Rutgers team: We accept Imus' apology By DAVID PORTER, Associated Press Writer
48 minutes ago
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Rutgers women's basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer said Friday the team had accepted radio host Don Imus' apology. She said he deserves a chance to move on but hopes the furor his racist and sexist insult caused will be a catalyst for change.
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"We, the Rutgers University Scarlet Knight basketball team, accept — accept — Mr. Imus' apology, and we are in the process of forgiving," Stringer read from a team statement a day after the women met personally with Imus and his wife.
"We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget," she said.
The team had just played for the NCAA national championship last week and lost when Imus, on his nationally syndicated radio show, called the players "nappy-headed hos." The statement outraged listeners and set off a national debate about taste and tolerance. It also led to his firing by CBS on Thursday.
"These comments are indicative of greater ills in our culture," Stringer said. "It is not just Mr. Imus, and we hope that this will be and serve as a catalyst for change. Let us continue to work hard together to make this world a better place."
Imus was in the middle of a two-day radio fundraiser for children's charities when he was dropped by CBS. On Friday, his wife took over the show and also talked about the meeting with the Rutgers players.
"They gave us the opportunity to listen to what they had to say and why they're hurting and how awful this is," author Deirdre Imus said.
"He feels awful," she said of her husband. "He asked them, 'I want to know the pain I caused, and I want to know how to fix this and change this.'"
Deirdre Imus also said that the Rutgers players have been receiving hate e-mail, and she demanded that it stop. She told listeners "if you must send e-mail, send it to my husband," not the team.
"I have to say that these women are unbelievably courageous and beautiful women," she said.
Stringer declined to discuss the hate mail Friday. Rutgers team spokeswoman Stacey Brann said the team had received "two or three e-mails" but had also received "over 600 wonderful e-mails."
The team's goal was never to get Imus fired, Stringer said. "It's sad for anyone to lose their job," she said.
The cantankerous Imus, once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, was one of radio's original shock jocks.
His career took flight in the 1970s and with a cocaine- and vodka-fueled outrageous humor. After sobering up, he settled into a mix of highbrow talk about politics and culture, with locker room humor sprinkled in.
Critics have said his remark about the Rutgers women was just the latest in a line of objectionable statements by the ringmaster of a show that mixed high-minded talk about politics and culture with crude, locker-room humor.
Imus apologized on the air late last week and also tried to explain himself before the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio audience, appearing alternately contrite and combative. But many of his advertisers still bailed in disgust, particularly after the Rutgers women spoke publicly of their hurt.
On Wednesday, a week after the remark, MSNBC said it would no longer televise the show. CBS fired Imus Thursday from the radio show that he has hosted for nearly 30 years.
"He has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people," CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves said in a memo to his staff.
Sharpton praised Moonves' decision Friday and said it was time to change the culture of publicly degrading other people."I think we've got to really used this to really stop this across the board," he told CBS's "The Early Show."
Some Imus fans, however, considered the radio host's punishment too harsh.
Mike Francesa, whose WFAN sports show with partner Chris Russo is considered a possible successor to "Imus in the Morning," said he was embarrassed by the company. "I'm embarrassed by their decision. It shows, really, the worst lack of taste I've ever seen," he said.
Losing Imus will be a financial hit to CBS Radio, which also suffered when Howard Stern left for satellite radio. The program earns about $15 million in annual revenue for CBS, which owns Imus' home radio station WFAN-AM and manages Westwood One, the company that syndicates the show nationally WFAN.
The show's charity fundraiser had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned he had lost his job. The total had grown Friday to more than $2.3 million for Tomorrows Children's Fund, CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch, Deirdre Imus said. The annual event has raised more than $40 million since 1990.
Imus' troubles have also affected his wife, the founder of a medical center that studies links between cancers and environmental hazards whose book "Green This!" came out this week. Her promotional tour was called off "because of the enormous pressure that Deirdre and her family are under," said Simon & Schuster publicist Victoria Meyer.
The Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology in Hackensack, N.J., works to identify and control exposures to environmental hazards that may cause adult and childhood cancers. Imus Ranch in New Mexico invites children who have been ill to spend time on a working cattle ranch.
___
Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana, Karen Matthews, Warren Levinson, Seth Sutel, Tara Burghart, Colleen Long and Hillel Italie contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
http://wfan.com/pages/332252.php
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_en_ot/imus_protests
Friday, April 13, 2007
Saturday, April 7, 2007
The McKinley Assassination
1901 - U.S. President William McKinley Assassinated
From Jennifer Rosenberg,
Your Guide to 20th Century History.
Stay up to date!
U.S. President William McKinley Assassinated (1901): On September 6, 1901, U.S. President William McKinley spent the morning visiting Niagara Falls with his wife before returning to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in the afternoon to spend a few minutes greeting the public.
By about 3:30 p.m., President McKinley stood inside the Temple of Music building at the Exposition, ready to begin shaking the hands of the public as they streamed into the building. Many had been waiting for hours outside in the heat for their chance to meet the President. Unbeknownst to the President and the many guards who stood nearby, among those waiting outside was 28-year-old anarchist Leon Czolgosz who was planning to kill President McKinley.
At 4 p.m. the doors to the building were opened and the mass of people waiting outside were forced into a single line as they entered the Temple of Music building.
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The line of people thus came up to the president in an organized fashion, with just enough time to whisper a "Nice to meet you, Mr. President," shake President McKinley's hand, and then be forced to continue along the line and out the door again.
President McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, was a popular president who had just started his second term in office and the people seemed clearly glad to get a chance to meet him. However, at 4:07 p.m. Leon Czolgosz had made it into the building and it was his turn to greet the President.
In Czolgosz's right hand, he held a .32 caliber Iver-Johnson revolver, which he had covered by wrapping a handkerchief around the gun and his hand. Although Czolgosz's swaddled hand was noticed before he reached the President, many thought it looked like it covered an injury and not that it was hiding a gun. Also, since the day had been hot, many of the visitors to see the President had been carrying handkerchiefs in their hands so that they could wipe the sweat off their faces.
When Czolgosz reached the President, President McKinley reached out to shake his left hand (thinking Czolgosz's right hand was injured) while Czolgosz brought up his right hand to President McKinley's chest and then fired two shots.
One of the bullets didn't enter the president - some say it bounced off of a button or off the president's sternum and then got tucked into his clothing. The other bullet, however, entered the president's abdomen, tearing through his stomach, pancreas, and kidney. Shocked at being shot, President McKinley began to sag as blood stained his white shirt. He then told those around him, "Be careful how you tell my wife."
Those in line behind Czolgosz and guards in the room all jumped on Czolgosz and started to punch him. Seeing that the mob on Czolgosz might easily and quickly kill him, President McKinley whispered either, "Don't let them hurt him" or "Go easy on him, boys."
President McKinley was then whisked away in an electric ambulance to the hospital at the Exposition. Unfortunately, the hospital was not properly equipped for such a surgery and the very experienced doctor usually on premises was away doing a surgery in another town. Although several doctors were found, the most experienced doctor that could be found was Dr. Matthew Mann, a gynecologist. The surgery began at 5:20 p.m.
During the operation, the doctors searched for the remains of the bullet that had entered the President's abdomen, but were unable to locate it. Worried that continued searching would tax the President's body too much, the doctors decided to discontinue looking for it and to sew up what they could. The surgery was completed a little before 7 p.m.
For several days, President McKinley seemed to be getting better. After the shock of the shooting, the nation was excited to hear some good news. However, what the doctors did not realize was that without drainage, an infection had built up inside the President. By September 13 it was obvious the President was dying. At 2:15 a.m. on September 14, 1901, President William McKinley died of gangrene. That afternoon, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President of the United States.
After being pummeled right after the shooting, Leon Czolgosz had been arrested and taken to police headquarters before nearly being lynched by the angry crowds that surrounded the Temple of Music. Czolgosz readily admitted that he was the one who had shot the President. In his written confession, Czolgosz stated, "I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn't believe one man should have so much service and another man should have none."
Czolgosz was brought to trial on September 23, 1901. He was quickly found guilty and sentenced to death. On October 29, 1901, Leon Czolgosz was electrocuted.
Suggested Reading
1900s Timeline
Related Articles
William McKinley Biography - Twenty-Fifth President of ...
Tecumseh's Curse
President of the Century Poll - U.S. Government Info/Re...
Following Through
Photograph of President Lyndon B. Johnson Shaking Hands...
From Jennifer Rosenberg,
Your Guide to 20th Century History.
Stay up to date!
U.S. President William McKinley Assassinated (1901): On September 6, 1901, U.S. President William McKinley spent the morning visiting Niagara Falls with his wife before returning to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in the afternoon to spend a few minutes greeting the public.
By about 3:30 p.m., President McKinley stood inside the Temple of Music building at the Exposition, ready to begin shaking the hands of the public as they streamed into the building. Many had been waiting for hours outside in the heat for their chance to meet the President. Unbeknownst to the President and the many guards who stood nearby, among those waiting outside was 28-year-old anarchist Leon Czolgosz who was planning to kill President McKinley.
At 4 p.m. the doors to the building were opened and the mass of people waiting outside were forced into a single line as they entered the Temple of Music building.
Sponsored Links
McKinley: Official Site
Find Affordable, Quality Apartments at McKinley. Find Deals and More!
www.mckinley.com
William mckinley
Browse a huge selection now. Find exactly what you want today.
www.eBay.com
William McKinley
A Detailed Biography 54 Pages of Biographical Content
BookRags.com
The line of people thus came up to the president in an organized fashion, with just enough time to whisper a "Nice to meet you, Mr. President," shake President McKinley's hand, and then be forced to continue along the line and out the door again.
President McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, was a popular president who had just started his second term in office and the people seemed clearly glad to get a chance to meet him. However, at 4:07 p.m. Leon Czolgosz had made it into the building and it was his turn to greet the President.
In Czolgosz's right hand, he held a .32 caliber Iver-Johnson revolver, which he had covered by wrapping a handkerchief around the gun and his hand. Although Czolgosz's swaddled hand was noticed before he reached the President, many thought it looked like it covered an injury and not that it was hiding a gun. Also, since the day had been hot, many of the visitors to see the President had been carrying handkerchiefs in their hands so that they could wipe the sweat off their faces.
When Czolgosz reached the President, President McKinley reached out to shake his left hand (thinking Czolgosz's right hand was injured) while Czolgosz brought up his right hand to President McKinley's chest and then fired two shots.
One of the bullets didn't enter the president - some say it bounced off of a button or off the president's sternum and then got tucked into his clothing. The other bullet, however, entered the president's abdomen, tearing through his stomach, pancreas, and kidney. Shocked at being shot, President McKinley began to sag as blood stained his white shirt. He then told those around him, "Be careful how you tell my wife."
Those in line behind Czolgosz and guards in the room all jumped on Czolgosz and started to punch him. Seeing that the mob on Czolgosz might easily and quickly kill him, President McKinley whispered either, "Don't let them hurt him" or "Go easy on him, boys."
President McKinley was then whisked away in an electric ambulance to the hospital at the Exposition. Unfortunately, the hospital was not properly equipped for such a surgery and the very experienced doctor usually on premises was away doing a surgery in another town. Although several doctors were found, the most experienced doctor that could be found was Dr. Matthew Mann, a gynecologist. The surgery began at 5:20 p.m.
During the operation, the doctors searched for the remains of the bullet that had entered the President's abdomen, but were unable to locate it. Worried that continued searching would tax the President's body too much, the doctors decided to discontinue looking for it and to sew up what they could. The surgery was completed a little before 7 p.m.
For several days, President McKinley seemed to be getting better. After the shock of the shooting, the nation was excited to hear some good news. However, what the doctors did not realize was that without drainage, an infection had built up inside the President. By September 13 it was obvious the President was dying. At 2:15 a.m. on September 14, 1901, President William McKinley died of gangrene. That afternoon, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President of the United States.
After being pummeled right after the shooting, Leon Czolgosz had been arrested and taken to police headquarters before nearly being lynched by the angry crowds that surrounded the Temple of Music. Czolgosz readily admitted that he was the one who had shot the President. In his written confession, Czolgosz stated, "I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn't believe one man should have so much service and another man should have none."
Czolgosz was brought to trial on September 23, 1901. He was quickly found guilty and sentenced to death. On October 29, 1901, Leon Czolgosz was electrocuted.
Suggested Reading
1900s Timeline
Related Articles
William McKinley Biography - Twenty-Fifth President of ...
Tecumseh's Curse
President of the Century Poll - U.S. Government Info/Re...
Following Through
Photograph of President Lyndon B. Johnson Shaking Hands...
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Students Not Politics-Illiterate?
To Students, Congress Tops ‘American Idol’
College students are regularly criticized as being ignorant, self-absorbed and interested only in pop culture. But a new national study — conducted by Tufts University researchers — found that students know more about politics and civic life than many fear they do, and more than those in the same age group who are not in college.
Related stories
Slap on the Wrist at Columbia?, March 28
Unusual Mix of Prayer and Politics, March 8
Profiling the American Freshman, Jan. 19
Profiling the American Freshman, Jan. 19
Dumb and Dumber, Oct. 27, 2005
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Print
The survey was conducted of people aged 18-24 who are not in the military. Half of those surveyed were in college full time and half were not. Demographics matched the population as a whole.
Among the findings:
Half of the college students and 40 percent of the non-college students could name their respective members of Congress. Nearly two-thirds of college students and more than half of the non-college students could name at least one of their two U.S. senators. In contrast, only about 15 percent of the young people knew the name of the most recent winner of “American Idol” and about 10 percent knew the winner of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Approximately 79 percent of college students and more than 73 percent of non-college students said they had voted in the November 2006 elections, but only 10 to 12 percent of respondents reported ever voting in “American Idol” and significantly fewer had voted in “Dancing with the Stars.”
At least some of students’ Web activity is political. On average, college students belonged to almost four Facebook advocacy groups. According to the Tufts study, Facebook tends to be used more for advocacy of Democratic political candidates and liberal or Democratic causes than for Republican candidates or conservative or Republican causes.
More than 61 percent of college students had participated in online political discussions or visited a politically oriented Web site.
Of college students, 58.6 percent reported being somewhat, moderately or very involved in their communities, compared with 36.7 percent for non-students of the same age. More than 47 percent of college students reported involvement with community service organizations compared with slightly more than 24 percent of non-students.
To be sure, surveys abound about the ignorance of college students on key facts of American history and civic life, and the Tufts survey wasn’t trying to find out if students stay up at night arguing over the most significant of the Federalist Papers.
But Tufts researchers were encouraged by the findings. “Young people seem to know more about politics than they know about popular culture,” said Kent E. Portney, project director and professor of political science, in a statement. “This level of political knowledge stands in stark contrast to the image of young people as uninterested in and ignorant about politics and government.”
— Scott Jaschik
Comments
American Idol? Dancing with the Stars?
I’m a college senior and I don’t know a single other student who regularly watches American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. (I also live in DC and don’t have a senator or a real representative so I guess they would have me there.)
Jack, at 10:01 am EDT on April 5, 2007
I always thought it was ridiculous to think that college students were politically apathetic. While it is stupid to watch TV or care about popular culture, in some ways caring too much about politics might hinder a student’s ability to learn analytical skills that would help them later on.
Larry, at 10:25 am EDT on April 5, 2007
No excuses
With the proliferation of information available to students today, we should have the most informed youth in the history of the world. With satelite TV, Radio and the internet, people are inundated with information, both substantive and non-substantive, 24/7.Now, if I could just get my students to identify where there classes are we would have a winner.
Cynic Professor, at 10:26 am EDT on April 5, 2007
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/05/tufts
College students are regularly criticized as being ignorant, self-absorbed and interested only in pop culture. But a new national study — conducted by Tufts University researchers — found that students know more about politics and civic life than many fear they do, and more than those in the same age group who are not in college.
Related stories
Slap on the Wrist at Columbia?, March 28
Unusual Mix of Prayer and Politics, March 8
Profiling the American Freshman, Jan. 19
Profiling the American Freshman, Jan. 19
Dumb and Dumber, Oct. 27, 2005
The survey was conducted of people aged 18-24 who are not in the military. Half of those surveyed were in college full time and half were not. Demographics matched the population as a whole.
Among the findings:
Half of the college students and 40 percent of the non-college students could name their respective members of Congress. Nearly two-thirds of college students and more than half of the non-college students could name at least one of their two U.S. senators. In contrast, only about 15 percent of the young people knew the name of the most recent winner of “American Idol” and about 10 percent knew the winner of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Approximately 79 percent of college students and more than 73 percent of non-college students said they had voted in the November 2006 elections, but only 10 to 12 percent of respondents reported ever voting in “American Idol” and significantly fewer had voted in “Dancing with the Stars.”
At least some of students’ Web activity is political. On average, college students belonged to almost four Facebook advocacy groups. According to the Tufts study, Facebook tends to be used more for advocacy of Democratic political candidates and liberal or Democratic causes than for Republican candidates or conservative or Republican causes.
More than 61 percent of college students had participated in online political discussions or visited a politically oriented Web site.
Of college students, 58.6 percent reported being somewhat, moderately or very involved in their communities, compared with 36.7 percent for non-students of the same age. More than 47 percent of college students reported involvement with community service organizations compared with slightly more than 24 percent of non-students.
To be sure, surveys abound about the ignorance of college students on key facts of American history and civic life, and the Tufts survey wasn’t trying to find out if students stay up at night arguing over the most significant of the Federalist Papers.
But Tufts researchers were encouraged by the findings. “Young people seem to know more about politics than they know about popular culture,” said Kent E. Portney, project director and professor of political science, in a statement. “This level of political knowledge stands in stark contrast to the image of young people as uninterested in and ignorant about politics and government.”
— Scott Jaschik
Comments
American Idol? Dancing with the Stars?
