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J'attire votre attention vers quelques articles sur vos métiers. (H) Un nouveau texte sur le risque, (2) Je bisse l'article qui traite en passant du problème d'établir un réseau de concessionnaires et le financement idoine, et (7) Et je bisse aussi l'article sur la recherche chez un fabricant d'hélicoptères.
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View the calendar of US primaries and caucuses at this website: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P04/events.phtml?format=chronological

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Week 10, 2004
THE REGULARS: Summary
A) Song of the week: "New York, New York" performed by Liza Minelli, Frank Sinatra... [Voir l'article "G" pour apprendre l'histoire de la création de cette histoire.]
B) Penguin Readers: The Oscars: 'I want to thank . . .' [Reportage de 2001 sur les Oscars de cette année là. Ne pas oublier que la cérémonie des Oscars aura lieu cette année ce dimanche 29 février. ]
C) New York Times/Wedding Field Notes: Juming in to wed the masses [Histoires de mariages : L'histoire de l'un des bénévoles recrutés pour répondre à la demande massive de marriages dès que la ville de San Francisco décide d'émettre des certificats de marriage aux couples homosexuels.]
D) The New York Times/The Ethicist: Ball in play [Conseils sur l'éthique et la déontologie: Je détiens une balle de base-ball signée par de grands joueurs. Puis-je la vendre ou dois-je la donner à un musée ? / Je suis prêtre anglican, et je n'ai pas de droit de marier des couples homosexuels, alors que certains de mes collègues plus âgés ont l'autorisation de ce faire.]
E) Slate/Dear Prudence: Prudie clarifies her credentials [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : Prudie se défend des accusations à son encontre. / Une autre fille à mon lycée me suit partout. / Mon futur beau-frère est mythomane. / J'en ai marre du matérialisme.]
E bis) Marc Naimark écrit à Prudie
F) Mannersmith: Email Etiquette [Conseils sur les bonnes manières : Règles d'étiquette en matière de courriel électronique.]
G) NPR Morning Edition/Present at the Creation: "New York, New York" [Topo sur la création de la chanson ; vous pouvez écouter le reportage en entier, ainsi que d'autres documents sonores sur le site indiqué.
H) The Economist/Risk series: Freud, finance and folly [Une série d'articles sur le risque : les hommes sont mauvais juges des risques.]
I) Demotivator® of the week: Agony [Les messages hélas trop vrais qui vont vous démotiver dans votre vie personnelle et professionnelle. Cette semaine, "La douleur"]

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A) Song of the week: "New York, New York" performed by Liza Minelli, Frank Sinatra... [Voir l'article X pour apprendre l'histoire de la création de cette histoire.]
New York, New York

Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today
I want to be a part of it - New York, New York
These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it - New York, New York

I wanna wake up in a city, that doesn’t sleep
And find I’m king of the hill - top of the heap

These little town blues, are melting away
I’ll make a brand new start of it - in old New York
If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere
It’s up to you - New York, New York

New York, New York
I want to wake up in a city, that never sleeps
And find I’m a number one, top of the list, king of the hill
A number one

These little town blues, are melting away
I’m gonna make a brand new start of it - in old New York
And if I can make it there, I’m gonna make it anywhere

It up to you - New York, New York

New York

^RETURN TO TOP^

There are many film awards, but one is more famous and important than all the others – the Oscars. Every March, actors and film-makers wait nervously for the news: who has won an Oscar? The hard work of acting and making movies is over. But the Oscar winners need to work on something else – their speeches!

Some actors and actresses speeches aren't very good – they seem to be lost without a writer's lines. Some winners are just too excited. In 1984 when Sally Field won an Oscar for Best Actress in Places in the Heart, she shouted, 'You like me, you really like me.' It was true, but not so many people liked her speech!

Sometimes the speeches are too long. Many winners want to thank everybody – the list of names seems never to end! In 1943, one winner's speech was over one hour long!

The producers of the television show of the Oscars want it to be exciting. They have tried to make the speeches shorter. This year they even offered a prize for the shortest speech ­– a TV! When a winner talks for too long, the band begins to play. The message is clear: 'Leave the stage!' This doesn't always work. When Cuba Gooding, Jr. won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1996 for Jerry McGuire, the music started during his speech. Cuba just shouted louder!

So how were the speeches this year? The show wasn't too long, but some of the winners didn't care about the prize for shortest speech. During her speech for Best Actress in Erin Brockovich, Julia Roberts said that she already had a television! Then she told the director of the band to sit down. She was not going to leave until she thanked everyone! She gave the longest speech of the evening.

But did Julia give a good speech? She was very excited to win. She held the Oscar and said that it was 'quite pretty'. She said, 'I can't believe this . . . And turn that clock off – it's making me nervous. I love it up here! . . . I love the world! I'm so happy! Thank you!' Before the show, actor Benjamin Bratt said that Julia never writes her speeches. 'It's amazing the things that come out of her mouth sometimes,' he said.

This year many people think that director Steven Soderbergh gave the best speech. He was nominated for Best Director for Traffic and Erin Brockovich. He won for Traffic. In his speech, he didn't read out any names. He said, 'I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating. I don't care if it's a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theatre, a piece of music.' He said that he couldn't live without art. In the opinion of many viewers, more winners should follow Soderbergh and forget about the long lists of names.

^RETURN TO TOP^

And I, a straight bachelor, have happily performed about 60 of the ceremonies, in the cavernous rotunda of City Hall. My unexpected role at this great moment in the struggle for gay rights is only one of the surprising, spontaneous events that took place over Valentine's weekend and last week.

