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Week 39, 2005
THE BEST SELLERS (recent popular articles):
1) CNN/Global Office: Early life crisis hits male workers [Les hommes britanniques connaissent la crise de la quarantaine de plus en plus tôt...]
2) Various sources: Deferred success [Un syndicat d'enseignants britanniques débattent de la proposition de supprimer la notion d'échec dans l'enseignement au profit du "report de réussite".]

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THE REGULARS: Summary
3) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: The Nation's Umpire [Sur la confirmation de John Roberts comme nouveau président de la Cour suprême US.]
4) A puzzle: Dead in the desert [Un casse-tête.]
5) CNN/Global Office: Three years' service now long term [Les salariés britanniques passent de moins en moins de temps dans un poste donné.]
6) AUDIO SPECIAL/On the Media: Refugees [Retrouver l'audio sur la page indiquée. Cette semaine, le "débat" aux EU sur l'emploi du mot "réfugiés" pour décrire les personnes déplacées par Katrina.]

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1) CNN/Global Office: Early life crisis hits male workers [Les hommes britanniques connaissent la crise de la quarantaine de plus en plus tôt...]
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/08/03/early.life.crisis/index.html

Early life crisis hits male workers

By Nick Easen for CNN
Wednesday, August 3, 2005 Posted: 1319 GMT (2119 HKT)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Most men want a better job, a bigger house, more holidays and a lot more besides. But the pursuit of a better work-life balance is proving a little too stressful for the younger modern male.

A new report says that many men in Britain are finding office and home life too much to handle. But it is not men facing a mid-life crisis that are going through this phase -- it is the younger generation that are now suffering from early-life crises.

The research group Mintel found that 23 percent of 25- to 44-year-old British men felt stressed in the office, compared with an average of 19 percent. This group is also concerned about a lack of personal time and earning enough money for the kind of lifestyle they want to live.

The survey of 1,883 men earlier this year found that nearly one in ten men between the ages of 25 and 44 are anxiety-ridden, worrying about employment issues and time pressures. Problems are made worse if they have children and especially if they are divorced. "British men are finding the work-life balance very difficult," Amanda Lintott, a consumer analyst at Mintel told CNN. "Only 25 percent do not worry about anything at all, and our research shows that women are handling things better." A further 16 percent of men worry about having enough money put aside for retirement and being able to pay for their children's education.

Many men in this early-life crisis phase hope to earn more money and work less, while still reducing their debt. Mintel suggests that these people need to dampen down their over-ambitious plans and be more realistic, if they want to lead happier and less stressed lives.

The change of men's role in society was also highlighted as one of the elements contributing to high levels of stress and anxiety. "There is a lack of direction due to their changing roles, men do not know where their roles are -- and whether they should stay at home, especially if their partner has a better job," says Lintott. One of the biggest changes in British society has been the increase in the number of women going to work, now only eight percent of men agree that a woman's place is in the home.

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http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/men/news/education/s/166/166470_exam_failure_equals_deferred_success.html

Exam failure equals deferred success

THE concept of "failure" should be removed from the British education system and be replaced with "deferred success", according to a motion being considered by a teaching union. The proposal has been tabled for the forthcoming annual conference of the Professional Association of Teachers in Buxton on July 25.

Its author, retired primary school teacher Liz Beattie, acknowledged that the wording of her motion was controversial, but insisted it reflected the way in which the educational system was developing. It should be possible for pupils who fail exams to "bank" the parts in which they did well and then retake the remainder, deferring their success until they have passed all the papers and modules, she said.

Possible

Ms Beattie told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We have made so much development in recent years in making examinations more flexible, doing them in modules so you can concentrate on different parts of them at different times. "What happens when an exam is failed but, for example, three-quarters of it is perfectly satisfactorily done? It should be possible to do the other bits as add-ons afterwards and to defer the success of the exam."

Ms Beattie said the wording of the motion had been deliberately phrased to spark controversy. "When one words a motion for a conference or a discussion group, one isn't looking for agreement and a row of nodding heads, one is looking for an interesting discussion," she said. "Of course in the wording of this we were playing with words, but there is a very serious concept behind it, which is that there is certainly room for flexibility."

The Pat is one of the smaller teaching unions, with 35,000 members in schools, colleges and nurseries across the UK.

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www.theherald.co.uk/news/43415.html

How to stop pupils failing: call it ‘deferred success’
CAMERON SIMPSON July 20 2005

Failure can come in many guises. Joseph Heller, the author, once described the "self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody". But if a group of teachers has its way, the word "fail" will be deleted from the school vocabulary and cloaked with the term "deferred success".

