1) Song of the week: "Luka" by Suzanne Vega 
2) New Scientist: Credit-card implant provokes criticism [Une entreprise souhaite remplacer votre carte bancaire par une micropuce implantée dans votre corps]
3) The Miami Herald: Christmas trees [Sapins de Noël]
4) Vancouver Sun: Turkey soda [Un  soda pour Thanksgiving parfumé à la dinde rôtie]
5) Associated Press: Political correctness in IT [Protestations contre l'emploi des mots "maître" et "esclave" en informatique]
6) The Economist: French universities [Alors que les étudiants français font grève, que deviennent les grandes écoles?]
7) The Emily Post Institute: Holiday office party etiquette [Eviter les écueils des fêtes de fin d'année au bureau]
8) On the Media radio interview: Insurgency in Algiers…and Baghdad  [Entretien radio sur le film "La bataille d'Alger"]
9) The Plain English Campaign: The Foot in Mouth Award [Prix annuel accordé aux propos les plus incompréhensibles de l'année (Le gagnant 2003 est bien sûr notre ami Donald Rumsfeld)]
10) The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: New rule may let Elvis ride on  [Le conseil municipal de Seattle veut accorder le droit aux taxis de se déguiser]
11) The New York Times Magazine: Making a Hermès Kelly bag [Etapes dans la fabrication d'un sac Kelly de chez Hermès]
12) SlateDear Prudence: Witch Way [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court: Comment annoncer à ma famille que je suis devenue païenne ? Je crains que ma tante est en train de dragueur mon père. Je suis amoureuse de mon prof de musique. Comment ne pas fréquenter l'amant alcoolo/toxico de ma meilleure amie ?]

My name is Luka
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes I think you've seen me before 

If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble. some kind of fight
Just don't ask me what it was
Just don't ask me what it was
Just don't ask me what it was 

I think it's because I'm clumsy
I try not to talk too loud
Maybe it's because I'm crazy
I try not to act too proud

They only hit until you cry
And after that you don't ask why
You just don't argue anymore
You just don't argue anymore
You just don't argue anymore

Yes I think I'm okay
I walked into the door again
Well, if you ask that's what I'll say
And it's not your business anyway
I guess I'd like to be alone
With nothing broken, nothing thrown 

Just don't ask me how I am
Just don't ask me how I am
Just don't ask me how I am

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An under-the-skin implant that makes credit card payments via radio signals is attracting widespread criticism from technologists, privacy lobbyists and security experts.

Advanced Digital Solutions in Palm Beach, Florida, announced a plan to turn its rice-grain-sized Verichips into a method of payment at ID World 2003 in Paris, France recently. The company's previous proposal to implant GPS systems inside people also prompted scepticism. 

But ADS claims its Veripay system, which is based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, would end the problems of identity theft and make it impossible to lose your credit card.

The injectable chip could also one day store PC and cellphone log-ins, medical information, and wireless car and building entry codes, says ADS's Matthew Cossolotto, who is already "chipped up" with the device. 

However, Veripay's opponents say that it has technological limitations, would compromise the wearer's privacy and could be less - not more - secure than a conventional credit card.

IDENTITY NUMBER 

A RFID tag is a device that emits a unique identity number when queried by a radio frequency "reader". The signal from the reader both activates and powers the tag. The tags are becoming increasingly popular, particularly with big companies managing their stock.

Thirty Mexican patients were implanted with RFID chips in July 2003, to allow instant access to their medical records and "sub-dermal" tags have been used to track pets and livestock for over 10 years. 

The tags are also already used for making wireless credit card payments. For example, ExxonMobil has attached tags to key-rings, to speed up gas station transactions for its customers. But ADS is the first company to propose sub-dermal chips as a means to secure or make financial payments.

Matt Reynolds of ThingMagic, a company in Cambridge, Massachusetts specialising in "embedded intelligence", including RFID, is sceptical. "If the security was one day cracked, who would want to go in and get another implant?" he says.

BOGUS RECEIVER 

Richard Smith, an internet security and privacy consultant in Boston, Massachusetts, says the device poses a security risk. The implanted tag could potentially be accessed by a bogus reader, unknown to the owner, and the signal "cloned". 

Cossolotto argues that decoding and reproducing the signal would not be trivial. "Right now people walk around with all kinds if important information in their pockets," he told New Scientist. "This is a step forward for security - Veripay is not easily lost or stolen."

