fund reduction for maintenance and construction following the fiscal crisis of 1975, and proliferation of consultant contracts, with time-consuming selection and review. Two recent studies of city construction problems point out the fallacy of hiring consultants instead of using in-house staff for design and construction. A 21-month study by Arthur Young & Company, management consultants, of eight agencies, including the Board of Education, recommends increased use of career architectural and engineering personnel to expedite the capital program and lower costs. The second study, on school construction, by New York State's Comptroller, Edward Regan, shows a severe shortage of technical staff in the division of school buildings, partly because city salaries are at least $5,000 below those in private industry. The red tape created at 110 Livingston Street can be eliminated by Chancellor Richard Green. What is also needed is a dedication by city and state lawmakers to provide adequate funds and staff for the ambitious program. LOUIS G. ALBANO, President, Local 375 Civil Service Technical Guild New York, June 2, 1988 | Civil Service Restraints Are Needed in School Building |
156139_0 | LEAD: The General Motors Corporation's Delco Products division announced plans to build an 82,000-square-foot plant that would use high technology and new management techniques to make struts for small front-wheel-drive cars in this Dayton suburb. Production is scheduled to begin next year with 60 people, expanding to 150 by 1992, said a Delco spokesman, Charles W. The General Motors Corporation's Delco Products division announced plans to build an 82,000-square-foot plant that would use high technology and new management techniques to make struts for small front-wheel-drive cars in this Dayton suburb. Production is scheduled to begin next year with 60 people, expanding to 150 by 1992, said a Delco spokesman, Charles W. Kronbach. The plant will be organized in flexible manufacturing cells with increased responsibilities for workers, instead of the traditional assembly line. Mr. Kronbach said the struts had already been accepted for use on G.M.'s new Saturn models and on Toyota Camrys to be built in Georgetown, Ky. | Company News; New Delco Plant |
156049_0 | LEAD: To the Editor: To the Editor: We object to the waiver to be given to the Board of Education in the newly proposed Board of Health Code. The waiver, in article 47.17 F, expands on an earlier waiver, which is being litigated, that would permit prekindergarten classes for 4-year-olds and kindergarten classes for 5-year-olds to be out of health code compliance. The section refers to provision of a paraprofessional or class assistant for classes of more than a certain number of children. Research and all current literature underline the need for close adult supervision in early school experiences. The Mayor's prekindergarten Giant Step Project was promoted on the promise that it would provide the highest quality prekindergarten education, a promise that would be contradicted by the waiver. The Board of Health should protect these children, penalize programs out of compliance with article 47.17 (b) 4, 5 and 6 and (c) 4, 5 and 6, and urge that the situation be corrected. It must not encourage wholesale erosion of quality early childhood programs. MARGE SCHEUER & BERNARD C. FISHER New York, June 10, 1988 The writers are, respectively, president and executive director of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York Inc. | Civil Service Restraints Are Needed in School Building Program; Tots in the Classroom |
157600_1 | the spread of farming and the collection of wood for fuel, forests in many tropical regions are dwindling rapidly, at a rate of nearly 30 million acres a year. Experts say this is causing shortages of valuable timber and environmental problems like soil erosion and the extinction of plant and animal species. Widespread destruction of tropical trees may also contribute to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that scientists fear is causing a global warming known as the greenhouse effect. Much of the pressure to save the forests has come from international conservation groups, whose representatives have also arrived here in large number to prod and buttonhole delegates and journalists. They say they are determined to keep the timber conference to its charter, which accepts the need to regenerate rather than despoil the tropical forests. The conservationists, who include foresters, agronomists and biologists, say they are supporting the organization and appear to have formed an uneasy alliance with the timber concerns that sell the trees. 'This Is Worth Pursuing' ''This is the only arena where producers and consumers are together and have an explicit mandate toward conservation,'' said Kenneth Cook, an American representative of the World Wildlife Fund. ''We feel this is worth pursuing and supporting.'' In asides, however, some of the European lobbyists say they will stage street protests actions against some of the members here should the organization be of no help in halting the rapid destruction of the forests. Delegates and lobbyists warn that the organization is still a tenuous one and, in the view of one American delegate, a ''body that is still trying to find its niche.'' After almost 10 years of talks, the group was formed nearly two years ago and its members represent 95 percent of the tropical timber trade. This meeting is the group's third and its first in a producing nation. Brazil has almost a third of the tropical forests in the world. The group has been short of money, and of the rich nations, only Japan, Switzerland and the Netherlands have pledged contributions for projects. Several, including the United States, are in arrears in their dues. Japan a Big Supporter Most support has come from Japan, the single largest importer of tropical hardwood. It lobbied hard to become the seat of the organization's headquarters, which opened in Yokohama last year. Divisions run deep. The rich countries say they | Brazil Parley Aims to Save Rain Forests |
157881_2 | Thursday or each trading day thereafter in July until the notices are posted each morning,'' Mr. Leslie noted. ''Our estimate for first notice day is that some 4 million bushels of wheat and 10 million each of corn and beans will be delivered on Thursday.'' But the big question, he continued, is not how much soybeans or oilseed products or grain are delivered against the spot futures. ''What traders want to know is who is delivering and who is receiving,'' he said. Incentive for the Bears Yesterday, for example, the bears gained the upper hand when it became known that brokerage houses, acting on their own account or for their customers, were the major source of sell orders, while commercial interests, like exporters and food processers, bought little if at all. As most crop futures registered limit losses, or even more in the case of the now-unrestricted spot July contracts, livestock prices were mixed. Many traders were seeking to get out of or to reverse the spreads they had taken in cattle and hogs. The spreads had consisted of selling the nearby delivery months, because of expectations that soaring feed costs would lead to liquidation of herds, and buying the distant contracts, which were expected to benefit from the presumed smaller number of animals next year. Meanwhile, trading activity in world sugar continues to post records on the 106-year-old Coffee, Cocoa and Sugar Exchange in New York. Yesterday's volume was estimated to have equaled or exceeded the preceding day's historic high of 52,198 contracts of 112,500 pounds each. World sugar prices have been in an upward trend recently but they weakened yesterday as part of the general selloff in commodities. The China Factor Erik N. Dunlaevy, a sugar trader at the Balfour Maclaine Corporation, attributed the recent gains in sugar prices partly to the drought in this country and partly to recent large imports by China. ''About half the sugar produced in our country comes from beets and the rest from cane,'' Mr. Dunlaevy explained. ''Because of the drought, there is a growing belief in the trade that this year's beet sugar crop may be so low that sugar import quotas may be raised soon.'' As for China's demand for sugar, Mr. Dunlaevy said it was so great that ''it raised Asian sugar prices so high that it made economic sense for China to import cargoes from Caribbean producers.'' FUTURES/OPTIONS | Rains Cause Crop Prices To Plummet |
