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Week 40, 2004
THE BEST SELLERS (last week's favorite articles): Summary
B*) CNN/Global Office: Where best to base your business [Les meilleurs pays où créer une entreprise.]
3*) The Boston Globe: Harshness of red marks has students seeing purple [Aux E-U, les profs n'utilisent plus l'encre rouge pour corriger les devoirs, de peur d'effrayer les élèves sensibles.]
5*) The Economist: I understand, up to a point [Parfois à l'Union européenne les plus difficiles à comprendre ce sont les Anglais]
********************************
THE REGULARS: Summary
A) Le texte
plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: US Elections 2004 [Topo sur l'élection
présidentielle américaine.]
B) CNN/Global
Office: Women win the boardroom battle [Une enquête britannique
montre les progrès des femmes dans l'avancement de leurs carrières.]
C) Slate/Dear
Prudence: Partial Parenting [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie
tout court. Cette semaine : Le père de mon fils souhaite reprendre
contact avec lui après s'être montré odieux envers
lui et moi. / Maintenant que nous pouvons profiter d'une vie tranquille,
mon mari n'a plus envie de coucher avec moi. / Notre patron couche avec
des pétasses. / Je crois que ma mère alcoolique reboît.]
D) The
Washington Post/Miss Manners: An Uncertain Period [Conseils sur l'étiquette
et les bonnes manières. Cette semaine : Orthographe du mot "Ms"
/ Comment présenter mon épouse alors que je suis une femmes
? / J'ai 9 ans et je ne sais pas réagir à ma copine sans
gêne.]
THIS WEEK'S TEXTS: Summary
1) The Guardian: Paris's new slant on underground movies [Reportage sur la salle de cinéma souterraine découverte à Paris.]
2) The Boston Globe: Debit the small stuff [Les Américains finissent par adopter la carte bancaire pour régler leurs peits achats.
3) Slate: Mixed Blessings [En froid avec la réligion, les gens cherchent des cérémonies laïques pour marquer les grands moments de la vie.]
4) Deutsche Welle: Girl Talk Made Easy [Un nouveau dictionnaire allemand destiné aux hommes prétend leur traduire le langage des femmes.]
5) Dave Barry: She'll shop till I drop [Humour: Dave ne s'entend pas avec sa femme sur le shopping.]
6) The Economist: Electronic Voting [Nouvelles inquiétudes pour les machines à voter électroniques aux E-U.]
7) Marc's Election Explainer
********************************
B*) CNN/Global Office: Where best to base your
business [Les meilleurs pays où créer une entreprise.]
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/09/08/go.world.bank.report/index.html
Where best to base your business
By Nick Easen for CNN
(CNN) -- If you are looking for a place to start a new business you may want to consider either Slovakia or Colombia for a new office. Both countries improved their business and investment climates the most over the past year, according to the latest World Bank report. Creating electronic one-stop shops for businesses, shrinking regulatory delays, improving credit registries and introducing more flexible labor laws were just some of the reforms these countries signed up to. "Slovakia was a successful reformer, as was Colombia (even though) they have a low per-capita income," Joe O'Keefe an economist at the World Bank told CNN. "Many of these reforms are simple and not expensive. But in Haiti or Indonesia you can start a business in January and you might not even finish (registering) until June."
Business regulation may not seem like a big deal, but according to the "Doing Business in 2005" report Colombia's improvements in this area resulted in the creation of 350,000 jobs in 2003. "The pay-offs from reform appear large," expressed the report. "A move into the top quarter of countries in terms of doing business is associated with up to two percentage points more annual economic growth."
The global lender's second annual business regulation
survey of 145 countries also found that New Zealand was the easiest country
to open and manage a business, followed by the U.S. The disparity between
rich and poor countries is stark. For example an entrepreneur in a rich
country will need on average 27 days to start a new business. In a poor
to lower-middle income country the same process takes 59 days. In a dozen
countries starting up a business can drag on for more than 100 days.
Incentive for change
One major incentive to reform for a number of Central
European countries was the promise of European Union membership. Of the
ten most-improved countries, three joined the EU in May of this year,
including Slovakia, Lithuania and Poland.
The report also warned that countries which delay the introduction of
reforms risk being left behind economically. For instance many African
countries are hampered by strict regulatory restrictions, while other
states make starting a business a very costly process. "In Syria,
the minimum capitalization to start a business is 50 times the (annual)
per capita income," says O'Keefe.
The report takes into account time needed to start a new business, labor laws, bureaucracy and credit registries.
According to the report, the most problematic places
to do businesses are in Africa. Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Burkina Faso and Chad rank in the last five. "We have not had this
kind of comparable data before," explains O'Keefe. The top 20 countries
in terms of ease of doing business are New Zealand, United States, Singapore,
Hong Kong/China, Australia, Norway, United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, Japan,
Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, Belgium, Lithuania,
Slovakia, Botswana, and Thailand.
********************************
3*) The Boston Globe: Harshness of red marks has students seeing purple
[Aux E-U, les profs n'utilisent plus l'encre rouge pour corriger
les devoirs, de peur d'effrayer les élèves sensibles.]
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2004/08/23/harshness_of_red_marks_has_students_seeing_purple/
Harshness of red marks has students seeing purple
By Naomi Aoki, Globe Staff | August 23, 2004
When it comes to correcting papers and grading tests, purple is emerging as the new red.
"If you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," said Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Northampton. "Purple stands out, but it doesn't look as scary as red." [Comment: how about studying harder so that you make fewer mistakes?]
That's the cue pen makers and office supply superstores say they have gotten from teachers as the $15 billion back-to-school retail season kicks off. They say focus groups and conversations with teachers have led them to conclude that a growing number of the nation's educators are switching to purple, a color they perceive as "friendlier" than red.
As a result, Paper Mate introduced purple to its assortment of blue, red, and green X-Tend pens and increased distribution of existing purple pens this school year. Barry Calpino, Paper Mate's vice president and general manager, estimated that the Bellwood, Ill., company boosted production of purple pens by at least 10 percent. He said purple will now be a standard color in all its new product lines.
Office superstores such as Staples and OfficeMax also are making a splash with purple pens, stocking more of them, adding purple to multicolor packs, and selling all-purple packs. By comparison, Staples did not stock any exclusively purple pen packs last year and it hardly had any purple pens in its stores two years ago, said Robert George, the Framingham chain's senior vice president of general merchandise. Now, he said, sales of purple pens are growing at a faster clip than pen sales overall.
A mix of red and blue, the color purple embodies red's sense of authority but also blue's association with serenity, making it a less negative and more constructive color for correcting student papers, color psychologists said. Purple calls attention to itself without being too aggressive. And because the color is linked to creativity and royalty, it is also more encouraging to students.
"The concept of purple as a replacement for red is a pretty good idea," said Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute in Carlstadt, N.J., and author of five books on color. "You soften the blow of red. Red is a bit over-the-top in its aggression."
For office supply stores, color and fashion trends spell opportunity and risk. The trends allow them to freshen up staid old categories such as pens and markers, fueling sales. But getting a trend wrong -- betting on purple pens when teachers and students are buying green, for example -- can cost them sales during a critical retail period.
Red's legacy as the color used in correcting papers and marking mistakes goes back to the 1700s, the era of the quill pen. In those days, red ink was used by clerks and accountants to correct ledgers. From there, it found its way into teachers' hands.
But two or three decades ago, an anti-red sentiment began surfacing among teachers. Since then, no one color had emerged as red's replacement.
Is purple here to stay?
"I do not use red," said Robin Slipakoff, who teaches second and third grades at Mirror Lake Elementary School in Plantation, Fla. "Red has a negative connotation, and we want to promote self-confidence. [Comment: even if they get everything wrong] I like purple. I use purple a lot."
Sheila Hanley, who teaches reading and writing to first- and second-graders at John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Randolph, said: "Red is definitely a no-no. But I don't know if purple is in."
Hanley said a growing contingent of her colleagues is using purple. They prefer it to green and yellow because it provides more contrast to the black or blue ink students are asked to write in. And they prefer it to orange, which they think is too similar to red.
But aside from avoiding red, Hanley said she is not sure color matters much. At times, she uses sticky notes rather than writing on a child's paper. [The horrors of pale yellow!!] What's important, she said, is to focus on how an assignment can be improved rather than on what is wrong with it, she said.
