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Week 11, 2005
THE BEST SELLERS (recent popular articles -- aller savoir pourquoi, mais ceux-ci plaisent encore !):
1) Los Angeles Times: Costs make employers see smokers as a drag [Des entreprises américaines commencent à exclure les fumeurs de leur personnel.]
2) Los Angeles Times: Where there's smoke, it wouldn't lead to firing [Un législateur du Michigan propose d'interdire les sanctions contre des salariés fumeurs.]
3) San Francisco Chronicle: Students under surveillance at school [Une école californienne oblige ses élèves à porter en permanence un badge qui permet de les localiser. Voir texte 10 pour les suites.]
4) Los Angeles Times: Town gives Brave New World an F [Suites du badge Big Brother. Voir texte 3.
5) India Daily: In UP village, NASA discovers a 15-year-old star [Un canular assez improbable en Inde, où un garçon fait croire qu'il a remporté un concours de la NASA qui n'existe pas, à Londres où il n'est jamais allé, et politiques et presse ont tout gobé sans se poser la moindre question. Ici un reportage élogieux et typiquement excessif sur le petit génie...]
6) Reuters: Indian boy's NASA claims crash to earth [Un canular assez improbable en Inde, où un garçon fait croire qu'il a remporté un concours de la NASA qui n'existe pas, à Londres où il n'est jamais allé, et politiques et presse ont tout gobé sans se poser la moindre question. Ici on commence à se rendre compte qu'on s'est fait avoir...]
7) The Miami Herald/Dave Barry: I slalomly swear [HUMOUR : Dave Barry va faire du ski !]
********************************
THE REGULARS: Summary
8) Le texte
plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: Spring equinox [C'est le printemps
!]
9) Car Talk/The
Puzzler: Hand in hand [Un casse-tête. Comment un homme et une femme
qui marchent ensemble peuvent-ils marcher des distances différentes
?]
9) Slate/Dear Prudence: Changing
hair stylists, hiding the BF from the family [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale
et la vie tout court. Cette semaine, une lettre d'une femme qui ne sait
pas changer de coiffeuses, et une autre d'une jeune femme dont la colocataire
se sent obligée de cacher à sa grand-mère, qui habite
à côté, que son jules passe la nuit chez elle.]
10) Slate/Dear
Prudence: Regifting [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court.
Cette semaine, une lettre d'une femme qui a reçu comme cadeau de
sa patronne des boucles d'oreille déjà utilisées,
et une autre d'une jeune femme qui sort avec un fainéant limite
voyou.]
THIS WEEK'S TEXTS: Summary
11) Washington Post/Miss Manners: Tuned Out [Conseils sur les bonnes manières. Cette semaine, que faire d'une amie qui n'arrête pas de chanter des bribes de chanson au moindre prétexte (un bon conseil pour moi ?) ; une mère qui veut récupérer des vidéos qu'elle a prêtées à l'enfant d'une amie.]
12) The New York Times Magazine/Domains: A gourmet's minimalist flat [Portrait de Mireille Guiliano, l'auteur du best-seller "Pourquoi les Françaises ne grossissent pas". Voir aussi texte 13.]
13) Slate: French Women Do Too Get Fat [Contrairement à ce que prétend Mireille Guiliano, les Française grossissent.]
14) Slate/Moneybox: CEOs vs. CFOs [Qui est plus malin, le PDG ou le Directeur Financier ? Voir texte 15.
15) The Economist: Senior executives [Dans les entreprises modernes, tout le monde veut être un chef... Voir texte 14.]
16) The New York Times Magazine: Let them wear perfume [Marie Antoinette inspire les parfumiers contemporains.]
********************************
1) Los Angeles Times: Costs make employers see smokers as a drag [Des
entreprises américaines commencent à exclure les fumeurs
de leur personnel.]
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/latimests/20050128/
ts_latimes/costsmakeemployersseesmokersasadrag
Costs Make Employers See Smokers as a Drag
Fri Jan 28, 7:55 AM ET
By Daniel Costello Times Staff Writer
Employers have recently tried every carrot they can think of — including cash incentives and iPods — to persuade employees to quit smoking. Now some are trying the stick.
Pointing to rising health costs and the oversized proportion of insurance claims attributed to smokers, some employers in California and around the country are refusing to hire applicants who smoke and, sometimes, firing employees who refuse to quit.
"Employers are realizing the majority of health costs are spent on a small minority of workers," says Bill Whitmer, chief executive of the Health Enhancement Research Organization, an employer and healthcare coalition in Birmingham, Ala.
Federal and state laws bar employers from turning down applicants or firing workers based on race, religion or gender. Some states have enacted laws offering similar protections for smokers. But experts say workers in nearly half the states, including California, have few legal options if employers decide to prohibit them from smoking outside the workplace.
Employees in many states "work at the discretion of their employers and can be terminated for almost any reason as long as it's not illegal," says Stephen Sugarman, a law professor at UC Berkeley.
Last fall, Union Pacific Corp., an Omaha-based transportation company, stopped hiring smokers in seven states. Company executives said the move was made to help quell employee health costs, which have jumped more than 10% each of the last three years. Weyco Inc., an employee benefits firm with 200 employees in Okemos, Mich., began random drug tests for nicotine on Jan. 1, saying it would fire workers who failed the test or refused to quit smoking. (Four Weyco employees resigned rather than take the test, says the company's president, Howard Weyers.) The Riverside County Sheriff's Department plans soon to require applicants for deputy sheriff positions to sign a no-smoking agreement.
In most cases, employers are asking workers to report their smoking habits voluntarily or adding disclaimers such as "nonsmokers only" to job postings. Others are requiring workers to take breathalyzer tests that can catch traces of carbon monoxide in their lungs or submit to urine tests to detect nicotine.
A sheriff's office in Florida is asking job applicants who have a recent history of smoking to pass a polygraph test proving they no longer smoke outside of work.
Employees, workers' rights groups and some unions are decrying the smoking bans as an invasion of individual rights. "What you do in your own home after work or on the weekend is none of your bosses' business," says Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, N.J., a spinoff of the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites). "The last time I checked, tobacco is a legal product." Maltby says his organization is trying to persuade some states to pass broader worker-protection laws.
Critics of the smoking bans say it's not clear that smokers are more costly than other workers, such as people who are obese. Though some studies have shown that smokers have higher absentee and lower productivity rates than nonsmokers, economists say the research is limited. It's possible, they say, that smokers don't dramatically increase health costs with chronic and expensive conditions like emphysema, heart disease and cancer until they're much older, when they may be employed elsewhere or retired. "It sounds right for employers to say, 'If we get rid of them, we'll save money.' But no one has the concrete data to prove that right now," says Tom Morrison, senior vice president of Segal Co., an employee benefits consulting firm in New York.
Although smoking rates continue to fall across the country — an estimated 23% of adults smoke today, down from 37% in 1970 — employers say they need to find new ways to rein in health costs. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy group based in Menlo Park, Calif., health insurance premiums rose 11.2% last year, the fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth.
Some companies have begun charging smokers higher health insurance premiums and forcing others into employee wellness programs filled with smoking-cessation plans. Last month, Alabama announced plans to raise insurance rates on public employees throughout the state who smoke, and it is considering doing the same with obese workers. And, of course, many employers have banned smoking within the workplace for years.
In December, a national study by the Society for Human Resource Management found that nearly a third of U.S. employers polled had smoking-cessation programs; 5% prefer not to hire smokers and 1% refuse to hire smokers.
Weyers, of Weyco, says he instituted his new employee smoking policy after realizing that "if I don't do something to change employees' demand for healthcare, I'll never do anything about costs." Weyers estimates he now spends $750,000 a year on employee health premiums, and he worries he can't absorb many more cost increases. The company self-funds its insurance plan so any reduction in health costs would bring immediate savings.
Weyers says that though some employees complained about the smoking ban — and several left — most employees have slowly come to accept the new policy. The company estimates that about 10% of its workforce smoked and calculates that 28 employees and their spouses have quit since the new initiative was announced a year ago.
Critics are concerned that if more companies follow suit, it will lead to other employer intrusions on workers' lives. What is to stop companies from telling workers they can't ride motorcycles? Or eat junk food?
Legal protections of off-work activities vary considerably around the country, with the general rule giving employers the right to fire an employee for nearly any reason. Employees in Colorado are protected in most legal behaviors outside of work, whereas those in New York are protected when engaging in specific activities like recreation, politics and consumption of legal products. California has less protection around workers' off-the-job behavior, although they can participate in political organizations. California prohibits random employee drug testing other than for job applicants and workers in high-risk occupations such as trucking or medicine.