157845_0 | LEAD: At home they may be lawyers, architects or homeowners, but here in the Columbia River Gorge they are boardheads. To a true boardhead, heaven is a 30-mile-an-hour wind. This month heaven is at its peak. At home they may be lawyers, architects or homeowners, but here in the Columbia River Gorge they are boardheads. To a true boardhead, heaven is a 30-mile-an-hour wind. This month heaven is at its peak. The windsurfers start to arrive in early spring, showing up on the Columbia about the same time as the first migrating Chinook salmon. The windsurfers were once dismissed as bums on water. They are now welcomed in this timber and fruit region in the 11,235-foot shadow of Mount Hood. A University of Oregon study shows that riding the wind on surfboards has turned around the economy of the Columbia Gorge, bringing more than $17 million a year to an area that once had high unemployment. ''The gorge has become the sailboarding center of the world,'' said David Povey, a professor at the university who organized the study. The gorge is a deep river breach through the Cascade Mountains about an hour east of Portland. The new migrants are people like Jerry Mullikin, 37 years old, who sells real estate in Vail, Colo. This year he bought a $65,000 house in Hood River to use in the four weeks a year he spends riding the winds of the Columbia. ''Once you get into this sport, what you crave are higher and higher winds,'' Mr. Mullikin said as he tried to decide which board to use at Swell City, a beach. ''There's no place in the world with winds this consistent. I got a point where I couldn't live without it, so we bought the home.'' On vacation in Hawaii four years ago, he heard about the gorge's winds from two Canadians. At the time, orchardists here were hanging their heads over low returns for cherries and pears and loggers were bemoaning the fluctuations of the timber market. The wind is powerful and steady and sucks air from the cooler western side of the Cascades into the dry eastern section. When Mr. Mullikin and other pioneer boardheads discovered it, they couldn't believe it. Unlike some ocean sites, the wind of the gorge never stops. Mr. Mullikin started out by purchasing a wet suit, a sailboard and a few other knickknacks for | Hood River Journal; Lure of a Wild Wind Revives a Region's Economy |
152222_3 | against missiles would work under real operating conditions. Despite these relatively pessimistic findings, the Office of Technology Assessment did not make any absolute recommendations. And its report conceded that given enough money and a fast enough pace of research, the type of first-phase system projected by the Reagan Administration for the next 15 years or so ''might be technically deployable.'' Release Coincides With Review The report comes at a time when Congress is considering how much money to spend on the ''Star Wars'' program, and what restrictions to place on the testing and deployment of its initial phase. A conference committee of House and Senate members this week began to work out a compromise version of bills on military programs that the two chambers passed in May. At the same time, senior Pentagon officials are in the midst of a review of the first phase of the program. The first phase is an initial deployment that would include interceptor missiles and sensors based both in space on the ground. Its deployment, which would occur about the turn of the century, would cost $100 billion or more. The Soviet Union, rejecting the Reagan Administration's broad interpretation of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, has condemned the plan as violation of the pact. The review of the first phase, officials have said, is likely to result in restructuring the program, delaying the the deployment of weapons in space but adopting an incremental approach that would move steadily in that direction. The report issued today is among the most comprehensive technical analyses of the first phase deployment ever published, and the only one produced outside the Pentagon by scientists with extensive access to secret details about the program. An earlier study published by the American Physical Society dealt primarily with futuristic technologies such as laser weapons that are not part of first-phase strategic defense system. ''Our sense is that Phase One is one step down a very long road,'' Thomas H. Karas, the project director, said at a news conference today. According to the report, the most immediate Soviet response to deployment of interceptor missiles in space would be to modify existing, nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles or air defense missiles, turning them into anti-satellite weapons that could destroy the American satellites. More exotic technologies, including the beam weapons being explored by both sides for anti-missile applications, would also be useful against satellites, the report said. | Report Sees Countermoves By Soviets on Missile Shield |
150573_2 | Forrest said, adding that the more contraceptive choices there are, the more likely it is that people will find methods they will use consistently. ''No one method suits everyone or suits any one person throughout their life,'' she said. ''There are women who can't use oral contraceptives and there are women who can't use IUD's and there are women who can't use the diaphragm or who choose not to use these methods because of their own personal preferences.'' Among the contraceptives available in other industrialized countries but not in the United States are Depo-Provera, an injectable contraceptive that protects against pregnancy for several months, ''morning after'' birth control pills, capsules that can be implanted under the skin of an arm and that last five years, a wider range of birth control pill formulations, a variety of IUD's, and a more easily reversible method of sterilization for women, using a clip to close off Fallopian tubes. Use of Pill Questioned In addition, American women are more reluctant than those of other developed countries to use birth control pills and IUD's, the most effective forms of contraception, Dr. Forrest and her colleagues found. Women are afraid that birth control pills might lead to cancer, Dr. Forrest said, although extensive data from other studies indicate that the pill actually reduces the risk of breast and ovarian cancer and has no effect on the risk of uterine and cervical cancer. Another difference between the United States and European countries is in obtaining birth control methods. ''In this country, contraceptives tend to be delivered by specialists in obstetrics and gynecology and by family-planning clinics,'' Dr. Forrest said. ''In most European contries, people tend to have family practitioners who give them contraceptive care.'' The advantage of using family practitioners is that they have longstanding relationships with patients and are more easily accessible, said Dr. Forrest. ''If you go to your family practitioner for a sore throat, you could easily say, 'Oh, by the way, I've gained five pounds since I started taking birth control pills. Could you change my pill prescription?' '' she said. The message from the new report is that effective contraceptive use requires more than just the perfect contraceptive, the researchers said. It is as much a social as a medical issue. ''Even if we had a new, wonderful method tomorrow, that doesn't mean we would solve all our problems,'' Dr. Forrest said. | Study Finds Rate of Abortion Is High Among U.S. Women |
