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Week 42, 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: March of the Penguins supporting intelligent design theory [Les réacs chrétiens US font feu de tout bois en exploitant le film 'La Marche de l'Empereur' pour soutenir leurs théories créationistes.]
3) The New York Times/Paul Krugman: French family values [Un commentateur économiste des plus lus aux E-U prend la défense du savoir-vivre français.]
4) Big Picture: New office slang [Glossaire pour être dans le coup.]

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THE REGULARS: Summary
5) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: A new nominee [Bush propose comme nouveau juge à la Cour suprême son avocate personnelle.]
6) The Puzzler: Malaysians [Un casse-tête.]
7) CNN/Global Office: All work and no play [Les cadres travaillent trop.]
8) AUDIO/On the Media: Evolving debate [Emission radio avec transcription, cette fois-ci sur comment la presse américaine traite le "débat" sur l'évolution.]

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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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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.

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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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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4) Big Picture: New office slang [Glossaire pour être dans le coup.]
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2005/03/new_office_slan.html
New Office Slang

404 - Someone who is clueless. From the Web error message, “404 Not Found,” which means the document requested couldn’t be located. “Don’t bother asking John. He’s 404.”

Adminisphere - The rarified organizational layers above the rank and file that makes decisions that are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant. (cf atmosphere)

Alpha Geek - The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. “I dunno, ask Rick. He’s our alpha geek.” (alpha male = le mâme dominant ; geek = un jeune homme qui manque de savoir faire social mais qui est très calé en tecnique, surtout en informatique)

Assmosis - The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard. (ass + osmosis)

Batmobiling - putting up emotional shields. Refers to the retracting armor that covers the Batmobile as in “she started talking marriage and he started batmobiling”

Beepilepsy - The brief siezure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.

Betamaxed - When a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition as in “Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market”

Blamestorming - A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.(cf brainstorming)

Blowing Your Buffer - Losing one’s train of thought. Occurs when the person you are speaking with won’t let you get a word in edgewise or has just said something so astonishing that your train gets derailed. “Damn, I just blew my buffer!” (Synonym: “Head Crash”)

Body Nazis - Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn’t work out obsessively.

Bookmark - To take note of a person for future reference. “After seeing his cool demo at Siggraph, I bookmarked him.” (bookmark = marque page, ou signet ou favori dans un navigateur web)

Brain Fart - A byproduct of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly; a burst of useful information. “I know you’re busy on the Microsoft story, but can you give us a brain fart on the Mitnik bust?” Variation of old hacker slang that had more negative connotations.

CGI Joe - A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure. (GI Joe est le nom générique d'un soldat américain, et le nom d'une poupée genre Action Man)

Chainsaw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands. (chainsaw = tronçonneuse)

Chip Jewelry - Old computers destined to be scrapped or turned into decoration. “I paid three grand for that Mac and now it’s nothing but chip jewelry.”

Chips and Salsa - Chips = hardware, salsa = software. “First we gotta figure out if the problem’s in your chips or your salsa.”

CLM (Career Limiting Move)- Used by microserfs to describe an ill-advised activity. “Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.”

Cobweb - A WWW site that never changes. (cob = araignée [vieillot] cobweb=toile d'araignée poussiereuse)

Crapplet - A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. “I just wasted 30 minutes downloading that crapplet!”

CROP DUSTING - Surreptitiously farting while passing thru a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING.....

Cube Farm - An office filled with cubicles.

Dead Tree Edition - The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms.

Dilberted - To be exploited and oppressed by your boss, as is Dilbert, the comic strip character. “Damn, I’ve been dilberted again! The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week.”

Dorito Syndrome - The feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content. “I just spent six hours surfing the Web, and now I’ve got a bad case of Dorito Syndrome.”

Egosurfing - Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one’s own name.

Elvis Year - The peak year of popularity as in “1993 was Barney the dinosaur’s Elvis year”

Flight Risk - Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon. (flight risk s'utilise normalement dans le contexte juridique pour parler d'un prévenu qui doit rester en détention préventive pour prévenir une fuite)

Generica - Fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions as in “we were so lost in generica that I couldn’t remember what city it was” (generic + America)

Glazing - Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?” (when your eyes glaze over, it means you are bored or tired ; glaze = glaçage)

Going Postal - Totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees who went on shooting rampages

GOOD job - A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Gray Matter - Older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms trying to appear more professional and established.

Graybar Land - The place you go while you’re staring at a computer that’s processing something very slowly (while you watch the gray bar creep across the screen). “That CAD rendering put me in graybar land for like an hour.”

High Dome - Egghead, scientist, PhD

Idea Hamsters - People whose idea generators are always running.

Irritainment - Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.

It’s a Feature - From the old adage, “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” Used sarcastically to describe an unpleasant problem you wish to gloss over.

Keyboard Plaque - The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on some people’s computer keyboards.

Link Rot - The process by which web page’s links become obsolete as the sites they’re connected to change or die.

Meatspace - The physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also “carbon community” “facetime” “F2F” “RL”

Mouse Potato - The online generation’s answer to the couch potato.