"We had no idea what we were in for," said Rich Hillis, a deputy assessor for the city. Since Feb. 12, when Mayor Gavin Newsom issued a directive allowing same-sex marriages in San Francisco, Mr. Hillis has been the master of logistics for the wedding fest. He has also been performing marriages, along with other city employees and politicians, and volunteers like me. We were deputized before the county clerk, Nancy Alfaro, and received stickers with the handwritten title: Deputy Marriage Commissioner.

We were given photocopies of the city's new marriage vows, which replace the words "husband and wife" with "spouses for life." And we were legally empowered to sign the wedding licenses, which now bear the labels Applicant 1 and Applicant 2 instead of Bride and Groom.

With its legions of new deputies and eager couples, the City and County of San Francisco racked up about 370 marriages a day, a whopping increase over the usual 30 a day before same-sex marriages were allowed. Nobody knows for sure how long the city will be able to allow the marriages to go on.

On Feb. 19, San Francisco moved to force a constitutional showdown with opponents of same-sex marriages by suing the State of California over laws that define marriage as between a man and a woman. The city had no trouble finding volunteers to handle the surge of weddings. Many came from the ranks of the newly married same-sex couples themselves and their friends. My friends John and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland of Los Angeles, who came to San Francisco as soon as they heard about the policy and were one of the first couples married, on Feb. 13, stayed to help. And since they were my guests for the weekend, I went along with them.

I was immediately pulled in by the euphoria. On Valentine's Day, we helped hundreds of people fill out applications. We were deputized the next morning, and by the end of that day, we had each performed about 30 ceremonies. Other volunteers served as witnesses (and photographers) for couples that arrived without family or friends. "It just seems spontaneous," Mr. Hillis said. "None of it was planned."

Supporters from flower shops spread rose petals on the steps of City Hall. Students from the University of California at San Francisco supplied a giant wedding cake. On Valentine's Day, a retired music teacher commandeered a piano and played for the couples as they exchanged vows. On another day, a flutist and harpist showed up to play, and once the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus serenaded the couples lined up outside.

Few people were dressed for the cold, rainy weather, but wore formal wear. Last Sunday, Elizabeth McElhinney and Siddiqi Ray of Minneapolis strode to the top of the grand staircase looking like actors fresh from the makeup room. Though they had been outside most of the day, not a speck or stain showed on Ms. McElhinney's black tuxedo and tails or on the white cashmere shawl Ms. Ray wore with her crimson dress.

As we prepared to start the ceremony, Ms. Ray said that her last meal had been an order of French fries that was not sitting well, and she feared she would be sick to her stomach. But the ceremony proceeded beautifully, and Ms. Ray made it. When I left City Hall, I found Ms. McElhinney and Ms. Ray with other couples gathered on the steps. "Are you feeling O.K.?" I asked Ms. Ray. "Yes," she said. "I feel wonderful."

^RETURN TO TOP^

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D) The New York Times/The Ethicist: Ball in play [Conseils sur l'éthique et la déontologie : Je détiens une balle de base-ball signée par de grands joueurs. Puis-je la vendre ou dois-je la donner à un musée ? / Je suis prêtre anglican, et je n'ai pas de droit de marier des couples homosexuels, alors que certains de mes collègues plus âgés ont l'autorisation de ce faire.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/magazine/22ETHICIST.html
No Kid Gloves
By RANDY COHEN

Q:
I am a medical student on a pediatrics rotation. Recently we diagnosed an 11-year-old boy with leukemia. He was treated and will continue as an outpatient. Throughout his stay, his parents refused to divulge his diagnosis to him. He is a bright boy, interested in science and curious about his treatment. Does he have a right to know his diagnosis? E.L.

A:
Physicians have an ethical obligation to inform patients of their conditions and treatments, but parents have the legal authority to make medical decisions for their minor children and, by implication, to decide what information those children receive. How to resolve these two duties can be controversial among medical ethicists (in questions of reproductive rights, for example). In this case, I believe that this young patient has the right to know what he's being treated for.

Ignorance breeds fear, an emotional state deleterious to your health. A knowledgeable patient can more fully participate in his own care and thereby improve its quality. Thus, to act in the best interests of this patient, the physician must respond to the boy's curiosity.

The patient's age is a factor, certainly. Legally, there is a clear distinction between minor and adult, but for actual children, attaining maturity is a gradual process. The older a child gets, the more entitled he is to be treated like an adult.

A bright and inquisitive 11-year-old can grasp much about his sad circumstances.

This child's physician should begin by talking to the parents. He or she might persuade them that, ethics aside, deception is a doomed strategy. Smart kids figure things out eventually. When the boy learns he was lied to, at least by omission, he is apt to feel hurt and anxious, undermining his trust in his parents and his doctors and making his treatment more difficult.

The physician is not alone here. Help is available from the hospital's ethics committee (and lawyers) and perhaps from a children's advocate, and together they may bring the parents around. But if the parents remain obdurate, the doctor should do what's best for the patient.

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Q:
Our son wants to sell his 1975 Cadillac and buy a truck for work. He has been doing construction in a rough part of town and has had numerous offers from obvious drug dealers. Guys run up to him offering cash on the spot. This will likely get him the best price, but is it ethical to sell the car to drug dealers? Bob Johnson, Hendersonville, N.C.

A:
He may sell his barge-on-wheels with a clear conscience. Marketplace ethics do not enjoin us to sell only to those we esteem. Neither Saks nor Sears requires proof of virtue from its customers.

If you aspire beyond shopping-mall morals, you should not sell someone the instrument with which he means to do harm -- a gun to a deranged man with murderous intentions, for example. By this standard, some criticized I.B.M. for selling South Africa computers that might be used to administer apartheid. But this taboo cannot be infinitely extended to more casual connections. Duane Reade may sell shampoo to Andrew Fastow, although it could be argued that without good grooming, he would have been unable to appear in Enron's executive suite and engage in financial shenanigans.

