San Juan Weekly #98

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August 18 - 24, 2011

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The

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Response to Puerto Rico’s

Financial & Economic

CRISIS Get Wild at the Mayaguez Zoo P23

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Populating the Landscape With Idealism

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H E L LO !

Local News Mainland Viewpoint Fashion & Beauty Kitchen Wine Health Pets

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Mexico-Bound Immigrants Face Scrutiny at Border

Modern Love Local Travel Art Business Sports Games Horoscope Cartoons

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Even Marked Up, Luxury Goods Fly Off Shelves Fashion & Beauty P14

How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit Health P19

By Helping a Girl Testify at a Rape Trial, a Dog Ignites a Legal Debate Pets P21

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Democrats Fed Vows to Challenging Keep Rates Administration Near Zero on Medicaid Business P26 Mainland P7 Cuba-to-Florida Disapproval Rate for Quest Defeats Congress at Record Swimmer at 61 82% After Debt Talks Sports P28 Mainland P8 San Juan Weekly Star has exclusive New Times News Service in English in Puerto Rico

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Response to Puerto Rico’s Financial and Economic Crisis

Honorable Kenneth D. McClintock Secretary of State of Puerto Rico

N

ow, seriously, let me share with you the perspective of Puerto Rico on meeting the challenges presented by a global financial crisis and a worldwide economic recession.

These are difficult times to do what is needed the most: attract investment and create jobs —and the competition is fierce among state and local governments— but we are confident about what Puerto Rico has to offer with its unique political, geographical and cultural attributes.

Located at the crossroads of the Americas, and with bilingual and bicultural U.S. citizens, Puerto Rico is not only where the United States and Latin America meet but also where the United States becomes a Caribbean nation.

Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States since 1898 and, together with the 50 States of the Union and the District of Columbia, comprises the Customs Area of the United States —the only U.S. territory having this attribute.

I see a large representation of Colombian entrepreneurs at the Summit and before you ask… Yes, Puerto Rico is a part of the United States and investing or doing business in the Island may qualify you for an E-1 Trea-

ty Trader Visa or E-2 Treaty Investor Visa.

Puerto Rico’s participation in the U.S. market —together with our cultural and geographic attributes— position our Islands as an ideal platform to export to Latin America and to capture the growing Hispanic market in the United States.

To reach Hispanic customers in the United States, and Latin American customers in Central and South America, one needs not only to speak Spanish but also to understand how Hispanics and Latin Americans think.

Puerto Ricans are not only bilingual but also bicultural. Culturally and linguistically, Puerto Rican bankers, accountants, and other service professionals are completely comfortable doing business virtually anywhere in the Americas: from Anchorage to Antofagasta, putting Puerto Rico in an advantageous position of facilitating access to most markets in the Western Hemisphere.

Because of these attributes, no jurisdiction of the United States is better equipped than Puerto Rico to reach those markets. And we are ready to do business too… because we have managed to accomplish one of the most impressive turnarounds out of the financial crisis with which many states of the Union are just starting to handle.

Let’s take brief look back at the enormous challenges we confronted two years ago.

When Governor-elect Luis Fortuño appointed me to head his Transition Committee, we suspected we would inherit a deficit of no less than $800 million and no more than $1.2 billion. By the time we were sworn in on January 2, 2009, we had discovered that the deficit —$3.3 billion— was the largest in the Nation —far bigger proportionately than California’s. We were spending $1.45 for every dollar of revenue. As you know, there is not one business that can operate with such a deficit.

Furthermore, in January 2009, Puerto Rico had more public sector

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Exquisite Cuisine in an Oppulent Setting employees than any other state except for California and New York —a bloated bureaucracy that our taxpayers simply could not afford.

Even before being sworn-in, the Governor had to meet with Wall Street credit agencies to plead for some breathing space before they downgraded us into becoming the first state government in the United States to hit junk-bond status —a hole from which it would take us well over a decade to emerge. Within two days after being sworn in, Governor Fortuño began making rather painful but necessary decisions that other state governments, the Federal governments and foreign countries have later taken.

We have cut spending by $2 billion and to do that we were forced to lay off 12,656 employees —nearly 7% of our workforce.

During the past two years, we have brought down that 45% deficit to a more manageable 11%, on our way to achieve a balanced budget by next year.

However, recognizing the fiscal

and economic crisis are not solved with spending cuts alone, Governor Fortuño began turning Puerto Rico in a much more attractive business location.