Being told they are a failure in class can put children off education for life, they believe. The idea will be put forward next week by members of the Professional Association of Teachers, one of the smaller teaching unions, at its annual conference at Buxton, Derbyshire. Liz Beattie, a retired primary teacher, said some children who struggle with academic subjects needed help to find success in other areas, such as work-related courses. Mrs Beattie and a colleague, Wesley Paxton, will propose abolishing the word "fail" in a motion which, if passed, would mean its becomes union policy.

The motion says: "Conference believes it is time to delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary, to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'." Mrs Beattie, 68, who has 37 years of teaching experience, said: "If children at an early age decide, 'I can't do school, I can't learn to read or do this maths stuff,' they are losing an enormous part of their lives." She added: "We need to stop using failure as a dirty word."

It is not a sentiment shared by Truman Capote, the American writer. Failure, he said, was the condiment that gives success its flavour. Take it away and life could be as tasteless as school dinners.

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http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1532458,00.html

Kelly dismisses calls to ban 'failure' in class

Press Association
Wednesday July 20, 2005

The education secretary, Ruth Kelly, today dismissed calls for the word "fail" to be banned from schools and replaced with the concept of "deferred success".

The Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) will debate the idea at the union's annual conference next week. Some children are put off education for life after being told they are a failure in class, PAT officials will argue.

But Ms Kelly said she thought the notion of "deferred success" instead of failure deserved "nought out of 10". Young people must learn about success and failure to prepare themselves for adult life, she said. The minister told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "For that particular proposal, I think I might give them nought out of 10. "To be quite honest, I think it's really important for young people to grow up with the ability to get on and achieve, but also to find out what failure is. "When young people grow up and enter the adult world they have to deal with success and failure, and education is about creating well-rounded young people who can deal with these sorts of situations."

The general secretary of PAT, Jean Gemmell, defended the ideas behind the motion and suggested that Ms Kelly was being too "simplistic". She said it was "unhelpful" and "unfortunate" that Ms Kelly was commenting on a motion which had not even been debated yet, and was therefore not yet PAT policy. "It seems to me that Ruth's response is to the words of the motion, not what might be behind the motion," she said. "It's easy to look at the words of the debate motion and be simplistic about it."

She added: "Of course there are things that we all fail at and many of them don't matter. "I fail at trying to play tennis - so I don't play tennis," she said. "We are talking about young people who struggle to read, write and can't relate to other people. These are things you cannot be allowed to fail at."

Ms Gemmell backed Ms Kelly's view that children should be helped to understand success and failure to prepare them for later life. The PAT motion, being put forward by retired teacher Liz Beattie, from Suffolk, said: "Conference believes it is time to delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'."

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3) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: The Nation's Umpire [Sur la confirmation de John Roberts comme nouveau président de la Cour suprême US.]
http://teacher.scholastic.com/

The Nation's Umpire
By Suzanne Freeman

September 13—Umpires don't make the rules, and neither does the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said Judge John Roberts, a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Roberts used a baseball analogy (a comparison between two different things) to describe the job of a Chief Justice. "The role of an umpire and a judge is critical," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "They make sure everybody plays by the rules, but it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire."

The Senate Judiciary Committee began confirmation hearings for Roberts on Monday. The hearings are the first in 11 years for a Supreme Court nominee and the first in 19 for a chief justice.

A federal Appeals Court Judge, Roberts was first nominated by President George W. Bush to replace retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Last week, after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Bush changed his mind. He named Roberts as his choice for Chief Justice and promised a replacement for O'Connor soon.

After questioning Roberts for several days, the judiciary committee will vote whether or not to send the nomination to the full Senate for a vote. A majority of the Senate's 100 members must vote in favor of Roberts before he can become the nation's 17th Chief Justice.

The Issues

Each of the 18-members of the judiciary committee began the hearings by making lengthy statements. The statements showed deep divisions along party lines. Democrats pointed out that the role of the courts is to protect civil liberties and rights. They said they want straight answers to their questions about how Roberts would vote on important issues. "The American people want to know where you stand on these issues and I hope you will answer the questions put before you here," said Senator Edward Kennedy.

Republicans focused more on the process. They said they did not think Roberts should be required to answer specific questions about how he would vote. "Just because we are curious does not mean that our curiosity should be satisfied," said Senator John Cornyn. "You have no obligation to tell us how you will rule on any issue that might come before you if you sit on the Supreme Court."