Your son's situation is akin to this latter example. He is not certain that these fellows are drug dealers, and even if he were, their illicit activities are not directly connected to motoring in style. Thus he is free to make the sale, as is the local Exxon dealer to gas up the Caddie.

One caution. Your son may be in legal jeopardy if he accepts ill-gotten gains. He should consult a lawyer before closing the deal.

^RETURN TO TOP^

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E) Slate/Dear Prudence: Prudie clarifies her credentials [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : Prudie se défend des accusations à son encontre. / Une autre fille à mon lycée me suit partout. / Mon futur beau-frère est mythomane. / J'en ai marre du matérialisme.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2094843/
dear prudence: The Doctor Is Out
Prudie clarifies her credentials.
Posted Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004, at 5:03 AM PT

Prudie has the problem today. She is weary from the spitballs being lobbed her way. Most of the disparagement is of this nature: "What, exactly, are your credentials?" "Who do you think you are telling people what to do?" "Why should anyone listen to your lame advice, anyway?" Such heckling suggests that it's time to recapitulate: This is not a couch, and you are not patients. Honestly, no enforcers are moving around the country coercing people to write in their questions. As for credentials, Prudie does not bill herself as "Dr. Prudence" or even "Prudie, Ph.D." She is simply an experienced old babe with some ideas about handling predicaments. One has to assume that the people posing the questions are interested in Prudie's take on whatever it is. A colleague in the advice biz, Dan Savage, passed on the definition of advice from Webster's dictionary: "An opinion about what could or should be done." Ergo, Prudie's most noteworthy qualification for giving advice is simply having been asked.

—Prudie, conclusively
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Dear Pru,
I am 16 years old, a junior in high school. There is this girl, I'll call her "Julie," at my school. She's in the same grade as me, and despite the fact that we only share one class, she has found a way to stalk me. Well, OK, not really "stalk," but she follows me around all the time, which is very annoying. I can't seem to find a way to get rid of her without telling her directly to get off my back. I don't want to hurt her, but she's not going away on her own. I've tried ignoring her, even not being very nice to her, and everything else I can think of, but she went so far as to join the marching band just because it meant she could spend more time with me! Marching band used to be one of my favorite activities, but now I spend more time trying to get away from her than enjoying myself. Even some of my close friends are starting to become annoyed because they can no longer tell me anything because she is always there. Is there anything I can do about this without making her cry?

—Tired of Having a Shadow

Dear Ti,
Prudie agrees that this is kind of a mess. Shadow Girl clearly has a worshipful, if obsessive, crush on you. What she does not have is good sense or self-respect. Little kids might behave like this, but it is odd for a junior in high school. Because this girl is interfering with your life, you may have to go for the "making-her-cry" option, and even that may not work. No one should have to put up with a girl who is "always there." You have to tell her that you are uncomfortable with her efforts to be where you are and do what you do. You might also point out that genuine friendships just happen, they are not forged this way, and you hope she will get a grip, if not a life, and perhaps some professional help.

—Prudie, independently
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Dearest Prudie,
Any advice you could send my way concerning the following would be much appreciated. I have of late been in the company of a pathological liar who is soon to be family and is very much adored by my significant other, as they grew up together. At first I found the constant tales entertaining, as they were quite harmless. In fact, it never bothered me until he started making up criminal stories about family members. There's quite a difference between saying, "I was just at so-and-so's house," and, "I was just at so-and-so's house, and he was making threats and roughing up his girlfriend." (You'll have to take my word for it; I know for a fact this is 100 percent false.) My significant other refuses to confront said lying family member, saying he's always been like this and nothing you say will make him stop—"it's just who he is." I say he's crossed a line and needs to be called on it. Or do I just grit my teeth and tune him out?

—Pathologically Piqued

Dear Path,
This kind of stuff is murder to listen to, and Prudie well understands your wish to let this person know you believe not a word of his reports. The problem is that people who are actually pathological liars do not respond to anyone "calling them on it." They do not call it "pathological" for nothing. While you may think your significant other is being passive, he is actually being realistic. Talking to an inveterate prevaricator (OK, habitual liar) with a "cure" in mind is like telling a kleptomaniac to simply cut it out. The ray of hope in all this is that most people probably know that this chap is not to be believed. The next time you hear some invented piece of information, rather than trying to set him straight, you might casually respond that what he has just said sounds a little off to you. In short, you can't "fix" him, my dear, so tune him out.

—Prudie, pragmatically
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Ma'am,
I gotta problem. This life thing is draggin' by, and I'm wondering if it's all not just trivial ... these wars and talk shows and mountain bikes. Is it just me, or have people in America and probably other industrialized nations just totally lost touch with reality? Is anything in this culture real? Why am I bombarded with ads for cruises, new SUVs, and credit cards with low, low fixed rates? Maybe you're old enough to remember a life with a purpose, not just to get wealthy, attract a mate, and contribute to your 401(k). Is this it? Is this the great civilization handed to me by "the greatest generation"? I'm sorry; I really have no point other than to ask if other people are as disappointed in humanity as I. Maybe if I were born a hundred or a thousand years down the line, we will have done something worthwhile with our money and free time. But of course it would be silly to spend $30k less on a vehicle and give that $30k to AIDS research, wouldn't it? I'm sorry; I'm disappointed.

—C.C.

Dear C.,
To be Wordsworthian about it, the world is too much with you. Of course there are people with rotten values and the illness of consumerism and all the superficial traits you mention. There are also, however, people with values close to your own. You just need to find and concentrate on them and disregard the credit cards beckoning to you, the SUVs (admittedly hard to do), the talk shows, and all the rest. There are simply too many of us in an overtechnologized society to have any real controls. Prudie has thought for quite a while that we are Rome, with huge numbers of us fiddling, but there is no turning back. Just make the best of your own, smaller world and hope for the gift of acceptance.