We have enacted the most effective Public Private Partnership Law in the Nation, if not the world. Learning from the mistakes of others, we have created a specialized Public Private Partnership Authority. We have partnered with our Legislature from day one, with two of the Authority’s board members representing that branch of government, and thus avoided the final legislative ratification process that has killed so many P3 alternatives, such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike concession. We have five ongoing P3 initiatives: a 100-school building and modernization program, water system customer service improvements, private operation of our tollway highway system, electric generating plant conversion, and the private operation and development of the Caribbean’s largest airport.

Continues on page 4

4 Comes from page 3 We have streamlined our red-tape laden permitting process, which now boils down to one single comprehensive permit from one single agency.

We have enacted several energy incentives laws, promoting green jobs, a new mega casino law, as well as many other pro-business initiatives.

As everywhere, our real estate market was stagnant and property values decreased —although nowhere near as South Florida’s but a decrease nonetheless. To spur housing sales in September 2010 Governor Fortuño put in place an unprecedented incentives program that has helped to reduce our unsold real estate inventory. So if you want a nice beachside Caribbean property in the U.S. at a good price, with subsidized closing costs, reduced or no property taxes for 5 years, and no capital gains you still have until October 31st to take advantage of our incentives. There’s an extensive writeup on this program in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Recently, Governor Fortuño enac-

The San Juan Weekly Star August 18 - 24, 2011

ted the biggest, most comprehensive, fairest, and most beneficial tax reform in the history of Puerto Rico which is already leaving more than $1.2 billion dollars in the taxpayer’s pockets. It includes a 7 to 15% tax cut retroactive to January 1, 2010, and future tax cuts totaling 50% for individuals and 30% for businesses in the next 5 years.

I believe I mentioned that Governor-elect Fortuño asked Wall Street for some breathing space so he could try saving Puerto Rico from falling into the abyss of junk bond status. Well… he did it!

When Governor Fortuño took office Puerto Rico’s Moody’s rating for Puerto Rico’s credit was Baa3, or one notch above junk bond status. In June 2010 Moody’s recalibrated the rating of Puerto Rico general obligation bonds by three notches to A3 —the highest level the Island had achieved in more than 35 years. The three-notch hike was also the highest improvement Moody’s gave to any of the 34 states whose ratings it upgraded, with California being the only other state to enjoy a three-notch improvement.

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August 18 - 24, 2011

Mexico-Bound Immigrants Face Scrutiny at Border

By MARC LACEY

A

n American immigration agent bounded up the steps of a bus about to cross the United States-Mexico border recently and demanded to see the papers of all those aboard. “Papers!” he shouted, eyeing passengers warily as he walked up and down the aisle.

Such checks are not surprising given all the attention focused on illegal immigration these days. But this bus full of migrants was leaving the United States, not entering it.

A raft of immigration laws in Arizona and other states is designed to make life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they pack their bags and head home. But the reality on the border is that departing the country has become more complicated than ever — leading some people to worry that the outbound checks could not only dissuade illegal immigrants from leaving the country but also place them in a kind of no-win limbo, reviled if they stay and potentially arrested if they try to leave.

It used to be that entering Mexico, whether it was from San Diego or El Paso or here in Nogales, was a cakewalk, with no scrutiny on the United States side of the border and next to none on the Mexico side. But efforts by the Obama administration to reduce the flow of guns and drug money heading from the United States to Mexico have changed that in recent years.

Agents now regularly hop aboard southbound buses, a common way for migrants to return to their towns and villages.

At permanent checkpoints set up at border crossings, they also stop southbound vehicles and confront pedestrians going south on foot.

In questioning people leaving the country about illegal contraband, agents frequently find migrants who are not engaged in smuggling but do not have permission to be in the United States. Some with clean records are let go. Others are fingerprinted and photographed for illegal entry and only then allowed to go on their way. Once they are in the government’s database, they face more

stringent penalties if they are caught in the United States again.

Immigrants who are found to have criminal records face more aggressive treatment.

They are likely to be arrested and then formally deported.

The intent, officials say, is not to discourage illegal immigrants from leaving.

Rather, it is to stem the flow of contraband.

In a recent weekly report from Arizona, Customs and Border Protection said it had seized $22,102 in cash being smuggled out of the state from July 18 to July 24. During the same period, six weapons and 5,943 rounds of ammunition were recovered. Agents detained 1,606 illegal immigrants, although that included those who were both coming and going.