Maltby, of the Workrights Institute, says employees are facing a variety of challenges to their freedoms outside of work. A worker in Texas was fired in 2003 for having an affair off the job. This fall, a woman in Alabama lost her job for refusing to remove a John Kerry (news - web sites) bumper sticker from her car. (She was later hired by the Kerry campaign.)
Sugarman, of the University of California, says big employers may shy away from "paternalistic behavior," such as banning smoking outside of work, because it could make it more difficult to recruit and retain workers. Union Pacific says it will allow some exceptions to its policy. The company will hire a smoker if it cannot find another suitable applicant, a company spokeswoman says.
Michael Halpern, a physician and health researcher at Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Exponent Inc., has studied smoking-related costs for employers. His research suggests that smokers may have higher rates of absenteeism because they are more likely to suffer from upper respiratory infections and other illnesses. Also, smokers may be more likely to have less healthful lifestyles, such as poor diets and infrequent physical activity. Still, he recommends employers stick with positive incentives to entice smokers to quit.
"My feeling is that the data is just too limited to support" drastic moves such as firing, he says
********************************
2) Los Angeles Times: Where there's smoke, it
wouldn't lead to firing [Un législateur du Michigan propose d'interdire
les sanctions contre des salariés fumeurs. VOIR TEXTE 1b.]
http://www.latimes.com
Where There's Smoke, It Wouldn't Lead to Firing: Michigan firm bans all
nicotine use by workers. A state lawmaker wants to snuff out such rules.
By P.J. Huffstutter, Times Staff Writer
February 8, 2005
CHICAGO — A Michigan state lawmaker said Monday that he planned to introduce a bill to bar companies from firing employees for smoking on their own time. The proposed "lifestyle legislation" comes in response to a policy at Weyco Inc., an employee benefits firm in Okemos, Mich., near Lansing. On Jan. 1, Weyco began randomly testing its 200 workers for nicotine use, saying it would fire those who tested positive and refused to quit smoking. Four Weyco employees have said they were let go under the policy. "Two of those employees are my constituents, and they came to me asking for help," said state Sen. Virg Bernero, a Democrat from Lansing who plans to introduce his bill in the next three weeks.
If passed, Michigan would become one of the few states with a law expressly stating that employers could not fire or refuse to hire people for engaging in legal activities on their own time. "I don't like smoking, but what this company is doing is just un-American," Bernero said. "These are things happening off duty…. If it's legal to fire someone for smoking at home, what's next? A company that fires employees for having a couple beers during the Super Bowl because the boss is a teetotaler? Firing someone because they wear clothes on the weekend that the boss doesn't like?"
In a statement released Monday, Weyco Chief Financial Officer Gary Climes said smoking was clearly a health hazard, and that Bernero's legislation would make it more difficult for employers to control health costs. "When you do something that is extremely harmful to both yourself and others, it's not a privacy issue — it's a matter of exercising some personal responsibility for your behavior," Climes said in the statement. "Michigan businesses, taxpayers and co-workers of smokers have the right to protect themselves from the horrendous damage caused by the self-destructive behavior of a small percentage of employees."
Company officials said the policy was put into place to encourage healthful behavior among workers, as well as to underscore its health-conscious corporate culture. Inside the company's headquarters is a framed, handwritten note from Thomas Edison to Henry Ford. Dated April 1914, it reads: "I employ no person who smokes."
Weyco President Howard Weyers said last month that he also had rolled out the policy to combat the rising costs of employee benefits: "If I don't do something to change employees' demand for healthcare, I'll never do anything about costs." Weyers estimated the company spent $750,000 a year on employee health insurance premiums and said he was concerned that it wouldn't be able to absorb additional increases.
But Anita Epolito —
one of the four fired workers — said she had not been participating
in Weyco's insurance plan. "I'm covered by my husband's insurance
policy, and have been for years," said Epolito, 48, who worked as
a receptionist and special events coordinator at Weyco for 14 years. Epolito
said Weyers first told employees about the policy during a benefits meeting
in November 2003. At the time, workers were told they couldn't have any
nicotine products in their bodies, she said. "There were some people
who were trying to quit, using the patch or the chewing gum. We were told
that if you're going to quit, you have to stop — and stop using those
products — by Jan. 1 [2005]."
Epolito said she approached Weyco executives shortly before the deadline
and asked what she should do.
"They told me to sign
the waiver saying I refused to be tested so I could be given my final
check," Epolito said. "So that's what I did."
Michigan's Kalamazoo Valley Community College instituted a similar policy
last month, saying it wouldn't hire smokers for full-time positions. School
officials could not be reached for comment Monday.
Federal and state laws prevent employers from firing or refusing to hire workers because of race, religion or gender. Some states, such as Colorado, have enacted laws offering similar protections for smokers. Colorado lifestyle-discrimination statutes are considered to be among the broadest in the nation, legal experts said. Workers cannot be fired for taking part in legal activities, unless those actions affect their work. Bernero said his staff was using the Colorado law as a guide for the proposed Michigan legislation.
********************************
3) San Francisco Chronicle: Students under surveillance at school [Une
école californienne oblige ses élèves à porter
en permanence un badge qui permet de les localiser. Voir
texte 4 pour les suites.]
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/10/BAGG0B8I4D1.DTL
SUTTER COUNTY: Students kept under surveillance at school; Some parents angry over radio device
Greg Lucas, Chronicle Staff
Writer
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Sutter, Sutter County -- Angry parents, saying their children's privacy rights are being violated, have asked the board of the tiny Brittan School District to rescind a requirement that all students wear badges that monitor their whereabouts on campus using radio signals.
Located between the massive silos of Sutter Rice Co. and the Sutter Buttes, this small town has 587 kindergarten through eighth-graders who are the first public school kids in the country to be tracked on campus by such a system, which is designed to ease attendance taking and increase campus security. "This is the only public school monitoring where children go, with kids walking around with little homing beacons,'' said Nicole Ozer, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer aiding several parents who oppose the badges, which students wear around their necks.
Although all students have identification badges, only seventh- and eighth-graders are being tracked in a test run, according to school officials and representatives of InCom, a Sutter-based company developing the system. "There is no danger or I wouldn't put it on my son,'' Florrie Turner, a school district employee helping the company develop the software, told the school board at its Tuesday night meeting.
The student tracking system uses radio frequency identification technology used mainly to monitor inventory and livestock.
Ozer said a district in Texas was testing the technology for use on school buses to see that students get on and off.
Several parents in Sutter complained they weren't given a choice about their child participating in the new system and argued that the badges violated their children's right to privacy. "Our belief is these children have never done anything to give up some of their civil rights. They've never done anything wrong, and they're being tracked," said Michelle Tatro who along with her husband, Jeff, wrote a formal complaint to the school board protesting the program. Tatro said when her 13-year-old daughter came home from the first day of school in January, when the students began wearing the tags, she had waved the tag in her fist and said, "Look at this. I'm a grocery item. I'm a piece of meat. I'm an orange." Their daughter was threatened with disciplinary action if she did not participate in the program, according to a letter sent by the district.
Although the board said nothing in response to parental complaints, several attendees defended the system, saying it would keep kids in school, free up more time for teachers to teach and increase security for pupils and teachers. "It's baffling why so many people are bothered by the district being able to tell them where their kids are at," said Tim Crabtree, a high school teacher who said he hoped the technology would come to his classroom.
The Tatros' complaint and objections by other parents to the tracking system have led the district to relax its rule that all children wear the tags. If parents send a note saying their children don't want to wear the tag, they don't have to display it, but they must carry it on their person until the board makes a decision on the program's future at a special meeting called for next Tuesday.
The badges contain a photo of pupils, their grade level and their name. On the back is a tube roughly the size of a roll of dimes. Within it is a chip with an antenna attached. As the chip passes underneath a reader mounted above the classroom door, it transmits a 15-digit number, which then is translated into the student's name by software contained in a handheld device used by teachers to check attendance.
Seven classrooms were equipped with the readers, as were two bathrooms. The bathroom readers were never turned on, according to school and company officials, and were removed Wednesday by InCom because of objections by parents.
InCom has also disabled its system and deleted data it has collected to date. Readers have been turned off until the board reaches a decision next week. Developers of the system say parents concerned over privacy violations don't understand the short range of radio frequency identification devices. "The tags physically can't be read from a long distance," said Doug Ahlers, an InCom partner.
Several of the aspects of the program the Tatros didn't like were not the idea of InCom but of Principal Earnie Graham. InCom said it could have tested its software simply by mounting the chip on a blank piece of paper carried by students. It was Graham -- who also wears an ID badge -- who wanted the chip attached to a student identification card with names and photos.