—Prudie, philosophically
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E bis) Marc Naimark écrit à Prudie (et elle répond !)

From: "Marc Naimark" <info@kazooweb.com>
To: <prudence@slate.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:13 AM
Subject: Support for Prudence and Ms Howard

Dear Prudence,

I have just read your column for Thursday, February 26. Who are these naysayers? Who are these nitwits who have so little going on in their life that they worry about the qualifications of an advice columnist? My advice would have been to ignore them.

By the way: what's the difference between advice columnists and licenced professionals? Advice columnists admit it when they're wrong.

Yours,

Marc Naimark
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20 Feb 2004 22:26:47 -0500
From: "Prudie" <Dear_Prudence@comcast.net>
To: "Marc Naimark" <info@kazooweb.com>

many thanks.
(and from France, yet!)

^RETURN TO TOP^

Be Brief ~ Email is intended for short informational messages. Keep in mind that with some email systems it is possible for the recipient to read just the first three lines of your message without ever opening the email. Make the first couple lines count!

Be Specific ~ The subject line is your friend. Write brief, descriptive titles. Also, prioritize your email appropriately. If you send everything high priority the little red exclamation point will begin to lose its meaning.

Be Selective ~ Think about who needs to see the information you are sending. "Reply All" and "cc" are neat features, but not every email needs a reply.

Be Pleasant ~ Watch not only what you say, but how you say it. A heated message or tone is called a "flaming" email. Using all capital letters is considered YELLING. Use the "*" key when you want to *emphasize* something.

Be Yourself ~ Never assume that the recipient will know exactly who you are or your organization. You may need to identify your title, company, and phone number.

Be Careful ~ When at work, email is considered the property of the employer and may be monitored. Think twice about the information you are sending and to whom it is going.

Be Professional ~ Don't hide behind your computer. Don't use email as a shield to avoid having a conversation or a face-to-face interaction.

Be Practical ~ While sending email is one of the fastest ways to communicate, it is not designed for an immediate response. Not everyone lives in front of his or her monitor. Consider different time zones when sending an email that requires a response.

Be compliant ~ Use discretion and do not create a "spam" situation. When in the office, email is a workplace tool. The vast majority of messages in your mailbox should be work related. Many companies reserve the right to monitor your workplace email.

Be Polite ~ As more and more of our daily work occurs over the internet, more of us will experience professional relationships that exist only over the web. Strive to make every interaction a pleasant one.

^RETURN TO TOP^

Among the five songs Kander and Ebb had originally written for the film was the title tune. They played their songs for Scorcese and the film's stars, Robert DeNiro and Liza Minnelli. The songs seemed to go over well. But then, Ebb recalls, DeNiro decided that the theme song "had to be stronger... and would we mind trying again?"

Kander picks up the story: "We walked out of there, highly insulted that some actor was going to tell us how to write a song." But, Ebb says, DeNiro "turned out to be right." Kander continues, "I think we wrote it in very short time and great anger."

Lunden reports about the song's origins for Morning Edition as part of Present at the Creation, a year-long series about the roots of American cultural icons. Though the film turned out to be a critical and financial flop, Minnelli kept the song alive in her concerts. But it really took off after Frank Sinatra recorded his version -- with slightly different lyrics -- in 1980.

I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
And find I'm A-number-one, top of the list

Ebb says he never wrote the line "'A-number-one.'... I don't even like it. But, you know, you're grateful to him, because he gave you this enormous hit."

HIGHLY visible threats to life and limb, such as terrorism, health scares and calamities, are especially likely to provoke wild misjudgments about the odds of a peril, and about its likely consequence. When that happens, people tend to turn to their governments for reassurance. Over the past 20 years, the number of government regulations aimed at improving safety in both Europe and America has soared. Up to a point, that makes sense: the richer a country gets, the more its citizens care about health and well-being, and the more anxious they become to avoid putting them at risk.

Tastes in risk vary across countries. Europe is considered fairly risk-averse, and has recently been fretting about greenhouse gases and genetically modified food. But even within Europe, says Ragnar Lofstedt, of the King's Centre for Risk Management in London, attitudes vary widely. Swedes are concerned about dangerous chemicals, and Danes worry a lot about Sweden's nuclear power stations. Italians, although addicted to their mobile phones, are bothered about radiation.

America, on the other hand, is often seen as having a strong risk-taking culture, despite the draconian measures it has taken to snuff out smoking. Americans have generally preferred to sue when faced with the effects of risk, rather than wait for lawmakers to deal with their concerns. Their litigious society has turned to product liability to shift the burden of failed products, such as car tyres or silicone breast implants. The old rule of “buyer beware” has been sidelined.

That has led to some landmark court decisions in recent years. In 1994 McDonald's was required to pay $3m (later reduced) to settle a lawsuit after a customer spilled a cup of its scalding-hot coffee on her lap. The court said the company was responsible for telling its customers about the damage its product might cause. McDonald's had to issue a printed warning on its coffee cups, telling its customers that the coffee they “are about to enjoy” is “extremely hot.” And now the firm is being sued for allegedly making people fat.

One American author, Philip Howard, has called this sort of thing “the death of common sense”. There are plenty of other examples. Playgrounds have to do without seesaws for fear of lawsuits if someone gets hurt. A few years ago the American government launched an investigation into “runaway car syndrome” after reports of cars spontaneously launching themselves, yet later it turned out the drivers were to blame. The risks in medicine are also high, so doctors order batteries of tests to protect themselves, driving up health-care costs.

Macabre maths

But common sense gets you only so far when dealing with risks to safety, security and health. How far, for instance, should a government go to save lives by reducing everyday hazards? Life is priceless, of course, especially when it is yours or a loved one's. Yet governments have budgets and must try to weigh costs and benefits. If a life can be saved for a few thousand dollars, that sounds like money well spent. But what if the cost is $100m?