In interviews, departing immigrants offered a variety of reasons for leaving Arizona. Tough laws and law enforcement sweeps made life less livable. The economic downturn made it tougher to make ends meet.

Then there was also a host of personal concerns. For Analleli Rios Ramirez, 24, it was the death of her brother-in-law in Cuernavaca that prompted her and her husband to decide to live closer to relatives.

“We just decided we wanted to live in our own country,” said Ms. Rios, who was the assistant manager of a pretzel shop in a mall near Phoenix.

Some question the sense of checking the papers of migrants who are leaving anyway. The criticism comes from those who consider illegal immigrants to be outlaws and those who sympathize with their struggle to improve their lives.

“Why do we want to spend resources apprehending people who are removing themselves anyway?” asked Jennifer Allen of the Border Action Network, a human rights group based in Tucson that aids immigrants in southern Arizona. “I’ve heard of people wanting to leave the country and wondering if they should risk it. It’s in the forefront of people’s minds when they’re deciding to leave.”

The possibility that a government policy might be discouraging illegal immigrants from leaving has led even some groups who favor tighter immigration controls to think twice about the southbound scrutiny.

“This is about the only situation we would ever advocate that our immigration laws be waived,” William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said last year in a statement calling for the Obama administration to ease its southbound immigration checks. “We want to encourage the illegals to leave America on their own, and thus we ask Obama to provide them safe passage out of America.”

Making it difficult to leave the country, Mr. Gheen said, might prompt some migrants instead to leave Arizona or other states with

tough immigration laws for more hospitable parts of the United States.

Despite the second guessing, the administration said the policy made sense.

“We’re not trying to discourage anyone from leaving, but we do want to send the message that there are consequences for breaking immigration laws,” said an administration official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Although thousands of migrants have been detained heading south, officials said they could not break down how many were stopped because they were in the country illegally versus those stopped for smuggling violations.

Some immigrants said they were confused by the policy.

As she prepared to cross the border recently and join her husband who had crossed months before, Ms. Rios grew anxious, knowing that she did not have her papers in order and that she might be detained. She had entered the country illegally more than a decade ago, as an 11-year-old child clutching her mother’s hand. Now she was returning to a country she barely knew.

“I thought this is what Arizona wanted, for me to leave,” she said as she packed her things in Chandler, Ariz., before heading south. “And I have to worry about them catching me on the way out.”

It turns out that she and her overstuffed pickup truck crossed from Nogales, Ariz., into Nogales, Mexico, without a hitch.

Immigration officials say they cannot check everyone and use discretion as they survey the documents of departing migrants.

Ms. Rios’s mother, Teodora Martinez, had left months earlier and did not have papers when an agent hopped aboard her bus. She presented an identification card issued by the Mexican Consulate in Phoenix, which did not prove legal residency. Her husband, Cesar Valle Martinez, had shown a fake ID. The agent raised his eyebrows as he surveyed their papers and then huddled with a colleague who had also entered the bus. The couple was traveling with several young children, though, and they had American passports. “Go on,” the agent said finally, handing back the documents, exiting the bus and letting the family return to Mexico.

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Disapproval Rate for Congress at Record 82% After Debt Talks

By MICHAEL COOPER and MEGAN THEE-BRENAN

T

he debate over raising the debt ceiling, which brought the nation to the brink of default, has sent disapproval of Congress to its highest level on record and left most Americans saying that creating jobs should now take priority over cutting spending, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job — the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995.

More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt-ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that the debate had harmed the image of the United States in the world.

Republicans in Congress shoulder more of the blame for the difficulties in reaching a debt-ceiling agreement than President Obama and the Democrats, the poll found.

The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.

The public was more evenly divided about how Mr. Obama handled the debt ceiling negotiations: 47 percent disapproved and 46 percent approved.

The public’s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll. In mid-April 29 percent of those polled viewed the movement unfavorably, while 26 percent viewed it favorably. And 43 percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence

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on the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April.

“I’m real disappointed in Congress,” Ron Raggio, 54, a florist from Vicksburg, Miss., said in a follow-up interview. “They can’t sit down and agree about what’s best for America. It’s all politics.”