Parents still objected to the requirement their children wear the badges. "You're saying, 'We don't have a choice. They have to wear the badges or they'll be suspended.' That's my child, my blood," said Toni Scrogin, whose daughter attends the school. 'It should be my choice." Graham said that in retrospect parents should have been consulted about the program rather than simply notifying them about it with a brief blurb in the school newsletter.
But a dry run on the badge readers during summer school caused "no outcry, " Graham said. "It wasn't an issue."
Despite testing the new system, the school is still using its old software to take attendance, Graham said. Allowing the testing of InCom's system cost the school nothing, Graham added. Ahlers said the company had donated some computer equipment to the school for its trouble.
********************************
4) Los Angeles Times: Town gives Brave New World an F [Suites du badge
Big Brother. Voir texte 3.]
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-me-sutter22feb22.story
February 22, 2005
CALIFORNIA: Town Gives Brave New World an F
When an elementary school required students to wear radio frequency IDs,
some parents saw the specter of Big Brother.
By Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer
SUTTER, Calif. — This little Northern California farm town is blissfully unaccustomed to turmoil. But recent weeks dished up a hopper of dissent. It started with a girl who went home from junior high saying she felt like an orange. Lauren Tatro, 13, told her parents the plain facts. Every student at Brittan Elementary School had to wear a badge the size of an index card with their name, grade, photo — and a tiny radio identification tag. The purpose was to test a new high-tech attendance system. To the eighth-grader, it seemed students had been turned into grocery items on the shelf, slabs of sirloin at the meat counter, fruit in the produce section.
So began a difficult stretch for this town of 2,885. Outraged parents claimed the school was trampling their children's privacy and civil liberties, maybe even threatening their health. School board meetings overflowed. Folks talked of George Orwell, Big Brother and the Bible. The American Civil Liberties Union joined the fray. Parents picketed. TV news crews from as far away as Germany descended on the 600-student school.
At odds as they have been few times before, Sutter residents were dragged into a simmering national debate over the use of tracking technology on human beings. Known as radio frequency identification, RFID for short, the technology has been around for decades. But only lately have big markets blossomed. Radio identification has been embraced by manufacturers and retailers to track inventory, deployed on bridges to automatically collect tolls and used on ranches to cull cattle. The microchips have been injected into pets.
But applying that technology in conjunction with people prompts an outcry from civil libertarians and privacy advocates. Proposals to use the high-tech ID tags in U.S. passports, Virginia driver's licenses and even San Francisco library books have drawn sharp fire. The ACLU characterizes such forays as the "seemingly inexorable drift toward a surveillance society."
Add schoolchildren to the list.
Critics in Sutter, an hour's drive north of Sacramento, say the aim at Brittan Elementary might have been an amped-up attendance system, but the badges, hung on lanyards that the students wore around their necks, represented something far more disturbing. As some parents figured it, their children had been made high-tech guinea pigs.
Sutter is located a mile off a highway big-city folks don't normally travel. Farm fields flank a tidy grid of two-lane streets. The nearest traffic light is miles away in Yuba City. Mostly it's a place of multigenerational families, some dating to the 1880s, with a smattering of newcomers. Folks meet and greet on the streets — and mostly they get along. Given the tranquil community sensibilities, school officials never anticipated controversy.
Earnie Graham, principal and superintendent of the one-school district, is a self-described "tech guy." He liked the badge idea because it would streamline the taking of attendance, giving teachers a few minutes more each day to teach and boost accuracy, no small matter given that California school funding is based on how many children attend class each day. Aside from boldly going where no principal had gone before, Graham figured the new technology held an additional appeal: Homegrown talent was promoting it.
The founders of InCom Corp., the start-up firm marketing the idea, work at local schools or have children who attend them. They formed the firm about a year ago and paid the district $2,500 to test the system during summer school. It went without a hitch. Each RFID has a miniature antenna connected to a tiny computer chip identifying the wearer.
When students walked into class, an RFID scanner mounted above the door recorded it, pumped out the roll on a teacher's wireless Palm Pilot and stored the attendance figures on a central computer. Impressed, school trustees last October agreed to expand the project. They held a public hearing, but virtually no parents attended. In exchange for allowing it on campus, InCom promised unspecified royalties from future sales.
On Jan. 18, every student at the kindergarten-through-eighth grade school got a badge, though scanners were installed only in seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms. Most of the pupils accepted it at first, but a few griped to their parents.
Mike and Dawn Cantrall, parents of two Brittan students, met with Graham to complain about the badges' having student photos and names, saying the information made them vulnerable to predators. Only then did they learn about the radio tags inside. The family asked that their children be excluded from the test. "Our children are not inventory," the Cantralls said in a letter to the district. They said the monitoring program smacked of Big Brother. They also cited biblical warnings about the mark of the beast.
School administrators said the program was mandatory and threatened to discipline — even expel — students who didn't wear their badges.
Within days, news of the tussle in Sutter reached the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups concerned about electronic surveillance. They waded in to warn the district in a Feb. 7 letter that radio ID badges could put children at risk to stalkers with scanners. They also noted that Brittan Elementary had no history of security or attendance problems. Each child had become "a walking homing beacon," said Nicole Ozer of the ACLU. "It's a very slippery slope this district set out on," indoctrinating children to a life under surveillance.
Graham, the principal, called it rhetorical overkill. The only information contained on each student's identification badge was a 15-digit number. All their personal information was safely stowed in the school computer, he said.
In classes and on the playground, the hubbub intensified. When word leaked, TV news crews trolled campus. Some students, amplifying their parent's opposition, performed a bit of monkey-wrenching. They took to biting through the plastic badges and pulling out the antennas and microchips.
"They're really ugly, really big, and I hate them," summarized Madison Mason, an eighth-grader, who dressed up her badge with smiley face stickers.
"I got hit in the head by it in P.E.," chimed in a friend.
"It's like we're in prison," said another.
After a rambunctious Feb. 8 board meeting, InCom opted to turn off the scanners until the board resolved the squabbling.
As school let out before last week's board meeting, foes prowled either side of campus with picket signs. "Badges … badges…. We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges," said one. Toni Scrogin was among the picketers. "I have not been convinced this is safe for my child," she said. "There's no research on this around humans." And neither the school nor InCom had many answers, she said.
Eric Shepherd, father of a third-grader, scoffed at Scrogin and her sign. "Our kids are more at risk walking down the street than wearing these badges," he griped to the picketers. "This is paranoia! I trust Earnie, I trust the board and I trust what they're trying to do."
Scrogin and Carrie VanOosterhaut yelled back about health worries. Lisa Ziegenmeyer, mother of three girls, told Shepherd the school was tagging kids children "like cattle." Shepherd walked off shaking his head. "This was a little town where everyone looked after everyone else," he muttered. "But this is ridiculous."
Parents flocked to a board meeting Feb. 15. A hundred chairs were set out, but the crowd flowed out the doors. Oxygen ebbed, the heat rose and angry voices cascaded. Few bothered introducing themselves — most everyone knew everyone. This had the makings of a family quarrel, 150 souls strong.
And then the InCom team pulled the plug. Doug Ahlers, a high school teacher and one of InCom's founders, read a prepared statement. Given the community dissent and concerns, the company had decided to terminate the test. The firm's "only regret," he told the hushed crowd, was that the district would not reap the promised royalties from future InCom sales. "This is a sad day for this school," said Tina Jones. Her kindergarten son didn't see the badge as a nuisance. It made him feel safer.
Others argued that the stakes were bigger than the feelings of a little boy. "This is about more than just this one district," said Ozer of the ACLU. Civil libertarians are worried over the potential uses and misuses of RFID — concerns that were once within the realm of science fiction. Authorities could use RFID to identify protesters at rallies, they say. Terrorists abroad could pick out Americans. Kidnappers might be able to track the child of a billionaire. The ACLU is pressing for state legislation curbing use of RFID technology in personal identification. Ozer worries about the identification tags' being embraced in other districts, as well as in hospitals, motor vehicle departments and credit companies.
Precedent is already being set for her fears. Ever since InCom's name began appearing on TV and in newspaper stories around the country, the phone hasn't stopped ringing. Many are callers from school districts wanting to adopt the technology. Ahlers said he won't be surprised if some states eventually require the technology in schools. "This has been a very, very good experience," he said. "They spelled our name right and spread it across the country."
5) India Daily: In UP village, NASA discovers a 15-year-old star [Un canular assez improbable en Inde, où un garçon fait croire qu'il a remporté un concours de la NASA qui n'existe pas, à Londres où il n'est jamais allé, et politiques et presse ont tout gobé sans se poser la moindre question. Ici un reportage élogieux et typiquement excessif sur le petit génie...]
http://www.indiadaily.com/breaking_news/25602.asp
In UP village, NASA discovers a 15-year-old star
Feb. 20, 2005
In an unremarkable 450-square foot half-constructed
home, where smoke from the chulha has blackened the walls, sits a 15-year-old,
awash with regret. Saurabh Singh is now officially one of the brightest
schoolboy scientists in the world. NASA results don''t lie and Saurabh,
a diffident boy from eastern Uttar Pradesh has become the first Indian
to top its International Scientist Discovery Examination for 2005-06.