According to Kip Viscusi of the Harvard Law School, the price that Americans put on a life is around $7m. He has researched what people are willing to pay to reduce the risk of death at their place of work and how much money they will accept to compensate them for an increased risk of dying on the job. By cross-analysing data from many surveys, he says, it is possible to discover the value people put on avoiding the loss of a life. Different countries, it seems, have different preferences (see chart 2). The Japanese, perhaps true to their reputation of being risk-averse, put a price of almost $10m on each life, whereas the Taiwanese seem to be satisfied with a modest $600,000. In general, as countries get richer the price of a life goes up: by 5-6% for every 10% rise in income per head, according to Mr Viscusi.

A country's rule book should reflect its people's preferences, but John Morrall, an official at America's Office of Management and Budget, noted 20 years ago that many regulations fail a basic cost-benefit test. He has just updated his analysis by looking at 76 American regulations for the period from 1960-2001, and has found that government is still doing a poor job. Only just over half the regulations he studied were “cost-effective” as defined by saving a life at the cost of less than $7m, and some were vastly more expensive. In itself, that may not be a bad thing: people may well decide to spend a lot more to protect themselves from particularly nasty deaths, and less to prevent deaths that result from voluntary risk-taking. The problem comes when inefficient regulation is promoted at the expense of the thriftier sort.

According to Mr Morrall, environmental regulations, such as restrictions on hazardous waste and other kinds of pollution, generally cost over $1 billion for every life saved, often much more (see table 3). The cost of such regulations, many of them designed to reduce the use of substances that cause cancer, is far higher than the results seem to justify.

On the other hand, fairly cheap measures can produce big benefits. In America, simple precautions, such as requiring cigarette lighters to be child-proof or reflectors to be installed on heavy lorries, have proved especially cost-effective. Disappointingly, many measures that could save lives at low cost are still waiting to be introduced. These include reducing some types of fats, such as trans fatty acids, in foods (each life saved would cost only $3,000), or installing defibrillators in workplaces to treat cardiac arrests.

Other countries are not necessarily any better than America at balancing costs and benefits. The British government, faced with public outrage after a string of fatal train crashes, decided to put a lot of money into improving rail safety, but seems to have overreacted. By one measure, it will spend over £2 billion for each life saved.

Governments often spend huge amounts of money on some risks and ignore others that cause far more lives to be lost, usually in response to popular pressure to deal with things such as nasty chemicals. But according to Paul Slovic of the University of Oregon, voters do not necessarily take a rational view. Instead, they are influenced by dread and uncertainty. The more dreadful or unexpected a death, say in a hijack or from a rare disease such as BSE, the more people seem prepared to pay to avert it.

That leads to a problem: most people consistently worry too much about things such as perishing in a nuclear accident or being infected with anthrax after a terrorist attack, which have a low probability of occurring but would result in particularly horrible deaths, and neglect hazards closer to home, such as car accidents, mishaps in the home or health problems arising from eating the wrong things.

Protect or sue?

A transatlantic divide now seems to be opening up in the way that governments guard against such dangers. American regulators have recently been taking more of a cost-benefit approach to risk, whereas Europeans are putting more emphasis on precautions, whatever the cost. John Graham, appointed as America's top regulator at the Office of Management and Budget in 2001, had previously been an academic who used cost-benefit methodologies to analyse risks. He recently caused a stir by calling the inefficiencies of regulation “statistical murder”, arguing that bad regulation absorbs money that could be better spent to save lives another way.

Europe seems to be going the other way. The approach now favoured is called the “precautionary principle”, which can be summed up as “better safe than sorry.” This was conceived in Germany in the late 1960s as part of the country's new environmental-protection laws, and the idea was that reasonable precautions should be taken when releasing substances into the environment. But it has grown into something far more powerful. Some see it as reversing the burden of proof on businesses that want to launch a product, use a chemical or adopt a new practice. They will have to show that their product is safe in all circumstances, even if the science to prove it is not yet available.

The European Commission has now adopted the same approach. For example, it has recently proposed increased regulation for the European chemical industry, through a programme called REACH, which would require thousands of chemicals to be tested to ensure that they do not cause cancer and other ailments. The proposal has caused a rift between advocates of greenery, such as Sweden, and countries with large chemical industries, such as France, Germany and Britain, which think that the cost of such regulation may far exceed the benefits.

Environmental risks are not the only sort that that cause rationality to be put to one side. Arguably, America's war on terrorism falls into the same category. The terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 killed 3,000 people. As Mr Viscusi points out, more Americans are killed in car accidents every month, and more than 300,000 die from the effects of cigarette smoking every year; yet Americans are willing to incur huge costs to prevent similar attacks.

Some of the costs of prevention are non-financial, such as having to put up with longer security queues at airports, or accepting more scrutiny from the state. Americans seem prepared to live with these: when Mr Viscusi, with Richard Zeckhauser, studied people's response to the attacks, he found them willing to give up some civil liberties to improve security. But some of the costs can be measured in money: this year the Department of Homeland Security's budget for preventing terrorism is nearly $30 billion. No one knows how many lives that might save.

Terrorism is precisely the sort of uncertainty that is likely to lead to too many precautions: better to be seen to be taking action straight away than to weigh up the costs and benefits first. American airports do seem more secure than they were before the September 11th attacks, but that may not mean Americans are any safer: it may simply persuade the terrorists to look for easier targets.

The biggest question governments face in managing risk is how far they should go. Politicians like to think that they can make life for citizens pretty well risk-free. There are indeed cost-effective—as well as expensive—ways of significantly reducing many risks. But bringing them down close to zero, in government or in any other sphere, will remain a fool's errand.