I’m a college senior and I don’t know a single other student who regularly watches American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. (I also live in DC and don’t have a senator or a real representative so I guess they would have me there.)
Jack, at 10:01 am EDT on April 5, 2007
I always thought it was ridiculous to think that college students were politically apathetic. While it is stupid to watch TV or care about popular culture, in some ways caring too much about politics might hinder a student’s ability to learn analytical skills that would help them later on.
Larry, at 10:25 am EDT on April 5, 2007
No excuses
With the proliferation of information available to students today, we should have the most informed youth in the history of the world. With satelite TV, Radio and the internet, people are inundated with information, both substantive and non-substantive, 24/7.Now, if I could just get my students to identify where there classes are we would have a winner.
Cynic Professor, at 10:26 am EDT on April 5, 2007
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/05/tufts
Living for College
Commentary: Live for Yourself, Not for an Application
Here are some of my reactions to the New York Times article, "For Girls, It's be Yourself, and Be Perfect Too." (See below)
It is very true. Girls--of course boys also--today are pressured to achieve on multiple dimensions and then told to still celebrate their youth.
But I do think it is possible to achieve and still be genuine. Students just have to love what they do. I did all my extracurriculars--theater, ultimate frisbee, chinese harp, newspaper, speech team, Broadway Club, Arista, history club, tutoring, etc.--with smiles on my face because I truly enjoyed everything.
Of course the truth is not everyone enjoy everything and they are being pressured to take up everything for the sake of "being well rounded." I think that everyone will feel a lot better when they take a step back and stop worrying about what they think others want them to do and start focusing on just their own passions. Of course, then they'll think about the admissions officers and will start worrying again!
The biggest problem with this is that people start to lose themselves. They live for others and forget who they are. It's sad when freshmen in high school already start looking around for resume-padders. They should be looking to get involved; but too many do it for the wrong reason. It's great that kids can win national spelling bees knowing the word "ursprache," but did all the participants of The Bee memorize dictionaries because they were interested or because their parents told them that they should be interested? One of the scariest things I can imagine would be for people to wake up one day and realize that they have been living for someone else, that no part of their being really belonged to themselves. But it seems that this very thing happens all the time now.
Of course this is still only dwelling on message #1. Message # 2--Be yourself. Have fun. Don't work too hard--adds even more trouble.
Kaavya Viswanathan's scandal-marred "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" seemed to have been exploring this exact tension. Of course I never got to read the whole book since Little, Brown and Company pulled it from the shelves. But from what I managed to read--the free first chapter--high-achieving Opal got rejected by Harvard for not enjoying her youth and relaxing. (I think her real problem was that she wasn't doing everything she was doing for the sake of doing them, but rather for the sake of getting into Harvard.)
I think this kind of rejection does happen, sometimes unfairly, sometimes not enough (I'm probably going to get jumped for this ::laugh::). It definitely doesn't add to a campus community to have prototype nerds stay up in their dorms or the library all day. A lively college needs students who can do more than do well in classes. Life at college is shaped by those students who are willing to have lives outside of classrooms, libraries and labs.
But then some outstanding friends of mine were probably rejected because they were wrongly classified as uninteresting nerds. That coupled with the acceptance of classmates who did whatever possible to secure the top grades, who club-hopped to pad their resumes, and whose achievements also included underage drinking and drug dealing, really demonstrated to me the unfairness of the whole thing.
In the end, life is imperfect and some injustices simply can't be rectified. What we still have is a world full of enough wonderful things to occupy our time and our mind. When we are happy and in tune with the songs of the universe, we will be able to change the world for the better, a little bit at a time.
When Perfection is Not Enough
For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
In an honors philosophy/literature class, Esther Mobley, center, participates in a discussion of “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
By SARA RIMER
Published: April 1, 2007
NEWTON, Mass., March 31 — To anyone who knows 17-year-old Esther Mobley, one of the best students at one of the best public high schools in the country, it is absurd to think she doesn’t measure up. But Esther herself is quick to set the record straight.
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Excerpts: How Applying to College is Like 'The Aeneid,' and Other E-mails (April 1, 2007)
Text: Esther Mobley's College Essay (March 30, 2007)
Text: Colby Kennedy's College Essay (March 30, 2007)
Transcripts: 'The Appearance of Effortlessness' (April 1, 2007)
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
At Newton North High School in Newton, Mass., a Wonder Woman mural offers a role model to some girls. Newton North, one of the best public high schools in the country, gears its teaching toward gears its teaching toward a wide range of students.
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
‘It’s, like, a really big deal to go into a lucrative profession so that you can provide for your kids, and they can grow up in a place like the place where you grew up.’
Kat Jiang
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
‘I run, I do, but not very quickly, and always exhaustedly. This is one of the things I’m most insecure about. You meet someone, especially on a college tour, adults ask you what you do. They say, ‘What sports do you play?’ I don’t play any sports. It’s awkward.’
Esther Mobley
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‘I’m living up to my own expectations. It’s what I want to do. I want to do well for myself.’
Colby Kennedy
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
‘You’re supposed to have all these extracurriculars, to play sports and do theater. You’re supposed to do well in your classes and still have time to go out.’
Julie Mhlaba
“First of all, I’m a terrible athlete,” she said over lunch one day.
“I run, I do, but not very quickly, and always exhaustedly,” she continued. “This is one of the things I’m most insecure about. You meet someone, especially on a college tour, adults ask you what you do. They say, ‘What sports do you play?’ I don’t play any sports. It’s awkward.”
Esther, a willowy, effervescent senior, turned to her friend Colby Kennedy. Colby, 17, is also a great student, a classical pianist, fluent in Spanish, and a three-season varsity runner and track captain. Did Colby worry, Esther asked, that she fell short in some way?
“Or,” said Esther, and now her tone was a touch sarcastic, “do you just have it all already?”
They both burst out laughing.
Esther and Colby are two of the amazing girls at Newton North High School here in this affluent suburb just outside Boston. “Amazing girls” translation: Girls by the dozen who are high achieving, ambitious and confident (if not immune to the usual adolescent insecurities and meltdowns.) Girls who do everything: Varsity sports. Student government. Theater. Community service. Girls who have grown up learning they can do anything a boy can do, which is anything they want to do.
But being an amazing girl often doesn’t feel like enough these days when you’re competing with all the other amazing girls around the country who are applying to the same elite colleges that you have been encouraged to aspire to practically all your life.
An athlete, after all, is one of the few things Esther isn’t. A few of the things she is: a standout in Advanced Placement Latin and honors philosophy/literature who can expound on the beauty of the subjunctive tense in Catullus and on Kierkegaard’s existential choices. A writer whose junior thesis for Advanced Placement history won Newton North’s top prize. An actress. President of her church youth group.
To spend several months in a pressure cooker like Newton North is to see what a girl can be — what any young person can be — when encouraged by committed teachers and by engaged parents who can give them wide-ranging opportunities.
It is also to see these girls struggle to navigate the conflicting messages they have been absorbing, if not from their parents then from the culture, since elementary school. The first message: Bring home A’s. Do everything. Get into a top college — which doesn’t have to be in the Ivy League, or one of the other elites like Williams, Tufts or Bowdoin, but should be a “name” school.
The second message: Be yourself. Have fun. Don’t work too hard.
And, for all their accomplishments and ambitions, the amazing girls, as their teachers and classmates call them, are not immune to the third message: While it is now cool to be smart, it is not enough to be smart.
You still have to be pretty, thin and, as one of Esther’s classmates, Kat Jiang, a go-to stage manager for student theater who has a perfect 2400 score on her SATs, wrote in an e-mail message, “It’s out of style to admit it, but it is more important to be hot than smart.”
“Effortlessly hot,” Kat added.
If you are free to be everything, you are also expected to be everything. What it comes down to, in this place and time, is that the eternal adolescent search for self is going on at the same time as the quest for the perfect résumé. For Esther, as for high school seniors everywhere, this is a big weekend for finding out how your résumé measured up: The college acceptances, and rejections, are rolling in.
“You want to achieve,” Esther said. “But how do you achieve and still be genuine?”
If it all seems overwhelming at times, then the multitasking adults in Newton have the answer: Balance. Strive for balance.
But balance is out the window when you’re a high-achieving senior in the home stretch of the race for which all the years of achieving and the disciplined focusing on the future have been preparing you. These students are aware that because more girls apply to college than boys, amid concerns about gender balance, boys may have an edge at some small selective colleges.
“You’re supposed to have all these extracurriculars, to play sports and do theater,” said another of Esther’s 17-year-old classmates, Julie Mhlaba, who aspires to medical school and juggles three Advanced Placement classes, gospel choir and a part-time job as a waitress. “You’re supposed to do well in your classes and still have time to go out.”
“You’re supposed to do all these things,” Julie said, “and not go insane.”
Stress Trumps Relaxation
Newton, which has a population of almost 84,000, is known for a liberal sensibility and a high concentration of professionals like doctors, lawyers and academics. Six miles west of Boston, with its heavily settled neighborhoods, bustling downtowns and high numbers of immigrants, Newton is a suburb with an urban feel.
The main shopping area, in Newton Centre, is a concrete manifestation of the conflicting messages Esther and the other girls are constantly struggling to decode. In one five-block stretch are two Starbucks and one Peets Coffee & Tea, several psychotherapists’ offices, three SAT test-prep services, two after-school math programs, and three yoga studios promising relaxation and inner peace.
Smack in the middle of all of this is Esther’s church, the 227-year-old First Baptist, which welcomes everyone regardless of race, sexual orientation or denomination, and where Esther puts in a lot of time.
The test-prep business is booming. Kaplan (“Be the ideal college applicant!”) is practically around the corner from Chyten (“Our average SAT II score across all subjects is 720!”), which is three blocks from Princeton Review (“We’re all about scoring more!”). My First Yoga (for children 3 and up), with its founder playing up her Harvard degree, is conveniently located above Chyten, which includes the SAT Cafe.
High-priced SAT prep has become almost routine at schools like Newton North. Not to hire the extra help is practically an act of rebellion.
“I think it’s unfair,” Esther said, explaining why she decided against an SAT tutor, though she worried about her score (ultimately getting, as she put it, “above 2000”). “Why do I deserve this leg up?”
Parents view Newton’s expensive real estate — the median house price in 2006 was $730,000 — and high taxes as the price of admission to the prized public schools. There are less affluent parents, small-business owners, carpenters, plumbers, social workers and high school guidance counselors, but many of these families arrived decades ago when it was possible to buy a nice two-story Colonial for $150,000 or less.
Newton North, one of two outstanding public high schools here, is known for its academic rigor, but also its vocational education, reflecting the wide range of its 1,967 students. Nearly 73 percent of them are white, 7.3 percent black, nearly 12 percent Asian and 7.5 percent Hispanic. Many of the black and Hispanic students live in the Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston, and are bused in under a 35-year-old voluntary integration program.
Newton North has a student theater, winning athletic teams and dozens of after-school clubs (ultimate Frisbee, mock trial, black leadership, Hispanic culture, Israeli dance). There is an emphasis on nonconformity — even if it is often conformity dressed up as nonconformity — and an absence of such high school conventions as, say, homecoming queens, valedictorians and class rankings.
‘Superhuman’ Resistance
Jennifer Price, the Newton North principal, said she and her faculty emphasized to students that they could win admission to many excellent colleges without organizing their entire lives around résumé building. By age 14, Ms. Price said, the school’s highest fliers are already worrying about marketing themselves to colleges: “You almost have to be superhuman to resist the pressure.”
If more students aren’t listening to the message that they can relax a bit, one reason may be that a lot of the people delivering the message went to the elite colleges. Ms. Price has an undergraduate degree from Princeton — she makes a point of saying that she got in because she was recruited to play varsity field hockey — and is a doctoral candidate at Harvard. Many of the teachers have degrees from the Ivy League and other elite schools.
But the message also tends to get drowned out when parents bump into each other at Whole Foods and share news about whose son or daughter just got accepted (or not) at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Penn or Stanford.
Or when the final edition of the award-winning student newspaper, the Newtonite, comes out every June, with its two-page spread listing all the seniors, and their colleges. For that entire week, Esther says, everyone pores over the names, obsessing about who is going where.
“In a lot of ways, it’s all about that one week,” she said.
There is something about the lives these girls lead — their jam-packed schedules, the amped-up multitasking, the focus on a narrow group of the nation’s most selective colleges — that speaks of a profound anxiety in the young people, but perhaps even more so in their parents, about the ability of the next generation to afford to raise their families in a place like Newton.
Admission to a brand-name college is viewed by many parents, and their children, as holding the best promise of professional success and economic well-being in an increasingly competitive world.
“It’s, like, a really big deal to go into a lucrative profession so that you can provide for your kids, and they can grow up in a place like the place where you grew up,” Kat said.
Esther, however, is aiming for a decidedly nonlucrative profession. Inspired by her father, Greg Mobley, who is a Biblical scholar, she wants to be a theologian.
She says she is interested in “Scripture, the Bible, the development of organized religion, thinking about all this, writing about all this, teaching about all this.” More than anything else, she wrote in an e-mail message, she wants to be a writer, “and religion is what I most like to write about.”
“I have such a strong sense of being supported by my faith,” she continued. “It gives me priorities. That’s why I’m not concerned about making money, because I know that there is so much more to living a rich life than having money.”
First Baptist Church counts on Esther. She organizes pancake suppers, tutors a young congregant and helps lead the youth group’s outreach to the poor.
On a springlike Sunday afternoon toward the end of winter, Esther could be found with her father, her two brothers and members of her youth group handing out food to homeless people on Boston Common. She had spent the morning in church.
About 2 p.m., a text message flashed across her cellphone from Gabe Gladstone, a co-captain of mock trial: “Where are you?” Esther, a key member of the group, was needed at a meeting.
Esther messaged back: “I’m feeding the homeless, I’ll come when God’s work is done.”
Fending Off ‘Anorexia of the Soul’
On a Saturday afternoon in late November, Esther and her mother, Page Kelley, sat at the dining room table talking about the contradictions and complexities of life in Newton. Esther’s father was with his sons, Gregory, 15, who plays varsity basketball for Newton North, and Tommy, 10, coaching Tommy’s basketball team.
Ms. Kelley, 47, an assistant federal public defender, and Mr. Mobley, 49, a professor at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, grew up in Kentucky and came north for college. Ms. Kelley is a graduate of Smith College and Harvard Law School. Mr. Mobley has two graduate degrees from Harvard.
Amid all the competitiveness and consumerism, and the obsession with achievement in Newton, Ms. Kelley said, “You just hope your child doesn’t have anorexia of the soul.”
“It’s the idea that you end up with this strange drive,” she continued. “One of the great things about Esther is that she does have some kind of spiritual life. You just hope your kid has good priorities. We keep saying to her: ‘The name of the college you go to doesn’t matter. There are a lot of good colleges out there.’ ”
Esther said her mother is her role model. “I think the work she does is very noble,” she said.
“She has these impressive degrees,” Esther said, “and she chooses to do something where she’s not making as much money as she could.”
As close as mother and daughter are, there is one important generational divide. “My mother applied to one college,” Esther said. “She got in, she went.”
Back from basketball practice with his sons, Mr. Mobley joined the conversation. To Mr. Mobley, a formalized, competitive culture pervades everything from youth sports to getting into college. He pointed out to his wife that the lives of their three children were far more directed “than any of the aimless hours I spent in my youth daydreaming and meandering.”
Ms. Kelley asked, “Is that because of us?”
“Yes — and no,” he said. “It’s because of 2006 in America, and the Northeast.”
The bar for achievement keeps being raised for each generation, he said: “Our children start where we finished.”
As the afternoon turned into early evening, Esther went out to meet her best friend, Aliza Edelstein. The family dog, a Jack Russell terrier named Bandit, was underfoot, trolling for affection.
“I’m not worried about Esther because I know her,” Mr. Mobley said. “Esther’s character is sealed in some fundamental way.”
Ms. Kelley, however, wondered aloud: “Don’t you worry that she never rebelled? When I was growing up, you were supposed to rebel.”
But she acknowledged that she had sent her own mixed signals. “As I’m sitting here saying I don’t care what kind of grades she gets, I’m thinking, she comes home with a B, and I say: ‘What’d you get a B for? Who gave you a B? I’m going to talk to them.’
“You do want your child to do well.”
Mr. Mobley nodded. “We’re not above it,” he said. “It’s complicated.”
On a Fierce Mission to Shine
To sit in on classes with Esther in her vibrant high school where, between classes, the central corridor, called Main Street, is a bustling social hub, is to see why these students are genuinely excited about school.
Their teachers are pushing them to wrestle with big questions: What is truth? What does Virgil’s “Aeneid” tell us about destiny and individual happiness? How does DNA work? How is the global economy reshaping the world (subtext: you have to be fluid and highly educated to survive in the new economy)?
Esther’s ethics teacher, Joel Greifinger, spent considerable time this winter on moral theories. An examination of John Rawls’s theory of justice led to extensive discussions about American society and class inequality. Among the reading material Mr. Greifinger presented was research showing the correlation between income and SAT scores.
The class strengthened Esther’s earlier decision not to take private SAT prep.
In her honors philosophy/literature class, Esther has been reading Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, “Sophie’s Choice” and Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Amid a discussion of the strangely unsettling emptiness Frankl encountered upon his release from a Nazi concentration camp, Esther quoted Sartre: “You are condemned to freedom.”
Her honors teacher, Mike Fieleke, nodded. “That’s the existential idea. If we don’t awaken to that freedom, then we are slaves to our fate.”
A few weeks earlier, Esther, taking stock of her own life, wrote in an e-mail message: “I feel like I’m on the verge. I feel like I’m just about to get out of high school, to enter into adulthood, to reach some kind of state of independence and peacefulness and enlightenment.”