There were signs that the repeated Republican calls for more spending cuts were resonating with the public: 44 percent of those polled said the cuts in the debtceiling agreement did not go far enough, 29 percent said they were about right and only 15 percent said they went too far. More than a quarter of the Democrats polled said that the cuts in the agreement did not go far enough.

But by a ratio of more than two to one, Americans said that creating jobs should be a higher priority than spending cuts.

Though Republicans prevented tax increases from being included in the debtceiling deal, half of those polled said the agreement should have included increased tax revenue, while 44 percent said it should have relied on cuts alone. That issue is likely to be revisited soon: Congress is preparing to appoint a special committee to recommend ways to reduce the deficit. Sixty-three percent of those polled said that they supported raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000 a year, as Mr. Obama has sought to do — including majorities of Democrats (80 percent), independents (61 percent) and Republicans (52 percent).

The poll found that Mr. Obama was emerging from the crisis less bruised than the Republicans in Congress.

The president’s overall job approval rating remained relatively stable, with 48 percent approving of the way he handles his job as president and 47 percent disapproving — down from the bump up he received in the spring after the killing of Osama bin Laden, but in line with how he has been viewed for nearly a year. By contrast, Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, saw his disapproval rating shoot up 16 points since April: 57 percent of those polled now disapprove of the way he is handling his job, while only 30 percent approve.

Americans said that they trusted Mr. Obama to make the right decisions about the economy more than the Republicans in

Congress, by 47 percent to 33 percent. They were evenly divided on the question of whether he showed “strong qualities of leadership” during the negotiations, with 49 percent saying he did and 48 percent saying he did not. And they were still more likely to blame President George W. Bush for the bulk of the nation’s deficit: 44 percent said that the deficit was mostly caused by the Bush administration, 15 percent said it was mostly caused by the Obama administration and 15 percent blamed Congress.

The growing fears about the economy — amid a sinking stock market and warnings that the nation risks sliding back into recession — were reflected in the nationwide telephone poll, which was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday with 960 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The number of Americans who rated the economy “very bad” was the highest it had been in a year. But there was uncertainty about whether the debt-ceiling deal would help or hurt the economy: nearly half said it would have no effect, while 24 percent said it would make the economy worse and 22 percent said it would improve it.

Americans were evenly divided on the parameters of the debt-ceiling deal, in which Congress agreed to allow the federal government to borrow the money needed to pay its current obligations and avoid default on the condition that it reduce the deficit by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. Over all, 46 percent of those polled approved of the deal, while 45 percent disapproved of it.

Most of those polled said that the spending cuts included either did not go far enough or were about right. But with the nation’s unemployment rate at a stubborn 9.2 percent, 62 percent of those polled said that creating jobs should be the priority.

“Cutting spending is important, but getting people back to work is more important,” said Diane Sherrell, 56, a Republican from Erwin, N.C. “If people are working, they are more productive. There is less crime, there is less depression, there is less divorce. There are less hospital and medical bills. If you put people back to work, you are cutting spending.”

Stanley Oland, 62, a Republican from Kalispell, Mont., said that the government needed new jobs to generate the economic activity and the revenue it requires.

“That revenue supports the basic foundation for the economy, creates more jobs and stimulates the economy,” he said.

“Unless you have working people you don’t have revenue from taxes. If you cut spending, jobs will be eliminated and you won’t get any revenue. Every dollar spent creates jobs.”

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Democrats Challenging Administration on Medicaid

By ROBERT PEAR

I

n break with the White House, the Democratic leaders of Congress told the Supreme Court President Obama was pursuing a misguided interpretation of federal Medicaid law that made it more difficult for lowincome people to obtain health care.

The Democratic leaders said Medicaid beneficiaries must be allowed to file suit to enforce their right to care — and to challenge Medicaid cuts being made.

The Obama administration maintains that beneficiaries and health care providers cannot sue state officials to challenge cuts in Medicaid payment rates, even if such cuts compromise access to care for the poor.

In a friend-of-court brief, lawmakers said the administration’s position “undermine the effectiveness of Medicaid.” It conflicts with more than a century of court precedents that allow people to sue to block state actions inconsistent with federal law.

The brief filed by seven influential Democrats, Representative Henry A. Waxman,

an architect of Medicaid; Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader; Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader; and Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee.

Similar arguments were made in a separate brief filed by a dozen former federal health officials, including Donna E. Shalala, the secretary of health and human services under President Bill Clinton; Joseph A. Califano Jr., who was health secretary under President Jimmy Carter; and Bruce C. Vladeck, who was in charge of Medicaid and Medicare in the Clinton administration.

