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THE REGULARS: Summary
A) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: New Democratic Star in Illinois Senate Race [Entretien avec la nouvelle étoile montante des Démocrates, Barak Obama]
B) CNN/Global Office: The new big idea? Think small ones [La nouvelle grande idée pour les entreprises ser trouvera peut être dans le cumul des petites idées des gens qui y travaillent.]
C) Slate/Dear Prudence: Sélection [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court. Cette semaine : Quand nous sommes à l'étranger, les autochtones ne peuvent s'empecher de s'extasier devant notre très joli bambmin blond. / Comment faire que les invités à notre mariage laissent leurs enfants chez eux ? / Je sors avec un artiste, mais j'ai l'impression qu'il abuse de moi sur un plan financier.]
D) The New York Times/The Ethicist: Flying at 14 [Conseils sur l'éthique et la déontologie. Cette semaine : Ma fille peut-elle mentir sur son âge pour nous éviter de payer les frais d'accompagnateur d'enfant lors qu'elle prend l'avion ? / Est-il moral de vendre cher les fameux BRACELETS LANCE ARMSTRONG en empochant la survaleur ?]

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B*) CNN/Global Office: Lunch lessons for the power-hungry [Conseils d'un nutritionniste pour mieux manger pour améliorer ses performances au travail.]
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/10/12/go.sandwiches/index.html
Lunch lessons for the power-hungry

Tuesday, October 12, 2004 Posted: 1505 GMT (2305 HKT)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Ambitious executives could gain an edge over their rivals by changing their lunchtime dining habits, according to an Oxford University scientist. Dr John Stanley, a lecturer in biochemistry at Trinity College, has created the perfect sandwich for power lunches, guaranteed to help you survive the dullest of afternoon PowerPoint presentations.

The nutrition expert suggests eating a chicken tikka masala and mango salsa sandwich on granary bread before business meetings to stay alert. Protein in the chicken produces neurotransmitters in the brain, helping a person to stay awake, while the sandwich also contains vitamins and minerals that combat fatigue.

For a pre- or post-office workout at the gym, Stanley recommends an apple and peanut butter on granary combination because of its low glycaemic index, meaning it releases a steady stream of energy for exercise.

Workers wishing to get back to peak performance after a heavy night out should make themselves a toasted chocolate and banana sandwich for breakfast -- the perfect cure for hangovers, according to Stanley, because it provides a quick release of sugars and minerals to help restore blood sugar levels.

For the seriously stressed-out manager, Stanley prescribes a more conventional smoked turkey and cream cheese sandwich to guarantee a good night's sleep.

The key ingredient is the amino acid tryptophan, contained in the turkey, which releases serotonin in the brain, a naturally-occurring feelgood hormone that is used in the treatment of depression. The cream cheese also contains calcium and the vitamin B12, which produce neurotransmitters that regulate sleeping patterns.

"Meal times are increasingly becoming shorter, but a quick and easy sandwich can still give you a good dose of vitamins and minerals to help see you through the day, whatever you have to deal with," said Stanley.

And for those with any energy left after a hard day at the office, he recommends figs, honey, orange and ricotta cheese on thick white bread. Drawing more on the classical Greeks' belief that figs boosted fertility and the use of honey in love potions during the Middle Ages than the science of sandwiches, Stanley says the combination is a modern take on an ancient aphrodisiac.

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1*) The Washington Post: A thumbs up or down for e-mail gladiator on the go? [Le Blackberry, dernier outil nomade à la mode dans les entreprises, vous rend-il esclaves du boulot ?]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/orl-livnoescape08100804oct08,0,1529385.story?coll=orl-caltop
A thumbs up or down for e-mail gladiator on the go?
The BlackBerry has legions of followers, but others say it just extends the work empire.
By Yuki Noguchi
The Washington Post

October 8, 2004

Washington lawyer William Wilhelm knows from experience that not everybody loves his BlackBerry as much as he does. "I once had a date become apoplectic because we were in the airport terminal before vacation, and I did the one final BlackBerry check," Wilhelm said. The girlfriend was fed up with a relationship punctuated by Wilhelm fiddling with the wireless device to check hundreds of e-mails a day.