Ohnosecond - That minuscule fraction of time during which you realize you’ve just made a terrible error.

Open-Collar Workers - People who work at home or telecommute.

Percussive Maintenance - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Perot - To quit unexpectedly. “My cellular phone just perot’ed.”

Plug-and-Play - A new hire who doesn’t require training. “That new guy is totally plug-and-play.”

Prairie Dogging - When something loud happens in a cube farm, causing heads to pop up over the walls trying to see what’s going on.

Ribs ‘N’ Dick - A budget with no fat as in “we’ve got ribs ‘n’ dick and we’re supposed to find 20K for memory upgrades”

Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end. “God, today was a total salmon day!”

Seagull Manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves. (seagull= mouette)

Siliwood - The coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and computers; also “Hollywired”

SITCOMs - What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. “Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage”

Square-Headed Spouse - Computer (conjoint carré = son PC)

Squirt the Bird - To transmit a signal up to a satellite. “Crew and talent are ready...what time do we squirt the bird?”

Starter Marriage - A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy - A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.

Swiped Out - An ATM or credit card that has been used so much its magnetic strip is worn away.

Tourists - Those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs. “There were only three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists.”

Treeware - Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Umfriend - One with whom one has a sexual relationship; as in, “this is Dale, my...um...friend.”

Under Mouse Arrest - Getting busted for violating an online service’s rule of conduct. “Sorry I couldn’t get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest.” (house arrest=

Uninstalled - Euphemism for being fired. Also: decruitment.

Vulcan Nerve Pinch - The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key. (du célèbre geste de Monsieur Spock dans Star Trek)

WOOFYS - Well Off Older Folks.

World Wide Wait - The real meaning of WWW.

Xerox Subsidy - Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.

Yuppie Food Coupons - Twenty dollar bills from an ATM. (ATM = DAB)

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5) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: A new nominee [Bush propose comme nouveau juge à la Cour suprême son avocate personnelle.]
http://teacher.scholastic.com/

A New Nominee
President Bush names Harriet Miers to U.S. Supreme Court.
By Tiffany Chaparro

Monday, October 3—President Bush moved quickly to fill a second seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. He named White House counsel Harriet Miers today as his choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Bush nominee John Roberts was sworn in as Chief Justice on Friday. Roberts, who replaced the late William H. Rehnquist, began his new job-for-life today, as the fall session of the Court began.

President Bush announced his second nominee to the Supreme Court in a televised Oval Office event this morning. If confirmed by the Senate, Miers will be the third woman to serve on the nation's highest court, after Justices O'Connor and Ruth Ginsburg. O'Connor was the first woman ever to serve on the court.

Miers, a 60-year-old native of Texas, has been a longtime friend and confidant to the President. "She has devoted her life to the rule of law and the cause of justice," President Bush said. "She will be an outstanding addition to the Supreme Court of the United States."

Personal History

A law school graduate of Southern Methodist University, Miers was the first woman to become a partner at a major Texas law firm. She was also the first woman to be president of the State Bar of Texas. In 1995, President Bush, then Governor of Texas, appointed her chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission. Miers has also served as Bush's personal lawyer. She served as White House staff secretary and then deputy chief of staff for policy during the president's first term. She is currently White House counsel. Miers helped lead the search for potential candidates to fill Supreme Court posts.

Miers said she was grateful and humbled by the nomination. "If confirmed, I recognize that I will have a tremendous responsibility to keep our judicial system strong and to help ensure that the courts meet their obligations to strictly apply the laws and the Constitution," she said.

Unknown Legacy

Miers has never been a judge. As a result, she lacks a record of judicial rulings that could reveal her views on controversial issues. Because of this it is almost impossible to know how she would vote as a justice. With no record, Miers will most likely face tough questioning during her Senate confirmation.

"Choosing somebody who is not a judge would put that much more of a premium on straight answers to questions because there would be that much less for senators and the public to go on when looking at such a nominee's judicial philosophy," said Elliot Mincberg, counsel with the People for the American Way.

According to the White House, 10 of the 34 Justices appointed since 1933, including former Chief Justice Rehnquist, were appointed from positions within the President's administration.

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7) CNN/Global Office: All work and no play [Les cadres travaillent trop.]
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/08/08/working.hours/index.html

All work and no play for most managers

By Julie Clothier for CNN
Monday, August 8, 2005 Posted: 1621 GMT (0021 HKT)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Three out of four bosses make themselves available to their job at all hours of the day, and their personal relationships suffer as a result of their workaholic tendencies, according to a survey about managers' working hours. UK law firm Peninsula, the company behind the survey, is warning that failure to unwind, relax and the inability to have a release from work has a dire effect on employers' work performance and motivation.

The survey of 1,800 employers found that 79 percent -- almost four out of five -- worked more than 60 hours a week -- an average of 12 hours a day in a five-day working week. Just six percent, meanwhile, worked between 40 and 50 hours a week, while 15 percent worked between 50 and 60 hours. The survey also found that 87 percent made themselves available for work-related issues by leaving their cell phones switched on once they had left the office, and 82 percent found it impossible to turn their minds off work after hours.