Ruslan Nedoruban, who is entering seventh grade at his Belmont school, said red markings on his papers make him feel "uncomfortable."
His mother, Victoria Nedoruban, who is taking classes to improve her English, said she thinks papers should be corrected in red.
"I hate red," she said. "But because I hate it, I want to work harder to make sure there isn't any red on my papers."
Red has other defenders. California high-school teacher Carol Jago, who has been working with students for more than 30 years, said she has no plans to stop using red. She said her students do not seem psychologically scarred by how she wields her pen. And if her students are mixing up "their," "there," and "they're," she wants to shock them into fixing the mistake.
"We need to be honest and forthright with students,"
Jago said. "Red is honest, direct, and to the point. I'm sending
the message, 'I care about you enough to care how you present yourself
to the outside world.' "
********************************
5*) The Economist: I understand, up to a point
[Parfois à l'Union européenne les plus difficiles à
comprendre ce sont les Anglais]
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3152907
Charlemagne: I understand, up to a point
Sep 2nd 2004
Decoding a Euro-diplomat takes more than a dictionary
IF THERE is one thing interpreters working for the European Union dread, it is attempts at humour. It is not just that jokes are hard to translate; because of the time needed for interpretation, they can prompt laughter at the wrong moment. A speaker once began with an anecdote, and then mourned a dead colleague—to be met by a gale of giggles, as listeners got his joke.
The time-lags have grown worse with the expansion of the EU, to make a total of 25 countries. Finding interpreters who can translate directly from Estonian to Portuguese is well-nigh impossible. So now speeches are translated in relays, first into English and then into a third language. If only everybody would agree to speak one or two official tongues, it would be easier. Or would it? In fact, misunderstandings can abound even when all parties speak fluent English or French. Cultural differences mean that a literal understanding of what someone says is often a world away from real understanding. For example, how many non-Brits could decode the irony (and literary allusion) which lies behind the expression “up to a point”, which is used to mean “no, not in the slightest”?
The problem is now so widely recognised that informal guides to what the French or the English really mean, when they are speaking their mother tongues, have been drawn up by other nationalities. Two modest examples recently fell into your correspondent's hands. Both are genuine.
One was written for the Dutch, trying to do business with the British. Another was written by British diplomats, as a guide to the language used by their French counterparts. The fact that the Dutch—so eerily fluent in English—should need a guide to Britspeak is particularly striking. But the problem—to judge by the guide, which was spotted on an office wall in the European Court of Justice—is that Brits make their points in an indirect manner that the plain-speaking Nederlanders find baffling.
Hence the guide's warning that when a Briton says “I hear what you say”, the foreign listener may understand: “He accepts my point of view.” In fact, the British speaker means: “I disagree and I do not want to discuss it any further.” Similarly the phrase “with the greatest respect” when used by an Englishman is recognisable to a compatriot as an icy put-down, correctly translated by the guide as meaning “I think you are wrong, or a fool.”
The guide also points out helpfully that when a Briton says “by the way/incidentally”, he is usually understood by foreigners as meaning “this is not very important”, whereas in fact he means, “The primary purpose of our discussion is...” On the other hand, the phrase “I'll bear it in mind” means “I'll do nothing about it”; while “Correct me if I'm wrong” means “I'm right, please don't contradict me.”
Fog in the Channel
The British guide to what the French really mean has a narrower aim: it was written specifically for officials attending the meetings of the European Union's Council of Ministers, where diplomats haggle over legal texts. The boredom and frustration which this sort of exercise can induce comes through very clearly in the authors' sarcastic observations.
No less obvious is the fact that ideas about plain speaking do not travel easily across the Channel. As the Brits see things, a Frenchman who says “je serai clair”(which literally means “I will be clear”) should be understood as meaning: “I will be rude”. Also evident is the Anglo-Saxons' contempt for spectacular gestures à la française. The phrase “Il faut la visibilité Européenne”(“We need European visibility”) is rendered as: “The EU must indulge in some pointless, annoying and, with luck, damaging international grand-standing.” The British also suggest that the sentence “Il faut trouver une solution pragmatique” (literal translation: “We must find a pragmatic solution”) should be understood as meaning: “Warning: I am about to propose a highly complex, theoretical, legalistic and unworkable way forward.”
The British, the French and the Dutch are old sparring partners who know each other's little ways. So the capacity for misunderstanding is amplified when nationalities that are less familiar with each other come into contact. Often the problems are less to do with the meaning of words than with their unexpected impact on an audience. Take the European summit last December, when it fell to Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, to try to wrap up sensitive negotiations over a proposed constitution for the European Union.
When EU leaders filed into lunch, they were braced for tough negotiation; so they were startled when Mr Berlusconi suggested that they discuss “football and women”—and that Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, should lead the discussion, as he has been married four times. Some European diplomats concluded that Mr Berlusconi must have been deliberately bating Mr Schröder. But when the Italian leader was questioned about his chairmanship at a press conference, he grew hot under the collar, pointing out that he would hardly have become a billionaire unless he were fully capable of chairing a meeting. And indeed his defenders say that in Italian business circles it can be perfectly normal to set a jocular and relaxed tone before a difficult meeting, by discussing last night's football, or even teasing your colleagues about their love lives.
These sorts of misunderstandings are unlikely to be erased even if all Europe's political leaders and bureaucrats were both willing and able to speak English. But ever-inventive Brussels is coming up with a solution of sorts through the emergence of “Euro-speak”—a form of dead, bureaucratic English.
The joy of phrases like “qualified majority voting”, “the community method” and “the commission's sole right of initiative” is that they are completely meaningless to all ordinary Europeans—whether in translation or in the original. But, crucially, they are crystal-clear to insiders.
THE REGULARS
********************************
A) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld:
US Elections 2004 [Topo sur l'élection présidentielle américaine.]
http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p4836.htm
US Elections 2004
Americans are preparing to elect their 44th President this November. There are issues to be debated, candidates to consider and votes to be tallied. No matter what your political stripes (if you have them at all), it's important to understand how the process works. Kidzworld takes a look at the American electoral system.
US Elections - The Players
Presidential Candidates: Must be at least 35 years old, born in the USA
and have lived in the USA for 14 years.
Political Parties: Groups of people who have similar ideas about how the
country should be run, who put forward candidates in political elections.
Voters: must be 18 years old, a US citizen and meet the residency requirements
for his or her state.
US Elections - Popular Vote
Political parties elect a person to run as their presidential candidate
through primaries and caucuses, in which party members vote for their
fave candidate. Independent candidates (those without party affiliations)
simply register themselves as presidential candidates. All the candidates
are put forward to the American public and voters choose their favorite.
Here's where is gets tricky though. Even though voters check off the name
of the person they would like to see become President, they are actually
voting directly for the candidate; that's the job of the Electoral College.
Let's take a look at what they do.
US Elections - The Electoral College
In the Electoral College system each state gets a certain number of electors
based on the number of representatives it has in congress. California
has the most - a whopping 54! Rhode Island gets four. Aww, poor Rhode
Island. There are 538 electoral votes all together. Each state then uses
these electors (thing of them as multiple votes) to say who their state
prefers for President. So if most of the peeps in Rhode Island votes for
a dude named Bob Jones, then Rhode Island would get 4 votes for good ol'
Bob. The candidate who gets more than 270 electoral votes becomes President.
This explain why Al Gore actually got more votes in the last election
but George Bush became President - he got more electoral votes. The new
president is always sworn in on January 20th.
Election 2004 - The Candidates
The two main political arties in the US are the Democratic Party and the
Republican Party. Here's a brief glance at their candidates for President:
Republican - George Bush: You might recognize this dude. That's because
he's already the President. He's trying his luck at a second term in office
- You're only allowed to be president for two terms, so this is his last
shot. He's campaigning mostly on the issue of national security and the
War on Terror.
Democrat - John Kerry: This Massachusetts senator fought in the Vietnam
War and says he want to protect America from "foreign threats and
greedy special interests.
********************************
B) CNN/Global Office: Women win the boardroom
battle [Une enquête britannique montre les progrès des femmes
dans l'avancement de leurs carrières.]