More immediately, she wrote, Mr. Fieleke had told her “he thought, from reading my papers and hearing me speak in class, that I was just on the verge of some really great idea.”
“I asked him if he thought that idea would come by next Wednesday, when our big Hamlet paper was due. He said I might feel this way all year long.”
The most intensely pressurized academic force field at school is the one surrounding the students on the Advanced Placement and honors track. About 145 of the 500 seniors are taking a combined total of three, four and five Advanced Placement and honors classes, with a few students even juggling six and seven.
Esther’s friend Colby takes four Advanced Placement and one honors class. “I’m living up to my own expectations,” Colby said. “It’s what I want to do. I want to do well for myself.”
Another of Esther’s friends, from student theater, Lee Gerstenhaber, 17, was juggling four Advanced Placement classes with intense late-night rehearsals for her starring role as Maggie, the seductive Southern belle in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” It was too much. About 4 a.m one day last fall, she was still fighting her way through Advanced Placement physics homework. She dissolved in tears.
“I had always been able to do it before,” Lee recalled later. “But I finally said to myself, ‘O.K., I’m not Superwoman.’ ”
She dropped physics — and was incandescent as Maggie.
Esther’s schedule includes two Advanced Placement and one honors class. Among certain of her classmates who are mindful that many elite colleges advise prospective applicants to pursue the most rigorous possible course of study, taking two Advanced Placement classes is viewed as “only two A.P.’s.” But Esther says she is simply taking the subjects she is most interested in.
She also shrugged off advice that it would look better on her résumé to take another science class instead of her passion, A.P. Latin. Like so many of her classmates, Esther started taking Latin in the seventh grade, when everyone was saying Latin would help them with the SAT. But now, except for Esther and a handful of other diehards who are devoted to Latin — and to their teacher, Robert Mitchell — everyone else has moved on.
“I like languages,” said Esther, who also takes Advanced Placement Spanish. “And I really like Latin.”
Who Needs a Boyfriend?
This year Esther has been trying life without a boyfriend. It was her mother’s idea. “She’d say, ‘I think it’s time for you to take a break and discover who you are,’ ” Esther said over lunch with Colby. “She was right. I feel better.”
Esther turned to Colby: she seems to pretty much always have a boyfriend.
“I never felt like having a boyfriend was a burden,” Colby said. “I enjoy just being comfortable with someone, being able to spend time together. I don’t think that means I wouldn’t feel comfortable or confident without one.”
Esther said: “I’m not trying to say that’s a bad thing. I’m like you. I never thought, ‘If I don’t have a boyfriend I’ll feel totally forlorn and lost.’ ”
But who needs a boyfriend? “My girlfriends have consistently been more important than my boyfriends,” Esther wrote in an e-mail message. “I mean, girlfriends last longer.”
Boyfriends or not, a deeper question for Esther and Colby is how they negotiate their identities as young women. They have grown up watching their mothers, and their friends’ mothers, juggle family and career. They take it for granted that they will be able to carve out similar paths, even if it doesn’t look easy from their vantage point.
They say they want to be both feminine and assertive, like their mothers. But Colby made the point at lunch that she would rather be considered too assertive and less conventionally feminine than “be totally passive and a bystander in my life.”
Esther agreed. She said she admired Cristina, the spunky resident on “Grey’s Anatomy,” one of her favorite TV shows.
“She really stands up for herself and knows who she is, which I aspire to,” Esther said.
Cristina is also “gorgeous,” Esther laughed. “And when she’s taking off her scrubs, she’s always wearing cute lingerie.”
Speaking of lingerie, part of being feminine is feeling good about how you look. Esther is not trying to be one of Newton North’s trendsetters, the girls who show up every day in Ugg boots, designer jeans — or equally cool jeans from the vintage store — and tight-fitting tank tops under the latest North Face jacket.
She never looks “scrubby,” to use the slang for being a slob, but sometimes comes to school in sweats and moccasins.
“I think sometimes I might be trying a little too hard not to conform,” Esther says.
She says she is one of the few girls in her circle who doesn’t have a credit card. But she is hardly immune to the pressure to be a good consumer.
During the discussion around the dining room table, Esther’s mother expressed her astonishment over her daughter’s expertise in designer jeans. They had been people-watching at the mall. Esther, as it turned out, knew the brand of every pair of jeans that went by.
So what were the coolest jeans at Newton North?
“The coolest jeans are True Religions,” Esther said.
“They look,” she said, and here she smiled sheepishly as she stood up to reveal her denim-clad legs, “like these.”
Aliza and several of Esther’s other friends chipped in to buy them for her 17th birthday, in November.
Encouraged to Ease Up a Little
The amazing boys say they admire girls like Esther and Colby.
“I hate it when girls dumb themselves down,” Gabe Gladstone, the co-captain of mock trial, was saying one morning to the other captain, Cameron Ferrey.
Cameron said he felt the same way.
One of Esther’s close friends is Dan Catomeris, a school theater star. “One of the most attractive things about Esther is how smart she is,” said Dan, whose mother is a professor at Harvard Business School. “There’s always been this intellectual tension between us. I see why she likes Kierkegaard — he’s existential, but still Christian. She really likes Descartes. I was not so into Descartes. I really like Hume, Nietzsche, the existentialist authors. The musician we’re most collectively into is Bob Dylan.”
Sometimes, though, everybody wants some of these hard-charging girls to chill out. Tom DePeter, an Advanced Placement English teacher, wants his students to loosen up so they can write original sentences. The theater director, Adam Brown, wants the girls to “let go” in auditions.
Peter Martin, the girls’ cross-country coach, says girls try so hard to please everyone — coaches, teachers, parents — that he bends over backward not to criticize them. “I tell them, ‘Just go out and run.’ ” His team wins consistently.
But how do you chill out and still get into a highly selective college?
One of Esther’s favorite rituals is to hang out at her house with Aliza, eating Ben and Jerry’s and watching a DVD of a favorite program like “The Office.” Their friendship helped Esther and Aliza keep going last fall, when there was hardly time to hang out. Esther recalled in an e-mail message how one night she had telephoned Aliza, who is also a top student, and a cross-country team captain, to say she was feeling overwhelmed.
“I said, ‘Aliza, this is crazy, I have so much homework to do, and I won’t be able to relax until I do it all. I haven’t gone out in weeks!’ And Aliza (who had also been staying in on Fridays and Saturdays to do homework) pointed out: ‘I’d rather get into college.’ ”
By Dec. 15, Newton North was in a frenzy over early admissions answers. Esther’s friend Phoebe Gardener had been accepted to Dartmouth. Her friend Dan Lurie was in at Brown. Harvard wanted Dan Catomeris.
Esther was in calculus class, the last period of the day when her cellphone rang. It was her father. The letter from Williams College — her ideal of the small, liberal arts school — had arrived.
Her father would be at her brother’s basketball game when she got home. Her mother would still be at the office. Esther did not want to be alone when she opened the letter.
“Dad, can you bring it to school?” she asked.
Ten minutes later, when her father arrived, Esther realized that he had somehow not registered the devastating thinness of the envelope. The admissions office was sorry. Williams had had a record number of highly qualified applicants for early admission this year. Esther had been rejected. Not deferred. Rejected.
Her father hugged her as she cried outside her classroom, and then he drove her home.
Esther said several days later: “Maybe it hurt me that I wasn’t an athlete.”
But she was already moving on. “I chose Williams,” she said, with a shrug. “They didn’t choose me back.”
About that thin envelope: Mr. Mobley, unschooled in such intricacies, said he hadn’t paid much attention to it. He had wanted so much for his daughter to get into Williams, he said, and believed so strongly in her, that it was as if he had wished the letter into being an acceptance.
“It was a setback,” Mr. Mobley said weeks later. “But it’s not a failure.”
And Then One Day, a Letter Arrives
Has this all been a temporary insanity?
Esther’s friend Colby learned in February that she had been accepted at the University of Southern California. Soon, more letters of acceptance rolled in: from the University of Miami, the University of Texas at Austin, Tulane. With the college-application pressure behind her, she can go back to being the pragmatic romantic who opened her journal last August and wrote her “life list,” with 35 goals and dreams, in pink ink.
She wants: To write a novel. Own a (red) Jeep Wrangler. Get into college. Name her firstborn daughter Carmen. Go to carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Learn to surf. Live in a Spanish-speaking country. Learn to play the doppio movimiento of Chopin’s Sonata in B Flat. Own a dog. Be a bridesmaid. Vote for president. Write a really good poem. Never get divorced.
In mid-January Esther was thrilled to receive an acceptance letter from Centre College, one of her fallback schools, in Kentucky. But she was still dreaming about her remaining top choices: Amherst, Middlebury, Davidson and Smith, her mother’s alma mater.
Esther’s application to Smith included a letter from her father. He wrote about how, when Esther was a baby, they had gone to his wife’s 10th college reunion. He described the alumni parade as an “angelic procession of women in white, decade by decade, at every stage in the course of human life.”
He wrote about seeing the young women, the middle-aged graduates and, finally, “the elderly women, some with the assistance of canes and wheelchairs, but with no diminution of the confidence that a great education brings.”
“I still remember holding Esther as we watched those saints go marching into the central campus for the commencement ceremony,” he wrote.
“Lord,” he concluded, and he could have been talking about any of the schools his daughter still has her heart set on, “I want Esther to be in that number.”
Epilogue: Esther learned last week that she had gotten into Smith. She learned on Saturday that she had been rejected by Amherst and Middlebury. She is still hoping for Davidson.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/us/01girls.html?ei=5070&en=8542ef1a2b8dc3e1&ex=1176436800&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all
Here are some of my reactions to the New York Times article, "For Girls, It's be Yourself, and Be Perfect Too." (See below)
It is very true. Girls--of course boys also--today are pressured to achieve on multiple dimensions and then told to still celebrate their youth.
But I do think it is possible to achieve and still be genuine. Students just have to love what they do. I did all my extracurriculars--theater, ultimate frisbee, chinese harp, newspaper, speech team, Broadway Club, Arista, history club, tutoring, etc.--with smiles on my face because I truly enjoyed everything.
Of course the truth is not everyone enjoy everything and they are being pressured to take up everything for the sake of "being well rounded." I think that everyone will feel a lot better when they take a step back and stop worrying about what they think others want them to do and start focusing on just their own passions. Of course, then they'll think about the admissions officers and will start worrying again!
The biggest problem with this is that people start to lose themselves. They live for others and forget who they are. It's sad when freshmen in high school already start looking around for resume-padders. They should be looking to get involved; but too many do it for the wrong reason. It's great that kids can win national spelling bees knowing the word "ursprache," but did all the participants of The Bee memorize dictionaries because they were interested or because their parents told them that they should be interested? One of the scariest things I can imagine would be for people to wake up one day and realize that they have been living for someone else, that no part of their being really belonged to themselves. But it seems that this very thing happens all the time now.
Of course this is still only dwelling on message #1. Message # 2--Be yourself. Have fun. Don't work too hard--adds even more trouble.
Kaavya Viswanathan's scandal-marred "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" seemed to have been exploring this exact tension. Of course I never got to read the whole book since Little, Brown and Company pulled it from the shelves. But from what I managed to read--the free first chapter--high-achieving Opal got rejected by Harvard for not enjoying her youth and relaxing. (I think her real problem was that she wasn't doing everything she was doing for the sake of doing them, but rather for the sake of getting into Harvard.)
I think this kind of rejection does happen, sometimes unfairly, sometimes not enough (I'm probably going to get jumped for this ::laugh::). It definitely doesn't add to a campus community to have prototype nerds stay up in their dorms or the library all day. A lively college needs students who can do more than do well in classes. Life at college is shaped by those students who are willing to have lives outside of classrooms, libraries and labs.
But then some outstanding friends of mine were probably rejected because they were wrongly classified as uninteresting nerds. That coupled with the acceptance of classmates who did whatever possible to secure the top grades, who club-hopped to pad their resumes, and whose achievements also included underage drinking and drug dealing, really demonstrated to me the unfairness of the whole thing.
In the end, life is imperfect and some injustices simply can't be rectified. What we still have is a world full of enough wonderful things to occupy our time and our mind. When we are happy and in tune with the songs of the universe, we will be able to change the world for the better, a little bit at a time.
When Perfection is Not Enough
For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
In an honors philosophy/literature class, Esther Mobley, center, participates in a discussion of “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
By SARA RIMER
Published: April 1, 2007
NEWTON, Mass., March 31 — To anyone who knows 17-year-old Esther Mobley, one of the best students at one of the best public high schools in the country, it is absurd to think she doesn’t measure up. But Esther herself is quick to set the record straight.
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Excerpts: How Applying to College is Like 'The Aeneid,' and Other E-mails (April 1, 2007)
Text: Esther Mobley's College Essay (March 30, 2007)
Text: Colby Kennedy's College Essay (March 30, 2007)
Transcripts: 'The Appearance of Effortlessness' (April 1, 2007)
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
At Newton North High School in Newton, Mass., a Wonder Woman mural offers a role model to some girls. Newton North, one of the best public high schools in the country, gears its teaching toward gears its teaching toward a wide range of students.
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
‘It’s, like, a really big deal to go into a lucrative profession so that you can provide for your kids, and they can grow up in a place like the place where you grew up.’
Kat Jiang
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
‘I run, I do, but not very quickly, and always exhaustedly. This is one of the things I’m most insecure about. You meet someone, especially on a college tour, adults ask you what you do. They say, ‘What sports do you play?’ I don’t play any sports. It’s awkward.’
Esther Mobley
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‘I’m living up to my own expectations. It’s what I want to do. I want to do well for myself.’
Colby Kennedy
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
‘You’re supposed to have all these extracurriculars, to play sports and do theater. You’re supposed to do well in your classes and still have time to go out.’
Julie Mhlaba
“First of all, I’m a terrible athlete,” she said over lunch one day.
“I run, I do, but not very quickly, and always exhaustedly,” she continued. “This is one of the things I’m most insecure about. You meet someone, especially on a college tour, adults ask you what you do. They say, ‘What sports do you play?’ I don’t play any sports. It’s awkward.”
Esther, a willowy, effervescent senior, turned to her friend Colby Kennedy. Colby, 17, is also a great student, a classical pianist, fluent in Spanish, and a three-season varsity runner and track captain. Did Colby worry, Esther asked, that she fell short in some way?
“Or,” said Esther, and now her tone was a touch sarcastic, “do you just have it all already?”
They both burst out laughing.
Esther and Colby are two of the amazing girls at Newton North High School here in this affluent suburb just outside Boston. “Amazing girls” translation: Girls by the dozen who are high achieving, ambitious and confident (if not immune to the usual adolescent insecurities and meltdowns.) Girls who do everything: Varsity sports. Student government. Theater. Community service. Girls who have grown up learning they can do anything a boy can do, which is anything they want to do.
But being an amazing girl often doesn’t feel like enough these days when you’re competing with all the other amazing girls around the country who are applying to the same elite colleges that you have been encouraged to aspire to practically all your life.
An athlete, after all, is one of the few things Esther isn’t. A few of the things she is: a standout in Advanced Placement Latin and honors philosophy/literature who can expound on the beauty of the subjunctive tense in Catullus and on Kierkegaard’s existential choices. A writer whose junior thesis for Advanced Placement history won Newton North’s top prize. An actress. President of her church youth group.
To spend several months in a pressure cooker like Newton North is to see what a girl can be — what any young person can be — when encouraged by committed teachers and by engaged parents who can give them wide-ranging opportunities.
It is also to see these girls struggle to navigate the conflicting messages they have been absorbing, if not from their parents then from the culture, since elementary school. The first message: Bring home A’s. Do everything. Get into a top college — which doesn’t have to be in the Ivy League, or one of the other elites like Williams, Tufts or Bowdoin, but should be a “name” school.
The second message: Be yourself. Have fun. Don’t work too hard.
And, for all their accomplishments and ambitions, the amazing girls, as their teachers and classmates call them, are not immune to the third message: While it is now cool to be smart, it is not enough to be smart.
You still have to be pretty, thin and, as one of Esther’s classmates, Kat Jiang, a go-to stage manager for student theater who has a perfect 2400 score on her SATs, wrote in an e-mail message, “It’s out of style to admit it, but it is more important to be hot than smart.”
“Effortlessly hot,” Kat added.
If you are free to be everything, you are also expected to be everything. What it comes down to, in this place and time, is that the eternal adolescent search for self is going on at the same time as the quest for the perfect résumé. For Esther, as for high school seniors everywhere, this is a big weekend for finding out how your résumé measured up: The college acceptances, and rejections, are rolling in.
“You want to achieve,” Esther said. “But how do you achieve and still be genuine?”
If it all seems overwhelming at times, then the multitasking adults in Newton have the answer: Balance. Strive for balance.
But balance is out the window when you’re a high-achieving senior in the home stretch of the race for which all the years of achieving and the disciplined focusing on the future have been preparing you. These students are aware that because more girls apply to college than boys, amid concerns about gender balance, boys may have an edge at some small selective colleges.
“You’re supposed to have all these extracurriculars, to play sports and do theater,” said another of Esther’s 17-year-old classmates, Julie Mhlaba, who aspires to medical school and juggles three Advanced Placement classes, gospel choir and a part-time job as a waitress. “You’re supposed to do well in your classes and still have time to go out.”
“You’re supposed to do all these things,” Julie said, “and not go insane.”
Stress Trumps Relaxation
Newton, which has a population of almost 84,000, is known for a liberal sensibility and a high concentration of professionals like doctors, lawyers and academics. Six miles west of Boston, with its heavily settled neighborhoods, bustling downtowns and high numbers of immigrants, Newton is a suburb with an urban feel.
The main shopping area, in Newton Centre, is a concrete manifestation of the conflicting messages Esther and the other girls are constantly struggling to decode. In one five-block stretch are two Starbucks and one Peets Coffee & Tea, several psychotherapists’ offices, three SAT test-prep services, two after-school math programs, and three yoga studios promising relaxation and inner peace.