The effect of working such long hours had detrimental effects on their personal relationships and sleeping patterns, managers said. Three out of four -- or 76 percent -- said their commitment to their job had a negative effect on relationships and their social life, while the same number said they survived on between two and four hours of quality sleep a day.

Peninsula managing director Peter Done said the results of the survey showed that entrepreneurs invested a great deal of time and effort as well as making social sacrifices to make their business work. "As a managing director myself I know how it feels to be constantly pushed for time everyday," he said. "There is a lot of talk about how employees are stressed in the workplace but the pressures employers are under are immense with responsibility and expectation coming from both inside and outside the company."

He said some managers were too busy to take holidays and refused to remove themselves completely from their work environment, which could have serious consequences, including on their health. "Some employers find the pressure a buzz or a motivation to coincide with their willingness, determination and relentless drive to succeed," he said. "However, others feel the strain more than others and are liable to have detrimental health implications both mentally and physically often leading to burnout."

He said even though managers felt putting in long hours at the office would reap benefits for their company, getting the work-life balance right was also good for business. Having a social life, getting enough sleep and maintaining personal relationships were also vital, he said. "Employers seem to be working longer and longer hours with the majority now working in excess of 60 hours in a week, working long hours has many pitfalls and it seems bosses are forfeiting quality for quantity of work," Done said.

Meanwhile, career breaks and sabbaticals are set to become increasingly popular as firms give valuable workers time off rather than lose them, a separate report has predicted. The survey of 500 company bosses showed that almost half would give extra paid leave to staff to make sure they stayed with the organization, the UK's Press Association reported. Most of those polled by volunteer travel firm i-to-i said they believed giving sabbaticals would help retain workers as well as boost their skills and experience. A third of the managing directors and other executives said they would like to take a career break themselves, PA said.

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8) AUDIO/On the Media: Evolving debate [Emission radio avec transcription, cette fois-ci sur comment la presse américaine traite le "débat" sur l'évolution.]
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_082605_evolution.html

Evolving Debate
August 26, 2005

BOB GARFIELD: This is OTM. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Last May the Kansas State Board of Education held hearings on proposed changes to its curriculum standards, namely that evolution should be taught as a controversial scientific idea, not as a universally accepted one. Over three days, more than 20 witnesses, all supportive of the curriculum change, offered testimony that natural selection had both critics and competing theories, including intelligent design, and argued that students should learn about them all in biology class. Pro Darwinian forces sent no witnesses but rather an attorney who called for the dissolution of the hearings and played the role of cross examiner. In the language of the proceedings, he was the representative of, quote, "mainstream science" which effectively staged a boycott. If mainstream science can opt out of the debate, the mainstream media doesn't have that luxury. [NEWSCAST MUSIC]

REPORTER: Should intelligent design be taught alongside the theory of evolution? We'll have a special report and a debate -

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And when the President weighs in, as he did on August 1st, saying that both sides ought to be properly taught, even a pseudo debate rises unambiguously to the status of news. The question for journalists is not whether to cover it, but how. Just last month, NPR science correspondent David Kestenbaum wrestled with the story, and he joins me now. David, welcome to the show.

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So months ago on this show we had on the editor of Scientific American, John Rennie.

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Mmm-hmm.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And he said that journalists make a fetish out of balance. In other words, if a source says X, reporters will inevitably get somebody else to say Y. And Rennie believes that this is very often inappropriate when applied to stories about science.

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Well, I think we agree with that. I mean, if you take something like climate change, I think in stories what you'll hear is that the vast majority of scientists believe that humans are changing the climate and causing the planet to get warmer. And then the story might say something like there are some people who do disagree with that, and here's one of them. But you're trying to set the scale of both sides. One of the things I really like about covering science is that, you know, there is an answer. It's not like politics where anybody's opinion may have some merit. Any question that can be posed scientifically is something that can be tested and can be proven right or wrong.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I feel humbled argu ing this with you, David, but the fact is there are things that are theories before they become fact.

DAVID KESTENBAUM: For sure. And, you know, it's your job as a journalist to say where each theory is. But, you know, evolution is as much of a fact as you [LAUGHS], as you get in the scientific world. That's an assumption in a lot of stories we do. Any story which discusses whether the Avian flu virus could evolve, jump into humans and maybe kill a lot of people, you don't say, you know, "If evolution is right." When you do a story about genetics and mentioning that humans and chimps share some 99 percent of a DNA, the line that'll come after that is "Because they branched off from the evolutionary tree relatively recently."

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But you reported a story recently on NPR about the debate between evolutionary biologists and advocates of intelligent design, many of whom believe that life is so improbably complex that there simply must be a creator. So was this a story that was full of minefields for you?