BlackBerrys, sometimes referred to as CrackBerrys among addicted adherents, make e-mail portable, available anytime and almost anywhere. For some, like Wilhelm, the pocket-size devices have created a borderless world of new opportunities for multitasking. BlackBerry -- and a growing number of cell phones like them that come with tiny keyboards -- have made it easier and more tempting than ever to sneak in work during personal time, and personal messaging at work.

But as instant e-mail devices accelerate the cadence of work life, there are increasing complaints that they whittle away at time that people once used to give undivided attention to family or co-workers, or to find solitude on the beach or during the daily commute.

E-mail on the go also has raised new questions of electronic etiquette. Most people have learned to shut off their portable phones or set them to vibrate silently during business meetings and social events. There's no such consensus yet on proper behavior for those who silently, relentlessly, punch out BlackBerry messages with their thumbs.

BlackBerry, introduced in 1999, is the most prominent example of a broader wireless e-mail phenomenon. About 1.6 million BlackBerrys are used in the United States, according to the maker, Research in Motion Ltd. of Ontario, Canada. In addition, there are more than 14 million "smart phones" -- mobile phones with keypads and Web browsers -- among the 169 million cell phones in use in the United States, according to Instat/MDR, a market research company.

Their proliferation seems to have a viral effect -- accelerating the general pace of business, compelling others to get things done even faster. "There's competitive pressure if you're not responsive to e-mail," said Wilhelm, who is a telecommunications lawyer. He acquired a BlackBerry early last year because his clients and colleagues -- all of whom had some type of wireless e-mail device -- began expecting immediate responses.

BlackBerrys also have changed the dynamic of many business meetings. In a Washington law office, attorney Chris Rhee often participates in meetings in a conference room walled with thick concrete slabs that block most wireless signals. Around him -- in the middle of meetings -- attorneys lean back and wave their BlackBerrys in the air, trying to catch a stray signal through the window.

The BlackBerry also has tethered some people closer to work. "You never know when you're not working, said Sherry Turkle, director of a project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that is studying technology and society. "You're losing time to quietly reflect."

Harkins Cunningham LLP handed out BlackBerrys to its lawyers this year. Now, senior partner David A. Bono said, his BlackBerry finds its way onto the dinner table in a restaurant, where he sneaks a peek at it when it flashes. "I just roll the wheel," he said, referring to the scrolling mechanism on the side that allows him to see who has sent a message. "I try to be very discreet about it and not look at it very much."

Some say they find it calming to keep continuous tabs on the office. "It's the perfect productivity tool for anxious professionals," Wilhelm said. Then he wondered out loud: "Does the BlackBerry make someone more neurotic, or does a neurotic person find that the BlackBerry comforts them?"

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3*) The Economist: Executive coaching [Le coaching, la nouvelle mode dans les entreprises.]

http://www.economist.com

Executive coaching: Corporate therapy
Nov 13th 2003

Having an executive coach is all the rage

IT ALL sounds alarmingly like the process of self-criticism that kept Chairman Mao's China on the ideological tracks. Your company hires an outsider to grill your boss, your staff and perhaps even your spouse on the shortcomings (and strengths) of your behaviour. The outsider confronts you with the findings and together you draw up a plan for self-improvement. Your boss and staff undertake to help you to keep to the plan. From time to time, the outsider returns to check on how you are doing.

Yet top executives as self-confident as eBay's Meg Whitman and Unilever's Niall Ferguson have undergone “executive coaching”. This week the International Coach Federation (ICF), the largest trade group, is meeting in Denver for its annual conference. Its global membership has soared from about 1,500 in 1999 to almost 7,000 today. The coaching market is now worth around $1 billion worldwide, a number that Harvard Business School expects to double in the next two years. “It's going crazy,” says Brian Edwards of Optima, a British coaching firm that has been in business for five years.