Yet this is precisely why Katherine Albrecht, the founder of the consumer advocacy group CASPIAN, finds Veripay frightening: "It's a lot easier to cancel and credit card account than it is to gouge a chip out of your arm." She worries that the chips will provide tracking opportunities for advertisers wishing to know the intimate shopping habits of particular consumers.

Farther ahead, she says that the tags will provide a determined person with the means to track your every move. Beth Given, of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego, California, agrees: "If we establish a robust credit card network based on RFID chips implanted under the skin, we are also creating the infra-structure for potential government surveillance."

Celeste Biever

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It's the day after Thanksgiving. Good job. You braved the ridiculously crowded grocery store and cooked the most magnificent feast known to man for more relatives than you knew you had. Which makes it even harder to say: Get up. It's time to go get a tree.But the lots are open, and the $1 billion a year industry -- fresh and faux -- has branched out with new trends in holiday foliage.

Rick Dungey of the National Christmas Tree Association, said growers are answering the call of the condo owner this season. ''There's a bigger demand for smaller, skinnier trees, tabletop trees, trees that don't taper as wide and aren't too bushy,'' he said from the organization's headquarters in Maryland.

If you believe plastic is superior to pine, there's Fort Lauderdale's Christmas Place, 800 NE 13th St., one of several year-round Christmas-themed stores in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. ''Everything'' includes fiber-optic trees and trees decorated with flags or flamingos. For the sassy Christmas consumer, multicolored feather boas are available for draping over the limbs of a hot pink aluminum tree. Retro looks are hot; how about a '50s-inspired white frosted number? The fanciest full-size trees can sell for $800 to $6,000, although a smallish basic model will set you back only $30 to $50.

Glass and glitter have maintained their spot among the top 10 ornament options. ''And fashion colors are very in right now, but Victorian -- burgundy and gold -- is always popular,'' said Larry Sargent who has managed the store for 30 Christmases. The rather frightening math on that -- not counting vacations -- is 10,950 days of nonstop holly-jolly cheer. ''I never get tired of it,'' he said. ``It's like being a kid again. That kind of thing never changes no matter what year it is.''

PRO DECORATORS

A staff of expert ornament-hangers will come to your home and decorate the fake fir purchased at the store, if you're willing to take a few extra holiday hits to the wallet. In-home styling can cost as much as $20,000. And then there's the brave new world of Christmas tree bioengineering. Working with agricultural engineers at Washington State University, Jim Heater, an expert in the field of tree-cloning, said the industry has begun to tackle its Achilles heel: needle loss, the kind of fir shedding that bodes ill for bare toes.

Heater owns Silver Mountain Christmas Trees, a family farm in Oregon that grows hundreds of trees from numerous species. He monitors trees carefully, devising ways to genetically alter seedlings to reduce shedding and to improve color, branch strength, fullness, bud quality. Trees that don't measure up get the ax. ''There have been rapid advancements in tree growth,'' Heater said. ``But there's also a wider range of genetic variability.''

In other words, attempts to clone certain Christmas tree species, especially conifers, have not worked. But the Brits, who beat Americans at cloning sheep first, are working on an intriguing possibility.

NATURAL LIGHT

In 1999, a group of neurophysiology students at a university in Hertfordshire, masterminded the first self-lighting Douglas fir by infusing tree seedlings with a harmless bacterium carrying protein and enzymes from jellyfish and fireflies. A chemical compound is added that ''activates'' the glow-base in the protein and enzyme. Voil! A tree that glows in the dark. No word yet on mass-reproduction of the oddity, but it could catch on fast.

As long as it gives us more time to enjoy that post-Thanksgiving nap.

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Soda king Peter van Stolk insists there is no magic to the way he dreams up new flavours for his line of soft drinks. Some of his "hare-brain" ideas succeed beyond his wildest expectations, while others fail miserably, says the founder of Seattle-based Jones Soda Co. His latest concoction -- a Thanksgiving-themed turkey-and-gravy-flavoured soda -- is a sure winner, as 6,000 bottles, priced at 99 cents US (about $1.33 Cdn) each, sold out in less than two hours last weekend on the company's Web site.

In the process, the firm has put itself on the international map, with more than 45,000 hits a day on the site (www.jonessoda.com), compared to the usual 1,000 visitors daily. Now, single bottles are trading on eBay at up to $65 US ($87 Cdn), van Stolk said Wednesday. And it doesn't even taste good. The inventor himself describes the flavour as "gross." "I can't finish a whole bottle," van Stolk said in a telephone interview from his Seattle headquarters. "I don't like the taste of it."