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I) Demotivator® of the week: Agony [Les messages trop, trop vrais qui vont vous démotiver dans votre vie personnelle et professionnelle. Cette semaine, "La douleur"]
http://www.despair.com

"Not all pain is gain."

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Actually, they don't. Couture is not a volume business and, on its own, would not even be a financially viable one. To begin with, most of what is shown on runways during fashion weeks around the world is not haute couture but prêt-à-porter; couture is only shown in Paris and even there only by a few fashion houses. Prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) is an industrial product, manufactured in bulk to sell to the masses, or at any rate to the upscale boutique shopper. By contrast, haute couture is an artisanal product that is cut, sewn, embroidered, and beaded by hand in a regulated atelier. Each piece of couture is unique and, depending on the amount of embroidery or beading to be done, can require up to 150 hours of labor to produce.

The couture tradition was founded in Paris in 1858, and it remains, in its reliance on craftsmanship and indifference to economies of scale, a characteristically French endeavor. The Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the governing body that oversees the couture business in France, enforces archaic and unyielding regulations—defending tradition and, in the process, driving most practitioners out of business. To receive official designation as haute couture from the Chambre Syndicale, a fashion house must employ 20 or more full-time skilled technicians in France and produce a minimum of 50 new designs for day and evening wear in each of the two fashion seasons, although the conditions are somewhat looser for new houses that wish to start producing couture.

The result is an almost perfect mismatch between an extraordinarily high and inflexible cost structure, on one side, and a perilously uncertain revenue stream that is dependent on how a tiny community of buyers responds to that season's designs. The biggest markets for couture lie in the United States and the Middle East, and there is particular demand for wedding dresses and other custom pieces never shown on runways. Couturiers also have a few traditional European clients, including the French president's wife. If a house's couture show flops one season, it costs them a fortune; even when it's a hit, the $15,000 price tag on a dress may be too low to recoup costs. No surprise, then, that there were over 100 couture houses in 1946 while today just over a dozen survive.

But couture does survive, even at a loss, because it serves two other purposes for the houses that produce it. One is that couture represents what the designer John Galliano called the "laboratory of ideas," where the act of creation is given free rein. Many who watch the coverage of the couture shows marvel that anyone could be possibly expected to wear the extravagant and seemingly uncomfortable designs on display, but couture is not really designed to be worn; rather, it affords an opportunity to try out cuts and styles that can then be incorporated, in more modest form, into wearable prêt-à-porter.

Couture also serves to create a brand identity that rubs off on the perfume, cosmetics, and leather goods—few of them high-design products in themselves—where the profit margins are fat and the real money is to be made. Ironically, many people will buy a $150 bottle of perfume to participate in the lifestyle suggested by the $15,000 couture dress they cannot afford, while in reality the dress was produced in large part to seduce them into paying too much for the perfume.

Sean Rocha is a former columnist for the Cairo Times and a frequent commentator on cultural and international political issues.

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4) Newsweek International: Democratic presidential contender John F. Kerry may be even more popular across the Atlantic than he is at home [Pourquoi John Kerry a la côte en Europe.]
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4271800/
JFK Goes Continental: Democratic presidential contender John F. Kerry may be even more popular across the Atlantic than he is at home
By Stryker Mcguire, Newsweek International, Feb. 23 issue
Some of John Kerry's most ardent fans are not only not Democrats—they're not American.

EUROPE WOULD VOTE FOR KERRY, blared a recent headline in a German newspaper—about the time an Italian news magazine was describing the Democratic front runner as the reincarnation of John F. Kennedy. The left-wing French daily Liberation announced that Kerry was "the kind of American we like." And don't forget the British band Coldplay, which eagerly endorsed the Lincoln-jawed liberal onstage at the Grammys.

What's going on? Partly, the exuberance reflects the fact that Kerry himself is a bit European. His mother, Rosemary Kerry, nee Forbes, was raised in the small village of St-Brice in Brittany after World War I. Kerry's paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Central Europe. He spent two years at a Swiss boarding school as a teenager, and summered in St-Brice at the sprawling family home, a stone mansion called Les Essarts. He speaks fluent French, as does his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. (Born in Mozambique to Portuguese parents, she also speaks four other languages.) His first cousin Brice Lalonde is a well-known French politician—a former minister of the Environment, and now mayor of St-Brice. Lalonde suggests that WWII was a formative influence for the entire clan, which is spread across the United States, Britain and France: "The family was brought up against Nazism. That leaves a mark," he says.

Kerry's policy positions don't hurt, either. In a speech last month, Kerry said the Bush administration's "high-handed treatment of our European allies, on everything from Iraq to the Kyoto climate-change treaty, has strained relations nearly to the breaking point." Other speeches suggest that he would lean harder on Israel to negotiate with the Palestinian leadership—another hot-button issue with Europeans. The support of retired Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander who dropped out of the presidential race last week, adds a well-known Atlanticist to his team. And the mere fact that he is not George W. Bush, almost universally loathed across the continent, is overwhelming. "So he'll be running against Bush?" asks London real-estate agent Sarah Clark. "OK, I like him."

The problem for Kerry, of course, is that there are not a lot of votes for him in Europe. There are no good estimates of the size of the expat vote, although recent Democratic caucuses in London and Paris have witnessed overflow crowds. (Kerry won eight out of the 14 delegates at stake in a Paris caucus last week.) The other problem may, in fact, be his Euro appeal. Relatives like Lalonde say they're trying to keep a low profile, afraid that the Republicans will try to tar their man as yet another cheese-eating surrender monkey. "I am more American than he is French," Lalonde says. And, he might add, vive la difference.