It is the same examination in which President A P J Abdul Kalam, as a
young boy, finished seventh and later Kalpana Chawla finished 21st.
But Saurabh is still upset that he missed out on a world record. His result
speaks for itself: Aeronautics-A++; Physical Chemistry-A++; Organic Chemistry-A++;
Magnetism-A++. Then the horror. He scored a mere A+ for Electronics and
he is furious with himself. "I didn''t monitor the time properly
and got nervous and made a mistake in the last one," he says.
It seems almost surreal to watch this boy from a lower middle-class Family
- his father Ramkeshwar is an assistant teacher at Naherji Inter College
- sitting in a 10x10 feet room, lighted only by a 40 watt bulb, speaking
so nonchalantly of how he conquered science. It is a compelling tale that
must, of course, begin with a brilliant boy, just five feet four inches
tall, who is still working out physics formulae under the dim bulb and
who thought nothing of studying 16 to 18 hours a day for months.
But the story is incomplete without his father Ramkeshwar, who thought
nothing of forking out Rs 46,000 to ensure him sophisticated coaching,
or his mother Nirmala Devi, an auxiliary nurse and midwife who has worked
away from home, in Fatehpur, for years so that the family could make ends
meet.
And it cannot ignore a certain Reena Singh who started Gyan Peethika Senior
Secondary School on the suburbs of Ballia in 1993 - just around the time
Saurabh was learning his alphabet. It was this surprising school, 40 km
from his home, that he attended for his Classes IX and X, staying in a
hostel and learning to dream. Reena Singh has made it her life's mission
to make sure that she offers village children the facilities that can
make their dreams come true. With the help of her two US-based daughters,
she has set up a school complete with a multimedia lab and 25 computers.
The place is fitted with CCTV cameras and she keeps an eye on what is
happening in every corner or the school and hostel. The school, which
offers science, commerce and Information Technology has also applied to
start courses in Biotechnology and Fashion Designing. It even has a separate
wing for competitive examinations where Saurabh first honed his skills.
"We used to read about great people and he said that one day we would
read his name too," said his hostel room-mate Pankaj Singh. Reena
Singh herself made sure that she sharpened Saurabh's English language
skills. "The children here are oozing with talent and just require
some motivation," she said. No wonder that when NASA chief Sean O''Keefe
asked Saurabh a question on English grammar, he gave the right answer
- even though replied in Hindi and conveyed it through an interpreter.
"The NASA chief applauded," says Saurabh, who was taken to England
for the final exam.
The boy certainly keeps good company. After his stint at Gyan Peethika,
he was packed off to Kota for coaching in science and mathematics. There
again, he says he was fortunate to run into Umesh Singh, a young physics
teacher who was so devoted that he would actually stay up all night with
his students as they prepared.
Now the results are out and Saurabh is already a celebrity in his own
right - again, no coincidence as Reena Singh's daughters were on their
laptops within minutes of the news, sending out the information to the
media and the VIPs. Each member of the UP Legislative Council has now
promised to donate a day's salary to help Saurabh. His own idol, President
Kalam, has expressed a desire to meet him. And Gyan Peethika school, which
proudly lists the achievements of its students (the list includes IITians,
genetic scientists and air force officers), has announced a Saurabh Singh
scholarship worth Rs 40,000. When the young boy from the small eastern
UP village spends next year at Pennsylvania, he will know that back home
he himself has become a role model.
*******************************
6) Reuters: Indian boy's NASA claims crash to earth [Un canular assez
improbable en Inde, où un garçon fait croire qu'il a remporté
un concours de la NASA qui n'existe pas, à Londres où il
n'est jamais allé, et politiques et presse ont tout gobé
sans se poser la moindre question. Ici on commence à se rendre
compte qu'on s'est fait avoir...]
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050226/80/fdbdu.html
Saturday February 26, 10:04 AM
Indian boy's NASA claims crash to earth
By Sharat Pradhan
LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - An Indian teenager from one of the country's most backward states appears to have fooled governments, the media and even India's president into believing he had topped the world in a NASA science exam.
In a country hungry for international recognition, 17-year-old Saurabh Singh was feted as a national hero after announcing he had won NASA's International Scientist Discovery examination, which he said he took at Oxford University.
The Uttar Pradesh state government rewarded him with a 500,000 rupee prize (6,110 pounds) and more than 100 members of the state's upper house each donated a day's salary to him.
But as he was at the president's official residence awaiting an audience during the week, his story unravelled. An Indian news portal, rediff.com, contacted NASA, which denied any knowledge of the exam. "Right now, no one knows where this examination comes from," Rediff quoted NASA education official Dwayne Brown saying.
A meeting planned with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was hastily called off and the boy returned to his village of Narhai, where he is now under police investigation.
Singh had also said President Abdul Kalam and Indian astronaut Kalpana Chawla, who died in the Columbia shuttle explosion in 2003, had sat the test. Kalam's office denies this. Singh insists he met Kalam, although some Indian newspapers say the meeting was cancelled as he waited to go in. "It was really inspiring," Singh told Reuters by phone. "And let me tell you, he saw my certificate and praised me for the achievement, while you all are asking all kinds of questions and trying to dub me as a fraud."
The certificate, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, declared "You are the member of NASA" (sic) and is signed by Singh and "Chief of NASA, Cin K. Kif" -- NASA's former administrator was Sean O'Keefe. It also lists the name of Singh's father, common practice in Indian documents.
Singh says he flew to London on Indian Airlines -- which does not fly to the city -- and took a taxi to Oxford University and back every day for the exam from January 4-8, a round trip of about 140 miles. Singh told Reuters he stayed in a hotel, but told a Hindi language newspaper he stayed at Buckingham Palace.
The Indian school where he says he sat the preliminary
exam along with 200,000 others does not exist. The Bansal institute, where
he says he studied mathematics, has never heard of him. Singh cannot produce
his passport to back his claim. That, he says, is with institute director
P.K. Bansal. "How can we possess his passport when we don't even
know him?" Saturday's The Indian Express quoted Bansal saying.
^RETURN TO TOP^
********************************
7) The Miami Herald/Dave Barry: I slalomly swear
[HUMOUR : Dave Barry va faire du ski !]
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/10590809.htm
I slalomly swear
DAVE BARRY
While Dave Barry joins Dolphins running back Ricky Williams on a spiritual journey to find himself, Herald.com will run one of his classic columns each Sunday. This column was originally published on Feb. 5, 1989.
If you're looking for a vacation concept that combines the element of outdoor fun with the element of potentially knocking down a tree with your face, you can't do better than skiing. My family just got back from a ski trip to Vermont ("The Wind Chill Factor State"), and it was an adventure that I'm sure we will remember fondly for many years while our various body parts heal.
The key to a successful ski trip, of course, is planning, by which I mean: money. For openers, you have to buy a special outfit that meets the strict requirements of the Ski Fashion Institute, namely: (1) It must cost as much as a medium wedding reception; (2) it must make you look like the Giant Radioactive Easter Bunny From Space; and (3) it must be made of a mutant fiber with a name that sounds like the villain on a Saturday- morning cartoon show, such as "Gore-Tex," so as to provide the necessary resistance to moisture, which trust me, will be gushing violently from all of your major armpits once you start lunging down the mountain.
You also have to buy ski goggles costing upwards of $50 per eyeball that are specially designed not to not fog up under any circumstances except when you put them on, at which time they become approximately as transparent as the Los Angeles telephone directory, which is why veteran skiers recommend that you do not pull them down over your eyes until just before you make contact with the tree. And you'll need ski boots, which are made from melted bowling balls and which protect your feet by preventing your blood, which could contain dangerous germs, from traveling below your shins.
As for the actual skis, you should rent them because of the feeling of confidence you get from reading the fine print on the lengthy legal document that the rental personnel make you sign, which states:
"The undersigned agrees that skiing is an INSANELY DANGEROUS ACTIVITY, and that the rental personnel were just sitting around minding their OWN BUSINESS when the undersigned, who agrees that he or she is a RAVING LOON, came BARGING IN UNINVITED, waving a LOADED REVOLVER and demanding that he or she be given some rental skis for the express purpose of suffering SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH, leaving the rental personnel with NO CHOICE but to . . . , " etc.