Roberts assured the committee that he had no pre-set ideas about how he would vote on any issue. "Mr. Chairman, I come before the committee with no agenda," he said. "I have no platform. Judges are not politicians who can promise to do certain things in exchange for votes. And I will decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability. And I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat."

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5) CNN/Global Office: Three years' service now long term [Les salariés britanniques passent de moins en moins de temps dans un poste donné.]
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/08/10/job.life/index.html

Three years' service now long term

Wednesday, August 10, 2005 Posted: 1639 GMT (0039 HKT)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Long gone are the days when people left school and stayed in the same job until they retired.

These days three years is an eternity when it comes to employment, with new survey results showing that most people do not expect to be in the same job come 2008. The survey by Portfolio Payroll, a London-based financial recruitment firm, found that 93 percent of the 4,100 people surveyed cannot see themselves being in their current job three years from now.

Despite this figure, seven out of 10 people, or 78 percent, questioned said they enjoyed their job -- a rise from 54 percent in a similar survey a year earlier. However, money was a key motivator for people and eight of 10 said they wanted more money, while 92 percent said the main reason they chose a job was because of the salary that came with it.

A year earlier the figure was lower, with 84 percent of people saying money was the key motivating factor for taking a job. Almost nine out of 10, or 89 percent, feared going on holiday because they worried they would not have a job on their return.

Portfolio Payroll managing director Danny Done said factors such as flexible working hours and increased benefits helped contribute to job satisfaction for employees. However, he said the high number of respondents who felt insecure about the impact taking time off could have on their position was shocking. "With employees believing they can be hired and fired easily by employers, they feel they are disposable which adds to the belief that the jobs market is increasingly competitive and unstable," he said. "It seems loyalty and commitment to a firm has to be bought to ease monetary and long term security fears job seekers behold."

He said the concept of having a job for life had long disappeared. "Employees seldom spend over five years at a company today, they are looking for an opportunity that will simply pay more and the respondents we spoke to in this survey said that they are always actively looking for a job with a higher salary being the motivating factor."

The poll was taken during a five-month period in the United Kingdom and covered a range of industries.

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6) AUDIO SPECIAL/On the Media: Refugees [Retrouver l'audio sur la page indiquée. Cette semaine, le "débat" aux EU sur l'emploi du mot "réfugiés" pour décrire les personnes déplacées par Katrina.]
h ttp://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_090905_refugee.html
Word Watch: Refugees

September 9, 2005

BROOKE GLADSTONE: From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. For several days the word scarcely registered.

**AARON BROWN, CNN: Several thousand refugees from New Orleans have now arrived at the Astrodome in Houston.

**KATIE COURIC, NBC: Thousands of frustrated and angry refugees in New Orleans are still desperate for food, water and shelter.

**TED KOPPEL, ABC: He puts the number of refugees trapped there at 15 thousand or more.

BOB GARFIELD: Katrina victims were uprooted and displaced, fleeing their homes with whatever they could carry, seeking refuge in motels, shelters, domed football stadiums or wherever they could find it -- residents one day, hapless vagabonds the next. In other words, refugees. Then came the protests. The Reverend Jesse Jackson weighed in, saying the term as applied to the largely black population of New Orleans was racist and demeaning.

**JESSE JACKSON: We are not refugees. That in itself is racist language. We are American citizens. We are not refugees.

BOB GARFIELD: NAACP President Bruce Gordon said the term suggested an "alien other, somehow not of us." And media critic Kelly Crossley offered her hunch as to why.

KELLY CROSSLEY: If you think about a refugee, what comes to mind are those people walking across borders in the Sudan, walking across Somalia. And in your ahead, you see those people as persons of color without a home, carrying everything that they own in one bag.

BOB GARFIELD: But is that really the default image provoked by the word "refugee?" Kenneth Bacon, president of the advocacy organization Refugees International, thinks it certainly should not be.

KENNETH BACON: There are thousands and thousands of refugees in the United States, hundreds of thousands. And they don't fit any sort of racial pattern. These are people who were fleeing for their lives, fleeing for freedom, trying to find a better life for themselves and their children. That's what the term "refugee" means to me. And many of these people have great dignity and have that dignity in the face of great loss and trauma.

BOB GARFIELD: New York Times columnist William Safire went farther, suggesting the critics just shut up because a refugee is simply someone who seeks refuge. But as Stanford University linguist Jeffrey Nunberg points out:

GEOFFREY NUNBERG: That's not quite right. If I duck into a ski hut to stay out of a blizzard, you wouldn't call me a refugee. And I think they missed the fact that for a lot of people this word really is charged with negative associations with the stigma that's attached to that word.