DAVID KESTENBAUM: It was, and we thought a lot about how to approach it. And the solution I had was that we should push the problem off [LAUGHS] onto the scientists and talk about why it was that the scientists didn't like to debate in an open forum - originally the creationists - and now don't like to debate the intelligent design people. And it became a discussion about how the mainstream scientific community had chosen to deal with something which they view as completely non scientific.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I'm reminded of a piece in The New Yorker a few months back by a science professor named H. Allen Orr. What he did was he took each of the various subgroups of the intelligent design theory and then explained why they simply couldn't hold water. This is precisely the sort of thing that I think a lot of scientists and perhaps a lot of science reporters wish that people wouldn't do because by talking about these theories you present them as if they offer a viable alternative to evolution, and they don't.

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Yeah, we got e mails to that effect afterwards. I got some e mails from, I suppose who you might call, creationist types who said thank you for pointing out that the scientists don't like to debate us because clearly they're wrong. And we got e mails from people saying why didn't you stand up and defend evolution. We didn't want to get into that because, you know, we thought that raised it unfairly as something that deserved sort of scientific debate.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But, obviously, plenty of people out there need to have it explained all over again or else they will lend it the same sort of false equality that one might say the President did when he remarked that both sides ought to be properly taught. So don't you as a reporter have an obligation to explain evolution again?

DAVID KESTENBAUM: I'll tell you, there's a little piece of paper by my desk and it has stories to do.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS]

DAVID KESTENBAUM: And one is a three-and-a-half minute defense of evolution. I mean, one of the things that came up when I was doing that story is a scientist said well, look, it's just so hard to explain in, they said, an hour of a debate. And I thought, are you kidding me, an hour? And I thought, all right, well this is my job then, [LAUGHS] to try and find the greatest examples and jam them into three and a half minutes. So we'll see how it goes.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] Well, let's talk about this piece that you just did, with two primary sources, one a biology professor from Brown University who's squarely in the pro Darwin camp, and the other, a biochemist at Lehigh University who's a big proponent of intelligent design. So how did you structure the story so as not to lend a kind of he said/she said equality that Jonathan Rennie at the Scientific American says is inappropriate?

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Well, I think there's actually a nice little moment in that story. I'm talking to the intelligent design advocate and I say, so what's like being an intelligent design guy at an academic university.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: LAUGHS]

DAVID KESTENBAUM: And he goes, it's pretty lonely. [LAUGHTER] And, you know, he sort of - he laid it out there. You didn't need me to say, I've counted and there are ten million scientists on this side and five on the other. And I thought the real question behind this story, when you look at, as you mentioned, the case in Kansas, how the scientific community decided to deal with it or not deal with it. And in some ways I think that's more interesting than the back and forth of who's right.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The New York Times has recently run a multi-part series under the heading, "A Debate over Darwin." Do you think reporters run the risk of legitimizing what most consider to be pseudo science by giving it too much attention?

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Yeah. I do think that's a danger. And that's why we decided to handle the story the way we did. It's interesting, I've been reading some blogs by scientists who are unhappy with parts of the New York Times story. And then Kenneth Chang, who wrote one of them for the New York Times, has then been entering into a debate on the blogs with the [LAUGHTER], with the scientists saying, but look what I said in these thousand words of my story here. It's true the first paragraph says what you say, [BROOKE LAUGHS] but look at the rest of my story. And that's the hard part for journalists, is that people hear what they want to hear [LAUGHS] a lot of times, or people hear what they don't want to hear.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [CHUCKLES] These poor science reporter - they ought to try covering the Middle East for a while.

DAVID KESTENBAUM: [LAUGHS]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: David, thank you very much.

DAVID KESTENBAUM: You're welcome, Brooke.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: David Kestenbaum is a science reporter for National Public Radio.

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9) CNN: Paris on a budget [Paris pas cher.]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/DESTINATIONS/09/20/bargains.in.paris.ap/index.html
Paris on a budget: Romance and culture without spending a fortune

PARIS, France (AP) -- The perfect Paris picnic comes cheap: a crusty baguette ($1), a thick slab of Camembert ($2.50), a modest Bordeaux ($5). Take it to the sprawling park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, spread a blanket and dine with a view that is priceless.

Paris has more than its share of high-end luxury, but plenty of this city's famed culture and romance can come free -- or at minimal cost. There are all kinds of tricks to enjoying Paris without busting your budget. The opera has cheap seats, museums offer reductions, churches hold free classical concerts, walking up the Eiffel Tower is cheaper than riding the elevator -- and a good way to work off all the croissants and mousses au chocolat. Plenty of fun can be had for under $20, even in the capital of haute couture and high-end cuisine.

Start perhaps with a stroll. Wander through the meticulously manicured Luxembourg Gardens or the elegant Place des Vosges, Paris' oldest square on the edge of the boutique-and-gallery-packed Marais district.

A pair of comfortable shoes is key in this utterly walkable city so full of parks and monuments, stunning architecture and charming cobblestone lanes that ducking underground to the Metro means skipping sights. That said, public transport is excellent and cheap. A single subway or bus ride costs $1.75, while a book of 10 tickets -- a "carnet" -- is a saving at $13. There is a full-day pass -- the Carte Mobilis -- for $6.70; and a weekly pass -- Carte Hebdomadaire -- that costs $20.