150579_0 | LEAD: India's population has reached more than 800 million, and top Government officials say they are alarmed by the failure to bring a sharp drop in the nation's birth rate. India's population has reached more than 800 million, and top Government officials say they are alarmed by the failure to bring a sharp drop in the nation's birth rate. ''The situation is very serious, and all our efforts to remove poverty and raise the standard of living of people are getting nullified,'' said Saroj Kharpade, the country's Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare. India adds about 16 million people to its population every year and is eventually expected to overtake China, which has nearly 1.1 billion people, as the world's most populous nation. At a meeting on Monday with top officials from across India to assess the Government's family planning program, Miss Kharpade warned that India was moving toward a situation where ''there would be no houses, no water, no schools, no health facilities in adequate measure to take care of the increasing numbers.'' 'Staggering Growth' The Indian Government is distributing contraceptives and promoting the ideal of a small, healthy family as part of an overall drive to improve basic health. It has set targets for immunizing more than 80 million infants over the next years against diarrhea and other ailments that are major causes of infant mortality, which is a traditional reason for having large families. Until recently, the Government had said that the population is about 780 million. But P. N. Srivastava, a member of the National Planning Commission, which draws up the country's development plans, said on Monday that there were at least 20 million more Indians than earlier believed. ''This is a staggering growth of more than 120 million people in less than eight years,'' said Mr. Srivastava, who was a university professor and administrator for more than 30 years. The last census, in 1980, had placed the population at 680 million. Government Goals Are Missed At the conference Monday, representatives of different states described their probems. Several ministers pointed out that their departments often lacked enough vehicles, trained personnel and even telephones to make the campaign successful. ''I would not say that the family planning program has failed,'' Mr. Srivastava said. He said the national population growth rate had dropped from 2.2 percent a year to a current level of 2.13 percent. He | INDIA'S POPULATION TOPS 800 MILLION |
151312_3 | asked to grant the Polish church a clear legal status, making it easier for it to do things like open bank accounts, receive donations and form lay organizations. Most of the details have been worked out, according to Vatican officials, but the labor troubles last month, which increased the Government's unpopularity, may have set back the process because the Pope does not want to appear to favor the Government over the Polish people. Another initiative involved four months of negotiations with Czechoslovakia that ended in April. The church had been unable to appoint any new bishops there since 1973 because the authorities insisted that any new prelates belong to Pacem in Terris, a Government-backed clerical group not recognized by the Vatican. After the deaths of two bishops last year, the Government was eager to discuss the subject; 10 of the 13 dioceses in Czechoslovakia were without leaders. Amid rising protests against religious repression, Prague agreed to let the Vatican appoint three prelates but did not allow them to be assigned as full, resident bishops. The Vatican has increased its contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church, proposing more cooperation while also demanding that legal status be given to the estimated four to five million Ukranian Catholics who follow the Eastern rite but offer allegiance to Rome. Since Stalin decreed that they were part of the Russian Orthodox Church, they have had to practice their faith secretly. The Pope's tactical approaches were evident last week when he used the old technique of appointing cardinals to achieve a political aim. He elevated Archbishop Laszlo Paskai, who was named Primate of Hungary in 1987 after almost a year of talks with the Government. The appointment of Archbishop Vincentas Sladkevicius in Lithuania was described by Vatican officials as an effort to create a high-profile figure in the Soviet region with the most Catholics. The appointment of Archbishop John Baptist Wu Cheng-Chung of Hong Kong was made with an eye to the future. With only 267,000 Catholics, his archdiocese is too small to merit a cardinal. The assumption is that the 53-year-old archbishop will still be in his post in 1997, when Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty. Even if he is not, John Paul has set a precedent that should insure that a Vatican-appointed prelate can operate in China for the first time since Mao cracked down on the church in the 1950's. THE WORLD | Pope Also Warms to New Climate in the East |
151359_1 | on substantial numbers of pregnant VDT operators to show a statistically significant increase of miscarriages among those who use the terminals more than 20 hours a week. The researchers, whose findings appear in the June issue of The American Journal of Industrial Medicine, said that larger, more elaborate studies were needed. Since 1979, news organizations have reported several small clusters of miscarriages and birth defects among VDT operators in the United States and Canada. However, there are disputes about their meaning. Some scientists regard the cases as clues to a more serious problem, while others consider them statistical quirks. The few studies that have been completed have resulted in equivocal findings. Others are underway. #15 Million Terminals in Use About 15 million VDT's are in use in the United States, and about 3 million more are added annually, according to VDT News, an industry newsletter. About half the estimated 10 million people who use the machines on the job are women of child-bearing age. The Kaiser findings grew out of a study that was originally meant to determine the effects on pregnant women of pesticides used to combat Mediterranean fruit flies in California in 1981 and 1982. The researchers, Marilyn K. Goldhaber, Michael R. Polen and Dr. Robert A. Hiatt, surveyed 1,583 pregnant women who attended three Kaiser-Permanente obstetrics and gynecology clinics in northern California. Their study found increased risks of miscarriage in both the first and second trimesters of pregnancy for all women who worked with video display terminals for more than 20 hours a week, in comparison with nonworking women. No statistically significant increase was found for women who had used the terminals less than 20 hours a week, the researchers said.. The researchers also reported an increase of about 40 percent in birth defects among the children of pregnant women who used VDT's more than five hours a week. But the researchers said that finding was not statistically significant. The Issue of Radiation Some experts have suggested that low-level electromagnetic radiation from VDT's may be able to alter or disrupt cellular development. According to VDT News, experiments with mice and chicks have shown such effects, but similar effects have not not been demonstrated in people. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has said that VDT's do not emit unsafe levels of electromagnetic radiation. Critics counter, however, that any additional radiation imposes additional risk. The institute, | Pregnant Women's Use Of VDT's Is Scrutinized |