BOB GARFIELD: That is largely because refugees, however dignified they may be, tend eventually to represent a burden to those who take them in, a drain on resources and ever present reminder of misery. Like the crippled and the scarred and the urban homeless, they make us uncomfortable. Dehumanization is but one step away. Maybe in recognition of that tragic reality, President Bush asserted this week Katrina's victims are not refugees but Americans in America who "need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens." Surely it is why many news organizations, including this one, decided to replace "refugee" with the relatively non stigmatizing "evacuee." Others, such as the Times and the Associated Press, reserve the privilege of choosing the best noun, in the words of AP editor Kathleen Carroll, "to capture the sweep and scope of the effects of this historic natural disaster on a vast number of our citizens." For his part, linguist Nunberg thinks they're being a bit tone deaf to the word's negative connotations but he doubts that the substitute terminology will eradicate the stigma.

GEOFFREY NUNBERG: You could think of it as the drapery you put over furniture that eventually takes the shape of the furniture. It's quite likely that probably "evacuee" will acquire an inherited stigma just as people begin to resent these dislocated people rather than welcoming them, as happened to D.P., or "displaced person," after the Second World War.

BOB GARFIELD: Because changing the nomenclature does not change the underlying thing. On the other hand, as State University of New York at Stonybrook linguist Mark Aronoff points out, words are shaped by more than the underlying thing. They are influenced by and have influence on the society around them.

MARK ARONOFF: Language is a social contract. The fact that people have to negotiate over what they are called is indicative of an underlying social problem. I think what this really tells us is that we don't control the meanings of words and we don't know what words mean. This is a word that's been in everyday use for centuries and yet it has a power that we can't stop.

BOB GARFIELD: It would be easy to dismiss the present sensitivities by recalling that the mostly white victims of previous hurricanes were also called "refugees" and voiced no offense. But if Aronoff is right and if Kelly Crossley is right, that's not the point.

KELLY CROSSLEY: I've heard a lot of people saying we're playing word games at a time of crisis. This is ridiculous. But you know what? Basically that sentiment came from people who have not been on the other end of language directed at them in a negative way that had the power to hurt. So when you have been at the other end of that and you know what that feels like and you know what the impact of that is over days, over weeks, over years, over centuries, then this is really quite important. It's not a word game. It's really not a politically correct thing. It really has to do with paying attention to people's humanity.

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7) KSDK TV: FEMA sends trucks full of ice for Katrina victims to Maine [On ignore pourquoi l'agence de gestion des catastrophes a commandé de la glace pour Katrina qu'elle envoie maintenant pour être stockée dans le Maine...]

http://ksdk.com/news/us_world_article.aspx?storyid=85020
FEMA Sends Trucks Full Of Ice For Katrina Victims To Maine

The trucks started arriving this weekend, and they're expected to keep coming through Sunday.

City officials say they have no idea why the trucks are here, only that the city has been asked to help out with traffic problems. But the truck drivers NEWSCENTER spoke to said they went all the way down to the gulf coast with the ice -- stayed for a few days -- and then were told by FEMA they needed to drive to Maine to store it.

The truck drivers, who are from all over the country, tell us they were subcontracted by FEMA. They started arriving over the weekend, and city spokesperson Peter Dewitt says as many as 200 trucks could come to the city by the end of the week.

The trucks are storing the ice at Americold, a company with a warehouse on Read Street in Portland. People who live nearby say all the traffic has been baffling them for days. The trucks can only unload 4 at a time -- so the city is allowing some of them to sit at the International Marine Terminal and at the Jetport's satellite parking lot.

No one NEWSCENTER talked to has any idea when, or even if the ice will go back to the gulf coast.

The film, narrated by Morgan Freeman, distributed by Warner Independent Pictures, is a real-life documentary which follows a flock of emperor penguins in the Antarctic for a year as they journey 70 miles in harsh winds and freezing cold temperatures by foot, going through the harshest conditions in the struggle to survive - all to find true "love" and to find a mate and reproduce. This new French documentary follows them throughout the entire 9-month mating period.

The film beings with penguins jumping out of the water and starting their journey. The penguins journey to the breeding ground and travel in a single file line, walking nearly the entire way, to a distance seventy miles from their starting point.

Once all of the penguins finally reach the destination, they begin to pair off. Some fights occur as there are less males than females, but eventually they are paired off as best as possible.