Coaching might seem an obvious second career for a former chief executive keen to profit from a little mentoring. Though a few coaches are ex-bosses, most have other skills, according to the ICF's recently completed first survey of members. Two-thirds are women, it finds; a substantial minority come from teaching or counselling backgrounds. Others are former mental-health workers. Jeremy Robinson, a coach from New York, began as a psychoanalyst and often counsels clients partly on their work problems and partly on those in their home lives. Many such workers are seeking fresh pastures as tighter government budgets and the trimming of the amounts which insurance firms spend on clinical psychology have taken a toll on their employment prospects, argues Edgar Schein, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School.

Some coaches come to the office. But half, according to the ICF figures, do their coaching mainly by phone. Val Williams, an independent coach who was once an executive at a big health-care group, coaches a client in Finland by telephone every month, discussing what progress he has made in meeting the goals he set himself during their previous conversation.

Like personal physical trainers, some coaches work for individuals. Ms Williams reckons that a quarter of her clients pay their own bills. Five years ago, however, three-quarters did. Increasingly, firms are willing to pick up the tab.

Shrink or swim

Often, coaching is a way to give problem employees one last chance. Mr Schein says it is easier for managers to hire a coach than to give an unsatisfactory employee a bleak performance appraisal.

And yet such “derailment coaching” is not much fun for coaches either, and it rarely achieves much, so the coaching industry is increasingly trying to accentuate the positive, even urging companies to use their services as a perk to retain high-fliers. Judging by how some American executives brag at dinner parties about their hot new coach, this strategy has potential.

Rohm and Haas, a specialty chemical company, picks half a dozen promising executives a year to go through a programme grandly called Leadership 3000. They undergo a battery of psychoanalytic tests, listen to feedback (“we like to call it feed-forward,” says Joe Forish, the firm's head of human resources) which the coach collects from colleagues and subordinates, and agree an action plan that is discussed with the firm's top executives as well as with the person's immediate boss. “We make it clear that this is an investment in people's futures,” says Mr Forish. At a cost of $15,000-20,000 for up to a year of the coach's time, an investment it clearly is.

Most coaches are one-man bands or tiny firms. But a few big human-resources consultancies are moving in: Hewitt Associates has teamed up with Marshall Goldsmith, a celebrity in the coaching industry, who has coached top executives at Boeing, Motorola and General Electric, and more than 50 chief executives. Together, the two have a network of about 200 coaches, all using a proprietary method developed by Mr Goldsmith. This allows them to win big contracts, such as a recent deal with one multinational to coach 200 of its top staff. The two brands spell higher charges: typically $30,000-70,000, and much more for Mr Goldsmith's personal services. But the venture also submits its bill only if the client agrees, a year after the coaching, that certain agreed goals have been met.

What does coaching actually achieve? Rigorous analysis of so touchy-feely an activity is probably impossible. Karol Wasylyshyn, a coach based in Philadelphia, has asked her clients to rate the “sustainability” of what they learned on a scale of one to ten. Over a third rate it nine to ten, she says proudly. However, this may reflect the attitudes of clients as much as real achievement. It seems that high-fliers compete as hard to improve their behaviour as in anything else. “They don't think I'm perfect? I'm gonna prove to them I am,” mimics Marc Effron of Hewitt Associates.

Nevertheless, the perception of success may be as important as the reality. One reason why coaches strive to involve an executive's peers and boss at every stage is so that they, too, feel some responsibility for helping to bring about change. Not only does this reinforce a better approach; it may also persuade them that they are seeing the alteration they want to bring about.

The fact that the firm usually foots the bill for coaching has two big implications. First, says Mr Schein, it means that a lot of coaching is about “self-socialisation”: getting the individual to conform to patterns of behaviour acceptable to the firm.

Then there is the issue of privacy. “I always tell people they have limited confidentiality,” says Mr Robinson. Coaches may find themselves in an especially awkward situation if coaching persuades a client that the best way to develop his career is to quit the firm paying for the coach. Ms Wasylyshyn has formulated a way to tell the human-resources department that a high-flier she is coaching is restive, without breaching confidence. “I think you might lean in and do a reality check,” she will say, with delicate circumlocution.