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/09/15/go.women.boardroom/index.html
Women win the boardroom battle
By Nick Easen for CNN
Wednesday, September 22, 2004 Posted: 1659 GMT (0059 HKT)
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Bigger pay rises, higher average salaries and a fatter wage packet than the other gender -- this time it is happening to women rather than men. According to the latest survey of British workers, released on Wednesday, the gender gap in the office is narrowing. More women are at work than ever before and there is greater female influence at senior management level, as well as in the boardroom. The figures also show that more women are breaking through the so-called "glass ceiling" and creating a "boardroom greenhouse effect" as companies warm to the idea of women in management roles.
"Organizations are realizing you should not restrict roles because of gender," Mike Petrook from the Chartered Management Institute told CNN. "Certainly the glass ceiling is cracking and companies appreciate that they have to pay men and women equally at the boardroom level."
The survey of 21,987 British managers by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) covered 10 different industries from manufacturing to the public sector. Managers in 354 companies from small enterprises to multinational firms were interviewed, as well as six different management functions from human resources to sales.
Over the last five years results show that the number of women directors has risen from less than one in 10 to one in seven. Female bosses are also getting bigger pay rises than men -- the eighth year in a row this has happened, with women seeing an average rise of five percent compared with men's 4.7 percent. At the department head level, women are also earning more than their male equivalents, with an average wage of £51,854 ($92,195) compared to £50,459 for men ($89,715). Almost a third of department managers are now women. Back in 1974 they accounted for only two percent.
The results also defy the belief of a "glass cliff" for women in the boardroom. A situation where women are more likely to be appointed to precarious positions , where they are more likely to fail. Researchers at Exeter University have shown that many FTSE 100 firms appointed women to senior positions only after a downturn in their fortunes, leaving them standing on the edge of a "glass cliff." "The (survey) shows that the "glass cliff" does not exist, all you have to do is look at the labor turnover figures," says Petrook.
The number of women resigning from their job decreased from 6.4 percent in 2002 to 5.3 percent in 2004, whereas male resignations jumped. More men (2.9 percent) than women (2.8 percent) were also made redundant in the last 12 months. "But there is still a long way to go if women are to achieve true parity in the workplace," says Christine Hayhurst, CMI's director of professional affairs. "Huge efforts have been made to work towards equality in the workplace and organisations must continue to put measures in place to meet these demands." Hayhurst believes that failure to ensure workplace equality could lead to more discrimination cases.
********************************
C) Slate/Dear Prudence: Partial Parenting [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale
et la vie tout court. Cette semaine : Le père de mon fils souhaite
reprendre contact avec lui après s'être montré odieux
envers lui et moi. / Maintenant que nous pouvons profiter d'une vie tranquille,
mon mari n'a plus envie de coucher avec moi. / Notre patron couche avec
des pétasses. / Je crois que ma mère alcoolique reboît.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105982/
Partial Parenting
How to handle a deadbeat dad who wants back into your child's life.
Posted Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at 3:20 AM PT
Dear Prudence,
My son's biological father ended our relationship when I asked him to
pull his financial weight with our son. This man played Daddy for two
years and then left the state, saying he had a trip out of town. Actually,
he moved out of the state. He ended up with another woman in a state that
is close to where we are, yet he never bothered coming back to say good-bye
to us. I found out from a mutual friend that he then got a job overseas,
so I sent him an e-mail message letting him know that I'd found him. I
have no doubt he was hiding out to avoid having to pay child support,
although the Child Support Services Division took care of that for me,
fortunately. He again cut off contact for another five months because
he was angry about the amount of child support the state calculated. This
man has no legal rights (visitation or custody) although, by law, he is
required to pay child support. I consider him a pathological liar, a spineless
coward, and a horrible role model. My son has forgotten who he is, and
I consider my child better off without him. My problem is that this sperm
donor now claims he wants to be a part of my son's life. Given all that
he's put us through, I believe he has no right to be, especially considering
he has not changed at all. He still lies to me and treats me with a great
amount of disrespect, yelling at me on the phone, hanging up, etc. What
do you think, Prudie?
—No More Chances
Dear No,
Your signature nicely sums up Prudie's opinion … arrived at because
you say he's behaved like a swine, fled like a rat, and isn't Prudie just
losing her mind here with similes? The most important consideration, however,
is that your son feels no connection to him. This man clearly has not
cleaned up his act, and your son may well be a pawn in his game to wind
you up. There is, of course, no quid pro quo between child support obligations
and access to the child. Continue to do what is best for you and your
son.
—Prudie, concurringly
-*-*-*-
Dear Prudence,
I don't know where else to go for advice about this matter. This isn't
something I can share with friends. My husband and I have been married
for 16 years. It's a second marriage, and we've always had a great sex
life. We raised four kids, put them through college, did the weddings,
and are now grandparents. We have a beautiful home and family. The pressure's
off, financially and emotionally. But now our sex life seems to be over.
My husband, 59, is still outwardly affectionate and caring, but instead
of enjoying sex together, he's only interested in watching HBO soft porn
(alone) and masturbating. When I've tried to get him to talk about this,
he says "nothing's wrong." He tells me he loves me, but night
after night I go to bed alone while he's "entertaining" himself
in front of the TV. I'm no prude, but watching porn is something I find
repulsive. I don't know how to deal with this.
—Puzzled
Dear Puzz,
Not knowing what's going on in your life—or more precisely, your
husband's life—it is impossible to give you a definitive answer.
Here are some ideas, though, that could help you tackle the problem. Women
in porn are always available, nonjudgmental, and usually 23. Seriously,
you two have to TALK. Tell him that "nothing's wrong" is not
an answer, and it is not accurate. What you need to determine is when
this shift in interest occurred. Did it have anything to do with you?
Did it coincide with something … like retirement or becoming a grandparent?
If so, what did those events mean to him? When did his own father die,
and might it have been from a heart attack? Don't let him brush you off.
This is your marriage, too. Good luck.
—Prudie, investigatively
-*-*-*-
Dear Prudence,
My boss is having an affair with a former employee, and she's not the
first one. This babe has lasted the longest, though, almost six months.
The thing is, he takes this party girl around with him everywhere, including
company functions and to clients' places of business. Then he tells the
clients that she is his niece because there is such an age difference.
It's like she is arm candy for him, and he wants to get caught. He has
also taken her with him on "business trips" all over the world.
I am worried for the business, as it is taking a big turn for the worse.
I have been with this company for over five years and have never seen
our boss behave this way over a fling. It seems as if he is throwing away
the company he started for this woman. I need my job, and I haven't found
a better one, so I can't quit yet and leave this all behind me. I am acquaintance
of his wife, who travels a lot with HER job, and I know she would be devastated
if she found out. Any advice would be appreciated.
—Just Another Worker Bee
Dear Just,
Shall we hum together "There's No Fool Like an Old Fool?" If
this dolly has your boss so besotted that the business is going down the
tubes, there is, unfortunately, nothing you can do. Some people might
suggest blowing the whistle about the "niece" to the wife, but
Prudie's feeling is that that would not save the business; it would merely
add a divorce to the equation. Some people might suggest the wife spend
more time at home, but that wouldn't reform this jerk's proclivity for
roaming. He will learn soon enough that he's made an irretrievable error—and
by then the bimbo may have lost interest. Keep up your job search.
—Prudie, pragmatically
-*-*-*-
Dear Prudie,
I write to you today because I really don't know what else to do. I have
a wonderful, loving, supportive family. My parents are always there for
me, and my sister is my best friend. The only problem is my mother is
an alcoholic. I know that seems like a big "only problem," but
she's not ever violent or dangerous. She doesn't get drunk, so to speak,
but my understanding of alcoholism is that even if you are just having
one drink, it could be dangerous. When I was 15, our family went to a
counselor, and my mom went through treatment. However, I suspect that
she is drinking again and hiding it from my father and me. (I recently
moved back home after graduating college.) I am terrified to accuse her
because if I am wrong, it may ruin our relationship. But if I ignore my
suspicion, she may be harming herself. So my question is: Should I confront
my mother and risk accusing an innocent woman?
—Unsure
Dear Un,
Where is your father in all this? In any case, Prudie thinks you should
go to an Al-Anon meeting. The people who have lived through what you are
struggling with will have the best advice for you. That is a setting where
you can ask questions, get opinions, and reap the benefit of other people's
experience. Good luck.