Smack in the middle of all of this is Esther’s church, the 227-year-old First Baptist, which welcomes everyone regardless of race, sexual orientation or denomination, and where Esther puts in a lot of time.
The test-prep business is booming. Kaplan (“Be the ideal college applicant!”) is practically around the corner from Chyten (“Our average SAT II score across all subjects is 720!”), which is three blocks from Princeton Review (“We’re all about scoring more!”). My First Yoga (for children 3 and up), with its founder playing up her Harvard degree, is conveniently located above Chyten, which includes the SAT Cafe.
High-priced SAT prep has become almost routine at schools like Newton North. Not to hire the extra help is practically an act of rebellion.
“I think it’s unfair,” Esther said, explaining why she decided against an SAT tutor, though she worried about her score (ultimately getting, as she put it, “above 2000”). “Why do I deserve this leg up?”
Parents view Newton’s expensive real estate — the median house price in 2006 was $730,000 — and high taxes as the price of admission to the prized public schools. There are less affluent parents, small-business owners, carpenters, plumbers, social workers and high school guidance counselors, but many of these families arrived decades ago when it was possible to buy a nice two-story Colonial for $150,000 or less.
Newton North, one of two outstanding public high schools here, is known for its academic rigor, but also its vocational education, reflecting the wide range of its 1,967 students. Nearly 73 percent of them are white, 7.3 percent black, nearly 12 percent Asian and 7.5 percent Hispanic. Many of the black and Hispanic students live in the Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston, and are bused in under a 35-year-old voluntary integration program.
Newton North has a student theater, winning athletic teams and dozens of after-school clubs (ultimate Frisbee, mock trial, black leadership, Hispanic culture, Israeli dance). There is an emphasis on nonconformity — even if it is often conformity dressed up as nonconformity — and an absence of such high school conventions as, say, homecoming queens, valedictorians and class rankings.
‘Superhuman’ Resistance
Jennifer Price, the Newton North principal, said she and her faculty emphasized to students that they could win admission to many excellent colleges without organizing their entire lives around résumé building. By age 14, Ms. Price said, the school’s highest fliers are already worrying about marketing themselves to colleges: “You almost have to be superhuman to resist the pressure.”
If more students aren’t listening to the message that they can relax a bit, one reason may be that a lot of the people delivering the message went to the elite colleges. Ms. Price has an undergraduate degree from Princeton — she makes a point of saying that she got in because she was recruited to play varsity field hockey — and is a doctoral candidate at Harvard. Many of the teachers have degrees from the Ivy League and other elite schools.
But the message also tends to get drowned out when parents bump into each other at Whole Foods and share news about whose son or daughter just got accepted (or not) at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Penn or Stanford.
Or when the final edition of the award-winning student newspaper, the Newtonite, comes out every June, with its two-page spread listing all the seniors, and their colleges. For that entire week, Esther says, everyone pores over the names, obsessing about who is going where.
“In a lot of ways, it’s all about that one week,” she said.
There is something about the lives these girls lead — their jam-packed schedules, the amped-up multitasking, the focus on a narrow group of the nation’s most selective colleges — that speaks of a profound anxiety in the young people, but perhaps even more so in their parents, about the ability of the next generation to afford to raise their families in a place like Newton.
Admission to a brand-name college is viewed by many parents, and their children, as holding the best promise of professional success and economic well-being in an increasingly competitive world.
“It’s, like, a really big deal to go into a lucrative profession so that you can provide for your kids, and they can grow up in a place like the place where you grew up,” Kat said.
Esther, however, is aiming for a decidedly nonlucrative profession. Inspired by her father, Greg Mobley, who is a Biblical scholar, she wants to be a theologian.
She says she is interested in “Scripture, the Bible, the development of organized religion, thinking about all this, writing about all this, teaching about all this.” More than anything else, she wrote in an e-mail message, she wants to be a writer, “and religion is what I most like to write about.”
“I have such a strong sense of being supported by my faith,” she continued. “It gives me priorities. That’s why I’m not concerned about making money, because I know that there is so much more to living a rich life than having money.”
First Baptist Church counts on Esther. She organizes pancake suppers, tutors a young congregant and helps lead the youth group’s outreach to the poor.
On a springlike Sunday afternoon toward the end of winter, Esther could be found with her father, her two brothers and members of her youth group handing out food to homeless people on Boston Common. She had spent the morning in church.
About 2 p.m., a text message flashed across her cellphone from Gabe Gladstone, a co-captain of mock trial: “Where are you?” Esther, a key member of the group, was needed at a meeting.
Esther messaged back: “I’m feeding the homeless, I’ll come when God’s work is done.”
Fending Off ‘Anorexia of the Soul’
On a Saturday afternoon in late November, Esther and her mother, Page Kelley, sat at the dining room table talking about the contradictions and complexities of life in Newton. Esther’s father was with his sons, Gregory, 15, who plays varsity basketball for Newton North, and Tommy, 10, coaching Tommy’s basketball team.
Ms. Kelley, 47, an assistant federal public defender, and Mr. Mobley, 49, a professor at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, grew up in Kentucky and came north for college. Ms. Kelley is a graduate of Smith College and Harvard Law School. Mr. Mobley has two graduate degrees from Harvard.
Amid all the competitiveness and consumerism, and the obsession with achievement in Newton, Ms. Kelley said, “You just hope your child doesn’t have anorexia of the soul.”
“It’s the idea that you end up with this strange drive,” she continued. “One of the great things about Esther is that she does have some kind of spiritual life. You just hope your kid has good priorities. We keep saying to her: ‘The name of the college you go to doesn’t matter. There are a lot of good colleges out there.’ ”
Esther said her mother is her role model. “I think the work she does is very noble,” she said.
“She has these impressive degrees,” Esther said, “and she chooses to do something where she’s not making as much money as she could.”
As close as mother and daughter are, there is one important generational divide. “My mother applied to one college,” Esther said. “She got in, she went.”
Back from basketball practice with his sons, Mr. Mobley joined the conversation. To Mr. Mobley, a formalized, competitive culture pervades everything from youth sports to getting into college. He pointed out to his wife that the lives of their three children were far more directed “than any of the aimless hours I spent in my youth daydreaming and meandering.”
Ms. Kelley asked, “Is that because of us?”
“Yes — and no,” he said. “It’s because of 2006 in America, and the Northeast.”
The bar for achievement keeps being raised for each generation, he said: “Our children start where we finished.”
As the afternoon turned into early evening, Esther went out to meet her best friend, Aliza Edelstein. The family dog, a Jack Russell terrier named Bandit, was underfoot, trolling for affection.
“I’m not worried about Esther because I know her,” Mr. Mobley said. “Esther’s character is sealed in some fundamental way.”
Ms. Kelley, however, wondered aloud: “Don’t you worry that she never rebelled? When I was growing up, you were supposed to rebel.”
But she acknowledged that she had sent her own mixed signals. “As I’m sitting here saying I don’t care what kind of grades she gets, I’m thinking, she comes home with a B, and I say: ‘What’d you get a B for? Who gave you a B? I’m going to talk to them.’
“You do want your child to do well.”
Mr. Mobley nodded. “We’re not above it,” he said. “It’s complicated.”
On a Fierce Mission to Shine
To sit in on classes with Esther in her vibrant high school where, between classes, the central corridor, called Main Street, is a bustling social hub, is to see why these students are genuinely excited about school.
Their teachers are pushing them to wrestle with big questions: What is truth? What does Virgil’s “Aeneid” tell us about destiny and individual happiness? How does DNA work? How is the global economy reshaping the world (subtext: you have to be fluid and highly educated to survive in the new economy)?
Esther’s ethics teacher, Joel Greifinger, spent considerable time this winter on moral theories. An examination of John Rawls’s theory of justice led to extensive discussions about American society and class inequality. Among the reading material Mr. Greifinger presented was research showing the correlation between income and SAT scores.
The class strengthened Esther’s earlier decision not to take private SAT prep.
In her honors philosophy/literature class, Esther has been reading Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, “Sophie’s Choice” and Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Amid a discussion of the strangely unsettling emptiness Frankl encountered upon his release from a Nazi concentration camp, Esther quoted Sartre: “You are condemned to freedom.”
Her honors teacher, Mike Fieleke, nodded. “That’s the existential idea. If we don’t awaken to that freedom, then we are slaves to our fate.”
A few weeks earlier, Esther, taking stock of her own life, wrote in an e-mail message: “I feel like I’m on the verge. I feel like I’m just about to get out of high school, to enter into adulthood, to reach some kind of state of independence and peacefulness and enlightenment.”
More immediately, she wrote, Mr. Fieleke had told her “he thought, from reading my papers and hearing me speak in class, that I was just on the verge of some really great idea.”
“I asked him if he thought that idea would come by next Wednesday, when our big Hamlet paper was due. He said I might feel this way all year long.”
The most intensely pressurized academic force field at school is the one surrounding the students on the Advanced Placement and honors track. About 145 of the 500 seniors are taking a combined total of three, four and five Advanced Placement and honors classes, with a few students even juggling six and seven.
Esther’s friend Colby takes four Advanced Placement and one honors class. “I’m living up to my own expectations,” Colby said. “It’s what I want to do. I want to do well for myself.”
Another of Esther’s friends, from student theater, Lee Gerstenhaber, 17, was juggling four Advanced Placement classes with intense late-night rehearsals for her starring role as Maggie, the seductive Southern belle in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” It was too much. About 4 a.m one day last fall, she was still fighting her way through Advanced Placement physics homework. She dissolved in tears.
“I had always been able to do it before,” Lee recalled later. “But I finally said to myself, ‘O.K., I’m not Superwoman.’ ”
She dropped physics — and was incandescent as Maggie.
Esther’s schedule includes two Advanced Placement and one honors class. Among certain of her classmates who are mindful that many elite colleges advise prospective applicants to pursue the most rigorous possible course of study, taking two Advanced Placement classes is viewed as “only two A.P.’s.” But Esther says she is simply taking the subjects she is most interested in.
She also shrugged off advice that it would look better on her résumé to take another science class instead of her passion, A.P. Latin. Like so many of her classmates, Esther started taking Latin in the seventh grade, when everyone was saying Latin would help them with the SAT. But now, except for Esther and a handful of other diehards who are devoted to Latin — and to their teacher, Robert Mitchell — everyone else has moved on.
“I like languages,” said Esther, who also takes Advanced Placement Spanish. “And I really like Latin.”
Who Needs a Boyfriend?
This year Esther has been trying life without a boyfriend. It was her mother’s idea. “She’d say, ‘I think it’s time for you to take a break and discover who you are,’ ” Esther said over lunch with Colby. “She was right. I feel better.”
Esther turned to Colby: she seems to pretty much always have a boyfriend.
“I never felt like having a boyfriend was a burden,” Colby said. “I enjoy just being comfortable with someone, being able to spend time together. I don’t think that means I wouldn’t feel comfortable or confident without one.”
Esther said: “I’m not trying to say that’s a bad thing. I’m like you. I never thought, ‘If I don’t have a boyfriend I’ll feel totally forlorn and lost.’ ”
But who needs a boyfriend? “My girlfriends have consistently been more important than my boyfriends,” Esther wrote in an e-mail message. “I mean, girlfriends last longer.”
Boyfriends or not, a deeper question for Esther and Colby is how they negotiate their identities as young women. They have grown up watching their mothers, and their friends’ mothers, juggle family and career. They take it for granted that they will be able to carve out similar paths, even if it doesn’t look easy from their vantage point.
They say they want to be both feminine and assertive, like their mothers. But Colby made the point at lunch that she would rather be considered too assertive and less conventionally feminine than “be totally passive and a bystander in my life.”
Esther agreed. She said she admired Cristina, the spunky resident on “Grey’s Anatomy,” one of her favorite TV shows.
“She really stands up for herself and knows who she is, which I aspire to,” Esther said.
Cristina is also “gorgeous,” Esther laughed. “And when she’s taking off her scrubs, she’s always wearing cute lingerie.”
Speaking of lingerie, part of being feminine is feeling good about how you look. Esther is not trying to be one of Newton North’s trendsetters, the girls who show up every day in Ugg boots, designer jeans — or equally cool jeans from the vintage store — and tight-fitting tank tops under the latest North Face jacket.
She never looks “scrubby,” to use the slang for being a slob, but sometimes comes to school in sweats and moccasins.
“I think sometimes I might be trying a little too hard not to conform,” Esther says.
She says she is one of the few girls in her circle who doesn’t have a credit card. But she is hardly immune to the pressure to be a good consumer.
During the discussion around the dining room table, Esther’s mother expressed her astonishment over her daughter’s expertise in designer jeans. They had been people-watching at the mall. Esther, as it turned out, knew the brand of every pair of jeans that went by.
So what were the coolest jeans at Newton North?
“The coolest jeans are True Religions,” Esther said.
“They look,” she said, and here she smiled sheepishly as she stood up to reveal her denim-clad legs, “like these.”
Aliza and several of Esther’s other friends chipped in to buy them for her 17th birthday, in November.
Encouraged to Ease Up a Little
The amazing boys say they admire girls like Esther and Colby.
“I hate it when girls dumb themselves down,” Gabe Gladstone, the co-captain of mock trial, was saying one morning to the other captain, Cameron Ferrey.
Cameron said he felt the same way.
One of Esther’s close friends is Dan Catomeris, a school theater star. “One of the most attractive things about Esther is how smart she is,” said Dan, whose mother is a professor at Harvard Business School. “There’s always been this intellectual tension between us. I see why she likes Kierkegaard — he’s existential, but still Christian. She really likes Descartes. I was not so into Descartes. I really like Hume, Nietzsche, the existentialist authors. The musician we’re most collectively into is Bob Dylan.”
Sometimes, though, everybody wants some of these hard-charging girls to chill out. Tom DePeter, an Advanced Placement English teacher, wants his students to loosen up so they can write original sentences. The theater director, Adam Brown, wants the girls to “let go” in auditions.
Peter Martin, the girls’ cross-country coach, says girls try so hard to please everyone — coaches, teachers, parents — that he bends over backward not to criticize them. “I tell them, ‘Just go out and run.’ ” His team wins consistently.
But how do you chill out and still get into a highly selective college?
One of Esther’s favorite rituals is to hang out at her house with Aliza, eating Ben and Jerry’s and watching a DVD of a favorite program like “The Office.” Their friendship helped Esther and Aliza keep going last fall, when there was hardly time to hang out. Esther recalled in an e-mail message how one night she had telephoned Aliza, who is also a top student, and a cross-country team captain, to say she was feeling overwhelmed.
“I said, ‘Aliza, this is crazy, I have so much homework to do, and I won’t be able to relax until I do it all. I haven’t gone out in weeks!’ And Aliza (who had also been staying in on Fridays and Saturdays to do homework) pointed out: ‘I’d rather get into college.’ ”
By Dec. 15, Newton North was in a frenzy over early admissions answers. Esther’s friend Phoebe Gardener had been accepted to Dartmouth. Her friend Dan Lurie was in at Brown. Harvard wanted Dan Catomeris.
Esther was in calculus class, the last period of the day when her cellphone rang. It was her father. The letter from Williams College — her ideal of the small, liberal arts school — had arrived.
Her father would be at her brother’s basketball game when she got home. Her mother would still be at the office. Esther did not want to be alone when she opened the letter.
“Dad, can you bring it to school?” she asked.
Ten minutes later, when her father arrived, Esther realized that he had somehow not registered the devastating thinness of the envelope. The admissions office was sorry. Williams had had a record number of highly qualified applicants for early admission this year. Esther had been rejected. Not deferred. Rejected.
Her father hugged her as she cried outside her classroom, and then he drove her home.
Esther said several days later: “Maybe it hurt me that I wasn’t an athlete.”
But she was already moving on. “I chose Williams,” she said, with a shrug. “They didn’t choose me back.”
About that thin envelope: Mr. Mobley, unschooled in such intricacies, said he hadn’t paid much attention to it. He had wanted so much for his daughter to get into Williams, he said, and believed so strongly in her, that it was as if he had wished the letter into being an acceptance.
“It was a setback,” Mr. Mobley said weeks later. “But it’s not a failure.”
And Then One Day, a Letter Arrives
Has this all been a temporary insanity?
Esther’s friend Colby learned in February that she had been accepted at the University of Southern California. Soon, more letters of acceptance rolled in: from the University of Miami, the University of Texas at Austin, Tulane. With the college-application pressure behind her, she can go back to being the pragmatic romantic who opened her journal last August and wrote her “life list,” with 35 goals and dreams, in pink ink.
She wants: To write a novel. Own a (red) Jeep Wrangler. Get into college. Name her firstborn daughter Carmen. Go to carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Learn to surf. Live in a Spanish-speaking country. Learn to play the doppio movimiento of Chopin’s Sonata in B Flat. Own a dog. Be a bridesmaid. Vote for president. Write a really good poem. Never get divorced.
In mid-January Esther was thrilled to receive an acceptance letter from Centre College, one of her fallback schools, in Kentucky. But she was still dreaming about her remaining top choices: Amherst, Middlebury, Davidson and Smith, her mother’s alma mater.
Esther’s application to Smith included a letter from her father. He wrote about how, when Esther was a baby, they had gone to his wife’s 10th college reunion. He described the alumni parade as an “angelic procession of women in white, decade by decade, at every stage in the course of human life.”
He wrote about seeing the young women, the middle-aged graduates and, finally, “the elderly women, some with the assistance of canes and wheelchairs, but with no diminution of the confidence that a great education brings.”
“I still remember holding Esther as we watched those saints go marching into the central campus for the commencement ceremony,” he wrote.
“Lord,” he concluded, and he could have been talking about any of the schools his daughter still has her heart set on, “I want Esther to be in that number.”