After the female lays the egg, the egg is passed from female to male. The male protects the egg while the mother makes the 70 mile journey back to the water to eat. While the mother is away, the father shields the egg from the freezing weather conditions.

When the mother returns, the father makes the journey to find feed for itself as well. The chick hatches while the mother is away, so she sees her chick for the first time upon her return. They continue to go back and forth over the entire summer to provide food for themselves and their offspring. Due to harsh conditions, most of the young chicks do not survive.

The film takes viewers in a breathtaking entertaining educational experience. "The complexity of the penguins' lifestyle testifies to a Divine Creator," said one commentator.

"To think that natural selection or even the penguins themselves could come up with the idea to migrate miles and miles multiple times each year without their partner or their offspring is a bit insulting to my intellect. How great is our God!"

The successful film which was released in US in June, is set to hit the screens in the UK in December.

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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/huffpost/20050915/cm_huffpost/007356_200509150105
Gene Stone: The Passion of the Penguin

Gene Stone Thu Sep 15, 2:05 AM ET

The Christian far-right has discovered the joy of penguins.
ADVERTISEMENT

As recently noted on the Huffington Post, Christians all over the country are rejoicing at the success of the documentary The March of the Penguins, which documents the long journey Emperor penguins must take to reproduce and thrive.

On the right-wing Web site WorldNetDaily.com, an opponent of abortion wrote that the movie “verified the beauty of life and the rightness of protecting it.” And at a conference for young Republicans, the editor of National Review urged participants to see the movie because it promoted monogamy.

In another Christian magazine, writer Andrew Coffin says, "That any one of these eggs survives is a remarkable feat - and, some might suppose, a strong case for intelligent design.”

And still other Christian commentators have dubbed the movie The Passion of the Penguin, in reference to The Passion of the Christ, another successful movie that found enormous support in the far-right Christian community.

Do you ever wonder what these ultra far-right people are thinking? Everyone else in the world, or at least, everyone else in the world that pertains to science and reality, has been reading all the new documentation about homosexuality and nature.

For instance, researchers at Oregon State University recently discovered that about eight percent of rams are gay. The scientists, at the university along with those at the Oregon Health & Science University and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's Sheep Experiment Station, say that the finding may prove sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular, may be biologically driven.

Meanwhile, Boston Parks officials disclosed that Romeo and Juliet, the famous pair of white swans in the city’s Pubic Garden, are really two females. Gay lovers, these swans: Juliet and Juliet.

Actually, the book Biological Exuberance revealed that homosexual behavior had been documented in some 450 species; the book was cited by the American Psychiatric Association in a amicus curiae brief concerning the case in which the Supreme court overturned sodomy laws (for humans. Luckily for the swans and the rams, the Christians have yet to pass laws prohibiting them from falling in love).

But most relevant to the March of the Penguins is that there are more documented cases of gay penguins than perhaps any other species. Think about Roy and Silo, the gay penguins at Manhattan’s Central Park Zoo. This male homosexual couple fell in love and were so eager to have a baby together that they once placed a rock in their nest and sat on it to keep it warm.

Their keeper eventually gave them a fertile egg, which they hatched.

The real world is filled with incidents of gay penguins. Wendell and Cass, a happy pair of male African penguins, live at the New York Aquarium. There are twenty such pairs in Japanese zoos, as well as many throughout Europe.

No animal in recent history except, perhaps, man, has been so celebrated for its homosexuality. Penguins are coming out all over. Including the South Pole.

Funny that the far-right Christians don’t want to deal with that.

A recently published, in-depth article by writer Neil Swidey in the Boston Globe contains this paragraph: “While post-birth development may well play a supporting role, the roots of homosexuality, at least in men, appear to be in place by the time a child is born.”

Swidey goes on to say, “After spending years sifting through all the available data, British researchers Glenn Wilson and Qazi Rahman come to an even bolder conclusion in their forthcoming book Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation, in which they write: ‘Sexual orientation is something we are born with and not `acquired' from our social environment.’”

What do you want to bet that the far-right doesn’t want to deal with this, too?

But it’s something the penguins already know.

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9) WESH TV: Florida subdivision bans hurricane evacuees [Les habitants d'un lotissement en Floride se voient interdire d'héberger des victimes de Katrina par leur copropriété.]
http://www.wesh.com/news/4951969/detail.html
Stay Out: Florida Subdivision Bans Hurricane Evacuees

POSTED: 6:30 am EDT September 9, 2005

OCALA, Fla. -- Subdivision rules are keeping some Ocala residents from temporarily housing Hurricane Katrina evacuees, and angry homeowners said it might make them move. The board of Majestic Oaks Homeowners Association told homeowners their deed restrictions prohibit housing people who fled the Gulf Coast. According to the Ocala Star-Banner, a flier, distributed by the Majestic Oaks homeowners association Saturday, said that rather than allowing "additional families" in the community, residents were encouraged to contribute to hurricane relief funds.