OK! Now you're ready to "hit the slopes." Ski experts recommend that you start by taking a group lesson because otherwise they would have to get real jobs. To start the lesson your instructor, who is always a smiling 19-year-old named "Chip," will take you to the top of the mountain and explain basic ski safety procedures until he feels that the cold has killed enough of your brain cells that you will cheerfully follow whatever lunatic command he gives you. Then he'll ski a short distance down the mountain, just to the point where it gets very steep, and swoosh to a graceful stop, making it look absurdly easy. It IS absurdly easy for Chip, because underneath his outfit he's wearing an antigravity device. All the expert skiers wear them. You don't actually believe that "ski jumpers" can leap off those ridiculously high ramps and just float to the ground unassisted without breaking into walnut-sized pieces, do you? Like Tinkerbell or something? Don't be a cretin.
After Chip stops he turns
to the group, his skis hovering as much as three inches above the snow,
and orders the first student to copy what he did. This is the fun part.
Woodland creatures often wake up from hibernation just to watch this part
because even they understand that the laws of physics, which are strictly
enforced on ski slopes, do not permit a person to simply stop on the side
of a snow-covered mountain if his feet are encased in bowling balls attached
to what are essentially large pieces of Teflon. So they greatly enjoy
watching as the first student cautiously pushes himself forward and almost
instantly achieves Warp Speed, becoming an almost-invisible blur as he
passes Chip and proceeds on into the woods, flailing his arms like a volunteer
in a nerve-gas experiment.
"That was good!" shouts Chip, grateful that he is wearing waterproof fibers inasmuch as he will be wetting his pants repeatedly during the course of the lesson. Then he turns to the rest of the group and says: "Next!"
The group's only rational response, of course, would be to lie down in the snow and demand a rescue helicopter. But these are not rational beings; these are ski students. And so one by one they, too, ski into the woods, then stagger out, sometimes with branches sticking out, antlerlike, from their foreheads, and do it again. "Bend your knees this time!" advises Chip, knowing that this will actually make them go faster. He loves his work.
Eventually, of course, you get better at it. If you stick with your lessons, you'll become an "intermediate" skier, meaning you'll learn to fall before you reach the woods. That's the level I'm on now, in stark contrast to my 8-year-old son, who has not yet studied gravity in school and therefore became an expert in a matter of hours. Watching him flash effortlessly down the slope, I found myself experiencing both pride and hope; pride in his accomplishment, and hope that someday, somehow, he'll ski near enough to where I'm lying that I'll be able to trip him with my poles.
THE REGULARS
********************************
8) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: Spring equinox [C'est
le printemps !]
http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p1921.htm
Spring Equinox
Spring has sprung but do you know why? Here's the 411 on the Spring Equinox.
What Is Spring Equinox?
Spring Equinox, also called the Vernal Equinox, is the first day of spring.
On this day, which always falls on either March 19th or 21st, there are
exactly 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. From this day on,
the sun will continue to climb higher in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere,
inching towards summer, and will sink lower in the sky in the Southern
Hemisphere, inching towards winter.
Eostre (pronounced E-ostra)
Eostre is the Pagan holiday that celebrates the return of spring and the
balance between light and dark on, or around, the Spring Equinox. Eostre
was the Pagan goddess of dawn, fertility and new beginnings. The Christian
celebration of Christ's rebirth, Easter, is also celebrated around this
time and got its name from Eostre.
Eostre - Did U Know?
# Eostre gave a rabbit friend the power to lay eggs once a year - on the
Spring Equinox. The eggs symbolized new beginnings and the rabbit symbolized
fertility.
# In modern Russia, eggs are still given as presents on the graves of
ancestors in spring at the start of farming season.
# Today we all look to the good ole Easter Bunny to bring us colored eggs
and, more importantly, chocolate ones.
Spring Equinox Myths
It has been said that on the exact hour that winter turns to spring (around
noon on the Spring Equinox,) you are able to stand on an egg that is end-on-end
without breaking it. Think that's crazy? Truth is, if you've got the balance
and a flat enough surface, you can stand on an egg (end-on-end) any time
of the year (just don't be surprised if it doesn't work the first time!)
********************************
9) Car Talk/The
Puzzler: Hand in hand [Un casse-tête. Comment un homme et une femme
qui marchent ensemble peuvent-ils marcher des distances différentes
?]
http://www.cartalk.com
A woman and her husband frequently go walking together. On one particular
day, however, they walked side by side, hand in hand, one never getting
ahead of the other. They walked for an hour. At the end of the hour, the
woman says, "That felt good. I think I walked four miles. The husband
responds, "Oh, I walked much farther than that. I'm sure I walked
five or six."
How could that be?
10) Slate/Dear Prudence: Regifting [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court. Cette semaine, une lettre d'une femme qui a reçu comme cadeau de sa patronne des boucles d'oreille déjà utilisées, et une autre d'une jeune femme qui sort avec un fainéant limite voyou.]
Dear Prudence,
I've been crushed, hurt, then infuriated by a gift I received from my boss at an annual luncheon. There are only five employees in our department—all women. This year, as in the past three years, we all go out for lunch and exchange (nominally priced) gifts. This year my boss gave me a pair of USED earrings. She placed these used earrings in a gift box with an upscale department store name on it. Thankfully, I didn't take the earrings out of the box at the table, or I probably would have lost my composure and bawled! I did do this, however, after I got home and took the earrings out of the box. They were dirty—really yucky and gross—the earring backs didn't even match, and one back wouldn't even fit on its post! I was so hurt. How could the person earning the highest wage in the office (with the fewest dependents) offer such a horrible gift? I want to throw the earrings on her desk and tell her what a cheap, horrible, disgusting thing she did! How should I tell her I'm hurt and angry? Or should I keep it to myself? Please help.
—Sensitive Recipient
Dear Sen,
Prudie thinks a decorous way to respond (well, OK, to call her on it)
would be to return the earrings with a note saying you are certain she
wrapped something of her own by mistake. She will then know that she fooled
no one and has been caught out, as the Brits say. You probably won't get
a proper gift after this, but you should get some satisfaction. Prudie
also thinks that if this episode reduced you to tears, perhaps something
else is going on in your life that is causing you to be labile. You might
want to think about this. Good luck.
—Prudie, tactically
-*-*-
Dear Prudence,
I have often read your column but never thought that I would have a question
for you. I am 20 years old and have been dating a wonderful guy for two
and a half years. It was a struggle when I went away to school, but we
have managed to work through the long distance. Lately, however, I am
at a loss. As our relationship progresses and I get older, I'm beginning
to wonder whether we will ever have a future together. If not, then I
fear that I'm wasting my time in a pleasant, but doomed, relationship.
I really do love him, but my biggest concerns are his future and his family.
I have always pictured myself ending up with a college graduate, and while
he is enrolled at a nearby community college, I'm worried that he will
never have the money or drive to finish. He seems very nonchalant about
his future, which has caused a great deal of conflict between us in the
past. The second problem is his family. While they are nice people, they
have more than their share of baggage. His mom and dad are both alcoholics,
his teenage sister is a complete recluse, and his brother is a convicted
felon. I know that I shouldn't judge my boyfriend by his family, but I
can't help but be embarrassed at the thought of being related to these
people. Am I just being stuck-up and judgmental, or should I take my legitimate
concerns and run for the hills?
—Young and Troubled
Dear Young,
Get out your track shoes. With a different scenario, Prudie might tell
you to disregard the unfortunate family. However, because you say you
are on different educational tracks, he is cavalier about his future,
and you've already put in a fair amount of time squabbling about this,
the wise thing to do would be to cut your losses and not invest more time
in a romance that does not even approach wonderful. (What you call "baggage,"
by the way, would be some people's idea of a whole set of luggage. Two
alcoholics, a recluse, and a felon are not chopped liver.)
—Prudie, optimistically
********************************
THIS WEEK'S TEXTS
********************************
11) Washington Post/Miss Manners: Tuned Out
[Conseils sur les bonnes manières. Cette semaine, que faire d'une
amie qui n'arrête pas de chanter des bribes de chanson au moindre
prétexte (un bon conseil pour moi ?) ; une mère qui veut
récupérer des vidéos qu'elle a prêtées
à l'enfant d'une amie.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45562-2005Feb22.html
Tuned Out
Wednesday, February 23, 2005; Page C11
Q:
Dear Miss Manners:
A lovely friend of mine has a rather annoying (to me) habit, and I would appreciate some guidance on how to address it. Whenever I put several words together that happen to be a song title, or words in a song, she'll start singing.
For example, I might say
something like: "I heard the weather's going to be stormy tonight,"
and she'll immediately start singing, "Stormy weather. There's no
sun up in the sky, stormy weather." If I try to return to the conversation,
she'll smile sweetly and continue singing, "Since my man and I ain't
together . . . "
I'll try again to return to the conversation, but she'll keep smiling and singing, "Keeps raining all the ti-ime," until she forgets what comes next (but she'll go into another verse when she knows the words).