—Prudie, communally
********************************
D) The Washington Post/Miss Manners: An Uncertain Period [Conseils sur
l'étiquette et les bonnes manières. Cette semaine : Orthographe
du mot "Ms" / Comment présenter mon épouse alors
que je suis une femmes ? / J'ai 9 ans et je ne sais pas réagir
à ma copine sans gêne.]
An Uncertain Period
Wednesday, September 22, 2004; Page C13
Q:
Dear Miss Manners:
I feel somewhat awkward in questioning a member of the Etiquette Mavens' High Council, but, as I am confident that you, of all people, will be most understanding, I must inquire about your use of a period in the word "Ms."
I seem to recall that when the word was coined, it
was touted as not being an abbreviation of anything, but a new word in
itself, indicating a woman's freedom from marital identification -- neither
Miss nor Mrs. Because the word was not an abbreviation, no period was
required. The test would be to name the longer form of the word abbreviated
by "Ms." I think you will find that there is none. I am less
certain about a plural -- the Ms's? -- but I will leave that up to you!
A:
There is a reason that people are wary of questioning a member of the
Etiquette Mavens' High Council, charming as we are, and charmingly as
you have done so. We have long memories.
Yours is not as long as you think. You were not around when "Ms." was coined, as we can date it back to the 17th century. The full word was "mistress," and it was respectable in those days. "Mrs." and "Ms." are both abbreviations of "mistress" and thus take periods; "Miss," another derivative of the word, squeaks by without one as a sort of nickname. Because of unfortunate subsequent connotations, we do not use "mistresses" for the plural, but rather "Mesdames" or "The Misses" with the surname.
-*-*-*-
Q:
Dear Miss Manners:
I recently became legally joined to my same-sex partner of many years. After the service, I commenced referring to her as my wife. I occasionally receive comments on how it is inappropriate to refer to her as such. Is there another word I should be using that will act as a stand-in for the rather cumbersome "woman with whom I am legally united"?
A:
Spouse. And please don't ask Miss Manners for the plural.
-*-*-*-
Q:
Dear Miss Manners:
I am 9 years old and I have a friend that is very forward. My friend always asks to sleep over, go places with me and my family, have snacks or eat over without being offered first. When I tell her this is not the time to do this, she pushes me over and over to ask my mom anyway.
This gets on my nerves. We have a good friendship other than this problem. What would be the proper way to get this problem to stop without hurting her feelings?
A:
Nine is not too young to learn to say no, and as your mother is presumably
even older, she can help you.
When someone refuses to take no for an answer, that does not oblige you to come up with an answer that she will like better. However many times your friend asks the same question, you should give the same answer: "No, I'm sorry, this is not a good time." And the answer to "Why not?" is also "Because this isn't a good time."
You are supposed to keep this up until the other person's nerves, or rather her nerve, goes. But if you feel yours fraying, Miss Manners suggests saying, "Let's go ask my mother" so that lady can take over delivering the same statement.
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THIS WEEK'S TEXTS
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1) The Guardian: Paris's new slant on underground
movies [Reportage sur la salle de cinéma souterraine découverte
à Paris.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1302249,00.html
Paris's new slant on underground movies
Clandestine group reveals how it built its cinema beneath the city
Jon Henley in Paris
Saturday September 11, 2004
There are, at most, 15 of them. Their ages range from 19 to 42, their professions from nurse to window dresser, mason to film director. And in a cave beneath the streets of Paris, they built a subterranean cinema whose discovery this week sent the city's police into a frenzy. "They freaked out completely," Lazar, their spokesman, said happily. "They called in the bomb squad, the sniffer dogs, army security, the anti-terrorist squad, the serious crimes unit. They said it was skinheads or subversives. They got it on to national TV news. They hadn't a clue."
To be fair, until recently very few people did have a clue about La Mexicaine de la Perforation, a clandestine cell of "urban explorers" which claims its mission is to "reclaim and transform disused city spaces for the creation of zones of expression for free and independent art".
Huddled round a table in an anonymous Latin Quarter bar, the group's members - of whom only Lazar wanted to be named - relate past exploits: rock concerts for up to 4,000 people in old underground quarries; 2am projections in a locked film theatre; art and photo exhibitions in supposedly sealed-off subterranean galleries. But since they aim to leave each venue "cleaner, if anything, than when we found it", LMDP's activities have never before come to public attention. Until late last month, when police patrolling one small stretch of the estimated 200 miles of tunnels beneath the city stumbled across the underground cinema. "In fact, they had a tip-off from a former member with a grudge," said Lazar. "But we don't mind really - we'd done what we set out to do."
The cinema, with restaurant and bar annexe, was open for a seven-week season this summer, showing a suitably subversive programme which included works by Chinese and Korean directors but also Alex Proyas' Dark City, Coppola's Rumble Fish, David Lynch's Eraserhead, and Terry Gilliam's Brazil. It was constructed in a series of interconnected caves totalling some 400 square metres beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel tower. Former quarries, they were partly refurbished during the 1900 Universal Exposition when one of the galleries was clad with concrete to represent a future Channel tunnel and a wall was artfully terraced.
But the caves were sealed off for the last time at least 20 years ago and subsequently "ceased to exist officially", Lazar said. "We knew them well because we used them to get into the Palais de Chaillot every Bastille Day. The roof is the perfect place from which to watch the fireworks." Indeed most of the LMDP's underground happenings are organised in places the city authorities are not aware of, he added. "There are so many underground networks - the quarries, the metro, the collective heating, the electricity, the sewers - and each is the responsibility of a different bureaucracy," he said. "Urban explorers are the only people who, between us, know it all. We move between each network. We know where they link up - often, it's us who made the link. The authorities, the police, town hall, they don't know a hundredth, a thousandth, of what's down there."
Building a fully functioning subterranean cinema was, the LMDP admits, a more than usually stiff challenge. The project took some 18 months to complete, though most of the hard work - including shifting a large pile of rubble off the terraces, and shoring up a couple of walls - was done in three or four weekends. With their long experience of such matters, the group's technicians had little difficulty piping in electricity and phone lines. "The biggest hassle was that everything - tables, chairs, bar, projector, screen, the lot - had to fit through a 30cm by 40cm hole on the surface," Lazar said. "When the police finally worked out where we were getting in, they couldn't believe it was the right place. It was so small."
The Chaillot underground cinema is now definitively closed, even to a drill-toting and determined urban explorer. But even if the Paris police may have reluctantly (and with considerable embarrassment) decided its builders were neither terrorists, neo-Nazis nor satanists, they would very much like to charge them with some offence.
"As far as we know, they've been reduced to going for theft of electricity," said Lazar. "However, we covered our tracks so well that the electricity board has apparently told them that short of digging up every cable in the district there's no way of knowing where we took it from. But they're not happy. They've seen a tiny fraction of what we do, and it's a big deal for them."
There were, he added, maybe 10 other groups in Paris, all of a roughly similar size, involved in similarly creative, if murky, projects beneath the streets of the capital. "They will never stop it, they are too uncoordinated," he added. "We will always be a step ahead. And what, in the end, are we guilty of? With that cinema, we should be rewarded for restoring and preserving France's underground heritage. Those caves were in a terrible state."
^RETURN TO TOP^
********************************
2) The Boston Globe: Debit the small stuff [Les Américains finissent
par adopter la carte bancaire pour régler leurs peits achats.]
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2004/08/18/swipe_hype_debit_the_small_stuff?pg=2
Swipe hype: Debit the small stuff
By Sasha Talcott, Globe Staff | August 18, 2004
Dana Conneally walked into Starbucks at Faneuil Hall one recent morning in desperate need of a coffee fix. The employee at a local law firm handed his debit card to the Starbucks worker, who swiped it, then handed it back -- no signature or personal identification number required.
The transaction took about 10 seconds. Starbucks kept its line moving, Conneally got his vanilla latte, and MasterCard made a few extra pennies in what has become a fast-growing market for credit card companies: no-signature transactions. Having penetrated high price tag and high volume locations such as department stores and grocery chains, credit card companies are targeting cash businesses such as fast-food restaurants and movie theaters by allowing customers to skip the step of signing receipts for small purchases.