Mary Turner, a radio DJ in Lansing, Michigan, has sampled the drink and warns it's not for the faint of heart. "If you roasted a turkey and mashed potatoes, put it in a blender, left it for three days and then poured it into a Jones bottle, you'd know exactly what this drink tastes like," Turner said.

Jones Soda Co., which van Stolk founded in Vancouver in 1996 before moving operations to Seattle four years later, is known for its production of quirky soda flavours, ranging from old-fashioned cream and cherry, to neon-bright blue bubblegum and green apple. Van Stolk said he devised the new turkey-and-gravy flavour recently while driving in his car. "It was a novelty. We're a small company competing against [giant] soft-drink companies," he said. "We wanted to create some enthusiasm and excitement. "I had no idea it would become such a big hit." He plans to donate all the proceeds from sales of Turkey & Gravy soda to the Toys for Tots charity, and will personally match that donation. While Jones' diet sugar-free root beer has topped the taste charts in the U.S., other sodas with canned-ham or fish-taco flavours have flopped, van Stolk said. 

Born in Edmonton, van Stolk, now 40, moved to Vancouver in 1989. Describing himself as a "professional ski bum" turned entrepreneur, he started Urban Juice & Soda as a one-person operation on Frances St. in east Vancouver in 1996. He relocated and renamed the company and now employs 40 to 65 people in Canada and the U.S., the latter accounting for 90 per cent of sales.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Jones Soda's net sales increased about four per cent to $16 million US ($21.4 million Cdn), up from $15.4 million US ($20.6 million Cdn) the previous year. Net income was $521,657 US ($699,000 Cdn), compared to a net loss of $838,394 US ($1.1234 million Cdn) a year ago.

Van Stolk says he never would have left B.C. in 2000 if Canadian banks were friendlier to small entrepreneurs when they need operating capital. "It's simple, I couldn't get bank financing in Canada," the expatriate entrepreneur recalled. "The Canadian banks offered me a line of credit for $250,000 Cdn. In the U.S., I got a line of credit for $3 million US [currently about $4 million Cdn]. American banks are far more competitive for growing companies."

Jones Soda's share closed Wednesday on the TSX venture exchange at $1.85, up 10 cents.

wchow@png.canwest.com
© Copyright  2003 Vancouver Sun 

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LOS ANGELES -- A county official has asked computer and video equipment vendors to consider eliminating the terms "master" and "slave" from equipment because they may be considered offensive.

"Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label," according to an e-mail sent to vendors this month. The e-mail asks manufacturers, suppliers and contractors to change or remove any labels on components "that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature." The county's 39 departments also were told to identify equipment with inoffensive labels.

The e-mail was written by Joe Sandoval, of the county's Internal Services Department. He said the county is making a suggestion, not trying to dictate political correctness.

The term "master" and "slave"--when applied to electronic equipment--describes one device controlling another. In May, a black employee of the Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the county Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after seeing the words on a videotape machine. "This individual felt that it was offensive and inappropriate," office director Dennis Tafoya said. He said "master" and "slave" were replaced by "primary" and "secondary."

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune 
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IT MUST send a frisson down the spine of any politician who remembers '68. A strike by students has spread to 18 universities. From Rennes to Lyons, students have occupied campuses, blocked lecture halls and staged protests. A panicking government has retreated, reinstated, and then backed down again on part of its plans.

The students' gripe? Neither fees (nominal) nor selection (anyone with a baccalauréat is admitted). Rather, they are cross about plans for more autonomy, plus a new diploma system—a three-year undergraduate degree, followed by a two-year masters—officially meant to align France with the rest of Europe, but actually modelled on America. Such changes, the students say, are a humiliating assault on French diplomas, and a step to commercialisation, if not privatisation.

The new degrees, says Luc Ferry, the education minister, are essential to “fight competition from American universities.” But the reality is that France's higher-education system reserves real competition for an elite of grandes écoles, which train very few of France's 2.1m students. Overcrowded, non-selective universities for the rest cannot hope to keep up.

Not that all grandes écoles are modernising. Contrast the Paris Institute of Political Studies (“Sciences-Po”) with the National School for Administration (ENA), the postgraduate civil-service academy. Sciences-Po's foreign students, especially Americans, used to be glorified tourists: in town for a left-bank experience, not a diploma. Today, a third of its students are foreign, and three-quarters do a degree. The school already teaches a three-year undergraduate degree, followed by “un masters”, which attracts Americans. All undergraduates spend a year abroad, and learn two foreign languages; a third of classes are not taught in French. The school even has an affirmative-action programme that has just been ruled unlawful by a Paris court. Inevitably fees have risen.