I find all this somewhat dismissive and more than a little unsettling, and I'm not sure how to respond. We could be sitting in a restaurant, standing in line outside a theater or shopping in a store. It doesn't make a difference. Apparently, all the world's a stage -- literally. Maybe she imagines herself the lead actress in life's musical.
I myself am a professionally trained singer, so I suppose I could join her in harmony, but somehow that doesn't seem appropriate in a public setting. I suppose I should be grateful that she doesn't start tap dancing, too. What do you suggest my response should be when my friend breaks into song? And am I being rude when I attempt to return to the conversation and thus interrupt her impromptu concert?
A:
Annoying to you? Miss Manners has already been driven mad by your friend,
and she hasn't even met her. Please tell her to stop!
Oops. That is what you want Miss Manners to do.
You would not be interrupting a concert to resume your conversation, because it is the conversation that has been interrupted. However, knowing your response was not rude is likely to be cold comfort, since it was ineffective anyway.
Miss Manners is afraid you are at the stage of begging for mercy, which you ought to be able to do in dire situations: "I'd love to hear you sing sometime, but not in the middle of a conversation, please. It gets me rattled."
If this only spurs her on to keep singing, she is not as lovely as you think.
-*-*-*-
Q:
Dear Miss Manners:
I lent some children's videos to a friend/acquaintance. I asked her how her daughter enjoyed the videos and she responded that her daughter had not watched them (it's been over six months). How do I get my videos back politely?
A:
By saying politely, "I'd like to have them back for now, please.
Let me know when your daughter wants to watch them."
Miss Manners assures you that it is no less polite to ask for something you own than for them to ask for something you own.
And if your own children do not get around to watching them until they are requested again, surely your friend will understand.
********************************
12) The New York Times Magazine/Domains: A gourmet's
minimalist flat [Portrait de Mireille Guiliano, l'auteur du best-seller
"Pourquoi les Françaises ne grossissent pas". Voir aussi
texte 13.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/magazine/13DOMAINS.html
DOMAINS: A Gourmet's Minimalist Flat
Interview by EDWARD LEWINE
Published: March 13, 2005
Mireille Guiliano, 58, author of "French Women Don't Get Fat" and C.E.O. and president of Clicquot Inc., and her husband, Edward, 54, have lived in a 2,500-square-foot apartment in the West Village for 15 years.
Morning routine: I awake about 6:30 a.m., and the first thing I do is
have a glass of water. Then I go for a walk, or do some yoga, stretching
and meditation. My husband makes me breakfast, something different every
day because I hate boredom. It could be scrambled eggs, oatmeal, cereal
or half a grapefruit and a piece of cheese. I walk out the door anytime
between 7:30 and 9 a.m.
Evening routine: Most nights I entertain. I used to go straight from work, but after I reached 50 I decided that I should take better care of myself. So I come home, and stretch or go out on the terrace and look at the sunset or listen to music. Then I go to dinner. These are long meals with clients, and they end about 11:30. I never go straight to bed after that. I am a night person.
How she divides her time: I often think of the line from Woody Allen. He said, ''When I am in New York, I want to be in Europe, and when I am in Europe, I want to be in New York.'' I'm blessed to have an apartment in Paris and New York, although I only spend a week every two months in France.
Item a woman most needs in Paris: A tiny umbrella to put in her bag. It can rain any time there.
Item a woman most needs in New York: A bag big enough to hold a lot of stuff. You are always multitasking. You need your glasses and lenses; you go to a cocktail party and need business cards. In Paris people don't exchange cards; they just say, ''Call me tomorrow.''
At age 5, what she wanted to be: An actress. I would always be in the school plays. I was a mother, a rabbit, a flower. To this day I could go to a movie or play every night.
Historical person she'd like to meet: Frederic Chopin. He was a Romantic. And he hung out with George Sand. Not bad.
Best recent gift she received: A beautiful Valentine's Day card with a love poem by my husband in it. I don't want jewelry. I want flowers or a book or a poem. I'd like to have a poem every time, but inspiration doesn't always strike.
Favorite spot in house: I love my kitchen. For Manhattan, I have a rather decent-size kitchen, and it has an opening that gives out to the dining room, which has a window with a view of the city and in the distance the Statue of Liberty.
Greatest misconception about French women: That they are perfect. We are all frail and have our weaknesses. We are all supposed to be stylish and elegant, and I know plenty of French women who are neither, and for those that do try to live up to the myth, it isn't easy.
Aspect of house that most reflects her taste: I cannot live without flowers everywhere. I grew up having a big garden, the size of a city block, in Rombas.
Item she can't toss: None. When you live in an apartment, you learn to part with things. I give them to the Salvation Army.
Always in the fridge: Yogurt, bread, veggies, cheese, fruit. I keep Champagne in the fridge for people who pop in.
Does she allow smoking in house? No. We have a huge terrace, so if people want to smoke, they go there.
Must-have gadget: My yogurt maker. In the U.S., too many yogurts are filled with corn syrup, preservatives, artificial this and that. To me, this is poison.
Her sanctuary: We have a little room we call the orchid room. It is a pleasant, Zen room. The only thing hanging in it is an American painting called ''Adirondack Chairs,'' by an artist named Paul Jacobsen. It reminds me of what I love about America and of my student years in New England: sitting beside a lake in a good chair.
Hobby: My husband and I are bookworms. In the living room there are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that are doubled. You can roll back one set of shelves to reveal another. Most of the books there are American and English literature. In the kitchen, cookbooks; in my office, European-language books.
Collections: We have four photographs made by Lewis Carroll. My husband found them some 25 years ago.
Walking shoes for a lady: I find it so unattractive when women wear sneakers with their business suits. I wear a nice pair of loafers or low-heeled pumps, and that's that.
Family photos hanging in home: No. No. That is something that is so American, and I don't understand. I have a few pictures of friends, and I keep them in my agenda. That is the French way. We are more private. Also my husband and I have no children.
Television shows: I love cooking shows to relax, not to make the recipes.
Travel routine: I eat a few hours before takeoff, because I do not eat plane food. I rarely bring food on the plane either.
Topic she won't bring up at party: Real estate is the most boring subject. There is more to life than real estate, sorry.
What is always with her: A little bottle of water.
Best book she read recently: It is called ''True Pleasures: A Memoir of Women in Paris.'' Actually it was written by an Australian named Lucinda Holdforth. I connect to it because she talks about great women in Paris like Colette, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, but also because she visits the neighborhood where I live there.
What she drives: We have a BMW, but I don't like cars, or boats, or planes, or anything with an engine. We had a bike, but it was stolen. A real New York story.
Next big purchase: None. We are minimalists.
Item of clothing she can't live without: This is very French, but my scarves. They are great to have when you travel. I can make four different outfits out of a pair of black pants with different scarves. I like Hermes, but my favorites are from a tiny store in Paris.
Household chore she should do and does: My mother always said, ''When you leave the house make sure your bed is done and the place doesn't look like Hiroshima, because you never know what can happen.'' My mother was a working woman, but she always taught us to take care of our rooms, as opposed to so many American kids who throw things on the floor.
Why don't French women get fat? Because they eat with their heads and all five senses. And they have learned to manage and gratify their appetites.
13) Slate: French Women Do Too Get Fat [Contrairement à ce que prétend Mireille Guiliano, les Française grossissent.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2113911/
French Women Do Too Get Fat
What the best seller neglects to mention.
By Kate Taylor
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005, at 3:23 PM PT
Mireille Guiliano, the French-born CEO of Clicquot Inc., Veuve Clicquot's American subsidiary, has many things to toast these days. Besides being 58 and still weighing what she did in her 20s, she is now a best-selling author, too. Her recently published memoir-cum-diet book, French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure is currently at No. 3 on the New York Times list for hardcover advice books. Since the book's publication, she says, she has been inundated with offers to write a sequel, host a cooking show, and wear various designers' dresses to the Oscars. There has even been discussion of a movie. While it's still too soon to tell, it is possible that Guiliano has helped launch one of the periodic turnovers in American dietary mythology. Out with carbophobia; in with Francomania.
Guiliano's book centers on the well-worn idea often called the "French Paradox": French people, who love their cheese and foie gras and croissants, are nonetheless thinner and have lower rates of heart disease than we diet-obsessed Americans. Scientists used to attribute it to red wine; the current theory is that the French "secret" lies in no one food or ingredient, but in their traditional culture of eating.