The idea, which has been around on a small scale for years, received a massive boost in recent months as giant fast-food chains such as McDonald's Corp., Wendy's International Inc., and Jack in the Box Inc. have expanded the program to more restaurants or signed on for the first time. Starbucks started the practice in the spring. While the credit card companies make only a few cents on each transaction, the sheer volume of such business translates into millions of dollars.
Visa USA estimates that its no-signature transactions have increased 250 percent since it rolled out the service nationwide in October, while MasterCard International says similar transactions at fast-food restaurants increased 85 percent for all of 2003.
"There's some benefit across the board to the merchant and the consumer," said Anthony Gracia, MasterCard's vice president for retail and small-ticket markets.
The changes mark another advance for plastic over paper, as electronic payments become increasingly popular nationwide. Customers can use credit or debit cards for the quicker transactions; credit card holders do not have to sign a receipt, while debit card users do not need to enter a PIN. Debit cards deduct money from a customer's bank account, while credit card companies send customers a monthly bill.
Fast-food restaurants formerly had been among the last card holdouts, but those companies now are becoming some of the most ardent supporters of the payment method. Among the chief benefits of the new card policies, executives say: shorter wait times, less need for costly receipt paper, and little liability for businesses.
Even without signatures on receipts, credit card companies say they have seen no increase in fraud. Most people who steal credit cards are likely to use them on big-ticket purchases, not to buy a latte from Starbucks, so the problem is minimal, executives say. Credit card companies, which generally assume responsibility for fraudulent purchases, also hedge their exposure by restricting no-signature transactions to a small range of industries, including video stores, parking lots, and casual restaurants.
"We needed to make sure we could manage the risk," said William Sheedy, an executive vice president at Visa, added the company has no plans to expand its no-signature transactions further. "We have not seen any impact on fraud levels or consumer disputes. We think we have been able to focus the service appropriately."
Still, customers say the new policies take some adjustment.
"It threw me off at first, but I'm used to it now," said Conneally, the Starbucks latte drinker, adding he rarely pays with cash anymore.
Some industry watchers are hyping the card idea as a significant way to boost sales in the fast-food industry. Researchers at Credit Suisse First Boston wrote in February that if a third of fast-food purchases moved to credit cards, the industry could reap about $7 billion in extra sales. That is because customers tend to spend more when they use credit cards than they do with cash, according to fast-food companies and credit card executives.
"If I have to take a $10 bill out of my wallet, I know how much I'm spending," said Bruce Vermilyea, controller of Qdoba Restaurant Corp., a fast-growing Mexican cuisine chain from Colorado that converted to no-signature credit-card transactions about a year ago. "With a credit card, customers say: 'Oh well, those chips and guacamole look good. Maybe I'll get that, too.' "
The decision to eliminate credit card signatures on smaller-ticket items, generally less than $25, also has lessened a tricky problem for stores: what do to with all those credit-card receipts. Qdoba, for example, had asked its restaurants as far away as Texas to ship the signed receipts to its headquarters, where they were put in storage for three years in case customers alleged fraud. The pieces of paper took up 450 cubic feet in a warehouse -- about the size of a bedroom -- and cost the company $150 a month in storage, Vermilyea said.
In Boston, small restaurants and stores keep the receipts jammed in back-room file cabinets, in drawers, or in the case of one North End restaurant, inside trash bags in the basement.
"We're going to keep everything for six months. As much as a pain as that is, we have to," said Paul Savino, owner of Friendly Framer on Hanover Street, who was so pressed for office space that he recently bought a paper shredder in part to deal with unneeded credit card receipts.
Fast-food chains have been holdouts in installing credit card equipment, whether or not a signature was required, because they worried that cards would increase customers' wait time. But a spokesman for McDonald's, which expects that 8,000 of its 13,500 restaurants will accept credit card payments by the end of the year, said the notion of skipping signatures helped tip the scales in favor of accepting credit cards. The company said in March it would accept credit cards, catching up to the rest of the fast-food industry.
The changes in credit card payments have some customers waxing a bit philosophic. Gail Fenske, who was drinking Starbucks coffee outside Faneuil Hall one recent morning, said she worries the new emphasis on credit cards will let customers forget the tangible feeling of spending cash.
"We're losing sense of hard cash: what a nickel is, what a dollar is," she said. "You never know how quickly it flows or where."
Sasha Talcott can be reached at stalcott@globe.com.
********************************
3) Slate: Mixed Blessings [En froid avec la réligion, les gens
cherchent des cérémonies laïques pour marquer les grands
moments de la vie.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2107004/
Mixed Blessings
Are secular life ceremonies the wave of the future?
By Michael Kress
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004, at 4:27 AM PT
Perhaps it was bound to happen: Spiritual seekers who left churches and synagogues for the freedom of an independent path are finding it's lonely out there. When it comes to life's big moments—weddings, births, funerals—a religious ceremony can be a, well, religious experience. But instead of going back to church, some people are finding nonreligious means of celebrating life's significant events. Though not without their challenges, these secular rituals can make a significant contribution to the 21st-century quest for spiritual meaning.
The rituals are the work of a growing number of "secular officiants" who create religion-free life-cycle rituals commemorating everything from birth to death, puberty to menopause. Advertising through Web sites like SecularCeremonies.com and ARiteToRemember.com, they attract those who have abandoned traditional religion—atheists and the "spiritual but not religious" alike—along with those who feel abandoned by religion—for example, unmarried parents.
Different approaches to this endeavor range from the secular humanist who does not mention God in her ceremonies and refuses to include Jewish or Christian rituals or Bible readings, to the officiant who will only include rituals that somehow figure in her clients' lives or heritages.
Ceremonies by Terri Mandell-Campfield take the former approach. There's typically an exchange of vows (for a wedding) and an appropriate ritual for the occasion, borrowed from any number of traditions aside from Judaism or Christianity, which she shuns because, she says, her clients are seeking rituals they can't find in church or synagogue—and many are "really angry about the religions they were brought up with." Instead, there might be "handfasting," which her Web site defines as "an ancient Celtic wedding ritual in which the couples' hands are tied together with a ceremonial ribbon or cloth." Or it might include "calling the directions," a commonly adopted Wiccan (neo-pagan) and Native American custom in which North, South, East, and West are summoned to bless and aid those involved in the ceremony.
The biggest drawback of this approach is that pulling rituals from various traditions and performing them out of context risks distancing them from the realities of participants' spiritual lives. They may evoke the intended visceral reactions—pushing the right emotional buttons and giving the proceedings the solemnity they deserve—while leaving little below the surface. It is the officiants' and the participants' challenge to ensure that handfasting or calling the directions is more than just a nice thing they borrowed from the Celts or pagans.
Ann Keeler Evans represents the second approach—insisting that rituals have some basis in her clients' spiritual lives or family heritage. For a wedding between a Sikh man and an Irish-Catholic woman, for instance, the ceremony included the lighting of a Catholic unity candle (slightly modified: The couple didn't extinguish their individual candles after lighting the joint flame, as is the tradition) and a Sikh ritual in which everyone is given cooked grain as a sign that the temple feeds and blesses all.
These rituals are made rich by drawing on participants' personal histories, but obviously they aren't for those looking to flee their heritage and truly do something that is theirs and only theirs. Keeler Evans says clients often ask about incorporating symbols or rites they've seen elsewhere—including, once, a reality television show—but she won't do it unless it has particular significance for that person. This approach is far from traditional but it allows participants to connect to their—or at least their family's—past. The risk of pulling rituals out of contexts is lessened, though not eliminated, by their basis in the participants' lives, and it remains in the hands of these leaders and their clients to ensure a balance between tradition and what is personally meaningful.
What sets these secular celebrations apart from traditional rituals is their focus on the individuals. In the past, people didn't need ritual to speak to them personally; if it was part of their religion, it was inherently meaningful. Today, with confidence in our institutions eroding, authority and belief come—for many people—from self and personal experience.
The spirituality-without-religion movement has been criticized by many in the religious world as being hopelessly narcissistic—too, or even exclusively, focused on the self. And it does seem like individual choice has become, for some at least, a religion in and of itself.