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A) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: New Democratic Star in Illinois Senate Race [Entretien avec la nouvelle étoile montante des Démocrates, Barak Obama]
http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/election_countdown/features/index.asp?article=obama
New Democratic Star in Illinois Senate Race
By Mitchel Hochberg, 11, and Ivonne Benetiz, 13
Scholastic Student Reporters, Illinois

Illinois Senate candidate Barak Obama with Scholastic Student Reporters Mitchel Hochberg and Ivonne Benetiz. (Photo: Suzanne McCabe)
Tuesday, August 31—Barak Obama was a little-known candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois until he took the stage at the Democratic National Convention in July. Once he delivered his speech, he was a star. Obama's words caught the convention delegates on fire. As one of the few speeches featured on TV during prime time, Obama also caught viewers' attention nationwide.

Obama is the face of the new America, admirers say. His mother is from Kansas. His father is from Kenya. Obama has overcome many hardships in his life to become a state Senator from Chicago's 13th Senate District. His memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, is currently on the New York Times best-seller list.

The young Democrat will be the only African-American in the Senate if he wins on November 2. And he will most likely win. His first opponent dropped out of the race earlier this year due to a scandal. Republicans chose Alan Keyes to run in the vacated spot. Keyes ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for President in 2000. He is a resident of the state of Maryland.

Two Scholastic Kids Press Corps reporters recently met with Obama at his campaign headquarters in Chicago.

Mitchel Hochberg: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up, and why?
Barak Obama: Well, I guess it depends on how old I was. I mean, I think I'm sure that when I was 4 or 5, I wanted to be an astronaut like everybody else. And then I went through a phase where I thought I wanted to be an architect because I really liked building designs. And then I thought about being a basketball player until I realized I wasn't that talented. And I guess by the time I got out of college I thought possibly about being a lawyer a little. I wasn't sure at that point. But I wasn't one of those people who at the age of 5 said to myself, "I want to be in politics and be President." That wasn't sort of how I thought about things.

Ivonne Benetiz: Why did you decide to go into politics?
Barak Obama: Well, what had happened is that I—when I went to college I started becoming interested in public policy issues, and I started reading more and paying more attention to the news and thinking that some of the ways that our society is structured is unfair to people who are poor or to children or to minorities or women. So I thought that I would like to, in some way, have an impact. But I didn't immediately decide to go into politics. I actually worked as a community organizer in low-income neighborhoods to set up job-training programs for the unemployed or after-school programs for youth. And then I went to law school, got my law degree, and I worked as a civil rights attorney. It wasn't until I had been an attorney for five or six years that I decided that maybe politics would be a good option for me.

Mitchel Hochberg: What surprises you the most about being a politician?
Barak Obama: Um, you know, I think how little . . . let me think about that a second before I answer. I think I'm surprised at how the general public isn't paying attention to a lot of difficult issues that are going on and how little the media reports on those issues. You know, a lot of the issues that get debated—issues like health care or how to handle the economy—are really big and complicated, and it's hard to simplify them. The media doesn't spend much time focusing on these issues until election time, and then it's in very short 30-second sound bites. So I think there's probably not as much participation by the public as there should be in thinking through some of these issues. I think that's part of the reason why politics can be so mean, you know, is both sides just stake out these very simplistic positions without digging very deep into the issues and trying to solve the problems.

Ivonne Benetiz: Why do you think kids should be interested in politics?
Barak Obama: Well, because politics really ends up having an impact on your lives whether you like it or not. If you look at who makes decisions about how much money will be going to [your school], that's a political decision.

These are all issues that are going to directly affect students. If you look at who makes the decision that we're going to spend $100 billion on a war in Iraq instead of spending that $100 billion on health care in your neighborhoods or on college scholarships or on rebuilding the park around the corner from your house. Those are all decisions being made by somebody—by politicians—and the U.S. Senate is the highest legislative body in the country. So it's making decisions about whether your grandmother gets prescription drug coverage or not; whether you're going to have to pay taxes when you get a job and how high those taxes are; and what's being used with that money you earned. So those are all issues that really have a direct impact on you. Somebody is making a decision about everything that you see around you and the question is, "Should young people want to have some input in that decision?" And I think the answer is yes.