Epilogue: Esther learned last week that she had gotten into Smith. She learned on Saturday that she had been rejected by Amherst and Middlebury. She is still hoping for Davidson.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/us/01girls.html?ei=5070&en=8542ef1a2b8dc3e1&ex=1176436800&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
The Science of Getting Rich
http://www.cleaningoutthecloset.com/pdf/scienceofgettingrich.pdf
The Science of Getting Rich i
The Science of
Getting Rich
Timeless wisdom and a practical prosperity program
from the forgotten 1910 classic!
©1999-2002 Rebecca Fine & Certain Way Productions www.scienceofgettingrich.net
By Wallace D. Wattles
Edited by & with a new introduction by Rebecca Fine
A gift to you from The Science of Getting Rich Network
www.scienceofgettingrich.net
ii Wallace D. Wattles
The Science of Getting Rich
©1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Rebecca Fine. All rights reserved.
For information on sharing this book with others ethically (and even
profitably!), see Appendix D.
This book is a gift to you from the original and only ...
The Science of Getting Rich Network
www.scienceofgettingrich.net
Download this free book and more!
Online discussion groups
Exclusive: Audiobook on tape or CD
Exclusive: Free ezine, The Certain Way™
Exclusive: The Science of Getting Rich for Practical Geniuses™
Online Course
And MUCH more!
Certain Way
P R O D U C T I O N S
2400 NW 80th Street
The Science of Getting Rich i
The Science of
Getting Rich
Timeless wisdom and a practical prosperity program
from the forgotten 1910 classic!
©1999-2002 Rebecca Fine & Certain Way Productions www.scienceofgettingrich.net
By Wallace D. Wattles
Edited by & with a new introduction by Rebecca Fine
A gift to you from The Science of Getting Rich Network
www.scienceofgettingrich.net
ii Wallace D. Wattles
The Science of Getting Rich
©1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Rebecca Fine. All rights reserved.
For information on sharing this book with others ethically (and even
profitably!), see Appendix D.
This book is a gift to you from the original and only ...
The Science of Getting Rich Network
www.scienceofgettingrich.net
Download this free book and more!
Online discussion groups
Exclusive: Audiobook on tape or CD
Exclusive: Free ezine, The Certain Way™
Exclusive: The Science of Getting Rich for Practical Geniuses™
Online Course
And MUCH more!
Certain Way
P R O D U C T I O N S
2400 NW 80th Street
Asia's Richest Women Dies in Mystery
Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, dies By Donny Kwok
Wed Apr 4, 7:07 AM ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, has died of an unspecified illness after reports she had been battling cancer, leaving unanswered questions over her estimated $4.2 billion (2.1 billion pound) fortune.
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Known for her signature pigtails and nicknamed "little sweetie" by the local media, Wang, 69, won a court case in 2005 for her late husband's business empire in a case filled with tales of adultery, kidnapping and murder.
The Hong Kong heiress, whose maiden name was Kung, was reported by local newspapers to be suffering from cancer, but that was never officially confirmed.
"Chinachem Group's chairwoman Nina Wang Kung passed away on April 3 and the details of the funeral will be announced later," her personal assistant, Ringo Wong, told Reuters by telephone.
Wang's company, Hong Kong's largest private property developer, Chinachem Group, confirmed in a statement that she died on Tuesday.
Wang, ranked by Forbes Magazine as Asia's 35th richest person, had no children but is survived by at least one brother and reportedly other siblings.
Lawyer Wong Tak-sing said under Hong Kong law Nina Wang's brothers and sisters could apply to inherit her fortune if she did not have a will. Wang's nieces or nephews could share the wealth as well if their parents had died.
Wang successfully battled her father-in-law for a multi-billion dollar estate left by her late husband Teddy Wang, a property tycoon who vanished more than a decade ago.
KIDNAPPED
Central to the marathon probate case was a handwritten will that Wang said was penned and signed by Teddy in March 1990, a month before he was kidnapped and never seen again. Some reports at the time said Teddy was gagged and bound and thrown out to sea from a Chinese "sampan" boat.
Teddy was also kidnapped in 1983 when his car was hijacked, and only released -- left in an iron box at the side of a road -- after Nina paid an $11 million ransom.
Born in Shanghai, Wang went to Hong Kong in 1955 to rejoin Teddy, who ran a pharmaceuticals and vinyl business before starting to dabble in property. By the 1980s the couple were part of the booming city's glitterati.
Hong Kong newspapers reported late last year that Wang had ovarian cancer that had spread to her liver and other organs, and had been admitted to hospital for chemotherapy.
Two firms, in which Nina Wang held stakes, saw their stock prices fall on Wednesday. Fashion retailer ENM Holdings dropped 14 percent, while China Solar Energy Holdings Ltd. lost 2.63 percent.
Wang was also a strategic investor in CITIC 1616, which jumped 67 percent on its market debut the day she died, and was up 1.86 percent on Wednesday.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070404/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_hongkong_ninawang
Wed Apr 4, 7:07 AM ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, has died of an unspecified illness after reports she had been battling cancer, leaving unanswered questions over her estimated $4.2 billion (2.1 billion pound) fortune.
ADVERTISEMENT
Known for her signature pigtails and nicknamed "little sweetie" by the local media, Wang, 69, won a court case in 2005 for her late husband's business empire in a case filled with tales of adultery, kidnapping and murder.
The Hong Kong heiress, whose maiden name was Kung, was reported by local newspapers to be suffering from cancer, but that was never officially confirmed.
"Chinachem Group's chairwoman Nina Wang Kung passed away on April 3 and the details of the funeral will be announced later," her personal assistant, Ringo Wong, told Reuters by telephone.
Wang's company, Hong Kong's largest private property developer, Chinachem Group, confirmed in a statement that she died on Tuesday.
Wang, ranked by Forbes Magazine as Asia's 35th richest person, had no children but is survived by at least one brother and reportedly other siblings.
Lawyer Wong Tak-sing said under Hong Kong law Nina Wang's brothers and sisters could apply to inherit her fortune if she did not have a will. Wang's nieces or nephews could share the wealth as well if their parents had died.
Wang successfully battled her father-in-law for a multi-billion dollar estate left by her late husband Teddy Wang, a property tycoon who vanished more than a decade ago.
KIDNAPPED
Central to the marathon probate case was a handwritten will that Wang said was penned and signed by Teddy in March 1990, a month before he was kidnapped and never seen again. Some reports at the time said Teddy was gagged and bound and thrown out to sea from a Chinese "sampan" boat.
Teddy was also kidnapped in 1983 when his car was hijacked, and only released -- left in an iron box at the side of a road -- after Nina paid an $11 million ransom.
Born in Shanghai, Wang went to Hong Kong in 1955 to rejoin Teddy, who ran a pharmaceuticals and vinyl business before starting to dabble in property. By the 1980s the couple were part of the booming city's glitterati.
Hong Kong newspapers reported late last year that Wang had ovarian cancer that had spread to her liver and other organs, and had been admitted to hospital for chemotherapy.
Two firms, in which Nina Wang held stakes, saw their stock prices fall on Wednesday. Fashion retailer ENM Holdings dropped 14 percent, while China Solar Energy Holdings Ltd. lost 2.63 percent.
Wang was also a strategic investor in CITIC 1616, which jumped 67 percent on its market debut the day she died, and was up 1.86 percent on Wednesday.
Email Story IM Story Printable View (What happened to the "Discuss" option?) RECOMMEND THIS STORY
Recommend It:
Average (595 votes)
» Recommended Stories
Odd News
Kinkajou flees zoo, bites bus passenger AP Ala. woman on horseback charged with DUI AP Coyote visits Chicago sandwich shop AP Deputies put toe and tow together AP Couple fights to name baby 'Metallica' AP Most Viewed: Odd News
Teacher who threw feces at boy may keep job Reuters Couple fights to name baby 'Metallica' AP Ala. woman on horseback charged with DUI AP Woman loses battle to turn dead dad into diamond Reuters Fake beach draws crowds, lacks glitz Reuters
Odd News - Video
Coast Guard Tree Top Rescue ABC News - 2 hours, 5 minutes ago Drunken Drivers Plow Into the Water ABC News - Wed Apr 4, 9:32 AM ET Coyote Wolfs Out at Sub Shop ABC News - Tue Apr 3, 6:34 PM ET Last Standing China House Torn Down ABC News - Tue Apr 3, 9:32 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070404/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_hongkong_ninawang
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Article Collection April 4
EU starts probe into Apple's iTunes By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 3, 3:24 PM ET
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The deals Apple Inc. struck with record labels to stock its European iTunes stores may violate EU competition rules, regulators said Tuesday.
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Apple and the record companies were notified of an investigation into their agreements after regulators built up a "very strong case," said European Union spokesman Jonathan Todd.
People can only download singles or albums from the iTunes store in their country of residence — a policy that amounts to unlawful "territorial sales restrictions," the Commission said.
"Consumers are thus restricted in their choice of where to buy music and consequently what music is available, and at what price," the Commission said in a statement.
But Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said the company wanted to operate a single store for all of Europe, but music labels and publishers said there were limits to the rights they could grant to Apple.
"We don't believe Apple did anything to violate EU law," he said. "We will continue to work with the EU to resolve this matter."
Investigators have been gathering evidence on Apple's deals with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and EMI Group PLC for the past two years, after Britain's Consumers' Association filed a complaint with the Commission in 2004.
"We do not believe we have breached European competition law and we will be making that case strongly," said Amanda Conroy, a spokeswoman for EMI in London.
Sony spokeswoman Sylvia Shin offered no immediate reaction to the investigation and a call made to Universal Music was not immediately returned.
Apple and the record companies have two months to answer questions in the "statement of objections" from regulators. If found guilty, a company could face hefty fines, which in theory could total up to 10 percent of the company's worldwide annual revenue.
The cost of buying a single song across the 27-nation bloc varies among the available iTunes stores in EU nations. For example, downloading a track in Britain costs $1.56, in Denmark $1.44, while in countries using the euro such as Germany and Belgium, a single costs $1.32.
Consumer groups welcomed the EU's move.
"As I can go from the U.K. to Germany to go into the shop to buy a CD there, which is cheaper or more expensive than in the U.K., I should have the same opportunity online; that is what we are asking for," said Cornelia Kutterer, senior legal adviser at the European consumer group BEUC.
The EU investigation comes amid moves by consumer rights groups in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Nordic countries to force Apple to change the rules it imposes on its online music store customers.
The groups are demanding Apple lift limits preventing consumers from playing their downloads on digital players other than Apple's iPod. In February, Norway, which is not a member of the EU, declared those limits illegal and gave Apple until Oct. 1 to change its compatibility rules or face legal action and possible fines.
The EU investigation does not deal with these concerns, however.
Apple has said it is willing to open iTunes to players other than iPods if the world's major record labels moved to change their anti-piracy technology.
Apple and EMI announced a deal on Monday that would allow EMI's music to be sold on iTunes minus anti-piracy software that limits its use on some players. The move is expected to be watched — and likely followed — by other record labels.
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Microsoft sues student software sellers By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Business Writer
Tue Apr 3, 3:25 PM ET
REDMOND, Wash. - Microsoft Corp. has filed five new lawsuits against U.S. companies and individuals it claims sold deeply discounted Windows and Office software intended for students.
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The company filed the suits Monday evening in federal courts in California, Nevada and Florida, alleging the parties infringed on Microsoft's copyright by importing and distributing versions of Windows and Office that were not meant to be sold through the retail channel.
"The defendants in these lawsuits and others are charged with profiting from selling clearly marked educational software to unsuspecting retail customers who were not licensed to use it," Bonnie MacNaughton, senior attorney at Microsoft, said in a statement.
Named in the lawsuits are EEE Business Inc., doing business as eBusZone.com; Eric Chan and Ruhui Li, both doing business as LCTech; and Intrax Group Inc. of California. Also named were Global Online Distribution LLC of Las Vegas and Big Boy Distribution of Florida.
"We're not selling counterfeit or stolen software," said Mike Mak, owner of Intrax, which is based in San Jose, Calif. "We bought software from legitimate sources in the U.S."
Mak said his company sold the discounted "Student Media" software, but stopped after Intrax learned about the lawsuit Tuesday morning.
"When we sell it, we disclose exactly what it is to our customers. We tell them it is academic software, that it may require a separate license," Mak said. He said that as far as he's concerned, that's not illegal.
He added that it's impossible for his business to sell boxed retail versions of Microsoft software and still make a profit. Instead, he said, "you try to seek out alternatives that are legal," including Student Media programs.
Dale Harelik, managing director of Global Online Distribution, said his company has never sold the discounted students-only software. He said the company received a cease-and-desist letter from Microsoft in January, and that he spoke by phone with the software maker's lawyers, who assured him Global Online Distribution was not a target of an ongoing investigation.
"We're not the bad guys," Harelik said. "We agreed with Microsoft. We complied with Microsoft."
Lillian Shan, a manager at EEE Business, said the company had not seen the legal filings, and did not want to comment without having reviewed them. Big Boy Distribution did not return a call for comment.
Microsoft has pinpointed a handful of companies, including one in Jordan and one in Latvia, as sources for the discounted Student Media software sold illegally on U.S. Web sites, MacNaughton said in an interview Monday.
These education-only copies of Office and Windows, which universities around the world buy from academic resellers and offer to students at a fraction of the retail price, are a prime target for fraud, MacNaughton said.
"We knew we had to try to do something to maintain the integrity of our academic programs," she said.
MacNaughton said Jordan-based Educational Solutions had a contract to sell 150,000 copies of Windows and Office to Jordan's education ministry. It received the software from Microsoft but never paid for it, she said. Instead, it resold the disks to software retailers in the U.S., making between $3 million and $4 million in profit.
MacNaughton said a company in Latvia perpetrated a similar scam, but declined to give the company's name.
Microsoft also said Monday that EDirectSoftware.com, which it claimed was one of the largest sellers of the discounted student software, agreed to settle a lawsuit out of court. EDirectSoftware.com said it no longer sells Microsoft products, but would not comment on the settlement.
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Bush calls Dems 'irresponsible' on Iraq By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush denounced "irresponsible" Democrats on Tuesday for going on spring break without approving money for the Iraq war with no strings. He condemned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record)'s trip to Syria, too, accusing her of encouraging a terrorism sponsor.
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With Congress out of town, Bush tried to take the upper hand over Democrats who are making increasing forays into foreign policy as his term dwindles and his approval ratings remain low.
Democrats, buoyed by recent Republican defections from Bush on Iraq, shot back that they are the ones pursuing effective solutions overseas in response to a national desire for change from his approach.
"We are not going to allow the president to continue a failed policy in Iraq. We represent the American people's vision on this failed war," Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said at a ceremony for a new Nevada National Guard armory near Las Vegas. "We have said time and time again the troops will have everything they need."
Speaking a day before he heads out of town for six days for events in the West and an Easter break at his ranch, the president said Democrats are failing their responsibility to the troops and the nation's security by leaving for their own recess after passing bills to fund the war that contain timelines for American withdrawal.
Given his promised veto of anything containing a deadline — and the likelihood that his veto would be sustained on Capitol Hill — Bush said Democrats are merely engaging in games that "undercut the troops."
"Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than in providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq," Bush said. "In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the Democrat leadership — Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds."
Nearly two months ago, Bush asked for more than $100 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. Congress has approved the money, but the Senate added a provision also calling for most U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. The House version demands a September 2008 withdrawal.
These bills still must be reconciled before legislation can be sent to the president.
"They need to come off their vacation, get a bill to my desk, and if it's got strings and mandates and withdrawals and pork I'll veto it," the president said. "And then we can get down to the business of getting this thing done."
Not so fast, Democrats responded.
"Americans want compromise, not a cowboy-style showdown," said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (news, bio, voting record), D-S.C.
Fresh from a briefing by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the president sought to put pressure on Democrats by detailing ways that delaying the money could harm troops and their families.
After the current $70 billion war appropriation runs out in mid-April, Bush said, the military would have to consider cutting back on equipment, repairs and training for National Guard and reserve forces. After mid-May, he said, more steps would be considered, such as delaying or curtailing the training of some active duty forces.
Despite Bush's warnings, dire consequences can be avoided even after the money starts to run out. It has become routine in recent years for Pentagon accountants to move money around in the department's half-trillion-dollar budget to make sure operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not disrupted. The money is repaid, usually with minimal disruption, when the president signs a new war spending bill.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, Bush and Congress have about three months to resolve their standoff before Iraq operations would actually be affected.
Democrats told Bush to stop blaming them for being the ones to keep money from soldiers, and to start negotiating.
"If President Bush vetoes funding for the troops, he will be the one who is blocking funding for the troops. Nobody else," said presidential candidate John Edwards.
On another topic, the president took issue with a two-day stay in Syria by Pelosi that began Tuesday.
As the speaker donned a head scarf and mingled with Syrians at a mosque and a market in Damascus' Old City, preparing for meetings Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Bush said she was sending dangerous signals. State-run newspapers in Syria published news of the visit on their front pages, with one daily publishing a photograph of Pelosi next to the headline: "Welcome Dialogue."
Bush said meetings with many high-level Americans have done nothing to persuade Assad to control violent elements of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, to halt efforts to destabilize Lebanon or to stop allowing "foreign fighters" from flowing over Syria's border into Iraq.
"Photo opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they're part of the mainstream of the international community when, in fact, they're a state sponsor of terror," he said.
When she visited Lebanon on Monday, Pelosi noted that Republican lawmakers had met Assad on Sunday without comment from the Bush administration.
"I think that it was an excellent idea for them to go," she said. "And I think it's an excellent idea for us to go as well."
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended that the U.S. begin direct and extensive talks with Syria and Iran over Iraq. The Bush administration has long rejected that idea, but recently agreed to allow U.S. representatives to talk with Syrian officials at an international conference in Baghdad.