Serious sightseers should consider the "Museum and Monument Card," sold at museums and major Metro stations. It allows unlimited access to 70 of the city's attractions and lets cardholders skip lines. A one-day card is $22. Another cost saver is the Paris City Passport, newly minted this year by Paris' Tourism Office. The $6.20 booklet is filled with $370 in coupons for savings off admission to museums, Seine River boat cruises, city bus tours, cabarets and night clubs. It is sold at tourism offices, select train stations or onlineexternal link.

To view the City of Light from above, it's tough to beat the Eiffel Tower. Skip the top level -- the lines are long and it costs $13.30 to get there. The second platform is plenty high at 380 feet; it can be reached by elevator for $9.30 or on foot -- up 704 steps -- for $4.70. Otherwise, for a spectacular and free Paris panorama, head to the steps of the great white Sacre Coeur basilica in Montmartre.

After walking up a good appetite, the question arises of where to eat. For a splurge, pick up a Michelin guide and follow the stars -- but do it during the day. Michelin-starred lunch menus often run half the price of dinner. Reservations are a must, often well in advance. Otherwise, buy a baguette sandwich for lunch at any boulangerie or a crepe from a streetside stand. Supermarkets sell wine and cheese for one-stop picnic shopping.

For dinner, go ethnic. Some of Paris' tastiest and most affordable food comes from its former colonies: great couscous from North Africa, hearty noodle soups from Vietnam, specialties of Senegal. Best bets are the immigrant melting pots of Belleville in northeastern Paris or the city's main Chinatown in the southeastern 13th arrondissement around Metro station Porte d'Ivry.

For French fare, just pick a neighborhood -- the Latin Quarter, Montmartre, St. Germain des Pres, the Marais, Bastille -- and read the menus in windows. Brasseries are cheaper than bistros and offer French classics at reasonable prices with a variety of wines by the glass. Fine wines are best bought in shops -- not restaurants where markups can be enormous.

For an outdoor aperitif, do as the French do. Take a bottle with paper cups and head to the Pont des Arts, the wooden-and-iron footbridge connecting the riverbanks between the Latin Quarter and the Louvre. In the city of romance, it remains a favorite of canoodling couples and Parisians who never tire of gazing at sunset over the Seine.

For an elegant evening out, mingle with the tuxedo-and-gown crowd at the ballet or opera -- where these days any attire is fine. The Bastille Opera just opened a 62-person standing-room area for a mere $6.20 a head. Sales start 45 minutes before the curtain goes up, so arrive early and brace for lines. Otherwise, nosebleed seats with limited visibility start at $11. The glorious Garnier Opera, with its recently renovated grand Baroque foyer, is Paris' main ballet venue and offers velvet seats in upper booths for as low as $8.70.

Pick up a Pariscope magazine for 50 cents at any kiosk for weekly listings of concerts, films, plays and exhibits. Note the music section, which gives a daily rundown of classical concerts in churches and cathedrals, many for free, especially on weekends. It also gives museum addresses, hours and admission fees.

Museums offer a variety of discounts, with most major ones free for children under 18. At the Louvre, which unveiled its new, roomier gallery for the Mona Lisa earlier this year, admission is $10.50. But ticket prices drop to $7.70 on Wednesday and Friday nights after 6 p.m. when the museum stays open late. Entry to the Musee d'Orsay, home to Paris' great Impressionist collection, costs $9.30 but drops to $6.80 on Sundays and everyday after 4:15 p.m. (or 8 p.m. on Thursdays) -- two hours before closing time.

For art en pleine air [sic] head to the Rodin Museum, where the real bargain is the $1.25 entry fee to the gardens. Tucked amid the linden trees are some of Rodin's greatest works -- large bronze casts of The Thinker, The Gates of Hell, The Burghers of Calais. Bring a picnic lunch and stay awhile. The museum itself charges $6.20.

Eagerly awaited this fall is the return of a Paris architectural jewel, the Grand Palais. Its grand central hall reopens after a 12-year structural overhaul that restored the building's glass-and-steel cupola, a glittering landmark in the Paris skyline. The work cost $124 million but visitors get to view it for free until October 1. After that, the Grand Palais resumes its function as a cultural center for festivals, exhibits and fashion shows

http://sptimes.com/2005/10/09/Columns/Church_state_It_s_a_b.shtml#church
Church-state? It's a bad marriage

By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published October 9, 2005

Many people seek divine guidance when dealing with family problems, but Marie MacFarlane wants the state to order it.

MacFarlane is an unhappy divorced woman in Ohio who says she lost custody of her four children because she refused to stop their homeschooling and send them to a regular school. She is now appealing her divorce decree on the grounds that the civil courts should step aside and allow the Catholic Church to make divorce and child-rearing decisions for the couple.

In 1990, Marie and her husband, William MacFarlane, were married in the Catholic Church. According to Marie, they explicitly agreed to abide by Catholic doctrine relative to their relationship and family. It is only fitting, she says, that a religious tribunal rule on the issues surrounding their separation.