“It was a question of life or death,” says Richard Descoings, the young head of Sciences-Po, who masterminded the overhaul. The school was known mainly as an ante-chamber for ENA. It still supplies 90% of the 60-odd students who go there after a first degree each year. Its alumni list, like ENA's, is a political “Who's Who”: Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Laurent Fabius, Jack Lang, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. But Mr Descoings is now rebranding Sciences-Po as a competitor to America's Ivy League universities or the London School of Economics, with courses ranging from international relations to marketing and (this is France) “management of cultural enterprises”. It is planning a journalism school, and offers an MBA.

No such changes are in prospect at ENA, which has trained two of the past three French presidents and seven of the past 12 prime ministers. It was set up by Charles de Gaulle in 1945 to mould the elite, at a time when administration and industry were tightly linked. Today, an ENA graduate's address book still supplies top connections. But the calculation for would-be students has changed. Privatisation and new rules limiting pantouflage (shuffling between the civil service and public enterprises) have narrowed options. The prestige of a top American MBA and the strength of such home-grown business grandes écoles as HEC or ESSEC have opened up other routes to top jobs. 

ENA faces changes of its own. Teaching will in future be solely in Strasbourg (it is now shared with Paris); and the entrance exam is to be opened to other European Union candidates. Yet the school sticks unapologetically to training for public service, with compulsory internships at a local prefecture and courses on French administrative law and budgetary policy. Even foreign students are civil servants.

Not everybody approves of the Sciences-Po example. In a country that jealously guards the idea of higher education for all, elitism has an awkward place. As he backtracked on his planned reforms, Mr Ferry insisted that “the Sciences-Po model is not the model that should prevail for universities”. Competitive excellence, it seems, is fine—but only for the elite. 

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Today’s holiday office parties are festive, but professional affairs.
The days of office parties where coworkers let down their hair, got roaring drunk, and ended up with lampshades on their heads are almost gone and over. Today, fortunately, the office party has matured, by and large, into a more relaxing, morale-building time of good cheer and camaraderie for co-workers, their families and sometimes clients and vendors. 

Extend invitations early.
If you’re in charge of scheduling the office party start planning as soon as possible. Let co-workers know the date, time and location as soon as you do so they can plan accordingly. Everyone’s date book fills up quickly during the holiday season. Also be sure to let them know if the invitation includes spouses, significant others and family members. 

Be prepared with some conversation starters.
If the idea of party prater makes you sweat, don't panic. Most conversational blunders are committed by those who talk too much, not too little. Think before you speak. Have a list of potential conversation topics in mind that will help you get a conversation going. Avoid yes/no questions. "What are your plans for the holidays?" will generate a more detailed response than "Are you traveling for the holidays?" Don't be afraid to introduce yourself, especially to another wallflower who may be having as much difficulty as you are. 

Don’t go overboard.
People who drink too much at office parties are taking the risk of seriously harming their professional careers. With too much to drink and in the spirit of seasonal abandon, men and women have often placed themselves in regrettable situations. Amorous overtures made and accepted at the holiday office party may seem less than romantic in the clear light of the sober office workday. The safest way to avoid any embarrassing situations is to stay in control and limit your drinking. 

Extend thanks.
Be sure to thank the host of your holiday office party, as well as any of the people who worked to plan the event. No festive occasion comes off without the hard work of many and it’s a task that often gets overlooked. A verbal thank you is sufficient, an e-mail acceptable, but a hand-written note will surely make you stand out.

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Insurgency in Algiers…and Baghdad 
November 14, 2003

BOB GARFIELD: This month in the UK, Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 film The Battle of Algiers came out on DVD. Here it's still pretty hard to find, though Pentagon officials were invited to a special in house screening a few months ago. The movie depicts with stunning verisimilitude how in the late '50s French paratroopers dismantled the Algerian National Liberation Front or FLN. As the battle proceeds on the ground in Iraq, Pontecorvo's classic rendering of war between occupiers and insurgents has been seen increasingly as an instructional film about how to fight and win by any means necessary. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst for the Rand Corporation, has used the Battle of Algiers in courses he's taught to graduate students, and he recommends it to soldiers and spies. 

BRUCE HOFFMAN: Well I think the key to understanding the film is that, like all good films, it's about a search, and in this case it's the search for intelligence, for information that the authorities need to uproot the terrorist infrastructure in Algiers during the 1950s. The Italian director, Gillo Pontecorvo, displayed a cast of characters which both did egregious things. You have on the one hand scene of the terrorists planting bombs in cafeterias frequented by high school and university students. On the other hand you have the French paratroops using perhaps the most heinous methods of torture to extract information. And what it underscores is that countering terrorism is first and foremost and intelligence game, and that the primacy of intelligence is paramount. 