Pelosi's office said her trip was appropriate.
"The Iraq Study Group recommended a diplomatic effort that should include 'every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq,'" said deputy press secretary Drew Hamill. "This effort should certainly include Syria."
On other matters, Bush:
_Said his administration "had a right to remove" eight U.S. attorneys. Bush added a note of concern about damage to the prosecutors' reputations: "I'm sorry it's come to this," he said.
_Refused to say whether he believes homosexuality is immoral, a characterization made recently by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I will not be rendering judgment about individual orientation," he said.
_Rejected any "quid pro quo" to win the release of 15 British sailors captured by Iran, such as exchanging five Iranians arrested by the U.S. military in Iraq in January. At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said there was no link "as far as we know" between the captured Britons and the release Tuesday of an Iranian diplomat missing for two months in Iraq.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
Journalist or Activist?
Video blogger Josh Wolf is free from jail. For Wolf, it's the end of a record-setting prison term. But the debate over his role as a journalist continues.
By Kevin Sites, Tue Apr 3, 10:58 PM ETEmail Story IM Story
SAN FRANCISCO -- Whether he is a journalist or not, as many debate, Josh Wolf believed strongly enough in the journalistic principle of protecting his sources that he was willing to spend seven and a half months in a federal prison being faithful to it.
Tuesday afternoon, he walked out of the Dublin Federal Correctional Institution in California a free man.
Wolf was in prison for refusing to hand over video he shot during a protest in San Francisco in 2005. In a deal brokered between his lawyers and federal prosecutors, Wolf posted the uncut video of the protest on his site, JoshWolf.net, gave prosecutors a copy, told them he had not witnessed any crimes and was released.
In interviews preceding his release, Josh Wolf's family and peers discuss his situation. » View
In exchange, prosecutors acceded to Wolf's key contention: that he not be made to appear before the grand jury and identify those on his videotape.
"Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement,'' Wolf told reporters outside the gates of the prison. "Otherwise, people will never trust journalists.''
Just as Wolf became a poster boy for the debate of whether bloggers are actually journalists and deserving the same legal protections, his status as an Internet icon may get another boost as likely the first federal prison inmate to be released for posting a video to his website.
Wolf, who calls himself and activist and anarchist on another one of his sites, "The Revolution Will Be Televised," filmed a July 2005 San Francisco protest against the World Trade Organization which turned violent. A police officer suffered a fractured skull and there were allegations of attempted arson.
Wolf provided some of the footage to local television stations, but refused to give the raw outtakes to a grand jury.
The standoff led to Wolf being jailed and sparked a heated debate about whether an activist blogger deserved the same protections as a professional journalist.
I spoke to Wolf by telephone while he was still in prison a few weeks ago and asked him if his advocacy made him selective in what he videotaped at the protest. Would he turn off the camera to protect his friends? A partial transcript of our conversation follows (Listen to the full interview).
Kevin Sites: If there had been a situation where you saw a protestor beating up a police officer, or you saw them committing arson, would you have shot that?
Josh Wolf: I wasn't there to shoot that.
Kevin Sites: No, but would you have shot that?
Josh Wolf: That's a question I would have made in that moment...
Kevin Sites: Well, that's what I want to ask you. If I asked you to take sides, if I asked you to take a side of journalism or activism, you know, which side are you taking here? Because you're asking for the protection of journalism yet you're also seeking to be an activist.
"My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability."
— Josh Wolf
Josh Wolf: Would you not say that Thomas Paine was an activist for the Declaration of - or the independence of America and also...
Kevin Sites: But I would say that he would not be claiming to be journalist, he would be claiming to be an activist. That's all I'm asking you to do, is take sides. Are you claiming to be an activist or a journalist?
Josh Wolf: I don't. I see that advocacy has a firm role within the realm of journalism.
Kevin Sites: Right, but as an advocate, you have to be willing to allow yourself to be jailed and expect the consequences of your actions. As a journalist, you're asking for certain protections, you know, from those consequences. That's why I'm asking you, you know, which side do you want to step on at this point.
Josh Wolf: My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability.
Kevin Sites: But that truth is through, as you said, a prism of your own political convictions.
Josh Wolf: The truth is biased by everyone's convictions, whether it's a corporate conviction of your employer, your own personal convictions that are left politically based from mainstream press perspective, or a more biased perspective [because of] which you won't be as open about as a journalist who does not put forward an impression that they are trying to be objective. If you watch the videotape, you'll see there are many things that make the protestors look bad and there are things that make the cops look bad. It is essentially a balanced report of what I saw. It's a bird's eye view.
Debra Saunders, a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, applauds Wolf's dedication, but doesn't believe he should be called a journalist.
"I think that you can be a blogger and be a journalist," Saunders tells me from her office at the Chronicle. "There are people who fit that [description], but when you're an activist cavorting with the people you're chronicling, then you are not a journalist."
Her own newspaper disagrees with that assessment and has supported Wolf on the Chronicle's opinion pages.
"The fact that Josh Wolf has strong political views does not disqualify him from being a journalist any more than the fact that I am an editorial page editor and have opinions disqualifies me from being a journalist," says John Diaz of the Chronicle. "The fact is, he was out at that rally, collecting information to disseminate to the public. I think that makes him a journalist."
Ultimately, Saunders says, it won't be journalists and bloggers who decide the issue, but the government.
"The courts are going to end up deciding who journalists are, because, unfortunately, this administration is really pushing the envelope in jailing journalists, and it won't end with the Bush administration," Saunders says. "It will get bigger as people point fingers in many ways, and that means the courts are going to decide who journalists are. You may not like it, but that's the way it is."
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Clinton urges Dems to press Bush on Iraq By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago
IOWA CITY, Iowa - Democrats should pressure President Bush to agree to a withdrawal of troops from Iraq rather than concede that he will veto such a plan, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday.
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Bush has promised to veto House and Senate versions of a war spending bill that includes timetables for drawing down troops, but Democrats shouldn't give up, said Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
"I'm not ready to concede that," Clinton said. "We're actually back into a bipartisan government where we have a Democratic Congress and a Republican president. What has historically happened is there has to be some negotiation and compromise and we may not get it, but I'm not willing to concede."
Clinton, speaking with reporters during a campaign stop in Iowa, said she hadn't decided whether to support legislation calling for a cutoff in war funding — a move that would force withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"I'm looking at that," Clinton said. "I don't know anything about it."
Also campaigning in Iowa, Rudy Giuliani, the GOP front-runner in national polls, appeared to back Bush, and said he had reviewed the Constitution earlier in the day.
"Congress has to have power to declare war. Congress has the power of the purse. The president has the sole power to direct the war," Giuliani said at a stop in Cedar Rapids. He added that he hoped Congress and the president would "all get together and figure out how to kind of do it the way" the founding fathers wanted.
"This idea that I find the most difficult is this idea of announcing your retreat. I just think it's fundamentally irresponsible. I've never heard of a retreating army giving their enemy a schedule for retreat. I just doesn't make any sense to me," the former New York City mayor told reporters.
Clinton said that before taking on the funding question, Congress should pressure Bush to go along with the budget bills already approved.
Republican National Committee spokesman Chris Taylor said Clinton in the past has opposed setting a deadline for pulling out troops, and he was taken aback by her apparent support.
"It must be confusing for the voters of Iowa," said Taylor.
Clinton said her husband, former President Bill Clinton, managed to work with a Congress often opposed to his proposals.
"I saw a lot of what happened when my husband had a Republican Congress," said Clinton.
Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination on a two-day trip to Iowa, said Congress should assert its authority
"I've challenged the president not to veto this, but to sit down and work with a bipartisan, representative sampling of the House and Senate and see whether we could figure out what we're going to do going forward."
Democrats took control of Congress largely due to their opposition to the war, Clinton said, and the party must push that agenda.
"I'm challenging the president not to veto the will of the American people," she said.
Clinton also criticized Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, whom she said have questioned the patriotism of war opponents.
"They have been very vocal in impugning the patriotism of members of Congress and citizens who disagree with them, and I don't think that's a very useful approach to take," said Clinton.
Clinton said she's launched a petition drive to gather signatures calling for Bush to go along with Congress.
Democrats will suffer if they don't assert themselves after winning control of Congress, she argued.
"We are now a Democratic majority and we are continuing in a very responsible manner to make it clear to the president that we are a coequal branch of government," said Clinton.
On her Iowa trip, Clinton was joined by former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and his wife, Christie, both of whom have endorsed Clinton's presidential bid. Clinton started her day with a breakfast at Vilsack's Mount Pleasant home, mingling with local activists and sounding an anti-war theme.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_iraq
Britain calls for direct talks with Iran By TARIQ PANJA, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago
LONDON - Britain called for direct talks with Iran to resolve a dispute over 15 captive Britons Tuesday after its first contact with the chief Iranian negotiator. The announcement followed the sudden release of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq that raised new hope for resolving the standoff.
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In a statement late Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said there had been "further contacts" between the two countries, including with chief international negotiator Ali Larijani.
"The UK has proposed direct bilateral discussions and awaits an Iranian response on when these can begin," Blair's office said. "Both sides share a desire for an early resolution to this issue through direct talks."
British officials say there has been intense diplomatic activity, including meetings in London with Iran's ambassador. But reports of contacts with officials in Tehran have been sketchy. The Downing Street statement did not say whether the contact with Larijani came in person or by phone.
Blair said earlier in the day that the next 48 hours would be "fairly critical" to resolving the standoff over the British personnel, who have been held by Iran since March 23.
The call for talks came hours after Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi was freed by his captors in Iraq. He had been seized Feb. 4 by uniformed gunmen in Karradah, a Shiite-controlled district of Baghdad.
His release raised hope for an end to the standoff and suggested the possibility of a de facto prisoner swap — something both Tehran and London have publicly discounted.
Iran alleged the diplomat had been abducted by an Iraqi military unit commanded by U.S. forces — a charge repeated by several Iraqi Shiite lawmakers. U.S. authorities denied any role in his disappearance.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said the Iraqi government had exerted pressure on those holding Sharafi to release him — but he would not identify who had held Sharafi.
But another senior government official said Iraqi intelligence had been holding him. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.
Sharafi was a second secretary at the Iranian Embassy involved in plans to open a branch of the Iranian national bank. U.S. officials allege that Iran provides money and weapons to Iraqi Shiite militias.
Sharafi was abducted a month after the U.S. military arrested five other Iranians in northern Iraq. The U.S. described one of those captives as a senior officer of the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said his government also was working "intensively" for the release of the five other Iranians to "help in the release of the British sailors and marines."
Neither Iran nor Iraq nor Britain has said explicitly that a prisoner swap was in the works. Iran has denied it seized the Britons to force the release of Iranians held in Iraq, and Britain has steadfastly insisted it would not negotiate for the sailors' freedom.
In Washington, President Bush signaled the same. "I also strongly support the prime minister's declaration that there should be no quid pro quos when it comes to the hostages," Bush said.
It was unclear whether the Iraqis had won Sharafi's freedom on their own initiative to encourage a settlement, which would ease tension without endangering their own claim to the waters where it occurred.
Nevertheless, the release of Sharafi and efforts to free the five other Iranians suggested that the parameters of a deal might be taking shape.
Iran maintains the British sailors had encroached on Iranian territory when they were seized by naval units of the Revolutionary Guards on March 23. Britain insists its sailors and marines were in Iraqi waters and has demanded their unconditional release.
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted First Vice President Parviz Davoodi as saying that "Britain should accept that it has invaded Iranian waters and guarantee that it will not be repeated."
"The violation was clear and obvious and all evidences and documents were suggesting occurrence of the violation," Davoodi added. "Britain has recently changed its approach and shifted toward legal and diplomatic negotiations."
With the standoff at a sensitive stage, Britain reacted with caution to the release Tuesday of new pictures of the British captives on the Web site of Iran's Fars News Agency. The images showed six sailors sitting on a carpet in a room, wearing blue, black and red tracksuits. Two sailors were shown playing chess.
Faye Turney, the only woman among the captured, was shown without a head scarf. She had worn one in initial images released of the Royal Navy crew.
Britain has expressed outrage over the airing of earlier videos in which Turney and others "confessed" to violating Iranian territorial waters.
The latest pictures did not show any further confessions. And as tensions have escalated, the Iranians have appeared to back off somewhat.
Larijani's suggestion Monday of talks over territorial disputes in the Persian Gulf had offered the hope of an end to the crisis, the British premier acknowledged. But if negotiations to win the quick release of the 15 sailors and marines stalled, Britain would "take an increasingly tougher position," Blair said.
Larijani said Monday that Iran sought "to solve the problem through proper diplomatic channels" and proposed having a delegation determine whether British forces had strayed into Iranian territory in the Gulf. He did not say what sort of delegation he had in mind.
Larijani told Britain's Channel 4 news Monday through an interpreter that Iranian officials believed there was no need for any trial of the navy crew.
___
Associated Press Writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Robert H. Reid in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
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British captives need not be tried, Iranian says at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Apr 03 U.S. Sends Query to Iran About Ex-FBI Agent's Disappearance at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Apr 03 Opinion & Editorials
What does Iran want? at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Apr 02 Bullying, manipulative Iran? No change there, then at The London Times, Apr 02
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Couple fights to name baby 'Metallica' Tue Apr 3, 4:15 PM ET
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Metallica may be a cool name for a heavy metal band, but a Swedish couple is struggling to convince officials it is also suitable for a baby girl.
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Michael and Karolina Tomaro are locked in a court battle with Swedish authorities, which rejected their application to name their six-month-old child after the legendary rock band.
"It suits her," Karolina Tomaro, 27, said Tuesday of the name. "She's decisive and she knows what she wants."
Although little Metallica has already been baptized, the Swedish National Tax Board refused to register the name, saying it was associated with both the rock group and the word "metal."
Tomaro said the official handling the case also called the name "ugly."
The couple was backed by the County Administrative Court in Goteborg, which ruled on March 13 that there was no reason to block the name. It also noted that there already is a woman in Sweden with Metallica as a middle name.
The tax agency appealed to a higher court, frustrating the family's foreign travel plans.
"We've had to cancel trips and can't get anywhere because we can't get her a passport without an approved name," Tomaro said.
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Pet owners making own dog and cat food By DORIE TURNER, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago
ATLANTA - Some dog and cat owners frightened by a contamination scare are forsaking the pet-food aisle and grinding up meat in their own kitchens instead. Sales of pet food recipe books have also shot up since the nationwide pet-food recall began two weeks ago.
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Amy Parish, 40, stopped giving her two aging chow chows canned food. Instead, Parish mixes dry food with a mash of chicken, rice, oatmeal and cottage cheese that she prepares twice a week.
"I'm very suspicious of any large-brand manufactured dog food," said Parish, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Tucker.
But veterinarians warn that making balanced meals for pets can be complicated and should only be a temporary remedy until the scare passes.
Nearly 100 store and major-brand pet foods were recalled by manufacturer Menu Foods Inc. on March 16. Three other companies have recalled some foods since then.
Food and Drug Administration testing found that wheat gluten imported from China was contaminated with a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics. The FDA has confirmed about 15 pet deaths, and anecdotal reports suggest hundreds of cats and dogs may have died.
Some pet owners are not taking any chances.
After Hills Pet Nutrition Inc. recalled one of its cat products, John Slavens, 41, of San Diego, started making homemade food for his two border collies.
He spent five hours in the kitchen Sunday, grinding beef and boiling potatoes and pasta for a week's worth of stew, supplemented with an all-in-one vitamin-mineral powder.
"These dogs are my family," Slavens said.
The FDA and the American Veterinary Medical Association are urging pet owners to switch brands if they are worried. The veterinarian group also warned that many common foods are not safe for pets, including salt, garlic, onions, grapes and chocolate.
Making pet food at home is "kind of like canning: You have to think about bacterial contamination. And how do you make sure it's nutritionally appropriate and balanced for the animal?" said FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza. She added: "We wouldn't object. We'd say be knowledgeable about what you need."
On Amazon.com, the cookbook "Real Food for Dogs" moved into the list of top 200 best-sellers this week. Other authors were finding instant success, too.
Dr. Donald Strombeck said the Amazon.com sales rank for his book "Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative" jumped from below 60,000 to about 1,000 after the recalls.
The retired professor of veterinary nutrition at the University of California, Davis, challenged the common assertion that owners should not feed their pets table food.
When he began practicing veterinary medicine in the 1950s, he said, most pet owners fed their pets scraps from the table, keeping the risk of contamination low.
"The pet food industry doesn't want people competing with them," Strombeck said. "An animal can basically eat the same things we eat. They're not going to develop a deficiency."
Robert Van Sickle, co-owner of the Polka Dog Bakery in Boston, said he has received many inquiries from customers on advice for making their own dog food. For his German short-haired pointer, Van Sickle blends carrots, spinach, salmon oil, apple cider vinegar and whatever meat is in his freezer.
"What this scare has shown me is that it's amazing how many people don't know what they are feeding their dogs," he said. "The bright side, for me, as someone interested in animal wellness, is people are asking questions now."
___
Associated Press writers Andrew Bridges in Washington, Jesse Harlan Alderman in Boston, and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
FDA pet food recall information: http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_re_us/homemade_pet_food
Report puts a pacifier on 'smarter baby' debate By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
Tue Apr 3, 8:21 AM ET
Parents fork over billions of dollars for CDs, DVDs, toys and other products that promise to make their babies smarter - and governments invest in programs to maximize children's brain development from birth through age 3. But many efforts to build "brighter babies" are doomed to failure because they are built on misinterpretations and misapplications of brain research, a report says.
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"While neural connections in babies' brains grow rapidly in the early years, adults can't make newborns smarter or more successful by having them listen to Beethoven or play with Einstein-inspired blocks," says Sara Mead, a senior policy analyst with Education Sector, a centrist Washington think tank.