The board sent the notice after learning that a minister in the 500-home subdivision had traveled to New Orleans and planned to take in three families of evacuees.

Resident Georgia Ann Bolla said she's ashamed to live in Majestic Oaks and she's ready to move. She told the paper that she went "ballistic" when she got the notice. "I'm proud of what Texas is doing for the refugees, we know what hospitality is," she said. "We have a wonderful community, but this is a disgrace."

Homeowners association president Bob Watson said legal liability means the restrictions can't be ignored. "They're talking about their feelings, not using common sense," Watson told the paper. "We feel bad about it, very upset about it ... There's no real solution."

The director of a Florida community coalition said similar restrictions are routinely upheld in court, but boards can decide to not enforce them.

"We didn't know the covenants would mean we couldn't help people,” Bryce Mercier, who is both a Majestic Oaks resident and superintendent for the development's builder, Triple Crown Homes, told the paper.

"These are single-family residences, and that's what they were intended for," Audrey Andrews, vice president of the homeowners association, said Monday. Andrews did say that association residents could bring in evacuees who are family members.

According to the newspaper, in 1996, the association took a homeowner to court to make him remove a flagpole and the American flag from his yard.

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10) The New York Times Magazine/Consumed: Jeans Engineering [Tout sur les derniers bluejeans.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/magazine/28CONSUMED.html
Jeans Engineering

by ROB WALKER
Published: August 28, 2005

Prps Jeans

By the 1950's, Paul Fussell suggested in his book ''Uniforms,'' wearing blue jeans ''became one of the pop styles of anti-fashion.'' And thus, unavoidably, jeans promptly became ''just as much a uniform as the dark suit.'' Since then, fashion types have tried to liberate denim from bourgeois casual-Friday uniformity; a current attempt comes from the growing swarm of ''premium'' and ''superpremium'' jeans.

Donwan Harrell, a founder of the clothing brand Akademiks, is a denim fanatic and can go on in some detail about his newest project, a premium denim line called Prps, which includes jeans that cost $250 to $400 a pair. The brand's target buyer is not the person who rejects fashion but the denim supersnob: the type who studies interior stitching and other things that no one else notices. The production run for Prps jeans is quite small, and they are available only in men's sizes, although there will be nine new styles for the fall. Prps is sold in boutiques and a few high-end department stores and is equal parts reaction to and example of the present denim frenzy.

Earlier iterations of the high-end jeans idea were mostly about slapping an established designer's name (Calvin Klein, etc.) onto the back pocket. Tim Bess, who covers men's wear for the Doneger Group, a fashion consulting firm, says the contemporary fancy-jeans consumer wants something different. The premium hits -- True Religion, G-Star and 7 for All Mankind -- made ''detailing more important than the actual logo,'' he says. On the other hand, he notes, their success ''has a lot to do with the back pocket,'' since the designs are recognizable to those in the know. And, really, isn't a distinct pocket the same thing as a logo?

Still, one of the core principles of premium jeans is the inherent quality of the garment. And Harrell offered me a detailed chart to demonstrate exactly why his jeans cost so much. For starters, mass-market jeans are made in China, and many premium rivals are made in California, but Prps are manufactured in Japan. So what? Well, the Japanese manufacturer uses Levi's looms from the 1960's. These are less efficient than more modern looms but produce a fabric with a stronger edge. Along with a cutting process that wastes a lot of material, this helps to drive up the cost of fabric per jean to $30 (compared with $5.25 in China).

The cloth-making process, Harrell says, was inspired by the denim worn by actual workers before jeans became middle-class leisure wear. So were the details that seem to be the most crucial component of premium denim: the flaws. The process of making denim look 2, 5 or even 20 years old is touted by some jeans makers in long-winded tags that seem designed to ''educate'' the consumer -- like a pair of Paper Denim & Cloth jeans explaining that ''individually applied hand abrasion and scraping,'' among other things, were inflicted on the denim for an ''average processing time'' of 6.4 hours. Harrell has studied his own worn-out jeans and the ones worn by mechanics he deals with while drag-racing to guide the production of holes, fading and even the occasional ''organic'' greasy smear. This process, he says, pushes production costs to $95 a pair.