BOB GARFIELD: Pontecorvo was sympathetic with the FLN. And it would be easy to see the movie as a kind of agitprop, but it's also, from the opposite side of the question, a pretty good study of the ends justifying the means, isn't it? 

BRUCE HOFFMAN: Well, it's more morally ambiguous than that, because of course it does depict how the French powers used torture, got information and destroyed the terrorist infrastructure in the City of Algiers. But also the point of the film is that the French may have won the battle, but in the end, they lost the war, and in fact it was their resort to torture and resort to these heinous methods that in fact drove most of the population into the terrorists' arms. It almost polarized the entire conflict in a way that ensure, ensured that the French could not succeed. Not only did the local population turn against their colonial masters, but I think equally as importantly, the population in metropolitan France, not just the intellectuals in Paris, but certainly much of the population was repelled and recoiled at the, at really the harsh methods that had to be employed to win the struggle. 

BOB GARFIELD: I think you mentioned in your piece that the Battle of Algiers has actually been used as a kind of instructional video both by terrorist groups and counter-terrorist organizations. How has it worked that way? 

BRUCE HOFFMAN: For terrorist organizations, I think it's been an enormously useful means to develop their tradecraft -- in other words their counterintelligence capabilities -- to avoid being caught, to give them insight into how the government security forces operate. And we know, for example, that the IRA has viewed it, that the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka have studied it, supposedly the Black Panthers in the United States in the 1960s also studied it. At the same time many military and security services have also watched it. I think what, one of the most, to me, interesting scenes in the film is when Colonel Mathieu depicts this -- what has been described as an organogram -- that is, this --on the blackboard, a sort of pyramid structure with little pyramids within it that indicate the terrorist cells that lead up and narrow down to the mastermind orchestrating the terrorist operation. And I think for security forces, it's enormously useful to see that's a very timeless message that almost all successful terrorist groups operate--operate on a cellular basis, and that the key is finding the nodes and the connections between the cells, and then gradually, systematically, relentlessly bearing down on the head of the organization, and that's what the film is about. 

BOB GARFIELD: Pontecorvo's film was so detailed and of such verisimilitude that he actually had to have a disclaimer in the beginning saying that there is no documentary footage. How did he get such accuracy? 

BRUCE HOFFMAN: It was firstly a joint Algerian and Italian production, so in that sense, he had access and did the shooting in Algiers, in the Casbah in exactly the same locations where this battle was fought. Also, and I think fascinatingly, many of the real life protagonists, many of the terrorists from the 1950s reprised their roles on screen. Pontecorvo himself led a, a partisan brigade in Italy, in Milan, in fact, during World War II, so as a guerrilla fighter himself, he knew exactly what he was talking about, and that I think is a key element. You're talking about someone who actually had experience in urban warfare and in street fighting. 

BOB GARFIELD: Pauline Kael regarded Battle of Algiers as one of the great anti-war films. Is it an anti-war movie? 

BRUCE HOFFMAN: I think what it shows really is just how brutal and how dirty fighting terrorism can become and indeed how dirty and how brutal undeniably terrorism in its-- is in itself. Here you have a democracy - the French Republic - who willy-nilly, almost, slides into the use of these very base and repugnant means. So I think the point of studying this is that eventually any society is confronted with these types of dilemmas, and I think my argument is that it's, it's better to at least take a forward-looking view and begin to consider them and debate them rather than find yourselves boxed into a corner and then adopting things that may prove counterproductive in the long run. 

BOB GARFIELD: All right. Thank you very much. 

BRUCE HOFFMAN: Thank you. 

BOB GARFIELD: Bruce Hoffman is a policy analyst for the Rand Corporation. 

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This award, which we first gave in 1993, is for a truly baffling comment. The 2003 winner is United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for comments in a press briefing:

'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.

Previous winners:
2002: Actor Richard Gere who said: 'I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe and somebody said I was a snake, I'd think 'No, actually I am a giraffe.''

2001: Artist Tracey Emin, who explained 'When it comes to words I have a uniqueness that I find almost impossible in terms of art - and it's my words that actually make my art quite unique.'

2000: Hollywood star Alicia Silverstone for her comments quoted in the Sunday Telegraph: 'I think that [the film] 'Clueless' was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness.'