151187_1 | the future to their competitors. Although the majority of companies have located in the large urban areas, like Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area, there has also been significant investment in the smaller urban areas in the center of the state and in the rural areas. One Japanese company is investing $45 million in a state-of-the-art cotton mill in the more rural central part of the state. Q. Are you seeking particular types of investment? Mr. Rinehart: We are looking for reverse investment - that is, investment from countries we trade with. We are looking for investment that favors job creation. Primarily that means manufacturing - and manufacturing is a priority. If it is export-oriented manufacturing, so much the better. Then the investment helps reduce the trade deficit. Q. What kinds of incentives does California offer foreign investors? Mr. Rinehart: Well, the Governor got rid of unitary taxation, which has helped investment not only by foreign multinationals but by American multinationals. The Sony Corporation, for one, was very critical of unitary taxation and as soon as it was removed, they put in significant amount of new investment. Another important element is that our overseas offices are set up within the Governor's office. This shows people overseas that we put the highest priority on foreign investment. The state has also never had discriminatory investment policies in the past, and that has helped. American and foreign companies are treated exactly the same and can qualify for all of the same state-sponsored programs. That means that foreign companies can raise tax-free industrial revenue bonds for new plants and for the acquisition of real estate. It also means foreign companies can take advantage of the state's employment training grants to train workers. We have also established an office of permit assistance in the Governor's office to help foreign companies cut through the bureaucracies when it comes to getting permits from state, federal and local agencies. Foreign companies locating in California that wish to export can also take advantage of the our World Trade Commission's export financing arm. The Sanyo Corporation, which is in San Diego, is taking advantage of this to export some of the products it makes here. Q. How does your office work with a foreign company? Mr. Rinehart: Our role is to sit down with a foreign company, learn as much as we can about them and then direct | How California Does It |
151380_4 | Eighteen members of Congress and three representatives of the executive branch sit on a commission that monitors Soviet human rights progress. An official of this Helsinki Commission, who asked to remain anonmyous, said there was a consensus among members that substantial compliance would include the release of political prisoners, reduction of restraints on emigration, an end to the jamming of Western broadcasts and measures to reunify divided families. President Reagan, who in his meetings with Mr. Gorbachev and others in Moscow emphasized the importance the United States attaches to human rights, also spoke excitedly about trade prospects last week. ''Nothing would please my heart more than in my lifetime to see American and Soviet diplomats grappling with the problem of trade disputes between America and a growing, exuberant, exporting Soviet Union that had opened up to economic freedom and growth.'' While two-way trade between the two countries has grown substantially since the 1960's - from less than $250,000 in 1971 to close to $1.9 billion in 1987 - it has followed no steady course. ''Political determinants are more important than economic ones in giving the trade relationship its erratic pattern,'' said Paul Stern, former chairman of the International Trade Commission and now a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A Rare Surplus for the U.S. Three-quarters of what the United States sells to the Soviets are agricultural products and most of what it buys are raw materials. The Soviet Union is one of the rare countries with whom the United States has a trade surplus. The Commerce Department estimates that favored trade status would increase Soviet exports to the United States, which last year totaled $470 million, by between $20 million and $100 million a year. ''These are not large figures,'' said Franklin J. Vargo, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Europe. ''This is because the Soviets have not been able to generate exportable manufactured goods in large quantities.'' But he added that the Russians may be expecting larger benefits because of their recent interest in joint ventures with American companies. For example, Combustion Engineering Inc. announced last Wednesday that it had reached an agreement to help build and manage a multibillion-dollar petrochemical complex in Western Siberia. Other companies with either existing or contemplated joint ventures include Occidental Petroleum, RJR Nabisco Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Ford Motor Company, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Eastman Kodak and Chevron Corporation. | Rights Measure Disturbs Hopes for Soviet Trade |
154268_0 | LEAD: After years of relative quiet, the possible health effects of video display terminals have again become a public issue, fueled by a new scientific study and a new law on Long Island. These appear against an unsettled scentific backdrop in which some dangers are discounted but others are still open to question. After years of relative quiet, the possible health effects of video display terminals have again become a public issue, fueled by a new scientific study and a new law on Long Island. These appear against an unsettled scentific backdrop in which some dangers are discounted but others are still open to question. The latest research raises new fears that the terminals might be linked to miscarriages or birth defects in pregnant women, but the findings are only preliminary and suggestive, according to the researchers. The evidence on eyestrain is more conclusive, experts say. The consensus of authoritative scientific groups is that terminals do not ruin the eyes permanently by causing cataracts or other physiological damage, but they can cause eye irritation, fatigue and headaches in workers who spend long hours staring at their machines. Paradoxically, the danger most feared by many workers, the radiation emitted by the machines, appears to be the least likely source of problems, according to experts who have studied the evidence. The video display terminals, which look much like television screens attached to a keyboard, are rapidly replacing typewriters and other office machines in many businesses, raising sporadic fears that, like any new technology, they may introduce unexpected health problems after prolonged use. Indeed, the terminals have become increasingly pervasive in such industries as airlines, insurance and newspapers. Although virtually every expert group that has reviewed the evidence in recent years has largely discounted the risks of major or permanent health damage, a fresh wave of concern rippled through the work force this month after two unrelated events, one scientific and the other political. The scientific event was a new study, the most extensive yet conducted, which found a statistical correlation between miscarriages in working women and long hours of VDT use. The study was conducted by researchers at the Northern California Kaiser-Permanente Medical Care Program who interviewed almost 1,600 pregnant women two and a half years after their pregnancies and asked them to recall what exposure they had to video terminals, pesticides or other potential hazards. The study found that clerical and | Video Terminals and Health: A Reawakening of Concern |
156293_5 | Hansen said at the hearing today, adding, ''It is already happening now.'' Dr. Syukuro Manabe of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration testified today that a number of factors, including an earlier snowmelt each year because of higher temperatures and a rain belt that moves farther north in the summer means that ''it is likely that severe mid-continental summer dryness will occur more frequently with increasing atmsopheric temperature.'' A Taste of the Future While natural climate variability is the most likely chief cause of the current drought, Dr. Manabe said, the global warming trend is probably ''aggravating the current dry condition.'' He added that the current drought was a foretaste of what the country would be facing in the years ahead. Dr. George Woodwell, director of the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Mass., said that while a slow warming trend would give human society time to respond, the rate of warming is uncertain. One factor that could speed up global warming is the widescale destruction of forests that are unable to adjust rapidly enough to rising temperatures. The dying forests would release the carbon dioxide they store in their organic matter, and thus greatly speed up the greenhouse effect. Sharp Cut in Fuel Use Urged Dr. Woodwell, and other members of the panel, said that planning must begin now for a sharp reduction in the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide. Because trees absorb and store carbon dioxide, he also proposed an end to the current rapid clearing of forests in many parts of the world and ''a vigorous program of reforestation.'' Some experts also believe that concern over global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels warrants a renewed effort to develop safe nuclear power. Others stress the need for more efficient use of energy through conservation and other measures to curb fuel-burning. Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, an atmospheric physicist with the Environmental Defense Fund, a national environmental group, said a number of steps can be taken immediately around the world, including the ratification and then strengthening of the treaty to reduce use of chlorofluorocarbons, which are widely used industrial chemicals that are said to contribute to the greenhouse effect. These chemicals have also been found to destroy ozone in the upper atmosphere that protects the earth's surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. | Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate |
153738_0 | LEAD: The World Bank announced today that it had approved a $231.9 million interest-free loan to China for road-improvement and tree-harvesting projects. Road-improvement projects in Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces will be aided by a $175 million loan, the bank said. The World Bank announced today that it had approved a $231.9 million interest-free loan to China for road-improvement and tree-harvesting projects. Road-improvement projects in Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces will be aided by a $175 million loan, the bank said. It said A $56.9 million loan would be used for a tree-harvesting project that hopes to salvage about two million acres of trees damaged by a forest fire in May 1987. The loan, made through the International Development Association, the bank's concessionary lending arm, is for 35 years, including a 10-year grace period. FINANCE/NEW ISSUES | China Given Loan By World Bank |
156850_1 | over the years have come to resemble both a perpetual motion machine and an absurdly complex Rube Goldberg contrivance, generate the costly stockpiles of corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, butter, milk and other commodities that are disrupting world markets. The drought that is now searing the American farm belt has taken some of the edge off the problem of surpluses by damaging prospects for 1988 harvests and promising to raise American grain and soybean prices above prevailing world levels. Yet droughts are temporary, while overproduction is recurrent. Japan, whose part-time farmers are considered among the most inefficient in the world, produces all the rice it needs by restricting imports and charging consumers 10 times the world price, thereby stimulating production. The artifical condition creates a wall of protection again foreign imports and makes it profitable for Japanese farmers to produce rice that is financed by Japanese consumers. At times, Japan has even exported subsidized rice at lower, world market prices. Because of import levies and high prices, the European Community is one of the world's leading sugar exporters, to the dismay of the Philippines and Caribbean countries that are dependent on sugar. The community's agricultural policy is similar for other crops. In the 1960's the European Community was the world's largest food importer; today it rivals the United States as an exporter. The United States also plays the game, directly and indirectly. Take the subsidized water that makes California's vegetables competitive with imports. Or the extensive quotas retained to bar imports of dairy products, sugar, cotton and peanuts - under a special dispensation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that is now being challenged by the Europeans. A study published this year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that the United States and the European Community each spent nearly $60 billion protecting farmers in the years 1984-86, against nearly $40 billion in Japan. Other nations that subsidize farmers include Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Pointing the Finger On a per capita basis the 2.5 million American farmers are the most cosseted of the major exporters, followed by Japan's 4.4 million and the European Community's 11 million. Yet the United States has long been critical of European farm subsidies because of their impact on world trade, which the Americans contend is much greater than that of the American program. Washington subsidizes American farmers directly, while the Europeans | The Industrialized World Shows Its Love for the Farm |
156751_0 | LEAD: POSTERITY MAY SEE THE YEAR 1988 as one in which there was at last a turn for the better in the long and grim story of Italy's irresponsibility toward her patrimony. As a repository of great art and a living museum of great architecture, Italy has few rivals, past or present. But also, and above all since World War POSTERITY MAY SEE THE YEAR 1988 as one in which there was at last a turn for the better in the long and grim story of Italy's irresponsibility toward her patrimony. As a repository of great art and a living museum of great architecture, Italy has few rivals, past or present. But also, and above all since World War II, it has doubled, in that regard, as a hospital for great architecture and a plague ship for great art. Everyone who knows Italy well can think of great museums that have been closed for months or even years together, great works of art that have been allowed to deteriorate, and churches that are visibly coming apart. To say that there is any general improvement in this would be premature, but at least we have lately seen major and successful restorations of work by four great artists - Michelangelo and Raphael in Rome, Masaccio and Donatello in Florence - together with the beginnings of a new science of diagnostics that may help to make such things common form in the future. To begin with, we can say that in the ongoing and long-running process of the restoration of Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, work has just been completed on what may well be the most celebrated image in Western painting - the ''Creation of Adam.'' This critic happened to be in Rome last winter when the moveable scaffolding had just been put beneath the ''Creation of Adam.'' Like many another interested observer, he was allowed to mount the scaffold more than once. Given the scrupulosity of the observers, the quality of the technical apparatus that signals any possible potential mishap way in advance, and the evident rightness of the work already on the ceiling, there seemed no reason to doubt that the majestic twosome would be brought safely forth from the filth of the ages. This was not a minority opinion. One or two pseudo-controversies notwithstanding, the restoration of the Sistine ceiling has been received with virtually unanimous approval by | Italy Reclaims Its Treasures From the Past |