That a baby's first three years are key for brain development is beyond dispute; scientists know that babies' brains change rapidly, growing and pruning synapses. But Mead says a few early childhood advocates have misinterpreted or misused research to suggest that if parents don't sufficiently stimulate children's brains before age 3, they'll do irreparable harm. There is no evidence that the first three years "are a singular window for growth that slams shut once children turn 3," Mead says.
She says researchers don't know enough about brain growth to say whether educational toys or lessons help: We are "far from knowing how to build a better brain."
But that hasn't stopped parents from spending billions on infant brain-building products. In 2005, the market was $2.5 billion, according to Fortune.
It also hasn't stopped lawmakers from getting involved. In 1998, Georgia Gov. Zell Miller persuaded hospitals to send home classical music CDs with every newborn. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt persuaded lawmakers last year to spend $2 million to support Parents as Teachers, a non-profit that publishes a curriculum for children as young as newborns.
Such efforts teach parents helpful skills, says Jonathan Plucker, professor of cognitive science at Indiana University. "People are starting to almost universally acknowledge that those years are critically important."
But there's no evidence that playing your baby a Mozart CD or sitting her down in front of a Baby Einstein DVD makes a difference, he says. Research suggests stimulation is essential for early brain development, but "we don't know nearly enough to be applying it."
Officials from Baby Einstein and The Smart Baby did not respond to interview requests.
Tammy Mann, a clinical psychologist and deputy director of Zero to Three, an early-childhood advocacy group, agrees that it's an overstatement of brain research to say we can make babies smarter. But she says evidence shows that good, intensive programs, such as Early Head Start, which was developed for at-risk infants, toddlers and preschoolers, yield solid, cost-effective results.
"There is something to say about investing earlier when you're talking about children who are in particularly high-risk situations," she says.
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Keith Richards: 'I snorted my father' 16 minutes ago
LONDON - Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.
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"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.
"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."
Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.
Richards, one of rock's legendary wild men, told the magazine that his survival was the result of luck, and advised young musicians against trying to emulate him.
"I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he was quoted as saying.
"I've no pretensions about immortality," he added. "I'm the same as everyone ... just kind of lucky.
"I was No. 1 on the `who's likely to die' list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list," Richards said.
___
On the Net:
Rolling Stones:
http://www.rollingstones.com/home.php
NME:
http://www.nme.com/
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FCC says 'no' to cell phones on planes By JOHN DUNBAR, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 3, 7:20 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Striking a blow for cell phone haters everywhere, a government agency on Tuesday said it will keep a rule in place that requires the divisive devices to be turned off during airline flights.
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The reasoning behind the decision was technical. But the avalanche of comments the Federal Communications Commission has logged from airline travelers have been nothing short of visceral.
"These days it's impossible to get on a bus without at least one person hollering into their cell phone, invading the private space of everyone around them," one member of the public wrote in an e-mail to the FCC. "That's bad enough when one can get off in 10 minutes. To have to suffer through HOURS of such torture, with nowhere to go and miserably cramped conditions — someone is going to explode."
The agency has been considering lifting its ban on cell phone usage on airplanes since 2004. Unlike the Federal Aviation Administration, which bans the use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices for fear they will interfere with navigational and communications systems, the FCC's concern is interference with other cell phone signals on the ground.
Airphones installed in cabins use a special FCC frequency that operates outside the range of regular cellular phones.
In an order released Tuesday, the agency noted that there was "insufficient technical information" available on whether airborne cell phone calls would jam networks below.
Regardless of the reasoning, some passengers are no doubt pleased with the agency's decision. In an e-mail to the FCC, one person related the story of a "dimwitted young lady" who had a "most inane conversation" after his flight had landed.
"The idea of a person being a captive audience to someone yapping on the phone is simply a recipe for a lot of anger and a fair share of conflicts," he wrote.
The phones have been snapped shut for now, at least as far as the FCC is concerned. But the issue may come up again. The agency said it may "reconsider this issue in the future if appropriate technical data is available for our review."
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Tue Apr 3, 3:24 PM ET
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The deals Apple Inc. struck with record labels to stock its European iTunes stores may violate EU competition rules, regulators said Tuesday.
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Apple and the record companies were notified of an investigation into their agreements after regulators built up a "very strong case," said European Union spokesman Jonathan Todd.
People can only download singles or albums from the iTunes store in their country of residence — a policy that amounts to unlawful "territorial sales restrictions," the Commission said.
"Consumers are thus restricted in their choice of where to buy music and consequently what music is available, and at what price," the Commission said in a statement.
But Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said the company wanted to operate a single store for all of Europe, but music labels and publishers said there were limits to the rights they could grant to Apple.
"We don't believe Apple did anything to violate EU law," he said. "We will continue to work with the EU to resolve this matter."
Investigators have been gathering evidence on Apple's deals with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and EMI Group PLC for the past two years, after Britain's Consumers' Association filed a complaint with the Commission in 2004.
"We do not believe we have breached European competition law and we will be making that case strongly," said Amanda Conroy, a spokeswoman for EMI in London.
Sony spokeswoman Sylvia Shin offered no immediate reaction to the investigation and a call made to Universal Music was not immediately returned.
Apple and the record companies have two months to answer questions in the "statement of objections" from regulators. If found guilty, a company could face hefty fines, which in theory could total up to 10 percent of the company's worldwide annual revenue.
The cost of buying a single song across the 27-nation bloc varies among the available iTunes stores in EU nations. For example, downloading a track in Britain costs $1.56, in Denmark $1.44, while in countries using the euro such as Germany and Belgium, a single costs $1.32.
Consumer groups welcomed the EU's move.
"As I can go from the U.K. to Germany to go into the shop to buy a CD there, which is cheaper or more expensive than in the U.K., I should have the same opportunity online; that is what we are asking for," said Cornelia Kutterer, senior legal adviser at the European consumer group BEUC.
The EU investigation comes amid moves by consumer rights groups in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Nordic countries to force Apple to change the rules it imposes on its online music store customers.
The groups are demanding Apple lift limits preventing consumers from playing their downloads on digital players other than Apple's iPod. In February, Norway, which is not a member of the EU, declared those limits illegal and gave Apple until Oct. 1 to change its compatibility rules or face legal action and possible fines.
The EU investigation does not deal with these concerns, however.
Apple has said it is willing to open iTunes to players other than iPods if the world's major record labels moved to change their anti-piracy technology.
Apple and EMI announced a deal on Monday that would allow EMI's music to be sold on iTunes minus anti-piracy software that limits its use on some players. The move is expected to be watched — and likely followed — by other record labels.
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Microsoft sues student software sellers By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Business Writer
Tue Apr 3, 3:25 PM ET
REDMOND, Wash. - Microsoft Corp. has filed five new lawsuits against U.S. companies and individuals it claims sold deeply discounted Windows and Office software intended for students.
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The company filed the suits Monday evening in federal courts in California, Nevada and Florida, alleging the parties infringed on Microsoft's copyright by importing and distributing versions of Windows and Office that were not meant to be sold through the retail channel.
"The defendants in these lawsuits and others are charged with profiting from selling clearly marked educational software to unsuspecting retail customers who were not licensed to use it," Bonnie MacNaughton, senior attorney at Microsoft, said in a statement.
Named in the lawsuits are EEE Business Inc., doing business as eBusZone.com; Eric Chan and Ruhui Li, both doing business as LCTech; and Intrax Group Inc. of California. Also named were Global Online Distribution LLC of Las Vegas and Big Boy Distribution of Florida.
"We're not selling counterfeit or stolen software," said Mike Mak, owner of Intrax, which is based in San Jose, Calif. "We bought software from legitimate sources in the U.S."
Mak said his company sold the discounted "Student Media" software, but stopped after Intrax learned about the lawsuit Tuesday morning.
"When we sell it, we disclose exactly what it is to our customers. We tell them it is academic software, that it may require a separate license," Mak said. He said that as far as he's concerned, that's not illegal.
He added that it's impossible for his business to sell boxed retail versions of Microsoft software and still make a profit. Instead, he said, "you try to seek out alternatives that are legal," including Student Media programs.
Dale Harelik, managing director of Global Online Distribution, said his company has never sold the discounted students-only software. He said the company received a cease-and-desist letter from Microsoft in January, and that he spoke by phone with the software maker's lawyers, who assured him Global Online Distribution was not a target of an ongoing investigation.
"We're not the bad guys," Harelik said. "We agreed with Microsoft. We complied with Microsoft."
Lillian Shan, a manager at EEE Business, said the company had not seen the legal filings, and did not want to comment without having reviewed them. Big Boy Distribution did not return a call for comment.
Microsoft has pinpointed a handful of companies, including one in Jordan and one in Latvia, as sources for the discounted Student Media software sold illegally on U.S. Web sites, MacNaughton said in an interview Monday.
These education-only copies of Office and Windows, which universities around the world buy from academic resellers and offer to students at a fraction of the retail price, are a prime target for fraud, MacNaughton said.
"We knew we had to try to do something to maintain the integrity of our academic programs," she said.
MacNaughton said Jordan-based Educational Solutions had a contract to sell 150,000 copies of Windows and Office to Jordan's education ministry. It received the software from Microsoft but never paid for it, she said. Instead, it resold the disks to software retailers in the U.S., making between $3 million and $4 million in profit.
MacNaughton said a company in Latvia perpetrated a similar scam, but declined to give the company's name.
Microsoft also said Monday that EDirectSoftware.com, which it claimed was one of the largest sellers of the discounted student software, agreed to settle a lawsuit out of court. EDirectSoftware.com said it no longer sells Microsoft products, but would not comment on the settlement.
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Bush calls Dems 'irresponsible' on Iraq By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush denounced "irresponsible" Democrats on Tuesday for going on spring break without approving money for the Iraq war with no strings. He condemned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record)'s trip to Syria, too, accusing her of encouraging a terrorism sponsor.
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With Congress out of town, Bush tried to take the upper hand over Democrats who are making increasing forays into foreign policy as his term dwindles and his approval ratings remain low.
Democrats, buoyed by recent Republican defections from Bush on Iraq, shot back that they are the ones pursuing effective solutions overseas in response to a national desire for change from his approach.
"We are not going to allow the president to continue a failed policy in Iraq. We represent the American people's vision on this failed war," Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said at a ceremony for a new Nevada National Guard armory near Las Vegas. "We have said time and time again the troops will have everything they need."
Speaking a day before he heads out of town for six days for events in the West and an Easter break at his ranch, the president said Democrats are failing their responsibility to the troops and the nation's security by leaving for their own recess after passing bills to fund the war that contain timelines for American withdrawal.
Given his promised veto of anything containing a deadline — and the likelihood that his veto would be sustained on Capitol Hill — Bush said Democrats are merely engaging in games that "undercut the troops."
"Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than in providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq," Bush said. "In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the Democrat leadership — Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds."
Nearly two months ago, Bush asked for more than $100 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. Congress has approved the money, but the Senate added a provision also calling for most U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. The House version demands a September 2008 withdrawal.
These bills still must be reconciled before legislation can be sent to the president.
"They need to come off their vacation, get a bill to my desk, and if it's got strings and mandates and withdrawals and pork I'll veto it," the president said. "And then we can get down to the business of getting this thing done."
Not so fast, Democrats responded.
"Americans want compromise, not a cowboy-style showdown," said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (news, bio, voting record), D-S.C.
Fresh from a briefing by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the president sought to put pressure on Democrats by detailing ways that delaying the money could harm troops and their families.
After the current $70 billion war appropriation runs out in mid-April, Bush said, the military would have to consider cutting back on equipment, repairs and training for National Guard and reserve forces. After mid-May, he said, more steps would be considered, such as delaying or curtailing the training of some active duty forces.
Despite Bush's warnings, dire consequences can be avoided even after the money starts to run out. It has become routine in recent years for Pentagon accountants to move money around in the department's half-trillion-dollar budget to make sure operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not disrupted. The money is repaid, usually with minimal disruption, when the president signs a new war spending bill.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, Bush and Congress have about three months to resolve their standoff before Iraq operations would actually be affected.
Democrats told Bush to stop blaming them for being the ones to keep money from soldiers, and to start negotiating.
"If President Bush vetoes funding for the troops, he will be the one who is blocking funding for the troops. Nobody else," said presidential candidate John Edwards.
On another topic, the president took issue with a two-day stay in Syria by Pelosi that began Tuesday.
As the speaker donned a head scarf and mingled with Syrians at a mosque and a market in Damascus' Old City, preparing for meetings Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Bush said she was sending dangerous signals. State-run newspapers in Syria published news of the visit on their front pages, with one daily publishing a photograph of Pelosi next to the headline: "Welcome Dialogue."
Bush said meetings with many high-level Americans have done nothing to persuade Assad to control violent elements of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, to halt efforts to destabilize Lebanon or to stop allowing "foreign fighters" from flowing over Syria's border into Iraq.
"Photo opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they're part of the mainstream of the international community when, in fact, they're a state sponsor of terror," he said.
When she visited Lebanon on Monday, Pelosi noted that Republican lawmakers had met Assad on Sunday without comment from the Bush administration.
"I think that it was an excellent idea for them to go," she said. "And I think it's an excellent idea for us to go as well."
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended that the U.S. begin direct and extensive talks with Syria and Iran over Iraq. The Bush administration has long rejected that idea, but recently agreed to allow U.S. representatives to talk with Syrian officials at an international conference in Baghdad.
Pelosi's office said her trip was appropriate.
"The Iraq Study Group recommended a diplomatic effort that should include 'every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq,'" said deputy press secretary Drew Hamill. "This effort should certainly include Syria."
On other matters, Bush:
_Said his administration "had a right to remove" eight U.S. attorneys. Bush added a note of concern about damage to the prosecutors' reputations: "I'm sorry it's come to this," he said.
_Refused to say whether he believes homosexuality is immoral, a characterization made recently by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I will not be rendering judgment about individual orientation," he said.
_Rejected any "quid pro quo" to win the release of 15 British sailors captured by Iran, such as exchanging five Iranians arrested by the U.S. military in Iraq in January. At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said there was no link "as far as we know" between the captured Britons and the release Tuesday of an Iranian diplomat missing for two months in Iraq.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
Journalist or Activist?
Video blogger Josh Wolf is free from jail. For Wolf, it's the end of a record-setting prison term. But the debate over his role as a journalist continues.
By Kevin Sites, Tue Apr 3, 10:58 PM ETEmail Story IM Story
SAN FRANCISCO -- Whether he is a journalist or not, as many debate, Josh Wolf believed strongly enough in the journalistic principle of protecting his sources that he was willing to spend seven and a half months in a federal prison being faithful to it.
Tuesday afternoon, he walked out of the Dublin Federal Correctional Institution in California a free man.
Wolf was in prison for refusing to hand over video he shot during a protest in San Francisco in 2005. In a deal brokered between his lawyers and federal prosecutors, Wolf posted the uncut video of the protest on his site, JoshWolf.net, gave prosecutors a copy, told them he had not witnessed any crimes and was released.
In interviews preceding his release, Josh Wolf's family and peers discuss his situation. » View
In exchange, prosecutors acceded to Wolf's key contention: that he not be made to appear before the grand jury and identify those on his videotape.
"Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement,'' Wolf told reporters outside the gates of the prison. "Otherwise, people will never trust journalists.''
Just as Wolf became a poster boy for the debate of whether bloggers are actually journalists and deserving the same legal protections, his status as an Internet icon may get another boost as likely the first federal prison inmate to be released for posting a video to his website.
Wolf, who calls himself and activist and anarchist on another one of his sites, "The Revolution Will Be Televised," filmed a July 2005 San Francisco protest against the World Trade Organization which turned violent. A police officer suffered a fractured skull and there were allegations of attempted arson.
Wolf provided some of the footage to local television stations, but refused to give the raw outtakes to a grand jury.
The standoff led to Wolf being jailed and sparked a heated debate about whether an activist blogger deserved the same protections as a professional journalist.
I spoke to Wolf by telephone while he was still in prison a few weeks ago and asked him if his advocacy made him selective in what he videotaped at the protest. Would he turn off the camera to protect his friends? A partial transcript of our conversation follows (Listen to the full interview).
Kevin Sites: If there had been a situation where you saw a protestor beating up a police officer, or you saw them committing arson, would you have shot that?
Josh Wolf: I wasn't there to shoot that.
Kevin Sites: No, but would you have shot that?
Josh Wolf: That's a question I would have made in that moment...
Kevin Sites: Well, that's what I want to ask you. If I asked you to take sides, if I asked you to take a side of journalism or activism, you know, which side are you taking here? Because you're asking for the protection of journalism yet you're also seeking to be an activist.
"My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability."
— Josh Wolf
Josh Wolf: Would you not say that Thomas Paine was an activist for the Declaration of - or the independence of America and also...
Kevin Sites: But I would say that he would not be claiming to be journalist, he would be claiming to be an activist. That's all I'm asking you to do, is take sides. Are you claiming to be an activist or a journalist?
Josh Wolf: I don't. I see that advocacy has a firm role within the realm of journalism.
Kevin Sites: Right, but as an advocate, you have to be willing to allow yourself to be jailed and expect the consequences of your actions. As a journalist, you're asking for certain protections, you know, from those consequences. That's why I'm asking you, you know, which side do you want to step on at this point.
Josh Wolf: My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability.
Kevin Sites: But that truth is through, as you said, a prism of your own political convictions.
Josh Wolf: The truth is biased by everyone's convictions, whether it's a corporate conviction of your employer, your own personal convictions that are left politically based from mainstream press perspective, or a more biased perspective [because of] which you won't be as open about as a journalist who does not put forward an impression that they are trying to be objective. If you watch the videotape, you'll see there are many things that make the protestors look bad and there are things that make the cops look bad. It is essentially a balanced report of what I saw. It's a bird's eye view.