As Guiliano tells us, the French have elaborate food rituals. They go to the market several times a week and eat only what's in season. Unlike Americans, who buy processed, flavorless food and therefore need to eat a lot of it to feel gratified, the French, by eating better-tasting food and savoring it more consciously, "fool themselves" into being satisfied with less. That is, French women do, since, in Guiliano's book, it is specifically the women who must master "the useful art of self-deception"—mentally balancing the pleasures of food against the competing desires to fit into the latest fashions and to be attractive to French men, who she says like their wives to be "very elegant, very thin."
Before we come under assault by the rest of the French Women empire (the TV show, the movie) we should take this mythology—Americans, hopelessly schizophrenic about food; French, universally blessed with natural moderation—with a grain of Breton sea salt. The first problem with this picture is that it may already be out of date. Guiliano grew up and learned her eating rituals in the '50s and '60s. Today, thanks to globalization, the French are starting to eat, and look, more like us: According to a recent article in the Times of London, the traditional French meal is eaten by only 20 percent of the population. Instead, they increasingly favor the abbreviated, on-the-go meals of Americans. The national rate of obesity is rising fast. While only 6 percent of the population was obese in 1990, today the proportion is 11.3 percent. That is still well behind the same figure for the United States (22 percent) but on track to match our levels by 2020. The French are not happy about it. In a parliamentary report last spring highlighting the dramatic increase in obesity, legislators proposed launching a new government agency to fight weight gain, to be funded by a tax on high-calorie or high-fat foods.
Which brings us to the second way in which the American/French divide is more complicated than Guiliano acknowledges. The French accept a level of government paternalism that would not go over easily here. The way that French families eat, or until recently ate, is actually a product of state intervention, as Greg Critser pointed out in a 2003 piece in the New York Times. At the beginning of the 20th century, concern over France's high infant mortality rate led to a largely state-sponsored movement called puericulture. The movement's initial focus was on getting mothers to breastfeed; clinics were set up across the country, and the government required factories to have areas for nursing. But puericulture advocates also stressed that overfeeding infants was worse than underfeeding them. For older children, they advised regular mealtimes, modest portions, no seconds, and no snacks. Children's own appetites and preferences were to be ignored. This is the tradition in which Guiliano was raised, and which she proposes to those of her readers who are parents. It is another interesting paradox: The French ability to take pleasure in food, and to choose food based on taste rather than dietary dogma, begins with a child's lack of choice, and a degree of parental and state authoritarianism.
The third problem is that, while they may be admirably successful at staying thin, French women are not necessarily more balanced in their attitudes about food. While many people think of eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia as an American problem, they are, as far as can be measured (and these statistics should always be taken with some degree of skepticism), equally prevalent in France. In the United States, somewhere between 0.5 percent and 3.7 percent of women will be anorexic in their lifetimes, while 1.1. percent to 4.2 percent will suffer from bulimia. Between 2 percent and 5 percent of Americans binge eat. Among young French women, an estimated 1 percent to 3 percent are anorexic; 5 percent are bulimic; and 11 percent have compulsive eating behaviors. Certainly, young French women today are as interested in eating disorders as their American counterparts. While Guiliano enjoys her publishing success here, a quite different book is in the spotlight in France: a memoir of bulimia called Thornytorinx. (The title is an anatomical name for the digestive tract.) The book has been favorably covered by the French press, and its author, a 25-year-old actress named Camille de Peretti, appeared last weekend on one of France's most popular talk shows.
That the incidence of eating disorders in France roughly equals that here suggests that anorexia and bulimia do not require a widespread, openly discussed culture of calorie- or carb-counting and devotion to the gym. They may take slightly different forms, depending on the prevailing national habits, but eating disorders arise wherever thinness is deeply valued and admired.
French women do not care less than American women about being thin; if anything, they may care more. And while much of Guiliano's advice seems sensible, there is also an opening for extremism in her suggestions* that we savor our food and refuse to eat anything that isn't of the highest quality and taste. When she met the New York Times' Elaine Sciolino for coffee in Paris, Guiliano took one bite of her croissant, declared it "disgusting," and left the rest on her plate, thereby demonstrating a lesson from her book: "Life is too short to drink bad wine and to eat bad food." Sounds nice enough, but sticking to this philosophy in all circumstances would be remarkably neurotic. What if you're hungry? The scene calls to mind a certain type of weight-obsessed woman, the kind who uses the excuse of a refined palate to mask her suspicion of food (and to justify how little she eats).
The essence of Guiliano's book is the claim that women can trick themselves into experiencing what is actually self-denial as a kind of pleasure. She never questions that most women, if they wish to be attractively thin, will have to play some mental games. But such games are, as Guiliano acknowledges, something that the French generally value. They think of themselves as an old culture, skilled in the arts of irony, hypocrisy, and nuance. We Americans may be innocent, artless, and nuance-allergic, but we are sharp enough to recognize that French women's advantage over us is simply that they are thinner—not that they have better, saner, less complicated attitudes about food. "The useful art of self-deception"? Let 'em have it.
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14) Slate/Moneybox: CEOs vs. CFOs [Qui est plus malin, le PDG ou le Directeur
Financier ? Voir texte 15.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2114378/
moneybox Daily commentary about business and finance.
CEOs vs. CFOs: Who's smarter?
By Daniel Gross
Posted Friday, March 4, 2005, at 12:56 PM PT
Bernard Ebbers, so CEO
Bernard Ebbers, so CEO
Chief executive officers and chief financial officers are not equals—CEOs
earn more, talk more, bully more—but they are nonetheless partners
of a sort. CEOs define strategy, and CFOs figure out how to fund it.
But maybe things are not so cordial in the executive suites these days, after all. On Tuesday, the Business Roundtable released its latest quarterly CEO Economic Outlook Survey, which measures CEOs' expectations for sales, capital spending, and employment for the next six months. Based on answers from 118 CEOs of large U.S. companies in mid-February, the reading came in at 104.4, the highest level in the survey's brief, three-year history. The next day, Duke University and CFO Magazine released their latest business outlook survey. Of the 293 American CFOs surveyed on Feb. 27, only 46 percent were more optimistic about the economy than they had been in the most recent quarter. "This is the least optimistic that CFOs have been in the last two years," said Duke finance professor John Graham.
The surveys didn't ask CEOs and CFOs at the same companies to respond to the same questions. But it is clear that the CFOs and CEOs surveyed simply don't see eye to eye on a range of issues.
Take inflation. "With the exception of oil prices and raw material prices which are related to strong economic demand, both in the United States and China, we don't see much in the way of domestic inflation," said Pfizer CEO Henry McKinnell, as he discussed the results of the Roundtable survey with reporters. But CFOs are sniffing out plenty of inflation unrelated to oil and raw materials. In the Duke/CFO survey, 69 percent of the CFOs said that unit labor costs were rising; half said they were a small, moderate, or major problem. Fifty-three percent of CFOs cited high health-care costs as a top issue. As a group, they expect health-care costs to rise 9 percent in 2005.
Or the dollar. McKinnell said CEOs by and large pooh-pooh the weak dollar. "The softer dollar is helping American competitiveness, we're seeing more exports from the United States." In part because of strong exports, 89 percent of CEOs expect their sales to rise in the coming half-year. What say the CFOs? Nearly half of CFOs (47 percent) said the falling dollar would harm their companies, while only 27 percent said it would help.
What gives? Duke's Graham has a theory. While the CEO is the ultimate boss, "CFOs are the ones who write the checks, and they're a little closer to the ground." In other words, since they're signing the bills, they know that the mixture of rising interest rates and health-care costs, higher fuel prices, and a weak dollar signal caution. "I really don't understand how the CEOs can be that optimistic," said Graham.
I've got my own theories. First, many CFOs tend to have a background in accounting. And while many corporate accountants have been involved in fraud, the overwhelming majority are honest numbers dorks who have been schooled to match up assets with liabilities. Temperamentally and professionally, they're inclined to look at both sides of a ledger and hence have a more tempered view of things. Caution is part of the CFO's job description. CEOs, by contrast, are professional optimists. To lead a company, a CEO must be relentlessly positive, even in the face of contrary evidence. Very few CPAs become CEOs.
The second theory is a corollary to the first. CEOs are, in essence, salespeople for their companies' stock. Selling stocks rests on constructing a narrative about growth that downplays or ignores the factors that could trip up strategy and eat into margins. So, of course they say everything is getting better. Chief financial officers, by contrast, are much more likely to be dealing with bond investors and bankers, who tend to ask tougher questions and are more interested in cash flow and data than in strategy.
Third, the Chauncey Gardiner theory: that CEOs are just clueless spectators to the complex things going around them, while the CFOs actually make all the crucial financial decisions. At the trials of both former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, the defense centers on the contention that the charismatic, aw-shucks CEOs had very little interaction with the crooked CFOs who deceived them and couldn't understand all that tough math and balance sheet stuff. Ex-WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan testified that he spoke with Ebbers several times a day and socialized with him frequently. The way Ebbers told it, he barely knew the guy.