But it's also possible to overstate this point. It's not as if traditional religions are immune from our culture's emphasis on the individual. That emphasis itself is an outgrowth of Protestantism. And today, in this country, the most up-and-coming faiths are those that tap into this individual-centric worldview. It's no coincidence that evangelical Christianity is ascendant in the Protestant world just as many boomers and their children are seeking "personal spirituality" outside of churches and synagogues and through secular ceremonies. Like the "secular spiritual" crowd, evangelicals are all about the individual, although for them the religious life centers around the born-again experience and the resulting personal relationship with Christ.
Religious and secular officiants agree that community is vital for life-cycle ceremonies. For secularists, community is made. They are defined by a fluid set of friends, co-workers, neighbors. Society's norm no longer boasts the community pastor as surrogate parent whose intimate knowledge of a family allows him to perform all their life-cycle ceremonies in a personalized way. But secular officiants can't step into this role; the community they're ministering to is so loosely defined. To compensate for this, they may insist on multiple meetings with clients or follow a family through the life-cycle, officiating at its weddings, birth ceremonies, funerals, and other events.
A sense of history is likewise central in making life-cycle ritual meaningful. That's an inherent problem for secular officiants, whose ceremonies are mostly about do-it-yourself spirituality. Keeler Evans addresses this through her insistence that rituals have some basis in her clients' lives; others face the challenge of ensuring their ceremonies somehow tap into this. Even those who've rejected religion are shaped by their, and their family's, past, and without some connection between rite and participant, the ceremony risks being little more than performance.
But if the secular-ceremony movement has its challenges, it also has its promise.
For one thing, secular officiants cater to people who don't feel at home in churches and synagogues. Their clientele is largely interfaith or same-sex couples wanting to get married, unmarried parents seeking to commemorate their babies' births, and others whose situations leave them outside the tradition in which they were raised.
Additionally, secular officiants are creating ceremonies for previously unmarked moments like divorce, menopause, or buying a first house—filling in what religious studies scholar Ronald Grimes calls "a big barren zone between most people's weddings and funerals."
It's clear that rituals are central to human life. Ever since early humans did a dance of gratitude for the food they hunted, humans have been celebrating life's high points and marking its low ones. The scholarly jury is out on whether humans have an actual innate need to ritualize; but even if it's not biological, the pull can be intense.
These days, anyone with Internet access can be legally ordained by the Universal Life Church. The challenge, then, is to create ceremonies that rise above the cliched and hokey and to fashion ceremonies that are meaningful, personalized, and imbued with a strong sense of community and history. Given that many people have fled religion in part because of rituals that seemed hollow, secular officiants need to keep what they do original and not allow anything to become routine. If they can manage that, they'll have made a valuable contribution to the new religion of personal spirituality.
****
Michael Kress writes about religion and spirituality for a variety of
publications and is the editor in chief of MyJewishLearning.com.
********************************
4) Deutsche Welle: Girl Talk Made Easy [Un nouveau dictionnaire allemand
destiné aux hommes prétend leur traduire le langage des
femmes.]
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,1594,1430_A_1302655_1_A,00.html
Girl Talk Made Easy: But what are they really saying?
Relationship-challenged men in Germany can find assistance in understanding
women from a comedian-turned-author who claims to have decoded the mysterious
subtexts of woman-speak in a new dictionary.
In the United States, relationship guru John Gray got the ball rolling with his Martian/Venusian Phrase Dictionary, a complement to his "Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus" series. Now, the "Relationships" section of any book store is loaded with them -- titles such as "A Man's Guide to Understanding What She Really Means," and "Guys, Are We Really Listening?"
But just in case the oh-so complex subtleties of woman-speak differ in German, (it is, after all, widely acknowledged to be a difficult language) help is now at hand. Comedian Mario Barth, who rose to fame with his stage show "Men are Pigs…but so are Women" has written a bilingual dictionary translating woman-speak into German.
Hidden messages
In the book, Barth attempts to clue men in to what their female partners really mean when they say things like "Let's cuddle." Barth's translation: "I don't want to have sex." Or a different example. After selecting items she'd like to buy in a shop, when a woman tells her man to "just get in line," what she really means is: "You're paying."
Barth insists that such sharp comic observations about female behavior aren't intended to perpetuate stereotypes that would have us believe all women have low sex drives or prefer men to pay their ways. "I love women," Barth said. "With this book, I'm just trying to save relationships in Germany and other countries. I'm not trying to preach to women, just trying to lend a hand."
Barth's book comes to Germany courtesy of Langenscheidt, one of the country's foremost publishers of dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books. It hits the market on October 6, just in time for the annual Frankfurt Book Fair.
********************************
5) Dave Barry: She'll shop till I drop [Humour: Dave ne s'entend pas avec
sa femme sur le shopping.]
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/9177209.htm
Posted on Sun, Jul. 18, 2004
She'll shop till I drop
by DAVE BARRY
I can't shop with my wife. The problem is that she almost never has a clear objective. I ALWAYS have a clear objective. Without a clear objective, you're just wandering randomly around a store, which is NOT the point of shopping.
This is not just my opinion: This is the opinion of literally thousands of Nobel-Prize-winning scientists whose names are available upon request. These scientists have traced the origins of shopping back to prehistoric times, when ''shopping'' was called ''hunting,'' and primitive man would make out his ''shopping list'' by drawing, on his cave wall, a picture of his objective, usually a large wad of meat in the form of, say, a yak. He would then go out into the wild, locate his objective, and make the ''purchase'' by whomping the yak on the head with a club.
This primitive shopper did not dilly-dally. He did not ask whether the yak was on sale. He did not try to accessorize the yak. He did not summon his primitive men friends and ask them if they thought the yak made his hips look big. No, he just WHOMPED THE YAK, and then he dragged it home, stopping only to whomp the primitive sales guys who appeared out of nowhere and tried to force him to purchase the service agreement.
This is the biological basis for shopping. And this is why, even today, most men, when they shop, are yak-whompers. They do not wander: They go straight for the kill. I know I do. When I enter a store, I have a definite, practical, no-nonsense objective in mind, which is to locate, and secure, an electronic gizmo that I already have, except the new one has more features.
For example, recently, in a surgical shopping strike so blindingly fast you would need slow-motion replay to even see it, I located and secured a new cellphone that, in addition to being a phone, receives e-mail AND takes extremely low-quality photographs. It has changed my life. Now, when I'm not using my phone's cellphone feature (''Hello? Hello? Hello?'') I can use the camera feature to record precious moments that I can share with others. (''Here's a picture of my daughter's ballet recital. Or, the Grand Canyon.'') And thanks to my phone's e-mail feature, even when I'm away from my computer, I can receive the literally hundreds of urgent messages I receive every day from people wishing to enhance my manhood.
My wife did not understand why I needed this phone. Yet every guy I show it to immediately agrees that it is a vital necessity. I have a friend named Robert who has a similar phone, and recently we discovered that, theoretically, I could ''beam'' my address and phone number from my phone to his phone THROUGH THE AIR. I say ''theoretically'' because we could not get it to actually work, although we spent a good 10 minutes standing about a foot apart, pointing our phones at each other and fruitlessly pressing buttons. Several women watched this with some amusement; they suggested that -- get this -- it might be quicker for me to just TELL Robert my address and phone number, which would have represented a wanton and reckless disregard on our part for the beaming feature. These women also suggested that we look at our owner's manuals, which of course is out of the question. For a guy, reading the manual is tantamount to admitting that, manhoodwise, you are in the hamster category.
But my point is that I acquired this phone via the standard guy method: in a bold, decisive, lightning-quick stroke. You're in; you're out; you're done! (I'm talking about shopping here.) Whereas my wife, when she gets inside a store, routinely takes astoundingly long periods of time to accomplish, essentially, nothing. She just shops! With no objective! She can spend what feels like days just looking at -- without actually purchasing -- stationery. She's always in the market for stationery because she's always writing notes to her women friends, who are always writing notes back to her thanking her for her note, which causes HER to write back to THEM, and so on.
So I can't go shopping with her. It makes me crazy. If I needed stationery,
bang, I would grab some stationery and get the hell out of there. Of course
I don't need stationery, because, as a guy, I never write notes. If I
ever had a message for one of my friends, I would just beam it to him.