Chinese and American-made jeans (produced for $19.20 and $43 a pair in Harrell's estimation) introduce flaws with far less care, he argues, pointing to creases and marks in various rival denims that are ''not realistic.'' Only by faithfully replicating the damage caused by physical work can the haute-couture demands of dedicated denim connoisseurs be satisfied.

Bess, the men's-wear consultant, suspects that high-end denim is poised for a shakeout, with the likes of Old Navy imitating premium tropes that will probably satisfy people who aren't experts (that is, the overwhelming majority of the shopping public). Harrell intends to keep Prps premium and rare. Interestingly, he makes no claim that a pair of Prps might actually last longer than other jeans. But while denim fanatics may like the idea of a stronger fabric, the reality is that they will move onto new styles long before actual durability becomes an issue. For them, settling for anything less than the latest premium breakthrough would be like being out of uniform.

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John Mackey sees no limit to the appetite for natural foods

NO ONE admits to being more surprised by the runaway success of Whole Foods Market than its boss. “In all my profound wisdom I decreed a maximum of 100 stores, and thought that would saturate the United States,” recalls John Mackey of the time when his company went public in 1992. That in itself was quite a milestone for a grocery retailer that he began in 1978 in a garage in Austin, Texas, when he was living in a vegetarian co-op. At first, hippies and college students were his main customers. But now, with over 170 stores feeding America's organic-food-addicted middle class, Whole Foods Market has become firmly established as the world's largest natural-foods chain.

Nor is there any sign of the firm's rapid growth coming to an end. Its sales rose by 23% to $3.9 billion in the latest financial year. Mr Mackey is now expanding the firm abroad, initially with a move to London. As for the success of this, a chastened Mr Mackey says, “we actually don't have the least bit of doubt”.

To understand the allure of Whole Foods Market, look no further than the new landmark store that it opened in Austin, Texas earlier this year. Occupying almost 80,000 square feet (7,300 square metres), it is one of the firm's largest, and features a vast array of treats, from organic enchiladas to an in-house meat smoker. There are sampling stations, cooking demonstrations and café tables galore. Employees, called “team members”, are as enthusiastic as the shoppers, and gladly explain company policy on, say, sustainable fishing (no Chilean sea bass, for instance, as it is seriously overfished). The firm is starting to label its own-brand foods to indicate any genetically modified ingredients.

Yet fancy food is just one part of the recipe. Whole Foods Market is also deeply committed to its “green mission”. “We see the environment as a stakeholder in the business,” says Mr Mackey who, no surprise, lives his brand. Trim and fit, he prowls the office in shorts and a handyman-style canvas shirt, and is very much the outdoors type. This summer he is hiking along part of the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada.

The firm's environmentalism is decentralised: each store is encouraged to experiment, and implement what best suits its own circumstances. So, for example, the California stores use solar power, taking advantage of subsidies provided by the state government. In other locations, some use wind energy. Newer stores, such as one in Sarasota, Florida, are pioneering new types of “green building”, for instance, using recycled materials. Successes and failures are shared via the internet.

Yet Mr Mackey's organic idealism and greenery should not be confused with a lack of hard-nosed business acumen. He can quote Adam Smith with the best of them. He is often criticised for wiping out the small, local natural-food businesses that, not so long ago, were what the industry was all about. He is also opposed to trade unions. Whole Foods Market workers in Madison, Wisconsin, caused a stir three years ago when they voted to join a union, but the company persuaded them to back down. Currently his stores remain non-union. Mr Mackey says he dislikes the “adversarial nature” of labour unions—the “zero-sum mentality” whereby “if shareholders are winning, labour is losing”. The market, he says, is the “best check against exploitation, because people can vote with their feet.” Indeed, says Roy Bingham of Health Business Partners, an investment bank, Whole Foods Market benefits from the undying keenness to work for it of the “sandals brigade” of young idealists. The firm is regularly cited by Fortune as one of the top 100 places to work in America.

If there is something familiar about a giant, anti-union retailer crowding out small local businesses, Mr Mackey rejects any comparison with Wal-Mart—well aware of the battering that the world's biggest retailer has taken because of its relentless growth. “It's like comparing a Hyundai car to a Lexus,” he says. “Wal-Mart's focus is on getting the cheapest stuff in; we're focused on getting the best stuff.” That said, Wal-Mart is starting to offer organic and natural foods as it pursues wealthier customers. This may spell trouble some day for Whole Foods Market. For all its growth, the company is still dwarfed by Wal-Mart, which had revenues last year of $285 billion.