With Eric Pape in Paris, Emily Flynn in London, Katka Krosnar in Prague and Barbie Nadeau in Rome

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Last year, British tabloid The Daily Mail informed its readers that the EU was planning to ban Corgis. "Certain breeds of the Queen's favorite dog could be outlawed under a controversial EU convention being considered by ministers," it revealed.

The shock revelation which outraged animal lovers across the country and fuelled anti-European sentiment in fact had nothing to do with the EU. The story originated with a committee of animal protection experts which drew up a European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals designed to improve the welfare of household pets.

Whatever. Readers were all too willing to believe the EU was up to its usual nonsense.

This sort of scare-mongering plays right into the hands of euroskeptics -- as Brussels is all too aware. The European Commission now features on its website a compilation of popular misconceptions ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, giving the inside story, laying out the facts and debunking the myths.

>>Media-fuelled hostility

A lot of europhiles feel the press coverage contributes to widespread bewilderment and hostility towards Europe, feeding a popular attitude that the EU is a dangerous behemoth deliberately blinding its citizens with layers of impenetrable bureaucracy and ludicrous laws.

Admittedly, Brussels is an easy target. A tangle of competing institutions and different agendas, EU bodies are notorious for excessive red tape, corruption scandals and mystifying rules and regulations. It all contributes to a culture of confusion that leaves the public willing to believe just about anything.

According to Michael Mann from the European Commission press office, the British media is a main offender, with the tabloids all trying to outdo one another with sensational stories.

Mann is now busy collecting myths and countering them with facts. In his opinion, the problem is that the level of debate about Europe isn't as high as it should be.

>>A reflection of national reservations

The misunderstandings and prejudices come in all shapes and sizes. Maintaining that EU officials are grossly overpaid is one thing -- but the idea that male members of staff are reimbursed for the medical costs of Viagra pills is slightly less well-founded.

Horror stories from Brussels are part of the media's daily diet, but reveal an astonishing gullibility on the part of many Europeans. On the euro-myth silly scale, old favorites such as greengrocers having to conform to rules covering size, length, color and texture of fruit and vegetables are less believable than proposals for a new European flag, but the sheer quantity of misapprehensions goes to show how little the public understands the workings of the European Union.

Viola Eggert from the European Commission's Berlin office attributes the problem to the Commission's zeal for regulations, saying many myths about the EU popular in Germany "are based on over-regulation and the idea that the EU tells its citizens what they're allowed to do, and has too big an influence on their lives."

So although gullibility may be to blame for many of the myths, the volume of misinformation appears to reflect strong national reservations about the sort of things the European Commission would like to do if left to its own devices.

Anti-EU groups are all too willing to twist the facts about Brussels' law-making, but the EU would do well to conclude it should, in future, explain itself better. After all, Brussels does have one of the most extensive press corps in the world.

But as Michael Mann points out, Brussels can only do so much -- and the rest is up to national governments. "They have to start serious discussions with the public about what Europe is and why it's a good thing," he said.

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Whenever I write about art, I get mail from the Serious Art Community informing me that I am a clueless idiot. So let me begin by stipulating that I am a clueless idiot. This is probably why I was unable to appreciate a work of art I viewed recently, titled: Chair.

I saw Chair at Art Basel, a big art show held recently in Miami Beach. It attracted thousands of Serious Art People, who wear mostly black outfits and can maintain serious expressions no matter what work of art they are viewing. This is hard, because a lot of Serious Art consists of bizarre or startlingly unattractive objects, or ''performances'' wherein artists do something Conceptual, such as squirt Cheez Whiz into an orifice that has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for snack toppings.

But no matter what the art is, a Serious Art Person will view it with the somber expression of a radiologist examining X-rays of a tumor. Whereas an amateur will eventually give himself away by laughing; or saying ''Huh?''; or (this is the most embarrassing) asking an art-gallery person: ''Is this wastebasket a piece of art? Or can I put my gum wrapper in it?''

But back to Art Basel: I didn't go to the main show. I went to an officially sanctioned satellite show called ''Art Positions,'' which was a group of large, walk-in shipping containers set up on the beach, serving as mini art galleries. Serious Art People drifted blackly from container to container, solemnly examining the tumors.

I managed not to say anything stupid until I encountered a slide projector sitting on the floor, projecting a rectangle of white light and twitching lens dust onto the wall. I asked the gallery person if there was supposed to be a slide in the projector; he patiently explained that, no, this was a work of art titled Autofocus Slide Projector Dust. I didn't ask why it was on the floor, because I didn't want to make a total fool of myself.

In another container there was a work of art consisting of a video, repeated over and over, showing a man -- not in peak physical condition, I might add -- rollerblading around a vast empty space, stark naked. I'm proud to say I betrayed no emotion while viewing this work, although my daughter, who is 3, said, quite loudly: ``You can see his tushy! Yuck!'' She is young, and has no art training.

Anyway, in the corner of one container there was a ratty old collapsed armchair -- worn, dirty, leaking stuffing, possibly housing active vermin colonies. I asked the gallery person if the chair was art, and she said yes, it was a work titled Chair. I asked her what role the artist had played in creating Chair. She said: ''He found it.'' She noted that Chair had been professionally crated and shipped to the art show.

Chair is for sale. The price is $2,800. Really. I looked up Chair on a Serious Art Internet site, artcritical.com, which said: ''The chair offers not a weedy patina of desuetude but an apotheosis of its former occupant.'' ( http://www.artcritical.com/blurbs/JSMcMillian.htm ) See, I missed that altogether, about the desuetude and the apotheosis. I thought it was just a crappy old junk chair some guy took off a trash pile and was now trying to sell for 2,800 clams.