Or I will, once I have mastered that feature.
********************************
6) The Economist: Electronic Voting [Nouvelles inquiétudes pour
les machines à voter électroniques aux E-U.]
http://www.economist.com/World/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3195821
Electronic voting: The trouble with technology
Sep 16th 2004
Can high-tech voting machines prevent a repeat of America's 2000 electoral fiasco—or will they make things worse?
IT IS not often that the dry subject of voting technology makes the headlines. It famously happened in America's presidential election in 2000, when the previously obscure differences between hanging, pregnant and dimpled “chads”—the small flakes of paper punched out of cards by mechanical voting machines—suddenly became a national crisis.
Many states subsequently invested in new, electronic voting machines, in which old-fashioned paper is replaced by a shiny touch-screen. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in October 2002, provided $3.8 billion of federal funds to encourage states to upgrade their voting machines. Electronic touch-screen machines have now proliferated throughout the United States (see chart). Around 50m voters, or almost a third of the electorate, will use such machines to cast their votes in this year's election, according to Election Data Services, a consultancy based in Washington, DC. This compares with around 12% in 2000. The proportion of voters using punch-card machines, meanwhile, will fall from 26% in 2000 to 12% this year.
Has this eliminated the risk of a Florida-style recount fiasco? Alas, no. Touch-screen machines have problems of their own, as another Florida election vividly illustrated last January. In a local election held on January 6th in parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, 10,844 votes were cast, and Ellyn Bogdanoff won by 12 votes. Under Florida state law, a result this close triggers a manual recount. But no recount was possible, because there was nothing to count: the voting machines' only paper output is the final tally.
The lack of a paper trail has made new touch-screen voting machines hugely controversial. As Robert Wexler, a Democratic congressman, likes to point out, “a reprint is not a recount”. Critics also complain that there is no way to tell if the machines are faulty, insecure or rigged. Stories abound of voting machines producing curious results. In one case in Indiana, 5,352 voters somehow cast 144,000 votes. In another case in Virginia, some machines subtracted votes rather than adding them to candidates' totals. Machines have broken down and been taken away, only to reappear with their seals broken and memory cards missing. When it comes to ensuring accuracy and accountability, casino slot machines in Atlantic City, New Jersey, get more government supervision than federal election voting machines.
Many conspiracy theories have been fuelled by the activities of Diebold, one of the leading makers of touch-screen voting machines. Last year its chief executive declared that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year”, just as his company was bidding to supply voting machines to the state. That raised eyebrows. And the software for one of Diebold's machines, which leaked on to the internet, was found to contain numerous security flaws.
The joys of paper
The seemingly obvious solution is to require that all high-tech voting machines produce a paper output that can be manually recounted if necessary. The paper trail could be used to audit the performance of touch-screen machines, thus improving voters' confidence in the new technology, and would also expose any funny business. The ideal, says Rebecca Mercuri, an electronic-voting expert at Harvard University, is that there should always be a “voter-verified paper trail”.
This can be implemented in a number of ways. In much of America, for example, voters fill in paper ballots that are scanned by optical readers. (Optical-scanning machines are, in fact, currently the most widely used form of voting machines.)
The advantage of optical scanning is that voters mark a paper ballot in the usual way: in effect, just the counting is automated, and the paper ballots can be recounted if necessary. Optical scanners were recommended by the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, an academic group set up after the 2000 election, as the best form of voting machine, though the group found that hand-counted paper ballots were more accurate than any machine-based system. The main drawback with optical scanners, according to Michael Alvarez, a political scientist at the California Institute of Technology and the co-ordinator of the project, is that they are difficult for the blind to use.
The best way to produce a voter-verified paper trail using a touch-screen machine, says Ms Mercuri, is to add a printer that shows a summary of the voter's choices behind a glass screen. If the voter agrees that the print-out correctly represents his choices, he presses a button to confirm, and the print-out drops into a ballot box. If he wishes to change his mind or notices an error, he presses another button, which marks the print-out as “void”.
Many vendors and election officials disagree with the idea of adding printers to touch-screen machines, for a number of reasons. Some machines are so old that they cannot be upgraded to produce a paper trail. Printers will be expensive, say critics, and may jam. Nonetheless, supporters of paper trails seem to be slowly gaining ground. Last year, California became the first state to require that all voting machines must produce a paper trail by 2006, though printers will not have been added to the state's touch-screen voting machines in time for November's poll. Washington state and Illinois have passed similar laws, which are also under consideration in at least 20 other states.
You can please some of the people...
The debate over the merits of paper trails is far from won, however, and has prompted many lawsuits. In Florida, election officials introduced a rule in April that exempted counties with touch-screen machines from the need to perform manual recounts in the event of a narrow election victory, as happened in January. They argued, in effect, that the touch-screen machines were so accurate that recounts were unnecessary. A judge has decided that this rule contravenes state law, but the state is likely to appeal.
Vendors of voting machines used to be opposed to adding printers, since it might have seemed like an admission that their machines were inaccurate. But they have now realised that the perception of accuracy is just as important. Alfie Charles of Sequoia Voting Systems, a maker of voting machines, points out that push-button voting machines, the predecessors of touch-screen models, were used for two decades without any problems. “But with the heightened sensitivity to electronic voting,” he admits, “many voters won't be happy unless there is a paper record.”
Many voters are not happy even then, however. In Venezuela, the existence of a voter-verified paper trail in the controversial recall vote in August did not stop the opposition claiming that the vote had been rigged in favour of the victor, President Hugo Chávez. In America, some activist groups are calling for a return to hand-counted paper ballots, on the basis that voting machines of any kind cannot be trusted.
Are the tallies produced by touch-screen or optical-scanning machines really accurate, even if there is a paper backup? Ms Mercuri says she would like to see the software used in optical-scanning machines made “open-source”, that is, available for inspection by anyone. In Australia, for example, the government open-sourced the software used in its voting machines to assuage fears that it might contain backdoors or security loopholes.
Testing is another area where more transparency is needed. At the moment, voting machines in America are tested and certified by three secretive companies. Although they are technically independent, they are paid to do the certification by the machine vendors, and sign contracts that commit them to secrecy. Executives at two of the firms have made (perfectly legal) campaign donations, mostly to Republicans. Ms Mercuri and other computer-security experts would like to see the certification and testing handed over to a government body, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Speaking to a congressional subcommittee in June, Michael Shamos, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, declared that the system for testing voting machines “is not only broken, but is virtually non-existent”. Gaining approval for a new voting machine or software upgrade typically takes a year, which suggests the testing companies are overstretched. This has caused some states to order uncertified equipment.
A further problem is that the standards used to test voting machines are widely regarded as obsolete, but the new HAVA standard has yet to be decided. Indeed, the technical committee supposed to draw up the standard was appointed only in June, nearly two years after the passage of the act. The committee now has nine months to draw up a standard, which will be announced next June. But since gaining approval for new machines takes a year or so, the earliest that certified machines will be in place is June 2006.
Furthermore, notes Mr Alvarez, the voting machines are merely one part of a much larger system that is now being overhauled. While most of the attention and lobbying has focused on voting machines, he says, HAVA also calls for the creation of centralised voter-registration databases in each state, for example, but there are no standards for the testing and certification of such databases. Worse, critics worry that these databases, which underpin the entire electoral system, will end up under the control of elected officials.
Gently does it
Rather than a “big bang” approach, which has prompted many states to rush to upgrade their voting systems, often making bad choices in the process, Mr Alvarez would prefer to see a gradual approach in which different voting technologies are tested on a small scale, with more data about their performance made public.
At present, election officials in America do not have to publish “residual” vote counts (the difference between the number of voters and the number of ballots cast in a particular race). Without such figures, it is hard to assess the relative accuracy of different voting technologies. Kimball Brace, the president of Election Data Services, wants more data scrutinised.
Given the chaos and controversy associated with electronic voting machines, how likely is this year's election to run more smoothly than the 2000 poll? The signs are not good. “The combination of new faces, new technology and new procedures is likely to lead to problems on November 2nd,” says Mr Alvarez. In addition, notes Mr Brace, this election will be very closely scrutinised. “Every election has some hiccups, but no one ever reported on them before,” he says. “Now they will.”