Mitchel Hochberg: How does one member of the Senate make a difference for his or her state and for his or her country?
Barak Obama: Well, there are a hundred members in the U.S. Senate, so obviously one member can't do everything by [him or herself]. They've got to work with other people. It requires 51 votes to pass a law and usually it actually requires 60 because there's a rule in the Senate called the filibuster that allows one Senator to block a debate on a bill. There are very complex rules called "cloture" and others that prevent people from moving their agenda forward unless they have a strong majority. So you have to be able to work with other people, but one Senator I think can make a big difference by proposing new ideas and helping to organize people around those ideas. They can ask tough questions about proposals that are being made by, say, the President, and create a dialogue about whether one policy is smart or not smart. You know, they can raise issues that nobody has paid a lot of attention to. And hopefully they can also pass some legislation that has a concrete impact on people's lives. You know, I think there are a lot of ways that Senators can have an impact, but they can't do it by themselves. They have to work with other people.

Ivonne Benetiz: What advice would you have for kids interested in becoming involved in politics or making a difference?
Barak Obama: Well, I think the most important thing is to—even as students—start reading the newspapers, watching news programs, just learning more about the world around you because the most important office in democracy is the office of "citizen." If people are passive and don't pay attention then that's how we get into trouble and powerful special interests end up controlling and dominating the debate. So the first thing is to get informed.

The second thing is to find issues that you care about personally—that you have some connection to. So if your grandmother is sick and she doesn't have the drugs she needs or has to pay too much money for them, that might be something that you want to learn more about because it has a personal impact on you, and whenever something has a personal impact on you it's going to make you more energized about trying to do something about it. You can start participating at a local level through your church or your synagogue or through a community group in terms of trying to make your own neighborhood better.

And then, if you continue to be interested in issues, you can always volunteer on somebody's campaign and pass out flyers and lick envelopes and do all those things that people do to get elected. Find somebody that you like, and by doing that it will give you some experience and make you more aware of the political process, and maybe you will decide that you want to run someday.

Ivonne Benetiz: Can getting involved in politics make a difference?
Barak Obama: Oh, it certainly does. I mean, if you think about all the changes that we've had in this country, from the civil rights movement to the women's movement that gave opportunities to women, to the involvement of people in unions that helped create the laws that restrict child labor or require public schooling or clean up the air and the water and protect our environment. Those were all issues that were impacted because people got involved.

Mitchel Hochberg: What would be your main role as Senator from Illinois? How would you represent us, your constituents, in Washington, D.C.?
Barak Obama: Well, there are a couple of issues that I think are really important. One is I'd really like to help improve our education system. We still have the best education in the world for some people but not for all our people, and we're now getting to the point because the global economy is getting more competitive where all our people—all our young people—have to be educated, not just some. And all of them need to go to college, or at least have a skilled trade. Those are all dependent on us having good teachers and smaller classrooms, so that's an area where I think I can have an impact. I also think on the area of health care that there's a lot of people who have no health insurance, and when they get sick they get into big financial trouble. They could lose their house or they could lose their car. I think that we should be able to create a system where more people have basic health care coverage and are protected from those kind of tragedies.

Ivonne Benetiz: Growing up, who were your heroes?
Barak Obama: I think probably Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Cesar Chavez who organized the farm workers, and Abraham Lincoln.

Mitchel Hochberg: There are currently no African-American Senators. Why don't more African-Americans run for the Senate?
Barak Obama: Well, historically it's been hard for African-Americans to run statewide because statewide races usually require a lot of money because you have to get on television. The African-American community historically has been poor and so it's harder to raise money from that community. You know, issues of race have played a role. It's only been recently that white voters have been willing to vote for black candidates. That wasn't true back in the 40s and the 50s and even in the 60s and 70s. But I think that we're making real progress and I think that I have a very good chance of winning, and that will give us one African-American, and hopefully my success will convince others that it's worth pursuing as well.

Ivonne Benetiz: Do you think we'll see a minority elected President soon?
Barak Obama: Yes. I think in my lifetime, that will happen.