Debra Saunders, a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, applauds Wolf's dedication, but doesn't believe he should be called a journalist.
"I think that you can be a blogger and be a journalist," Saunders tells me from her office at the Chronicle. "There are people who fit that [description], but when you're an activist cavorting with the people you're chronicling, then you are not a journalist."
Her own newspaper disagrees with that assessment and has supported Wolf on the Chronicle's opinion pages.
"The fact that Josh Wolf has strong political views does not disqualify him from being a journalist any more than the fact that I am an editorial page editor and have opinions disqualifies me from being a journalist," says John Diaz of the Chronicle. "The fact is, he was out at that rally, collecting information to disseminate to the public. I think that makes him a journalist."
Ultimately, Saunders says, it won't be journalists and bloggers who decide the issue, but the government.
"The courts are going to end up deciding who journalists are, because, unfortunately, this administration is really pushing the envelope in jailing journalists, and it won't end with the Bush administration," Saunders says. "It will get bigger as people point fingers in many ways, and that means the courts are going to decide who journalists are. You may not like it, but that's the way it is."
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Clinton urges Dems to press Bush on Iraq By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago
IOWA CITY, Iowa - Democrats should pressure President Bush to agree to a withdrawal of troops from Iraq rather than concede that he will veto such a plan, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday.
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Bush has promised to veto House and Senate versions of a war spending bill that includes timetables for drawing down troops, but Democrats shouldn't give up, said Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
"I'm not ready to concede that," Clinton said. "We're actually back into a bipartisan government where we have a Democratic Congress and a Republican president. What has historically happened is there has to be some negotiation and compromise and we may not get it, but I'm not willing to concede."
Clinton, speaking with reporters during a campaign stop in Iowa, said she hadn't decided whether to support legislation calling for a cutoff in war funding — a move that would force withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"I'm looking at that," Clinton said. "I don't know anything about it."
Also campaigning in Iowa, Rudy Giuliani, the GOP front-runner in national polls, appeared to back Bush, and said he had reviewed the Constitution earlier in the day.
"Congress has to have power to declare war. Congress has the power of the purse. The president has the sole power to direct the war," Giuliani said at a stop in Cedar Rapids. He added that he hoped Congress and the president would "all get together and figure out how to kind of do it the way" the founding fathers wanted.
"This idea that I find the most difficult is this idea of announcing your retreat. I just think it's fundamentally irresponsible. I've never heard of a retreating army giving their enemy a schedule for retreat. I just doesn't make any sense to me," the former New York City mayor told reporters.
Clinton said that before taking on the funding question, Congress should pressure Bush to go along with the budget bills already approved.
Republican National Committee spokesman Chris Taylor said Clinton in the past has opposed setting a deadline for pulling out troops, and he was taken aback by her apparent support.
"It must be confusing for the voters of Iowa," said Taylor.
Clinton said her husband, former President Bill Clinton, managed to work with a Congress often opposed to his proposals.
"I saw a lot of what happened when my husband had a Republican Congress," said Clinton.
Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination on a two-day trip to Iowa, said Congress should assert its authority
"I've challenged the president not to veto this, but to sit down and work with a bipartisan, representative sampling of the House and Senate and see whether we could figure out what we're going to do going forward."
Democrats took control of Congress largely due to their opposition to the war, Clinton said, and the party must push that agenda.
"I'm challenging the president not to veto the will of the American people," she said.
Clinton also criticized Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, whom she said have questioned the patriotism of war opponents.
"They have been very vocal in impugning the patriotism of members of Congress and citizens who disagree with them, and I don't think that's a very useful approach to take," said Clinton.
Clinton said she's launched a petition drive to gather signatures calling for Bush to go along with Congress.
Democrats will suffer if they don't assert themselves after winning control of Congress, she argued.
"We are now a Democratic majority and we are continuing in a very responsible manner to make it clear to the president that we are a coequal branch of government," said Clinton.
On her Iowa trip, Clinton was joined by former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and his wife, Christie, both of whom have endorsed Clinton's presidential bid. Clinton started her day with a breakfast at Vilsack's Mount Pleasant home, mingling with local activists and sounding an anti-war theme.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_iraq
Britain calls for direct talks with Iran By TARIQ PANJA, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago
LONDON - Britain called for direct talks with Iran to resolve a dispute over 15 captive Britons Tuesday after its first contact with the chief Iranian negotiator. The announcement followed the sudden release of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq that raised new hope for resolving the standoff.
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In a statement late Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said there had been "further contacts" between the two countries, including with chief international negotiator Ali Larijani.
"The UK has proposed direct bilateral discussions and awaits an Iranian response on when these can begin," Blair's office said. "Both sides share a desire for an early resolution to this issue through direct talks."
British officials say there has been intense diplomatic activity, including meetings in London with Iran's ambassador. But reports of contacts with officials in Tehran have been sketchy. The Downing Street statement did not say whether the contact with Larijani came in person or by phone.
Blair said earlier in the day that the next 48 hours would be "fairly critical" to resolving the standoff over the British personnel, who have been held by Iran since March 23.
The call for talks came hours after Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi was freed by his captors in Iraq. He had been seized Feb. 4 by uniformed gunmen in Karradah, a Shiite-controlled district of Baghdad.
His release raised hope for an end to the standoff and suggested the possibility of a de facto prisoner swap — something both Tehran and London have publicly discounted.
Iran alleged the diplomat had been abducted by an Iraqi military unit commanded by U.S. forces — a charge repeated by several Iraqi Shiite lawmakers. U.S. authorities denied any role in his disappearance.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said the Iraqi government had exerted pressure on those holding Sharafi to release him — but he would not identify who had held Sharafi.
But another senior government official said Iraqi intelligence had been holding him. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.
Sharafi was a second secretary at the Iranian Embassy involved in plans to open a branch of the Iranian national bank. U.S. officials allege that Iran provides money and weapons to Iraqi Shiite militias.
Sharafi was abducted a month after the U.S. military arrested five other Iranians in northern Iraq. The U.S. described one of those captives as a senior officer of the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said his government also was working "intensively" for the release of the five other Iranians to "help in the release of the British sailors and marines."
Neither Iran nor Iraq nor Britain has said explicitly that a prisoner swap was in the works. Iran has denied it seized the Britons to force the release of Iranians held in Iraq, and Britain has steadfastly insisted it would not negotiate for the sailors' freedom.
In Washington, President Bush signaled the same. "I also strongly support the prime minister's declaration that there should be no quid pro quos when it comes to the hostages," Bush said.
It was unclear whether the Iraqis had won Sharafi's freedom on their own initiative to encourage a settlement, which would ease tension without endangering their own claim to the waters where it occurred.
Nevertheless, the release of Sharafi and efforts to free the five other Iranians suggested that the parameters of a deal might be taking shape.
Iran maintains the British sailors had encroached on Iranian territory when they were seized by naval units of the Revolutionary Guards on March 23. Britain insists its sailors and marines were in Iraqi waters and has demanded their unconditional release.
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted First Vice President Parviz Davoodi as saying that "Britain should accept that it has invaded Iranian waters and guarantee that it will not be repeated."
"The violation was clear and obvious and all evidences and documents were suggesting occurrence of the violation," Davoodi added. "Britain has recently changed its approach and shifted toward legal and diplomatic negotiations."
With the standoff at a sensitive stage, Britain reacted with caution to the release Tuesday of new pictures of the British captives on the Web site of Iran's Fars News Agency. The images showed six sailors sitting on a carpet in a room, wearing blue, black and red tracksuits. Two sailors were shown playing chess.
Faye Turney, the only woman among the captured, was shown without a head scarf. She had worn one in initial images released of the Royal Navy crew.
Britain has expressed outrage over the airing of earlier videos in which Turney and others "confessed" to violating Iranian territorial waters.
The latest pictures did not show any further confessions. And as tensions have escalated, the Iranians have appeared to back off somewhat.
Larijani's suggestion Monday of talks over territorial disputes in the Persian Gulf had offered the hope of an end to the crisis, the British premier acknowledged. But if negotiations to win the quick release of the 15 sailors and marines stalled, Britain would "take an increasingly tougher position," Blair said.
Larijani said Monday that Iran sought "to solve the problem through proper diplomatic channels" and proposed having a delegation determine whether British forces had strayed into Iranian territory in the Gulf. He did not say what sort of delegation he had in mind.
Larijani told Britain's Channel 4 news Monday through an interpreter that Iranian officials believed there was no need for any trial of the navy crew.
___
Associated Press Writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Robert H. Reid in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
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On Iran streets, diverse views on clash over British captives The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News, Apr 03 U.S. strategy on Iran may have backfired at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Apr 03 News Stories
British captives need not be tried, Iranian says at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Apr 03 U.S. Sends Query to Iran About Ex-FBI Agent's Disappearance at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Apr 03 Opinion & Editorials
What does Iran want? at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Apr 02 Bullying, manipulative Iran? No change there, then at The London Times, Apr 02
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Troops will suffer over funding delays: Bush CBC.ca - Tue Apr 3, 9:29 PM ET Britain wants direct talks with Iran to end sailor standoff CBC.ca - Tue Apr 3, 9:29 PM ET No answer for paternity question AP - Tue Apr 3, 8:56 PM ET The Josh Wolf Dilemma Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Tue Apr 3, 8:44 PM ET
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Couple fights to name baby 'Metallica' Tue Apr 3, 4:15 PM ET
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Metallica may be a cool name for a heavy metal band, but a Swedish couple is struggling to convince officials it is also suitable for a baby girl.
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Michael and Karolina Tomaro are locked in a court battle with Swedish authorities, which rejected their application to name their six-month-old child after the legendary rock band.
"It suits her," Karolina Tomaro, 27, said Tuesday of the name. "She's decisive and she knows what she wants."
Although little Metallica has already been baptized, the Swedish National Tax Board refused to register the name, saying it was associated with both the rock group and the word "metal."
Tomaro said the official handling the case also called the name "ugly."
The couple was backed by the County Administrative Court in Goteborg, which ruled on March 13 that there was no reason to block the name. It also noted that there already is a woman in Sweden with Metallica as a middle name.
The tax agency appealed to a higher court, frustrating the family's foreign travel plans.
"We've had to cancel trips and can't get anywhere because we can't get her a passport without an approved name," Tomaro said.
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Pet owners making own dog and cat food By DORIE TURNER, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago
ATLANTA - Some dog and cat owners frightened by a contamination scare are forsaking the pet-food aisle and grinding up meat in their own kitchens instead. Sales of pet food recipe books have also shot up since the nationwide pet-food recall began two weeks ago.
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Amy Parish, 40, stopped giving her two aging chow chows canned food. Instead, Parish mixes dry food with a mash of chicken, rice, oatmeal and cottage cheese that she prepares twice a week.
"I'm very suspicious of any large-brand manufactured dog food," said Parish, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Tucker.
But veterinarians warn that making balanced meals for pets can be complicated and should only be a temporary remedy until the scare passes.
Nearly 100 store and major-brand pet foods were recalled by manufacturer Menu Foods Inc. on March 16. Three other companies have recalled some foods since then.
Food and Drug Administration testing found that wheat gluten imported from China was contaminated with a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics. The FDA has confirmed about 15 pet deaths, and anecdotal reports suggest hundreds of cats and dogs may have died.
Some pet owners are not taking any chances.
After Hills Pet Nutrition Inc. recalled one of its cat products, John Slavens, 41, of San Diego, started making homemade food for his two border collies.
He spent five hours in the kitchen Sunday, grinding beef and boiling potatoes and pasta for a week's worth of stew, supplemented with an all-in-one vitamin-mineral powder.
"These dogs are my family," Slavens said.
The FDA and the American Veterinary Medical Association are urging pet owners to switch brands if they are worried. The veterinarian group also warned that many common foods are not safe for pets, including salt, garlic, onions, grapes and chocolate.
Making pet food at home is "kind of like canning: You have to think about bacterial contamination. And how do you make sure it's nutritionally appropriate and balanced for the animal?" said FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza. She added: "We wouldn't object. We'd say be knowledgeable about what you need."
On Amazon.com, the cookbook "Real Food for Dogs" moved into the list of top 200 best-sellers this week. Other authors were finding instant success, too.
Dr. Donald Strombeck said the Amazon.com sales rank for his book "Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative" jumped from below 60,000 to about 1,000 after the recalls.
The retired professor of veterinary nutrition at the University of California, Davis, challenged the common assertion that owners should not feed their pets table food.
When he began practicing veterinary medicine in the 1950s, he said, most pet owners fed their pets scraps from the table, keeping the risk of contamination low.
"The pet food industry doesn't want people competing with them," Strombeck said. "An animal can basically eat the same things we eat. They're not going to develop a deficiency."
Robert Van Sickle, co-owner of the Polka Dog Bakery in Boston, said he has received many inquiries from customers on advice for making their own dog food. For his German short-haired pointer, Van Sickle blends carrots, spinach, salmon oil, apple cider vinegar and whatever meat is in his freezer.
"What this scare has shown me is that it's amazing how many people don't know what they are feeding their dogs," he said. "The bright side, for me, as someone interested in animal wellness, is people are asking questions now."
___
Associated Press writers Andrew Bridges in Washington, Jesse Harlan Alderman in Boston, and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
FDA pet food recall information: http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_re_us/homemade_pet_food
Report puts a pacifier on 'smarter baby' debate By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
Tue Apr 3, 8:21 AM ET
Parents fork over billions of dollars for CDs, DVDs, toys and other products that promise to make their babies smarter - and governments invest in programs to maximize children's brain development from birth through age 3. But many efforts to build "brighter babies" are doomed to failure because they are built on misinterpretations and misapplications of brain research, a report says.
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"While neural connections in babies' brains grow rapidly in the early years, adults can't make newborns smarter or more successful by having them listen to Beethoven or play with Einstein-inspired blocks," says Sara Mead, a senior policy analyst with Education Sector, a centrist Washington think tank.
That a baby's first three years are key for brain development is beyond dispute; scientists know that babies' brains change rapidly, growing and pruning synapses. But Mead says a few early childhood advocates have misinterpreted or misused research to suggest that if parents don't sufficiently stimulate children's brains before age 3, they'll do irreparable harm. There is no evidence that the first three years "are a singular window for growth that slams shut once children turn 3," Mead says.
She says researchers don't know enough about brain growth to say whether educational toys or lessons help: We are "far from knowing how to build a better brain."
But that hasn't stopped parents from spending billions on infant brain-building products. In 2005, the market was $2.5 billion, according to Fortune.
It also hasn't stopped lawmakers from getting involved. In 1998, Georgia Gov. Zell Miller persuaded hospitals to send home classical music CDs with every newborn. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt persuaded lawmakers last year to spend $2 million to support Parents as Teachers, a non-profit that publishes a curriculum for children as young as newborns.
Such efforts teach parents helpful skills, says Jonathan Plucker, professor of cognitive science at Indiana University. "People are starting to almost universally acknowledge that those years are critically important."
But there's no evidence that playing your baby a Mozart CD or sitting her down in front of a Baby Einstein DVD makes a difference, he says. Research suggests stimulation is essential for early brain development, but "we don't know nearly enough to be applying it."
Officials from Baby Einstein and The Smart Baby did not respond to interview requests.
Tammy Mann, a clinical psychologist and deputy director of Zero to Three, an early-childhood advocacy group, agrees that it's an overstatement of brain research to say we can make babies smarter. But she says evidence shows that good, intensive programs, such as Early Head Start, which was developed for at-risk infants, toddlers and preschoolers, yield solid, cost-effective results.
"There is something to say about investing earlier when you're talking about children who are in particularly high-risk situations," she says.
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Keith Richards: 'I snorted my father' 16 minutes ago
LONDON - Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.
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"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.
"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."
Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.
Richards, one of rock's legendary wild men, told the magazine that his survival was the result of luck, and advised young musicians against trying to emulate him.
"I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he was quoted as saying.
"I've no pretensions about immortality," he added. "I'm the same as everyone ... just kind of lucky.
"I was No. 1 on the `who's likely to die' list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list," Richards said.
___
On the Net:
Rolling Stones:
http://www.rollingstones.com/home.php
NME:
http://www.nme.com/
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FCC says 'no' to cell phones on planes By JOHN DUNBAR, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 3, 7:20 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Striking a blow for cell phone haters everywhere, a government agency on Tuesday said it will keep a rule in place that requires the divisive devices to be turned off during airline flights.
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The reasoning behind the decision was technical. But the avalanche of comments the Federal Communications Commission has logged from airline travelers have been nothing short of visceral.
"These days it's impossible to get on a bus without at least one person hollering into their cell phone, invading the private space of everyone around them," one member of the public wrote in an e-mail to the FCC. "That's bad enough when one can get off in 10 minutes. To have to suffer through HOURS of such torture, with nowhere to go and miserably cramped conditions — someone is going to explode."
The agency has been considering lifting its ban on cell phone usage on airplanes since 2004. Unlike the Federal Aviation Administration, which bans the use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices for fear they will interfere with navigational and communications systems, the FCC's concern is interference with other cell phone signals on the ground.
Airphones installed in cabins use a special FCC frequency that operates outside the range of regular cellular phones.
In an order released Tuesday, the agency noted that there was "insufficient technical information" available on whether airborne cell phone calls would jam networks below.
Regardless of the reasoning, some passengers are no doubt pleased with the agency's decision. In an e-mail to the FCC, one person related the story of a "dimwitted young lady" who had a "most inane conversation" after his flight had landed.
"The idea of a person being a captive audience to someone yapping on the phone is simply a recipe for a lot of anger and a fair share of conflicts," he wrote.
The phones have been snapped shut for now, at least as far as the FCC is concerned. But the issue may come up again. The agency said it may "reconsider this issue in the future if appropriate technical data is available for our review."
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Reuters Photo: A man uses a cell phone in a file photo. Visa USA sees cell phones...
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