So the infamous paper chads may simply give way to digital ones. Electronic
voting machines have already prompted dozens of lawsuits, and would appear
to provide fertile ground for anyone who wishes to contest the result
of a close election. In short, while high-tech voting machines are better
than old-fashioned punchcard machines in theory, so far they seem to be
worse in practice.
7) Marc's Election Explainer
Things to remember about American elections.
Americans vote on everything. Everything. On the first Tuesday of November each year, they vote on dozens of matters, from the members of the local animal control board, to the sewer commission, to the sheriff, to the school board, to… well you get the picture. They vote for local offices, state offices, and federal offices. They may vote on millage (school tax), on any number of local or state initiatives or proposals, and about anything else you can imagine. Each ballot may be made up of dozens of lines, each calling for a decision.
One reason for this is America's federal system of government, the product of the failure of the first attempt at national government, the Articles of Confederation (established in 1777, soon after the US Declaration of Independence, but only ratified in 1781). Under the Articles of Confederation, the thirteen original States retained most of their sovereignty, with a very weak central government. Given the failure of this form of government to deal with relations between the US and other countries, and more importantly among the various States, it was decided in 1787 to reform the Articles of Confederation. As is often the case, instead of modifying the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Congress decided to start from scratch, inventing a new form of government embodied in the Constitution that has continued to be the law of the land since its ratification in 1788.
The Constitution is the result of these historical tensions between the various States and the central government, between the North and the South, between the interests of the commercial and industrial cities and the agricultural countryside, between small States and large States. Each of these tensions led to various compromises without which the Constitution would never have been written and ratified, and without which the United States would probably not exist today. For example, the issue of the balance of power between small and large States was settled by the division of the legislature into two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate protects the interests of small States, as each State is represented by two Senators, giving each State equal weight. The House of Representatives, on the other hand, reflects the balance of population, with each State entitled to a number of Representatives proportionate to its population. The approval of both houses is required to make a law, and each house has specific powers (taxation bills must be initiated by the House of Representatives, the Senate must approve the President's nominations for federal and Supreme Court judges, for members of the Cabinet, and for other offices).
The issue of slavery was a source of contestation from the very beginning of the country. In terms of representation, the southern States wanted their slaves to be counted as part of the population. The North refused to grant representation on the basis of slaves who had no status as citizens. With slaves counting, the population of the South would have been greater than that of the North. Without slaves counting, the opposite would have been true. The compromise, known as the "3/5 Compromise" was to count each slave as 3/5 of a free citizen for purposes of representation. The result appeared and appears shocking, but gave a balance in electoral weight between North and South without which the Constitution could not have existed.
The Americans had just fought a long war for freedom from tyranny, and were very concerned with safeguarding their sovereignty and rights, both the rights of individuals to be protected from government, and from the States to be protected from the central government. The Constitution established a balance of powers between the legislature (itself divided between Senate and House of Representatives), the executive branch (President) and to a lesser degree, the judiciary (the Supreme Court and the federal court system). The Constitution gives only certain powers to the federal government, with all remaining powers retained by the sovereign States (the historical trend has been to find justification within the Constitution for a progressive increase in the power of the federal government that the writers of the Constitution would probably not approve of).
The Constitution deals mostly with the relations between the States and the federal government, and we can see this in the elections for national office. Each State is the master of these elections, and it can be said that there are in fact no national elections in the US. The most extreme example of this is the Presidential election, in which the popular vote across the country has absolutely no importance for the designation of the President. In the beginning, the legislature of each State, and not the people of the State, would vote on the presidential candidates. Although the vote is now in the hands of the people, the tradition remains that the vote in each State determines the vote for the entire State. This is translated to the presidential election through the Electoral College, in which each State has a number of Electors equal to the number of Senators and Representatives of the State. Each State thus designates all of its electors for only one candidate, meaning that even a small majority for a particular candidate results in that candidate winning all of the Electors of the State (there are only two exceptions to this, Maine and Nebraska, which divide their Electors on a geographical basis).
While there were originally logistical reasons for the creation of the Electoral College, given the long distances and the difficulties of transportation and communication in early America, the primary reason for creating such a means of electing the President was to translate two of the historic Constitutional compromises from the legislative to the executive branch. Small States are over-represented, as they benefit automatically from two Electors (the number of Senators), along with a number of Electors proportionate to its population (number of Representatives). A small State like Wyoming, for example, has only one Representative, but has three times the number of Electors it population would warrant (1 Representative + 2 Senators = 3 Electors). Likewise, thanks to the attribution of Electors on the basis of the number of Representatives, the 3/5 Compromise can be found in the Presidential election. (Thomas Jefferson, the third President, was the first to benefit from this, as he was elected with a majority of Electors from slave States, despite losing the popular vote by a significant majority.) It must of course be noted that the 3/5 Compromise is no longer in effect (slavery was abolished thanks to the victory of the North in the Civil War in 1865), but the Electoral College can be seen as a sort of constitutional fossil remains of this measure.
Each State is in charge of its own elections, including the Presidential election by which each State designates its list of Electors to the Electoral College. In general, the officer in charge of elections in each State is the Secretary of State, who in some States is named by the Governor, and in others is directly elected. A great deal of authority and responsibility is given to lower levels of government. In some States, the counties are in charge of the organization of elections. As a result, there can be different methods of voting even within a given State. The great number of elections held on the same day (dozens in most places) means that some sort of automation is desirable. Various solutions have been adopted: mechanical machines, optical card readers, punch cards, and now, touch-screen electronic voting machines. As you may have seen in some of the articles I have sent over the last year, these machines are a source of great concern, due to their lack of security (easy to hack), their ability to be tampered with ("trafiquer"), and the refusal of manufacturers to include basic safeguards such as a paper copy of the vote.
With regard to the presidential election, each State totals its vote, and the candidate receiving the majority (absolute or simple) receives all the Electoral College votes for the State (except in Maine and Nebraska, where the votes can be divided; there is currently a referendum scheduled to do the same in Colorado). As a result, the presence of a strong third party candidate can mean that a presidential candidate receives all the State's Electoral College votes without winning an absolute majority of the popular vote. In practice, these Electoral College votes are people who are proposed by each candidate or party. If the candidate wins the popular vote in a State, his list in that State becomes the official list for the State. It is possible for an Elector not to vote as he has promised to vote, but this is rare, and in certain States such a betrayal can be punished by law. The Electors transmit their votes in January, and the President elected by the Electoral College takes office on January 25. The period between the election in early November and the inauguration of the new President serves as a transition period for the establishment of a new administration.
We usually hear only about the candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties, but in each presidential election there are many more who get little attention, and few votes. It is not easy to be present on ballots across the country, and each State has its own rules on who can be present as a candidate. Established parties have a great advantage as their past performance gives them automatic representation. Candidates running as individuals or for small parties can have much more difficulty being present in each State. There are currently battles throughout the US concerning the presence of Ralph Nader on ballots, with the Republicans providing financial and logistical help for Nader who is certain to take votes from Kerry, and with the Democrats opposing his presence in the Courts (this strategy doesn't always work, as in Florida, where Governor Jeb Bush, the brother of George W, has overrode a court decision barring Nader from the ballot due to irregularities in his petitions).
The country is divided almost 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, but in most states the outcome is clear. The result is that the candidates concentrate their campaigns on a few "swing" states that could go either way. Because of this division, the outcome of the election is hard to determine, and the presence of a strong independent or third-party candidate like Nader can have a big impact.
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President: Elected every four years by the Electoral College. Presidents can serve two terms.
Vice-President: Elected with the President. Presides the Senate. Replaces the President in case of death or removal from office. If he serves more than two years of the President's term, he is limited to only one more term.
Senators: Two from each State. Elected for a six-year term by the entire population of each State. Each two years a third of the Senate comes up for election.
Representatives: Since 1911 the number of Representatives has been set
at 435. These seats are apportioned according to the population of each
State. Each State is divided into a number of districts equal to its number
of Representatives (one for small States like Alaska or Wyoming, dozens
for big States like New York or California). These districts have nothing
to do with geographical considerations, and everything to do with ensuring
that the party that controls the State legislature has the best chance
of winning the greatest number of seats. All Representatives serve a two-year
term, so they are perpetual candidates.