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B) CNN/Global Office: The new big idea? Think small ones [La nouvelle grande idée pour les entreprises ser trouvera peut être dans le cumul des petites idées des gens qui y travaillent.]
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/10/19/ideas.schroeder/index.html
The new big idea? Think small ones

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 Posted: 1505 GMT (2305 HKT)

(CNN) -- Managers obsessed with the big picture are wasting opportunities to improve their businesses by failing to harness the creativity of their workers, according to two U.S. management experts. Instead of agonizing over arch concepts of management theory and the latest trends from the MBA classroom in search of a business breakthrough, they ought to be listening to their workforce, argue Dean Schroeder and Alan Robinson. Schroeder, professor of management and director of the MBA program at Valparaiso University, and University of Massachusetts professor Robinson, back up that claim in "Ideas are Free."

Based on visits to 150 organizations in 17 different countries, the book includes case studies of successful businesses from large textile companies to nursing homes, ranches and furniture stores. "It was something that I saw was so prevalent," Schroeder told CNN. "I used to do business turnarounds and you'd talk to management and they'd give you these reasons and excuses that wouldn't really be that useful. "You'd get down to the shop floor and they'd know far more than management would give them credit for. They knew the reasons why they were in trouble and a lot of solutions as well. Not big things but tons of little things."

Schroeder highlights last week's announcement by General Motors of 12,000 job cuts in Europe as an example of a situation in which the problem-solving potential of a workforce has been overlooked in favor of a short-term fix. "If they'd had everyone on the frontline helping them out and listening to those guys they wouldn't have got into that trouble in the first place," he says. "Management has a problem."

The main problem is that most managers don't understand how to get ideas out of their employees. "Management has the suits, they've got the education, they've got the corner office and they've got the big pay checks," says Schroeder. "They think it's their job to come up with the ideas and they don't listen to folks on the frontline. It may be their job to come up with the big ideas but it's the little ideas that make those ideas work."

Competitive advantage

As well as boosting productivity and engaging employees, one of the biggest benefits of small ideas is that they can give businesses a sustainable competitive advantage. While rivals can quickly assimilate big ideas, either directly or via consultants, small ideas are far more difficult to pick up and imitate.

Nor is there any such thing as a bad idea. "Bad ideas can actually be a positive and a lot of time people who come up with a bad idea will have identified a problem but not a good solution. So you sit down with them and work out a good solution. They learn, you learn, everyone benefits."

Having recognized the importance of workers' ideas, managers still have to harness that creative potential. But Schroeder and Robinson warn that traditional reward-based incentive schemes can backfire disastrously. "You can never figure out how much an idea is worth," warns Schroeder. "The best reward you can give somebody for their ideas is to put their ideas into play. "The reason people come up with ideas is that they want to solve a problem that would make their jobs easier or they want to help the company because they are a team player. They're not necessarily looking for a big bribe. They're just looking for management to listen to them. As soon as you get money involved it changes people's behavior."

The best way to tap into workers' ideas, suggest Schroeder and Robinson, is simply to ask. Whether formally at department meetings, when problems or complaints arise, or simply by inviting suggestions, managers need to keep channels of communication open from the top of a company to the bottom.

But if the job of coming up with ideas is farmed out to the workers, what then are managers for? Schroeder believes that such an approach would eventually change the nature of management for the better. "They don't have to spend so long fire-fighting and handling the details which means they can focus on bigger system changes," he says. "They can focus on more strategic level stuff and they can focus on making sure the system is in place to capture this continual flow of ideas and ensuring the bigger ideas get championed and spread around. So essentially their role changes from fire-fighting and control to managing an improvement process and looking strategically at the future."

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D) The New York Times/The Ethicist: Flying at 14 [Conseils sur l'éthique et la déontologie. Cette semaine : Ma fille peut-elle mentir sur son âge pour nous éviter de payer les frais d'accompagnateur d'enfant lors qu'elle prend l'avion ? / Est-il moral de vendre cher les fameux BRACELETS LANCE ARMSTRONG en empochant la survaleur ?]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/magazine/24ETHICIST.html?oref=login

October 24, 2004
THE ETHICIST
Flying at 14
By RANDY COHEN

Q:
My daughter, a month shy of her 15th birthday, is traveling on Delta Airlines with some of her lacrosse teammates, all over 15. Delta says children ''between the ages of 5 and 14'' require an escort, for which they would charge $150. Since my daughter is 11 months beyond her 14th birthday, I do not feel she needs the escort, but Delta will not board her without one if she has not turned 15. May I tell my daughter to say she's 15? If Delta won't acknowledge the existence of numbers between 14 and 15, she can state a number they understand and that more accurately represents her age. Lisa Wiseman, Austin, Tex.