I say, if you have a state-issued marriage license, then secular law controls your relationship. If you and your husband had wanted to submit yourselves entirely to Catholic authority, you shouldn't have asked the state to sanction your marriage. But don't now ask the civil courts to enforce religious doctrine or the judgment of a religious tribunal. That's 10-foot-pole territory.

Marie MacFarlane is being helped by Stephen Safranek, a professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Mich., who has taken up her cause. Safranek has launched TrueMarriage.net, a project that invites couples to sign a religious prenuptial agreement saying they will use church tribunals when marital disputes arise.

He expects these prenuptial agreements to be enforced in the same way prenuptials are for wealth distribution. Safranek says civil courts should direct couples to religious tribunals just as the courts would order two business partners in a contract dispute to an outside arbitrator if arbitration was a provision of their partnership.

Imagine the logical extention of this: Legions of young couples sign up to submit to religious tribunals, possibly as a condition of getting married in the church, synagogue or mosque of their choice. Like nearly all marrying couples, they expect their nuptials to be for life, so why quibble with how the union might be unraveled? Then problems arise. She thinks five children are enough and wants to start using contraception. He says it's against their Catholic faith. He wants to have sex even when she is menstruating. She refuses, pointing to a proscription under Islamic law. (The same is true for Orthodox Jews.) A religious tribunal rules for doctrinal purity.

Should the civil courts really be drawn into enforcing these kinds of judgments?

Back in the 17th century, Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, gave some really good advice on the topic. He was the first to use the metaphor a "wall of separation," and said that civil authorities should not be "judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship."

Just take a look at the mess that arises in countries that allow family law to be dictated by religious authorities. In places like India, Israel and Nigeria, your rights under family law will be different depending on your religion - inequities that can cause great animosity among faiths.

Dena Davis, who has a Ph.D. in religion and is professor of law at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in Ohio, says that these differences create "fault lines" in society. She points to a case in India where a Muslim woman who was divorced because her husband demanded it ended up with very little support. Had she been Christian, she likely would have fared much better. "This created a huge outcry," Davis says.

Canada is starting to get a taste of this trouble. Since 1991, Ontario has given religious tribunals the authority to render judgments for their own community, as long as it was voluntary, as a way to promote multiculturalism and inclusion. It was a process rarely invoked beyond the area's small Hasidic community. But last month, all religious arbitrations in Ontario were suspended after a Muslim group asked that divorce and child custody issues for local Muslims be referred to a sharia court.

When the Muslim clerics came knocking, many Islamic women in Canada reacted strongly, fearing the inequality of their religion and its courts. Their opposition helped persuade Premier Dalton McGuinty to halt the practice of domestic religious tribunals altogether. "We are all to be held accountable by the same law," McGuinty said, demonstrating some clear thinking.

We don't need to buy that kind of religious strife here. Professor Safranek's religious prenuptials should be found unenforceable by the civil courts. Complex issues of asset distribution and child custody and support have larger implications for society and should not be subject to the tenets of a particular faith. There is marriage in the church, and there is marriage in the state and, for the good of us all, let there be a wall between.

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11) Wall Street Journal: Limos [Les malheurs d'avoir une limousine trop longue.]

http://www.wsj.com

As Limos Stretch Definition of Luxury, Bumps in the RoadNew Long Rides Get Hung UpOn Hills and Tight Turns; Bride Left at the Corner
By JENNIFER SARANOW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 8, 2005; Page A1

Rachel Chen's friends wanted to do something special for her bachelorette party last November. So they booked an extravagant evening out in Los Angeles for the 27-year-old. The plan: hop in an extra-long stretch limo, head out for a sushi dinner, then hit a club for an evening of martinis and manicures.

The trouble started as soon as their ride pulled up to Ms. Chen's Glendale, Calif., apartment building. The limousine, a 12-passenger Lincoln Town Car, was so long, it got hung up -- "high-centered" -- on a slope in front of the building's garage. The rear wheels weren't even touching the ground. "It looked like a giant black teeter-totter," says Ms. Chen's younger sister, Miranda Watson, 25.

Ms. Chen's night on the town was marred by what's becoming a significant issue in the limo business: Over the past decade stretch limos have nearly doubled in length, and now can reach 40 feet, or nearly as long as an 18-wheeler. As a result, these leviathan limos are getting into all kinds of scrapes.

They're driving up on curbs and falling into ditches when trying to maneuver around tight corners. In the parking garage at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, they're hitting cars and a column on their way in, according to garage manager Anna T. Figueroa. And on hills everywhere from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, they are getting high-centered.

Ms. Chen and her friends had to wait two hours last November before a tow truck could yank their limo off its perch and get it rolling again. Not only did they miss their dinner reservations and the martini-and-manicure stop, but Ms. Chen's fiancé broke his own car jack in a failed attempt to liberate the limo himself.

"We were basically sitting on the street, drinking champagne from the limo," says her sister, Ms. Watson. "It ruined the night."