So, if the CEOs are always the last to know what's really going in the company, and the CFOs are the true masterminds of the Fortune 500, what do these results suggest? Perhaps we should regard CEO optimism as a contraindicator. After all, in the short history of the Business Roundtable survey, the CEO optimism index had its worst showing in April 2003. The S&P 500 is up almost 50 percent since then.
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15) The Economist: Senior executives [Dans les entreprises modernes, tout
le monde veut être un chef... Voir texte 14.]
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=S%27%29%284%25RQ7%26%20P%200%0A
Senior executives: A rise in the C-level
Feb 24th 2005
Too many chiefs?
A NEW report by London Business School and Ariba, a software firm, says that the heads of the purchasing department at 70% of European firms now report directly to their boards, 20% up on a year ago. People who used to buy copiers and ballpoint pens now talk strategy with directors because, says Ariba's Steve Muddiman, “their spend-management expertise is becoming highly valued.” With this new clout comes a new title, CPO—chief purchasing officer—and elevation to the so-called C-level, a growing class of corporate executives (known in America as CXOs) whose title begins with the word “chief” and ends with the word “officer”.
The list of those already in the managerial C-suite includes CEOs (chief
executive officers), COOs (chief operating officers), CFOs (chief financial
officers) and CIOs (chief information officers). WPP, the owner of three
global advertising agencies, has a CTO (chief talent officer) whose incumbent,
Beth Axelrod, will soon move to the same post at eBay. In a new paper,
Marakon, a consultancy, suggests that firms consider appointing a “chief
growth officer” (CGO) to oversee the subject that “has risen
to the top of the corporate agenda”. Such a creature already exists
at H.J. Heinz and Honeywell, although Colgate-Palmolive recently got rid
of its CGO.
C-level executives are now a distinct socio-economic group: market research has found that they spend an average of 16 hours a week on the web and only 6.6 hours reading magazines. Aspatore, a publisher in Boston, publishes exclusively the works of C-level authors, to help their own kind “make pivotal business decisions”.
The shifting ratio of chiefs to Indians aside, the rising number of C-level appointments indicates a significant change in corporate structure. The heads of specialist functional “silos” (finance, human resources, IT, etc) are becoming more and more involved in talking corporate strategy with the chief executive and the board. Ten years ago these specialist heads would have been condemned to their niches for life. Now, more and more feel they have it in them to one day change their middle letter to an “E”. They are being encouraged by the decline of the more traditional non-specialist number two, the COO. A recent study of 300 quoted American companies found that 20% of them abolished the COO position between 1986 and 1999.
The trend is clearest among CFOs. In a new book, “CFO Thought Leaders”, Booz Allen & Hamilton, a consultancy, notes that in the past decade the chief financial officer has become far more than a bean counter. “Today's CFOs see themselves as strategic activists,” say the book's authors—ie, much like CEOs. Michael Sears, a former CFO of Boeing jailed for four months at the end of last week for illegally offering a job to an air-force purchasing officer, talked more like a would-be CEO than a CFO, which was not surprising as he had no financial experience and saw the job as a mere springboard to the top.
Yet when pure specialists rise up their silo and into the chief executive's chair, that can also be a cause for concern. At Carrefour, the world's second-biggest retailer, the chief executive was fired earlier this month and replaced by the CFO, José Luis Duran. Mr Duran started his career with the now defunct accountants Arthur Andersen. He joined a Carrefour subsidiary in 1991 in the audit department and in 2001 became CFO of the parent company. He has no specific retailing experience.
He is now working as the primus inter pares among a group of C-suite executives with specialist skills. Not all of the board was convinced that this is the right structure to restore the French retailer's fortunes: two directors resigned when Mr Duran's appointment was announced.
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16) The New York Times Magazine: Let them wear perfume [Marie Antoinette
inspire les parfumiers contemporains.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/magazine/13BEAUTY.html
APPEARANCES: Let Them Wear Perfume
By MARY TANNEN
Published: March 13, 2005
Marie Let-Them-Eat-Cake Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, has always had a bad rap as the queen whose spending sprees fueled the rage that fired the French Revolution. But every age has its villains and heroes, and to our luxury-loving, budget-deficient society, the pretty little reine is looking less like a spoiled doll and more like a style-setting celebrity. She has attracted the attention of Sofia Coppola, who is making a movie based on her life. And she was the subject of much discussion at a recent party at Versailles, where about 80 invitees gathered to celebrate the publication of the biography of her perfumer, Jean-Louis Fargeon, one in a series of books about tradesmen who supplied the court.
For the occasion, Francis Kurkdjian -- who as perfumer for the fragrance house Quest International has created scents for the designer Jean Paul Gaultier, among others -- invented a scent for the queen herself, consulting contemporary accounts of her taste as well as old formulas and using only ingredients from that time. Everyone received a small bottle of his Sillage de la Reine, which translates as ''in the queen's wake.''
The author of the Fargeon biography, Elisabeth de Feydeau, a tall, slender blonde in a smart black leather jacket and a short skirt, led us through a door in the reception hall and up the narrow servants' stairway directly to the lavatory and dressing room of Marie Antoinette, opened just for the occasion. As we filed through, it was evident that many of the invitees had already dipped into their bottles, as the bouquet of iris, jasmine, rose and tuberose filled the passageway.
Feydeau showed us the room where the queen took her frequent baths, a custom that horrified the court, as others bathed on a semi-annual schedule, even though the queen modestly accomplished this task in a head-to-toe white flannel gown.
She was a trendsetter in other ways, too, preferring lighter, more natural makeup to the impasto of white lead then au courant. She was also a big user of perfume -- scented leather gloves, potpourris, sachets for the bath and incense to drive out bad odors (of which there were many). When she felt faint, there were preparations called vinaigrettes to be wafted under her nose. She acquired a taste for concentrated perfumes -- blossoms steeped in alcohol and fortified with musk, amber or opopanax, an acrid resin found in the Middle East. In the new Romantic tradition, both M.A. and her perfumer believed that scent should be ''the emanation of the soul.''
On a shelf in the lavatory was a traveling case, with its many bottles for fragrance, thought to belong to the queen. There would probably have been one just like it when the carriage of the disguised and fleeing royal family was stopped at Varennes. ''Perhaps the smell tipped them off,'' Feydeau conjectured, noting that the odors emanating from the queen's perfume-mobile would have made a stunning impression on the unwashed rabble. ''She was the first fashion victim in history.''
But M.A. was good for the economy, as ladies of the court regularly ordered new toilettes to keep up with her innovations. At one point, she dressed herself and her entire retinue in white linen gowns with colored ribbon sashes. She used the Petit Trianon as a refuge from the strict rules of the court, forsaking elaborate hairdos and letting her tresses hang loose, like a young girl's. She started a mania for flowers -- ladies' gowns, hats and chambers suddenly dripped with garlands of artificial blossoms. Extravagant? Certainly. But the queen gave an enormous boost to the fashion and fragrance industries, which the French profit from to this day. At least that is what we reasoned as we tripped back downstairs to toast her with Champagne. And then we ate cake.
Rehabilitating the reputation of past villainesses and naming fragrances after them may be a new trend. Catherine de' Medici, queen mother of Renaissance France, also has a fragrance. Called Caterina de' Medici by i Profumi di Firenze, it claims to be a replica of the one she actually used and, unlike Sillage de la Reine, can be found at Barneys. It is a lush bouquet of Damascus rose, lily of the valley and the purple iris of Florence. The makers credit Catherine with bringing the art of perfumery to France. No mention is made of her Machiavellian schemes that precipitated the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre or of her knowledge of poisons. But she did throw sumptuous banquets and commission the palace of the Tuileries. Not only that: when at 14 she went off to marry the French duke who would become Henry II, she needed to appear taller, so she spearheaded the invention of high heels. Later, as regent, she banned thick waists from her court, starting a trend for corsets that would endure into the 20th century. Makers of shoes and undergarments owe her a tremendous debt. Surely she is as fitting a heroine as Marie Antoinette for our golden age of consumerism.
Naming perfumes after historical -- as opposed to living -- celebrities has several advantages. Their scandals are so distantly past that they serve more to titillate than offend. The deceased can't embarrass with fresh indiscretions. Nor can they demand a cut of the profits. If this trend continues, we should expect to see a fragrance named in honor of Lucrezia Borgia. While it may or may not be true that she had incestuous relationships with her father and her brother, she did have an incredible eye for art. I see her immortalized with wild pomegranate blossom, purple violet and just a hint of blood.