I was also baffled by an artwork called Moonwalk, presented by a Paris art gallery. You walked into the gallery/container, and it was empty, just blank white walls. Around the ceiling were a half-dozen speakers making a high-pitched sonar sound, like this: ''boop.'' That was the art: ''boop.'' Sitting outside on a folding chair was a gallery person, smoking Marlboros. I wondered what it would be like to fly all the way from Paris to Miami, only to spend four days sitting outside an empty shipping container going ''boop.'' I would go insane. I would have an apotheosis of freaking desuetude.

In another container, there was a work that consisted of a hole drilled in the floor, and some weeds stuck in it. I believe the price on that was $6,000. While I was examining it, I heard one Serious Art Person say to another (I swear): ``Wouldn't that be wonderful in the foyer?''

I want to state, for the record, that there was also some very nice-looking art on display. And I want to repeat that I am a clueless idiot. So you Serious Art People don't need to write letters reminding me. I agree that you know MUCH more about art than I do, OK?

So YOU buy the chair.

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HELICOPTERS that are up to a third faster, 50 per cent quieter, more comfortable, easier to use and can fly in any weather? It sounds like a chopper pilot's pipedream but Eurocopter expects to introduce technologies providing all of those benefits in the next 15 years. Eurocopter helicopters already feature composite materials, fly-by-wire technology and advanced rotor design.

"But this is the status quo and the question is, where is the helicopter going?" Eurocopter spokesman Christoph Muller said in Sydney this week. Where indeed? Researchers at Eurocopter are experimenting with innovative rotor blade designs, "fly by light" fibre optic control systems, vibration damped gearboxes and an array of sensors to take helicopters to the next stage. At the same time, says Muller, they also want to make the machines cheaper to buy and to operate.

Among the new concepts already under test is "individual blade control", a technology that reduces helicopter noise by 50 per cent through the use of piezo-electric elements integrated into the rotor blades. Applying an electrical charge to piezo material causes it to extend, changing the shape of the rotor blade. "It doesn't influence the flight characteristics of the helicopter - that is very important - but we are able to redirect the vortex at the end of the rotor blade," Muller says. "And if you do that at a certain frequency you will redirect them underneath or above the following rotor blade and that's why we have this significant noise reduction."

The system reduces noise by 9 decibels and cuts vibration 70 per cent, according to Muller. It can also be used to boost the aircraft's lift. "And if we use it intelligently we believe we can increase speed by 50km/h, which is a lot for a helicopter," he says. "Helicopters have a natural speed limit. Due to the rotating rotors you can't go faster than approximately 300km/h."

In the longer term, Eurocopter is toying with the idea of a rotor blade made up entirely of piezo elements, but is currently constrained by weight considerations. It is also considering asymmetric rotor blades which Muller says could take speeds to 400km/h.

Making helicopters simpler to fly involves a two-pronged approach that researchers hope will reduce pilot workload by 50 per cent. Eurocopter engineers say most modern helicopter accidents occur because of overloading. "Flying a helicopter is much more complex than flying a plane, due to the fact you have to use your paddles, you have to direct your stick, you have a pitch," says Muller. "So actually both your hands are on controls and so are your feet."

Researchers are hoping to replace the complex mechanical controls with a single sidestick which would eventually use a "fly-by-light" system using fibre optics and optical impulses. Fly-by-light has the advantage of being lighter than fly-by-wire and is capable of carrying more information to a central computer. Eurocopter is testing a fly-by-light architecture in one of its EC-135 helicopters and is using the demonstrator to test the sidestick, look at control laws and how to avoid unsafe pilot inputs. Muller believes the new sidestick system will significantly boost safety by reducing demands on pilots and allowing them to concentrate more on their environment. "We think that if we could reach this point of having just one stick for all flight operations in a helicopter, that would just be a great advantage," he says.

Eurocopter envisages combining the new controls with an all-weather system which joins virtual displays and topographical databases with an array of sensors. It has two demonstrators working on various combinations it hopes will allow a pilot to fly in zero visibility using a three-dimensional display. "The problem at the moment is that we have not found one single sensor which is able to operate under all weather conditions and which would give the pilot 100 per cent assurance they can fly," Muller says. "It does not help if we have a system that can fly at only 99 per cent - the remaining 1 per cent could cause lethal damage."

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8) The Jackson (Michigan) Citizen Patriot: Barbie throws a curve at Concord Middle School [Une prof dérange la classe en mesurant les élèves pour les comparer à Barbie.]
http://www.mlive.com/news/jacitpat/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1077036132318290.xml
Barbie throws a curve at Concord Middle School
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
By Pat Rombyer

What started as a math project designed to teach proportions to seventh-graders at Concord Middle School ended up as more of an anatomy project, a parent says. Using a Barbie doll as a starting point, students measured various parts of her body, then compared them to the human body.

Christine Vandenburgh, whose daughter is in the class, told the school board Monday night she objected to the personal nature of the project -- comparing head, waist and bust measurements. Boys were to use their mother's measurements or those of the teacher, she said. "We found it a negative experience and for some it was traumatic," she said. "There's enough sexual tension and discomfort at that age."

When contacted at her home, the teacher, Laurie Reitz, declined to comment. Summaries of the project's comparisons, which parents said included some of the girls' measurements, were posted in the classroom. "Girls on both ends of the spectrum were uncomfortable and so were some of the boys," Vandenburgh said. "I felt it was highly sexual and inappropriate. Breasts have no place in a math class."

Some of the parents met with Reitz, but there was no acceptable resolution, Vandenburgh said. She asked the board to drop the project from the curriculum, expunge the grades earned from it and to take disciplinary action against the teacher for her poor judgment. Board President Steven Rick assured her the matter was being investigated.

Vandenburgh's opinion of the Barbie project was not shared by other parents at the board meeting. David Wooden felt it was a positive experience for his daughter. "It shows that Barbie is not a true expectation of life," he said.

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