1999: Former England manager Glenn Hoddle. When asked by Trevor McDonald to explain his controversial comments on people with disabilities, he said: 'I do not believe that. At this moment in time, if that changes in years to come I don't know, but what happens here today and changes as we go along that is part of life's learning and part of your inner beliefs. But at this moment in time I did not say them things and at the end of the day I want to put that on record because it has hurt people.'

1998: Cardiff MP Rhodri Morgan. In an interview with BBC Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman he was asked if he would like to be the labour leader of the new Welsh Assembly. Rhodri replied 'Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?'. After a long puzzled pause Jeremy asked Rhodri if that was Welsh for yes!

1997: Nick Underwood of Teletubbies Marketing explained that 'in life, there are all colours and the Teletubbies are a reflection of that. There are no nationalities in the Teletubbies - they are techno-babies, but they are supposed to reflect life in that sense.'

1996: No winner.

1995: No winner.

1994: Dr Gordon Brown MP for his 'New Economics' speech. He covered 'ideas which stress the growing importance of international co-operation and new theories of economic sovereignty across a wide range of areas, macro-economics, trade, the environment, the growth of post neo-classical endogenous growth theory and the symbiotic relationships between government and investment in people and infrastructures - a new understanding of how labour markets really work and constructive debate over the meaning and implications of competitiveness at the level of individuals, the firm or the nation and the role of government in fashioning modern industrial policies which focus on nurturing competitiveness.'

1993: Former England cricket boss Ted Dexter desperately tried to explain away another England defeat at the hands of the Australians by saying 'Maybe we are in the wrong sign. Maybe Venus is in the wrong juxtaposition with something else. I don't know.'

(Although we did not yet have a Foot in Mouth award at the 1991 ceremony, we made a special mention of a quote by United States Vice President Dan Quayle. 'We offer the party as a big tent. How we do that (recognise the big tent philosophy) with the platform, the preamble to the platform or whatnot, that remains to be seen. But that message will have to be articulated with great clarity.')

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His Elvis act had the cabbie police all shook up. Now, though, the city is considering letting cabdriver David Groh wear his Elvis costume to work after all. And, if the City Council passes the "Cab Elvis" ordinance, taxi passengers could be soon be chauffeured through the streets by Superman, or maybe even Michael Jackson.

What's this city coming to? "It might be a kick up for tourism," said Beverly Blair, an occasional cab customer. "Seattle could be known as the city of costumed cabbies -- but I would think twice before riding with them."  Under the ordinance, taxicab drivers -- now required to wear black pants and crisp shirts -- would be allowed to dress in costume. Supporters say costumed cabbies would add to Seattle's local flavor, amuse tourists, allow cabbies more creativity, maybe even bring bigger tips for drivers. But others say the ordinance goes too far. 

Most cab drivers say they aren't interested in crazy costumes -- they just want to ditch the uniforms. 

It all began when Groh, a driver with Red Top, started wearing his Elvis outfit to work after the terrorist attacks two years ago. Nearly everyone who got into his cab wanted to talk about the tragedy. He just wanted to lighten the mood -- and show his patriotism. "There was this terrible sadness," said Groh. "I looked around for an American icon, and that was Elvis." Groh cruised the streets in a white jumpsuit spangled with red and blue, crooning "Love Me Tender." Along the way, he became something of a Seattle icon. His story was told in newspapers and magazines, and he was invited to appear on national talk shows. He's even mentioned in some tourist guides.

But the city didn't love him tender. It fined Groh for driving his cab out of uniform. He toned down his outfit and filed a lawsuit against the city. For now, the legal action is on hold while the council considers the ordinance, proposed by Richard Conlin. He thinks it would be just fine if Seattle becomes known as the city of costumed cabbies. 

The ordinance will be discussed at the City Council transportation committee meeting Dec. 2 and is expected to go to the full council Dec. 8.  While some say drivers in costume might brighten the day for tourists, others say it's full of risks. The ordinance tries to head off some of those concerns.

Costumes will have to be approved by the cab companies, and reported to the city. Masks or too much face paint would be banned.  Things like floppy shoes, which might tangle in the gas pedal, or skimpy outfits would be forbidden, too. And drivers couldn't dress as police officers or firefighters. They'd also have to post their identification in their cars with pictures of themselves -- both in and out of character.