Limo makers may also be stretching the government's patience. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is stepping up efforts to identify what one official at NHTSA described as "rogue" stretch-limo makers who don't follow safety standards. Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., for example, both set limits on how far certain specific models can be safely stretched.

Stretch limos are made by small, independent coachbuilders. These outfits buy regular vehicles, cut them in half, add several feet of length and weld them back together again. They also install extras like additional seats, wet bars and smoke machines. The Cadillac Escalade sport-utility vehicle is particularly popular among stretch-limo makers right now, as are the Chrysler 300 sedan, the Hummer H2 and the Lincoln Town Car.

"We've been monitoring what's going on in the limousine marketplace," says Harry Thompson, chief of the vehicle-crash-avoidance division at NHTSA. "The darn things just keep getting longer."

Because so many of the longest limos are not new vehicles and technically qualify as buses under NHTSA's rules, the agency is considering teaming up with the federal government's bus-oversight agency, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and tagging along on its regular inspections. Among other things, NHTSA would be checking up on its required bus-safety features such as escape hatches in the roof or windows that can be opened and used as exits.

Some states and cities are also cracking down. Last year, Connecticut, which outlaws limos stretched beyond the auto maker's guidelines, started sending undercover employees to arrange phony wedding pickups with limo providers suspected of having vehicles that exceed length guidelines. One main target: stretch Hummers, which are illegal in the state since GM doesn't set stretch guidelines for it.

This past spring, Connecticut regulators also staked out high-school proms to bust illegal stretch limos, which led to 65 arrests. New Jersey is also increasing its high-school-prom sting operation. Unfortunately for prom-goers in Connecticut, their ride gets towed.

"The Hummers that we pulled away this year have by far surpassed the ones that we pulled away last year -- they are bigger vehicles by at least two to three feet," says Dennis King of Connecticut's department of transportation. In most cases, the penalty is a fine.

Limo operators have long been in a race to offer bigger vehicles. But things changed dramatically in the late 1990s after builders started stretching SUVs like the Lincoln Navigator and Ford Explorer, which have stronger frames and can be stretched more than sedans can.

In a survey this year by Limousine & Chauffeured Transportation Magazine, 6% of limo operators said they have a stretch SUV, up from 1.6% in 2003. (The majority of the chauffered-car business remains corporate sedans.)

Major makers of stretch limos defend their practices and say their vehicles are perfectly safe. "You have to meet federal motor-vehicle-safety standards, so we run tests to make sure [the vehicles] do," says John Beck, executive vice president of Krystal Enterprises, a stretch-limo maker based in Brea, Calif.

One thing new drivers at La Costa Limousine in Carlsbad, Calif., now learn in training: They aren't allowed to go through restaurant drive-through windows. One of the company's stretch limos got stuck a few years ago at an In-N-Out Burger in Orange County.

Some cities can be more problematic than others. Dan Scanlan, a vice president at AutoReturn, which handles towing for the city of San Francisco, was dropping off his son at school one day last year when he saw a limo stuck on the crest near Broadway and Webster streets. "The driver of that limo should have known better. It's a very steep hill," says Mr. Scanlan.

On San Francisco's famously steep and winding Lombard Street, gardener John Smith has seen four long limos get jammed up and require a tow out this year. "It would be one thing if the cars were flexible like a caterpillar or something, but they are not," says Mr. Smith.

Another problem area: the crowded, narrow streets of Little Italy in New York. Ken Strauch, who drives a stretched 31-foot Ford Excursion, says it took him at least 15 tiny, back-and-forth maneuvers earlier this summer to make it around a corner there, with a nervous out-of-town family in the back.

Jim Anderson, 25, of King of Prussia, Pa., was one of the passengers. "I just remember my mother saying, 'Oh, you're never going to make this, you're never going to make this,' " he says.

Big limos are giving wedding planners another thing to worry about. Heather Snively of Weddings Unique, Winter Park, Fla., now makes sure to check driveway size after one of her newlywed couples had to be dropped off 40 yards from their reception in the pouring rain because their limos couldn't fit into the country club's circular driveway. "We weren't able to get a nice video of them crawling out of the limo and being all happy and everything being perfect," recalls Ms. Snively.

On her big day, May Nunan, a 29-year-old executive assistant, had to hike up an alley in strapless heels in San Francisco's Chinatown to get to her reception. Fearful of getting stuck, Ms. Nunan's limo driver refused to drop her at the restaurant. By the time she got to the reception, Ms. Nunan says, she was sweating and her makeup was smeared.

"I don't think I would ever use a big limo again," says Ms. Nunan.

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12) NBC Miami: Group warns Florida tourists they could be shot [Les touristes en Floride doivent être mis en garde sur le fait qu'on y peut désormais vous flinguer sans motif.]

http://www.nbc5.com/travelgetaways/5053722/detail.html?z=dp&dpswid=1167317&dppid=65172
Group Warns Florida Tourists They Could Be Shot

POSTED: 5:52 am CDT October 4, 2005

MIAMI -- Florida has a new law that gives legal protection to someone who shoots somebody else as long as the shooter feels threatened or is attacked. Florida's "stand your ground" law, which took effect Saturday, says citizens no longer are obligated to retreat from an attack if they're somewhere they have a legal right to be, such as a public street. Shooters also get immunity from prosecution so long as the person shot is not a police officer.