156564_3 | to the siren song of the job search. Even if one's faith that one is in college to learn has not been shaken, the intrusive presence of corporate recruiters holding their tense preliminary recruitment meetings at breakfast in the college dining commons, the ubiquitous interview suit, the flurry of rumors of job offers and the ding, or similar-sounding rejection, letters are all enough to rattle the would-be student into wondering whether she or he should be looking for a job instead of writing the senior honors essay. The variety of services provided by a college or university for its students are all, without exception, intended to support the academic work of the students and not replace it as appears to be the case with on-campus recruitment. Reacting to the pressure placed on their students by society to succeed financially and materially, universities have cashed in their role as the critical leaders of America, succumbing to the market's demand to provide their forthcoming alumni with the means to a good job upon graduation. What they are really doing is letting their students down, undermining their own ideals, failing to live up to their own standards. Instead, the universities ought to encourage their students to continue developing their critical faculties while they are still in school so that education does not end upon commencement and to consider pursuing careers in nontraditional, perhaps less lucrative, fields. The universities should also encourage students to begin thinking about what they might want to do with their lives, what impact they would like to have on their world, and how to creatively construct a suitable career path, consistent with their own values and hopes, after graduation rather than taking a job out of expedience. I am not oblivious to the fact that the way we spend our youths has a tremendous impact on our adult lives. Obviously, I am talking about varying levels of misspent youth. One could do worse than to spend one's senior year in college writing an honors essay. One could, for instance, forsake that valuable experience to use the time to polish one's resume and write sugar-coated cover letters to potential employers. A recent criticism lodged against contemporary college students and recent graduates is that they don't give a damn, that they want to make money, period! Who can blame them when our universities and parents are condoning, even encouraging each subsequent | Why Pressure The Graduate? |
156912_0 | LEAD: GUESS who's having a European film festival? Swissair, among other institutions. While one wouldn't switch to a Swissair flight just to catch up with ''My Life as a Dog'' or ''Au Revoir, Les Enfants,'' the festival may be an attraction to passengers suffering fatigue from ''Three Men and a Baby.'' GUESS who's having a European film festival? Swissair, among other institutions. While one wouldn't switch to a Swissair flight just to catch up with ''My Life as a Dog'' or ''Au Revoir, Les Enfants,'' the festival may be an attraction to passengers suffering fatigue from ''Three Men and a Baby.'' The World Airline Entertainment Association says that 262 films were shown in flight last year, but that 10 of these dominated the schedules to such a degree that the others were shown only infrequently. This explains why you may have seen ''Baby Boom'' three times this year, as I have, on three lines. (The top 10 list for 1987 included ''Tough Guys,'' ''Peggy Sue Got Married,'' ''Children of a Lesser God'' and ''The Color of Money.'') There are reasons the menu is limited: Passengers on a plane are the ultimate captive audiences, unable either to walk out or turn off the projector - though some passengers prefer not to rent a headset and simply ignore the film. Discontent, the airlines reason, might express itself in the choice of another carrier the next time. So the movie that is least likely to offend anyone is the hot choice. If you are concerned about the kind of movie you might encounter aloft, you should know that American carriers are more conservative than European airlines, and that adult pictures are shown more often on night flights than they are during the day. Airlines know what film, or on long flights, films, will be shown about four weeks in advance, so it is possible to find out what will be screened on your trip by asking the airline. (Airlines, by the way, do not show the same film on both eastbound and westbound flights, but they may show it on eastbound United States flights one month and on Europe-bound flights the next.) The schedules are not likely to be decided more than a month ahead because the airlines want to get new movies as they are made available. This is usually three to four months after the film's theatrical release, according to Linda | Practical Traveler; How Airlines Pick the Movies |
151900_2 | a hot subject,'' he said. ''We haven't lost much to physics in the number of majors. We're not losing majors to engineering.'' One reason, perhaps, is that companies often hire engineers simply as engineers without regarding them as potential managerial talent. This has frustrated many engineers who want to move up to administrative jobs and has led many of them to add M.B.A.'s. In recent years job opportunities for mathematics majors have broadened considerably, especially for women, who now represent about 50 percent of the group. Mathematicians have become popular as financial analysts for Wall Street firms, along with filling jobs in underwriting departments, on foreign-exchange desks and in options trading. And there is a traditional demand for mathematicians in insurance companies' actuarial departments and in corporate treasurers' departments. Gerard Lallement, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, also believes that business opportunities abound for people with mathematical skills. His son, Dr. Lallement said, graduated from Penn State as a mathematics major and added a master's degree in math at the University of Maryland. He recently received three job offers ''in the neighborhood of $35,000,'' Dr. Lallement said. The professor said he had two students last year who earned Ph.D.'s in mathematics. One took a job at $40,000 in New Mexico with a private company. The other, whom he described as also ''bright in computer science,'' became an assistant professor at New Mexico State University at Las Cruces for ''about $36,000 a year'' with a promise of time off for research. Like Dr. Connors, Dr. Lallement deplores the way mathematics is generally taught at the elementary school and high school levels, a weakness that discourages many able students from majoring in math when they reach college. ''Math teachers should know their subject in depth, and they don't,'' Dr. Lallement said. He said he recently taught 24 students in a course called ''Algebra for Teachers.'' ''Twelve of them flunked the course,'' he said. ''It is frightening.'' Those who failed had to take the course again, delaying their teacher training semester. ''The best way of correcting the situation,'' he said, ''is to ask education majors to take the same courses as the math majors.'' The number of mathematics majors at Penn State has been increasing about 10 percent a year, Dr. Lallement estimated. ''As a result,'' he said, ''we are beginning to be more selective about those students encouraged to major in mathematics.'' | Careers; Math Majors Find a Wide Choice of Jobs |
152025_1 | asked the Japanese to expand their foreign-aid program. A5 The African National Congress has become radicalized because of SouthAfrica's state of emergency, which has strengthened the position of hard-liners in the exiled anti-apartheid organization. A8 Blacks in South Africa protested a Government crackdown on anti-apartheid groups. More than a million people stayed away from work, and two bombs exploded at the start of the three-day protest. A8 News analysis: Jean-Marie Le Pen and the National Front failed in the opening round of French legislative elections to capitalize on their success in the Presidential elections. But they are not out of the race yet. A3 Tokyo journal: Shinto thrust back onto nationalist stage A4 Polish church sees gains as Primate goes to Soviet A11 Senate avoids a vote on keeping troops in Persian Gulf A13 NATIONAL A16-28, B7-9 Morton Thiokol will not make the next generation of booster rockets for space shuttles. The company, which built the booster blamed for the destruction of the shuttle Challenger, said it would not to bid on a new contract. A1 Two savings and loans were closed by the Government, which said it would pay depositors in the American Diversified Savings Bank and the North America Savings and Loan Association $1.35 billion for their insured accounts. A1 A death sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court, 5-4, in the case of a Maryland man, because of doubt that the sentencing form given to the jury adequately explained the legal curbs on imposition of the death sentence. B7 Legal arguments for sanctuary to Central Americans will be considered in a hearing in Albuquerque, N.M., where the Federal Government is prosecuting two people who arranged for two Salvadorans to enter the United States illegallly. A16 A dispute over knotholes in plywood between the United States and Canada is among the unresolved issues in the free-trade pact, now moving through the legislative approval process in Washington and Ottawa. D1 Baltimore journal: Neighborhoods cling to ethnic soul A16 Judge denies defense request for files in Iran-contra case A17 Jailed wife of spy denied access to press A20 Senate approves $1.1 trillion budget resolution A22 POLITICS B8 Michael Dukakis could clinch the Democratic Presidential nomination today in primaries in New Jersey, California, Montana and New Mexico. He has more than 1,800 of the 2,081 delegates needed for the nomination. B8 Jesse Jackson said he would fight on the floor of | NEWS SUMMARY |