Deb Duggan, with the Cab Drivers Alliance of King County, said her group wants the city to simply drop its dress code for cab drivers and just go back to requiring drivers to be clean, courteous and professional. The ordinance, she said, might be a step in that direction. "Cab Elvis is very benign, he is a good cab driver. I am in favor of Elvis," said Duggan. She doubts many other drivers would be inclined to take on famous personalities. Already, though, some cab drivers dress as Santa during Christmas or don Halloween costumes on Oct. 31.

Cab customers had mixed reactions to the idea. Blair said she'd hesitate to get into a cab driven by someone in costume, especially if it was late at night or in a remote location.  "As a single woman, I would be less inclined to get into a cab driven by someone dressed as Elvis," she said. "It would spook me."  Her friend Stephanie Hansen said costumed drivers wouldn't bother her. "I could care less, as long as they were professional and got me where I needed to go," she said. "Unless they were dressed like Freddy Krueger."

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If you dream of a handbag, chances are you dream of Hermès. In the last decade, the Kelly and its sister, the Birkin, have become symbols of taste and class. But when the Kelly was introduced in 1930, no one showed much interest. Not until 1956, when Grace Kelly used the purse to shield her pregnant belly from a photographer, was the bag elevated to celebrity status. To understand why a Kelly costs $5,500 (or more) and requires a year's wait (or more), we requested an Hermès bag in red box leather, 35 centimeters long. Instead, we received the bag in a smaller size (32 centimeters), and the more rigid leather was replaced by a soft, pebbly skin they call ''fjord.'' So the dream is deferred, but the process still dazzles. — Lynn Hirschberg

1. In the workshops in Pantin, outside Paris, the skins await inspection. One bag uses up a whole skin. Tanning is done with extracts of bark, oak and chestnut tree.
2. Philippe Fleury, an Hermes craftsman, cuts the front of the Kelly bag. He is careful to choose a piece without any defects or flaws. 
3. Fleury puts the cut calfskin in a container. ''It's like a puzzle,'' says Claude Gandrille, who made Kelly bags for 20 years and is now the master craftsman in New York. 
4. These are the parts that will combine to make the bag. The standard Kelly requires 18 to 24 hours of work, and most of the artisans are in their early 30's.
5. This is Julie Grassi's desk. She will first check to see if the leather has been stamped with the Hermes gold seal. It has to be stamped, or she won't proceed. 
6. Grassi takes the pieces into a special room and glues the two sides and the lining together. After finishing, she will make the pockets for the interior of the bag. 
7. The clasp is affixed by four nails. They are hammered from the inside out and then smoothed down on the front. 
8. Next, Grassi attaches the bottom to the front and back panels of the bag. Since she is using a soft leather, she works inside out.
9. ''The handle is the hardest part,'' Gandrille says. ''If it is not perfect, the bag is not perfect.'' The handle is six pieces of leather; Grassi is shaving the leather to thin it. 
10. It usually takes novice Hermes artisans 10 handles before they perfect their craft. ''A good handle,'' Gandrille says, ''will take three and a half hours to make.'' 
11. Hermes's signature stitch requires a tool called a griffe to imprint pinpricks; another tool then pokes holes, and wax-covered linen thread joins the pieces together. 
12. Grassi is measuring the right distances for the handle's placement. ''It's like making a beautiful piece of furniture,'' Gandrille says.
. After affixing the lining to the outer shell of the bag, Grassi sews the perimeter of the Kelly, and she clamps it to help the bag keep its shape. 
14. To safeguard the hardware, Grassi places a clear film on the metal trim. The bag will come with its own specially designed protective plastic rain bonnet. 
15. A tense moment. ''You have to know what you're doing when you turn the bag right side out,'' Gandrille says. With hard leather, the bag would be made right side out. 
16. Jacques Vie, an assistant foreman, inspects the finished Kelly. He is looking for any mistake. He deems the finished product perfect.

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Dear Prudie,
For more than a decade, I have been involved in my city's pagan community (Wicca to be precise). My husband is also Wiccan. I'm not some 20-year-old flake rebelling against her parents. I am educated, intelligent, and articulate, and I came to Wicca in my 30s, spending these past years soul-searching and learning. After advice and support from my husband, my teachers, and members within the community, I have decided to leave behind my 15 years in the corporate rat race to begin spiritual mentoring and teaching, full time. My dilemma is this: Virtually everyone—except my business contacts, my parents, and sister—knows that I am a devoted pagan. Believe me, coming out of the "broom closet" is a one-way trip. I have never hidden the fact that I'm Wiccan, but I have also never advertised it. I'm worried about my parents' and sister's ability to cope with what they will see as a very sudden and "weird" change in my life. How do I tell them about my religious practices and my choice to go "public" without them trying to have me committed and deprogrammed? Seriously, can you help me?