One gun control activist said there is no other state in the nation and no other civilized nation on Earth that has a law like this. And one visitor to Miami said "it's a little scary" learning about the new Florida gun law.

A gun control group is handing out leaflets at Miami International Airport, making sure tourists are aware of a new law that gives greater legal protections to people who shoot or use other deadly force. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence tells visitors, "do not argue unnecessarily with local people." It says, "If someone appears to be angry with you, maintain to the best of your ability a positive attitude, and do not shout or make threatening gestures." Brady Campaign spokesman Peter Hamm says Florida's new "stand your ground" law could cause the most aggressive people in society to overreact.

Gov. Jeb Bush has denounced the Brady Campaign as "pure, unadulterated politics."

But the tourism industry is taking the campaign seriously. Visit Florida said Florida is "very safe" and that the Brady Campaign is "one group's political agenda." Supporters of the law, pushed by the National Rifle Association, say it will make Florida safer.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4272382.stm
Computer terms 'confuse workers'

Most office workers find computer jargon as difficult to understand as a foreign language, a survey suggests. Three quarters of workers waste more than an hour a week deciphering what a technical term means, the poll found.

Terms such as jpeg, javascript and cookies are among the problem words highlighted by firm Computer People.The recruiter, which questioned 1,500 workers, says effective technology professionals "understand the need to tailor their levels of jargon". The findings revealed that younger workers were just as likely to make a mistake over computer language.

It also points to problems which regularly leave workers baffled. Just under two thirds had sent e-mails with large attachments which had blocked clients' systems.

JARGON PROBLEMS
An over-reliance on IT staff was admitted by 67% of office workers.
Logging off instead of re-starting is a mistake made by 14% those surveyed.
Some 44% of office workers feel it is their duty to improve their IT knowledge.
More than one in four people are not sure what a firewall does, tempting them to turn it off. Turning off firewall - software to protect computers against hackers - is the worst course of action to take, according to IT experts.
And a quarter of those surveyed had to ask for technical help to download information.

Mr Fletcher, managing director of Computer People, said: "We're finding that many clients are increasingly requiring professionals who have concise communication expertise as they recognise this improves company productivity in the long run."

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http://www.computerpeople.com/content_dynamic/display.asp?session_id={95F1598A-902A-4246-8BA9-ABAA996776F2}&id=63
Computer People reveals IT jargon leaves office workers confused!

Over two thirds (67%) of office workers feel 'bewildered' and 'inadequate' due to not understanding IT professionals' 'tech jargon' according to research published today by Computer People, the UK's leading IT recruitment consultancy.

Computer People surveyed 1,000 office workers across various industries to examine perceptions of IT personnel and to explore how communication between IT professionals and their non-IT colleagues could be improved.

Over half (56%) of those surveyed said that IT professionals 'speak another language' with two fifths (40%) saying that they feel IT staff are unaware of the confusion that tech jargon causes.

The research identifies the most commonly used jargon terms as:

1. Bandwidth: the amount of data that can be passed along a communications channel in a given period of time

2. HTML: Hypertext Markup Language - a system that enables you to access particular locations in webpages or other electronic documents by clicking on links within specific webpages or documents

3. Hostname: the unique name by which a computer is known on a network

4. Alias: one of several alternative hostnames with the same email address

5. IP address: internet address

The research highlights the use of analogies as the most effective way of helping people grasp how technology works. The majority (69%) of office workers agree that explanations which compare the hardware or software problem to other, more easily understood, references such as the workings of a car or even a road map, are the most effective way of comprehending IT issues.

One fifth (21%) of office workers say that visual aids, such as diagrams or flow charts, are a helpful way to understand IT problems, whilst one in ten (10%) think IT staff should provide regular jargon-free literature and useful hints and tips documents to digest.

However, when it comes to jargon, IT professionals are not alone as the majority of office workers (85%) admit to regularly using jargon relating to their particular professions.

Carole Hepburn, Commercial Director at Computer People, comments: "Our research shows there's a real need for IT professionals to use 'techno-speak' sparingly when talking to people outside their vocation. We want to help IT professionals develop better forms of communication which won't leave their non-IT colleagues scratching their heads in bemusement.

Talking the talk is to a certain extent part of today's jargon-ridden office culture -most professionals whether they're in marketing, HR or accounts are all guilty at times. Whatever the profession, it's always a good idea to learn when and when not to rely on industry speak."

Computer People offers IT professionals the following advice to help improve communication:

* Don't overestimate colleagues' knowledge of IT, always explain things using simple language

* Where possible use analogies, such as the workings of a car, or draw diagrams to illustrate your point

* After talking through an IT issue with a colleague, follow-up with them to check they've understood your explanation

* For the occasions when using industry jargon is unavoidable, explain what the terms mean