A:
You may not urge your daughter to say she is 15 if she is not 15. Delta's inflexible rule is foolish and overreaching; it ignores the wishes of parents and the various levels of maturity of young passengers. But coaching your daughter to lie is also unpalatable.

Delta has no problem acknowledging numbers between 14 and 15: any flight attendant has an amiable familiarity with 14 1/2; every pilot works with crazy fractions or even kookier decimals on those dials in the cockpit. It is Delta's policy, not its numeracy, that is dubious.

Even so, $150 is too low a price for undermining your daughter's integrity and her sense of yours. I'm not suggesting that you should betray your principles for money; I'm saying this isn't enough money (and smirking when I say it).

I am sympathetic to the embarrassment your daughter will feel if she is the only one of her teenage cronies forced to travel with a jumped-up baby sitter, for which I prescribe prophylactic silence. She may honorably keep her mouth shut as she walks with her teammates to the gate; perhaps she'll be unchallenged. And if she's asked, ''Are you between 5 and 14?'' she can honestly say, ''No, I'm over 14.'' But if Delta counters, ''Are you under 15?'' the answer is . . . well, perhaps you'd better consult a mathematician.

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Q:
The Lance Armstrong Foundation sells those little yellow Live Strong bracelets for $1 and uses the profits for cancer research. The bracelets have become so popular that my friend is reselling them on eBay for $7 to $14 and, of course, keeping the money. Is this just capitalism (the foundation got its $1), or is he taking advantage of a charity's good name (the buyer might assume the profit is going to charity)? Reid Wightman, Syracuse, N.Y.

A:
Assuming there is no fraud, that your friend does not claim (or even imply) that any of his profits go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, he does no wrong. If ever there were a marketplace clearly devoted to reselling bric-a-brac purchased elsewhere, it's eBay. There's little chance of a customer misunderstanding this transaction.

Nor is there anything untoward or even unusual about combining charitable and noncharitable activities. Many businesses goose the sales of their products by announcing that a percentage of their profits goes to charity. Many people out for a good time -- joggers, walkers, extravagant party-givers -- link their events to charities. Your friend's venture seems a variant of these activities (albeit one in which the charity gains before he enters the picture). And of course this entire question would be unnecessary if the Armstrong foundation simply heeded the laws of supply and demand and increased bracelet prices or production.

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THIS WEEK'S TEXTS

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1) Screen Daily: A very long engagement [Article sur Un long dimanche de fiancailles]
http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=19601&r=true
A Very Long Engagement (Un Longue Dimanche De Fiancailles)

Benny Crick in Paris 22 October 2004 04:00
Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet. France. 2004. 134mins.

A flamboyant mixture of battlefront spectacle, home front romance, revenge drama, and detective story — Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s first film since Amelie is all this and more. Cinematically bigger and dramatically richer than that phenomenally successful 2001 monument of whimsy, A Very Long Engagement confirms Jeunet as a master showman who has no need to work in English to make visual striking entertainment of international appeal.

This said, whether this new film will beat Amelie at the French box office (9.2m admissions) is another question. Amelie was a phenomenon ($174m worldwide), a prototype of sorts grounded in a certain French populist cinema that seemed to have died with Rene Clair. Long Engagement, though based on a best-selling novel by one of France’s best-known (and cinema-friendly) thriller novelists, Sebastien Japrisot, is made of sterner stuff, grounded as it is in a horrific historical reality (the First World War) and teeming with a gallery of bastards, cowards and grotesques.

Still, the film’s darker vision is modulated by the romantic optimism of the young woman at its centre, embodied, of course, by Miss Amelie herself, Audrey Tautou, touchingly and admirably neo-Victorian as a rock of faith in a sea of cynicism, doubt and resignation.