151876_0 | LEAD: To the Editor: To the Editor: ''Practice Nepotism, but Affirmatively'' by Judith Martin and Gunther Stent (Op-Ed, May 19) was disappointing in that, after presenting a number of arguments why one should not encourage dual-career hiring, they then recommend that universities follow a ''policy of affirmative nepotism.'' The only examples they gave were how it should not be done. My own university has recently ventured into these waters with some success. Beyond the traditional approach of attempting to find a suitable open position somewhere in the university or the community for the significant other, two new models have emerged. The first is a loan from another department. Recently, a department eager to hire X lent a faculty slot to another department to hire Y on a three-year visiting basis, after which the faculty slot would revert to the lender. Presumably, in those three years Y would find another position, or the second department would find a source of funds of its own. The second is a sharing arrangement. A science department eager to hire A was persuaded to divide a faculty slot between A and B. Each has an active research program. Each teaches a half-load and is brought up to full salary through external research funding. One caveat should prevail in all this. You can negotiate with couples, but you should write contracts for individuals, and rights of survivorship should be clearly spelled out beforehand. In this country the average probationary period to tenure is substantially longer than the average marriage. DAVID M. GITLITZ Acting Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost State University of New York Binghamton, N.Y., May 20, 1988 | Finding a Job for the Significant Other |
152043_0 | LEAD: George Tsontakis led his Metropolitan Greek Chorale in three recent works on Greek themes, and a good deal of traditional Greek music - sacred and secular, unadorned and lavishly arranged - on Sunday evening at Merkin Concert Hall. The contemporary scores were the program's focal points; yet the traditional selections provided a welcome context. George Tsontakis led his Metropolitan Greek Chorale in three recent works on Greek themes, and a good deal of traditional Greek music - sacred and secular, unadorned and lavishly arranged - on Sunday evening at Merkin Concert Hall. The contemporary scores were the program's focal points; yet the traditional selections provided a welcome context. The program began with two unaccompanied Byzantine hymns - ancient settings, with droning bass lines and modal, otherworldly harmonizations. From these it was a short leap to the premiere of Mr. Tsontakis's Three Byzantine Hymns with Brass Quintet (1988), in which the choral settings retain an authentic flavor to a great degree, while the brass quintet's dissonant, colorful bursts function alternately as a support (the trombones, for instance, take up the drone with far greater power than the choir's basses can muster) and as a kind of updated, illuminating commentary. Mr. Tsontakis's Five Choral Sketches on ''Is Aghios'' (1984), is also based on a sacred text, approached with a free hand. The settings range from somber to sweet and serene to rhythmically pointed and harmonically dense, and they are tied together by four virtuosic clarinet cadenzas, played with coloristic brilliance by David Krakauer. The program's other premiere, Marc-Antonio Consoli's ''Greek Lyrics'' (1988) is a setting of three brief poems, each separated by a lavish interlude for string quartet. Mr. Consoli paints in vivid harmonic colors, and demands thick choral and string textures, but the results have a visceral directness. Against the chorus, which sings in Greek, the composer has set a dramatic soprano line, in Italian, and Diana Nikkolos sang that part commandingly. Mr. Tsontakis ended the concert with arrangements of nine popular Greek songs, all richly harmonized and full of charm. In their evident zeal, the choristers let their ensemble discipline slip in some of these, and the polish they brought to other works gave way to less unified attacks and uneven balances. In these and the Consoli, Andrew Violette accompanied the chorus with great flair. The other assisting ensembles were the New Amsterdam Brass and the Esaki String Quartet. | Review/Music; Greek Chorale Presents Premieres and Tradition |
151930_0 | LEAD: The airlines had their best on-time performance and least number of consumer complaints to the Government in the latest aviation consumer statistics, the Transportation Department announced today. The airlines had their best on-time performance and least number of consumer complaints to the Government in the latest aviation consumer statistics, the Transportation Department announced today. The department said it had received 36 percent fewer complaints from passengers in May than in the same month in 1987. For the first time in 15 months, the complaints were fewer than 2,000; they were at 1,820. The department said that in April, the latest month for on-time information, the 14 largest airlines had 82.6 percent of their flights arrive within 15 minutes of schedule, as against 78.8 percent in March. The figures were the best since the department began monitoring on-time performance last September and in part reflected good weather in April, the agency officials said. The airlines also misplaced fewer bags in April with 6.53 baggage complaints for every 1,000 passengers flown, compared with 7.48 reports the previous month and 11.83 in January. The number of passengers bumped from flights because of overbooking also declined. There were 3.71 passenger for every 10,000 boardings involuntarily bumped in the first three months of this year, compared with 5.46 passengers in the same period of 1987, the department said. Continental Airlines and Eastern Airlines, both owned by Texas Air Corporation, were the subject of the most complaints to the department. | Airlines Improve On-Time Rates |
155045_2 | alike have a pivotal stake in helping to retain the talent and energy that come with youth - the fountain of our future. A certain percentage of college-bound students will always migrate elsewhere. We are a small and wealthy state. Teen-agers want to get away from home and many parents have the means to help them. Students also deserve choice and the freedom to find a college that best meets their needs and aspirations. Yet, their choice - to attend in-state or out-of-state institutions - needs to be based on good information, rather than on a blurring of distance and desirability. A recent survey of high school seniors by the Institute for Social Inquiry at the University of Connecticut found that students make college choices with an alarming lack of information. Many decisions are based on vague ideas about college reputations and availability of special programs. Too many falsely assume that they must go out of state to find one or both. These findings prompted the Board of Governors to name its special task force of advertising, media, education, government and business representatives to take a closer look at the issue and make recommendations. The board's hope, in carrying out the group's proposals, is to help Connecticut students and their parents make informed decisions about college and to assure that students are well aware of the wealth of opportunities