Also unusually for the organic-food industry, but in common with Wal-Mart, Whole Foods Market has grown partly by acquisition, buying chains such as Fresh Fields, Bread & Circus and, in London, Fresh & Wild. More acquisitions may follow abroad. Although there is now little left to buy in America, Mr Mackey still sees opportunity to grow there. Whole Foods Market currently has a presence in only 39 of the country's top 50 metropolitan markets. “None of those markets has reached saturation, plus the whole market is continuing to rapidly expand,” he says. As for Europe, Mr Mackey wants to open a big Whole Foods Market store in London, but has yet to find the right site. If London does well, then he would move aggressively into continental Europe.

Now in your basement

Always looking for new opportunities, Mr Mackey is now trying to combine organic food with the other craze gripping America's middle class: real estate. The idea is to build Whole Food Market stores into apartment-building basements. “In urban areas like New York or London, land is so expensive that it really helps to make our stores more affordable if we can get multi-use developments on top of us,” says Mr Mackey. “And housing is perfect because it doesn't compete with us and in fact gives us customers” who enjoy direct access by elevator to the store.

So, is there anything that could cause Whole Foods Market to choke? “You know, I'm not a worrier,” says Mr Mackey. Barring some freak event such as food terrorism, Whole Foods Market seems set for more success. Mr Mackey certainly seems relaxed about the future. When trekking through the wilderness, he does not even bother to carry a mobile phone.

http://www.iht.com/protected/articles/2005/07/29/opinion/edkrug.php

Paul Krugman: French family values
Paul Krugman The New York Times
SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2005

PRINCETON, New Jersey Americans tend to believe that we do everything better than anyone else. That belief makes it hard for us to learn from others. For example, I've found that many people refuse to believe that Europe has anything to teach us about health care policy. After all, they say, how can Europeans be good at health care, when their economies are such failures?

Now, there's no reason a country can't have both an excellent health care system and a troubled economy (or vice versa). But are European economies really doing that badly?

The answer is no. Americans are doing a lot of strutting these days, but a head-to-head comparison between the economies of the United States and Europe - France, in particular - shows that the big difference is in priorities, not performance. We're talking about two highly productive societies that have made a different tradeoff between work and family time. And there's a lot to be said for the French choice.

First things first: Given all the bad-mouthing the French receive, you may be surprised that I describe their society as "productive." Yet according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, productivity in France - gross domestic product per hour worked - is actually a bit higher than in the United States. True, France's GDP per person is well below U.S. levels. But that's because French workers spend more time with their families.

OK, I'm oversimplifying a bit. There are several reasons why the French put in fewer hours of work per capita than we do. One is that some of the French would like to work, but can't: France's unemployment rate, which tends to run about 4 percentage points higher than the U.S. rate, is a real problem. Another is that many French citizens retire early. But the main story is that full-time French workers work shorter weeks and take more vacations than full-time American workers.

The point is that to the extent the French have less income than we do, it's mainly a matter of choice. And to see the consequences of that choice, let's ask how the situation of a typical middle-class family in France compares with that of its American counterpart.

The French family, without question, has lower disposable income. This translates into lower personal consumption: a smaller car, a smaller house, less eating out.

But there are compensations for this lower level of consumption. Because French schools are good across the country, the French family doesn't have to worry as much about getting its children into a good school district. Nor does the French family, with guaranteed access to excellent health care, have to worry about losing health insurance or being driven into bankruptcy by medical bills.

Perhaps even more important, however, the members of that French family are compensated for their lower income with much more time together. Fully employed French workers average about seven weeks of paid vacation a year. In America, that figure is less than four.

So which society has made the better choice? I've been looking at a new study of international differences in working hours by Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser of Harvard University and Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth College. The study's main point is that differences in government regulations, rather than culture (or taxes), explain why Europeans work less than Americans.

But the study also suggests that in this case, government regulations actually allow people to make a desirable tradeoff - modestly lower income in return for more time with friends and family - the kind of deal an individual would find hard to negotiate. The authors write: "It is hard to obtain more vacation for yourself from your employer and even harder, if you do, to coordinate with all your friends to get the same deal and go on vacation together."

And they even offer some statistical evidence that working fewer hours makes Europeans happier, despite the loss of potential income. It's not a definitive result, and as they note, the whole subject is "politically charged." But let me make an observation: Some of that political charge seems to have the wrong sign.

American conservatives despise European welfare states like France. Yet many of them stress the importance of "family values." And whatever else you may say about French economic policies, they seem extremely supportive of the family as an institution. Senator Rick Santorum, are you reading this?

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