Warner Bros, which underwrote much of the film’s Euros 46m ($47m) cost and will distribute the film worldwide, should have nothing to regret for its faith in committing to such a high-risk foreign-language project. French, US and international success for the film should put paid to the controversy that has rocked the production since before cameras rolled, when industry representatives denounced the film as a Trojan Horse being used by an American major to gain access to its jealously guarded reserve of production aid schemes. Rarely has the French fear of American encroachment on France’s “exception culturelle” been so displaced.

In North America, Warner Independent Pictures (WIP) is opening the film just a month (Nov 26) after the French release in an effort to generate nominations heat for the year 2004. Ineligible as the French foreign language Oscar submission since it opened in France after the new Sept 30 deadline, A Very Long Engagement is being pitched by WIP as a best picture contender and its US box office gross should build steadily on the back of that campaign. It will enjoy a long life at the US specialised box office fuelled by word-of-mouth and critical acclaim. UK and other major European markets open at the end of January.

In adapting Japrisot’s 1991 novel (published in English in 1994), Jeunet and long-time writing partner Laurant had their work cut out. The starting point is the story of how five soldiers at the front in 1916 are court-martialled for self-inflicted wounds to get themselves invalided out of service. They are sentenced to death not by firing squad but by a more sadistic approach: marched to the front lines and dispatched unarmed into no man’s land to be picked off by German snipers and planes.

As it turns out, Manech (Ulliel), one of the soldiers, is Mathilde’s (Tautou) childhood sweetheart who has virtually lost his reason in the unending carnage. Disbelieving the official version of her lover’s death, Tautou hires a private detective after the war to piece together the story of these men’s final hours and discover if, as she believes, her lover may have survived the war after all.

Quickly, the film opens up to interweave the various backstories of these ill-fated soldiers (artisans, workers and peasants) as Tautou undertakes her dogged personal quest across post-war France. In counterpoint, we also follow another war “widow,” Cotillard, a sort of avenging angel determined to punish those directly responsible for her man’s ignominious death.

Jeunet and Laurant do a mostly commendable job in squeezing so much material and characters into 135 minutes of screen time, though there are inevitable signs of strain and forcing that create narrative bumps. (In particular much of Julie Depardieu’s role seems to have been left on the cutting-room floor).

But even when the screenplay slumps under the weight of its narrative, Jeunet’s direction usually gives the action wings. His recreation of life and death in the trenches has a post-Spielberg immediacy that compares favourably with previous Great War movies, from All Quiet On The Western Front to Paths Of Glory (and, more recently, Bertrand Tavernier’s 1996 epic of men at war, Captain Conan). Other moments of horror stand out, including an unflinching (but distantly observed) guillotine execution, and the bombing of a dirigible hanger-cum-military hospital.

Yet for all its darkness and tragedy, Jeunet still finds plenty of room for moments of his signature humour and some recurring comic figures as a Jacques Tati-esque country postman who brings Tautou news of her investigation.

Thanks to top-notch special effects and Delbonnel’s lyrical, dynamic camera, Jeunet also has a field day recreating the Paris of the 1910s and 1920s. There are loving cameo evocations of the Place de l’Opera, the Halles food market, the Orsay train station (long before it became a museum), the Trocadero, Paris underwater when the Seine overflowed in 1910 - and, yes, there’s a stopover in Amelie country, Montmartre.

The large colourful cast balances Jeunet regulars with less familiar faces. Among the former are Pinon, as Tautou’s uncle and guardian; Dreyfus, in dependably grotesque mode as a corrupt superior officer who gets a most original comeuppance at the hands of the avenging Cotillard; and the late Holgado, delightful as the eccentric private detective with the kind of name that invites the worst, groan-inducing puns. No doubt the film’s biggest surprise performance comes from Jodie Foster, touchingly convincing (and undubbed) as a Parisian market stallholder whose impotent soldier husband asks her to have a baby with his best friend.

The technical departments includes other Jeunet faithfuls, including Aline Bonetto, who here joins the front rank of French production designers, and costume designer Fontaine.

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