—Bewitched 

Dear Be,
Perhaps you shouldn't have "saved up" your religious conversion news for a decade, but since you did, your best bet is a sit-down with your folks and your sister. If Prudie were in your broom closet, er, shoes, she would explain that believing your selection of religions would strike them as weird, you spared them the information. Being a practicing Wiccan for all these years, however, you can tell them that you wanted them to know at a time when they would no longer think it a hasty decision. Be prepared, however, for some resistance to what is still a misunderstood and minority religious practice. Chances are that people who know nothing of Wiccan culture imagine it's about pointy hats and cauldrons. Good luck.

—Prudie, enchantingly
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Dear Prudence,
I have a dilemma. My aunt (my mother's sister) has been a source of conflict in my family for many years. Over the past few years, I have noticed that my aunt has been very close with my father (his sister-in-law). She will call when my mother is not home and talk to him and cry on his shoulder. My mother seems to ignore this behavior. The other night, when my mother is usually bowling, my aunt called, and when my mom answered the phone, her sister proceeded to say, "What are you doing there?" My mother's response was, "I live here." I do not believe that my father would cheat on my mother, but he is very defensive about my aunt's behavior, and it is very suspicious to me. I have thought about spying on Tuesday nights and seeing if they are together. What should I do?

—Concerned Son 

Dear Con,
For a start, skip the James Bond Tuesday nights. You are not a P.I. What you are is a kid who's perhaps witnessing something most uncomfortable for a kid. While you could very well be right about your aunt's intentions—or even that something might be going on—you have no standing in this situation. What you might do is go to your dad and tell him you think your aunt is trying to get something going with him and it's making you nervous. He may tell you to M.Y.O.B., but he will get the message that perhaps what he thinks is hidden is actually quite visible. Prudie would be interested in the nature of the "conflict" this aunt has caused in the family for years. And your mother, by the way, has Prudie's admiration for her wonderful answer to "What are you doing there?" 

—Prudie, cautiously 
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Dear Prudie,
I am a 17-year-old senior in high school. I'm told I'm attractive, and I get much attention from boys my own age, but I'm usually not interested in them. Here is where my problem comes in: I think I'm falling for my music teacher. He is 23, straight out of college. He's not the best-looking guy around, but his personality is what captivated me. I know you're probably thinking this is a normal school-girl crush where I daydream about him taking me into his arms in the middle of class, but it's nothing like that. I honestly feel we could have a functional relationship. Even my friends say they notice him treating me specially or even (dare I say) flirting with me, which gives me hope. I'm thinking of opening the subject with him on my graduation day. Am I being crazy and hopeful where there is obviously nothing to be hopeful about?
 

—Young and Restless

Dear Young,
You sound quite solid to Prudie, who did not deem the attraction you describe as being of the school-girl-crush variety. For you, 23 is a whole lot better, and more appropriate, than 43. It's also a sign of maturity that you say you're more interested in his personality than his looks. By all means, explore the possibility of a functional relationship once you graduate (assuming you will be 18 by that date). Prudie thinks you do, indeed, have something to be hopeful about. 

—Prudie, approvingly
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Dear Prudence,
A dear friend of mine (closest friend, actually) has been seeing a man on and off for about three years. The man is twice her age and has problems with alcoholism, drugs, and has serious maturity issues. She has admitted he is no good for her, but she keeps going back to him, saying, "I told him we don't have a future together; it's just for right now." I have told her in the past I was glad they broke up, so she knows how I feel about him, but since they last broke up, they have been "hanging out." She says she is over him but still tries to be a good friend because of "all he's going through right now." How do I go about gently and nonjudgmentally telling her I am not comfortable going out with them when I am invited? I don't trust the guy and definitely don't feel safe around him. I want her to be able to lean on me for support, but as her closest friend, I feel I need to be honest with her, too. Please advise.

—Concerned Friend

Dear Con,
A woman who breaks up with a walking catastrophe and then "hangs out" with him has a bolt loose, ergo, you might as well save your breath for blowing on your soup. Anyone who renounces, then returns to a relationship with an immature, drug-addicted alcoholic is far down the path of self-destructiveness. Prudie gives you her permission to forget about trying to be gentle and nonjudgmental. If you actually fear for your safety, simply tell your good friend that you don't feel safe around "Mr. Right, for now" and therefore you will only be able to offer support and friendship when it's just the two of you. You can't get much more honest than that.

—Prudie, frankly

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