offered by colleges in their home state: two- and four-year programs, urban and rural settings, commuting and residential styles, full-time and part-time programs, career offerings and the liberal arts, cooperative education and work-study arrangements. McDonald's-style advertising, fine for hamburgers, is not the approach we seek. As recommended by the task force, the Board of Governors for Higher Education will encourage a cooperative effort by colleges and high schools to increase information available to students. Modeled on efforts in other states, a Coalition for Collegiate Communication involving college presidents, high school guidance counselors, government officials and business executives can help Connecticut citizens to better understand the value of their institutions of higher learning. Acknowledging a limitation of funds, it will be their goal to build on existing resources - high school newspapers, speaker bureaus and parents' newsletters - to communicate the message. The good news of the message already exists. On several fronts, Connecticut colleges have rebounded from the recession of the 70's. Substantial growth in financial aid funds is making it | For College Students, the Grass May Be Greener at Home |
155014_2 | pervasive images in this exhibition of Greek and Etruscan art, and are among the best proof of the break with Egyptian formality. A Gorgon's viciousness is tempered to giddiness by its toothy grin on a fifth-century terra-cotta roof ornament. Stifled laughter swells the cheeks and widens the eyes on a fragment of a noseless face, all that remains of a painted terra-cotta vessel from about 650 B.C. Contented smiles transform the features of both young muscle-flexing athletes and mature, handsomely coifed women. Cornelius Vermeule, curator of classical art at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, reviews the evolution of naturalism and analyzes why it happened in his absorbing introduction to the 78-page catalogue ($20). ''There are epic stylistic developments in Archaic Greek art centering particularly around the increasingly ideal naturalism of the male and female figure,'' he writes. Naturalism did not stop with expressions of facial delight. A drama is captured in a pair of architectural clay plaques from the sixth century B.C. A crouching lioness on one plaque taunts a panther on the other; the panther paws the air and snarls back over his shoulder at the lioness. There are glorious bronze griffins, eagles, lions and a horse, all of them believably fierce or regal but softened by naturalism. A bronze griffin from Samos is a friendly beast with a hooked beak, curled tongue, pointed ears and no fangs. A surprisingly stolid bronze bull seems as tame as a lamb. Real or mythological, these animals were crafted to serve as votive figures, decorative ornaments, the feet or handles of vessels, furniture and weapons - symbolic guardians that possess great esthetic power. Several painted vases by named and anonymous artists in this exhibition surpass the bronzes in craft skills - but not in expressiveness. Dr. Vermeule compares the painted vases to today's video presentations - a visualization of classroom texts of ancient myths. In antiquity, Greeks and Etruscans enjoyed reminders of familiar tales in the illustrations enhancing the surfaces of their drinking cups, mixing bowls, perfume bottles and ritual vessels. On one of the most memorable painted cups in the show, a vessel from about 550 B.C. attributed to the Malibu Painter, the naturalistic style heightens the action of the story of Hercules wrestling the Nemean lion, in the first of his famous labors. While the lion rears he holds Hercules by the neck with his right paw in an iron | Archaic Smiles Have Persisted For 2,000 Years |
155205_7 | span that links Canada and the United States. A walk (10 cents) across the bridge to parkland in Canada is a good way to get a view of the river and the falls. Unlike the natural parkland in the United States, the park on the Canadian side is of British descent: manicured shrubs, cultivated flower beds and splashing fountains. Farther on, the river narrows through the gorge to create the Whirlpool Rapids, a stretch of violent whitewater. In 1883 Capt. Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel, donned red trunks and leapt from a boat above the rapids in an attempt to swim through the gorge. Thousands watched as he fought the swells, but in a matter of minutes he disappeared from sight. Four days later his body was discovered seven miles downstream. Modern adventure-seekers have paid the price as well. Niagara Gorge Trips began running large rubber rafts in the early 1970's. The trips were discontinued in 1975 when one raft encountered a wall of whitewater and flipped over. Three people drowned, and another died during recovery of the raft. On top of the river palisades along the rapids are more parks. Oak and chestnut trees provide a canopy for picnics. Steep trails wend their way down to the river, and paths line the edge of the bottom of the gorge. A prime place for a picnic with a view is Whirlpool State Park on a promontory on the American side with a view of a giant inlet cut into the rock. A Spanish aerocar on the Canadian side, built in 1916, takes visitors across the river. Several miles farther down river past Devil's Hole Rapids is Devil's Hole State Park, named for a large cave in the 225-foot-deep gorge. There is a picnic area here, with stairs going most of the way to the bottom. Near here in 1763 a Conestoga wagon supply train rolling along the lip of the gorge was ambushed by Seneca Indians. Eighty people were killed in the Devil's Hole Massacre, and only two escaped, including a young boy who was thrown into the brush at the edge of the cliff when his wagon overturned. Heraclitus was probably right. You can't step into the same river twice. But you can experience a place where a turbulent river has carved a record and served as a leitmotif for people who have settled | The Niagara Roars On With New Twists |
155163_0 | LEAD: AT THE PALACES OF KNOSSOS. By Nikos Kazantzakis. Translated by Themi Vasils and Theodora Vasils. (Ohio University, Cloth, $19.95; Paper, $9.95.) One cannot know what Nikos Kazantzakis would have thought of this posthumously edited version of a novel he wrote in the late 1930's for serialization in an Athenian youth periodical. AT THE PALACES OF KNOSSOS. By Nikos Kazantzakis. Translated by Themi Vasils and Theodora Vasils. (Ohio University, Cloth, $19.95; Paper, $9.95.) One cannot know what Nikos Kazantzakis would have thought of this posthumously edited version of a novel he wrote in the late 1930's for serialization in an Athenian youth periodical. But those who are familiar with his novels ''Zorba the Greek'' and ''The Last Temptation of Christ'' will vicariously feel his disappointment. ''At the Palaces of Knossos'' is a retelling of the myth of Theseus, a prince of ancient Athens who is sent as a sacrificial tribute to King Minos of Crete and ultimately overthrows him. Symbolically, it is a tale of the birth of a new age through the deposing of an old and obsolete order. Certainly, at the time Kazantzakis wrote the novel this myth had special significance, since Greece was struggling to recover its independence in a modern world. But as the story unfolds here, Kazantzakis never succeeds in breathing fresh life into these ancient personages; his characters never become more than clumsy symbols of various vices and virtues. But more problematical than the shortcomings of the novel are the intentions of Kazantzakis's translators, Theodora and Themi Vasils, who edited and abridged his unpublished, and certainly unfinished, first draft. Would he have ultimately overcome the limitations of telling a familiar story as he did so successfully in his other historical novels? Or did he set this one aside, knowing it was less than what he aspired to? The thinness of ''At the Palaces of Knossos'' suggests the latter - and that Kazantzakis's reputation might have been better served had his instincts to abandon this tale been respected. | IN SHORT: FICTION |
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