The issue, of immense importance to poor people and states, comes to the Supreme Court in a set of cases consolidated under the name Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California, No. 09-958. The court plans to hear oral arguments in October, with a decision expected by the spring. The original plaintiffs in the case, Medicaid beneficiaries and providers, say they were harmed

by California’s decision to cut payment rates that were already among the lowest.

Medicaid, the fastest-growing item in state budgets, provides insurance to 55 million people, including children, people with disabilities and nursing home residents.

Faced with severe budget problems, states reduced Medicaid payment rates for doctors, dentists, hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes and other providers. In parts of the country, rates are so low Medicaid recipients have difficulty finding doctors. When states cut reimbursement rates, they save money, so does the federal government, which pays 50 percent to 75 percent of costs.

Federal law says Medicaid rates be “sufficient to enlist enough providers” so Medicaid beneficiaries have access to care to the extent as general population in an area.

The Justice Department, siding with California, told the court no federal law allowed individuals to sue states to enforce this standard. The Democratic leaders said Congress intended to allow such lawsuits.

“Impoverished Medicaid patients and the medical providers who serve them” must be allowed to challenge state violations of fe-

deral law by invoking the supremacy clause.

The Justice Department says federal health officials have “exclusive responsibility” for ensuring compliance and can cut Medicaid money for a state that does not comply.

Exclusive enforcement by the Department of Health and Human Services was “logistically, practically, legally and politically unfeasible.” The department does not have enough employees or money to enforce the guarantee of equal access to care for Medicaid patients.

In previous administrations, the department “supported and embraced” lawsuits by beneficiaries to achieve Medicaid’s goals.

AARP, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, civil rights groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also weighed in with Supreme Court briefs supporting the beneficiaries and providers. “Judicial enforcement is the only viable means to remedy states’ noncompliance with the Medicaid Act,” the A.M.A. said.

The National Governors Association endorsed California’s position that Medicaid recipients had no right to sue.

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August 18 - 24 2011

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New York Times Editorial

Isolated, Vulnerable And Broke

By DOUGLAS S. MASSEY

A

CCORDING to a new study by the Pew Research Center, Hispanic families saw the largest decline in wealth of any racial or ethnic group in the country during the latter half of the last decade: from 2005 to 2009, their median wealth fell by an astounding 66 percent. The reason? The implosion of the housing market, where Hispanic families had invested much of their wealth.

But that’s only the latest chapter in a much longer story. Over the past two decades Hispanics have moved from the middle of the socioeconomic hierarchy, between blacks and whites, to a position below both. On virtually every indicator of socioeconomic welfare, Hispanics fell relative to blacks.

This has nothing to do with nativist tropes like work ethic or resistance to assimilation and everything to do with misguided government policy: our immigration and border-control system has created a class of people cut off from traditional legal and economic structures and thus vulnerable to the worst depredations of the market system.

During the housing bubble, those depredations came in the form of predatory lenders, driven by the boom in

mortgage-backed securities. Before that, minorities had generally been shunned by lenders, which tended to be risk averse and discriminatory.

In the new system, the amount lent was no longer constrained by deposits, merely by the willingness of investors to buy mortgage-backed securities. The more mortgages that could be originated, the more bonds could be created and sold, and the more profits could be made; best of all, investors bore the risks.

Mortgage brokers quickly saturated underserved black and Hispanic neighborhoods with seductive lending packages. But the system of ever expanding lending depended on a steadily rising housing market, and when the bubble burst everything came crashing down.

Because minorities had been singled out for subprime lending, delinquent loans and foreclosures were disproportionately concentrated in black and Hispanic neighborhoods after the collapse.

Yet subprime lending affected both blacks and Hispanics and, if anything, predatory lenders went after the former more than the latter. So why did Hispanics suffer more?

The answer is simple: over time more and more Hispanics had become economically vulnerable and eminently

exploitable, a fact attributable in large part to American immigration policy.

In the early 1990s the United States began militarizing its border with Mexico in an effort to halt unauthorized migration. This disrupted a significant but largely circular flow of illegal migrants: according to estimates from the Mexican Migration wProject, between 1965 and 1985, for every 100 undocumented entries there were 85 undocumented departures, yielding only a small net increase in the undocumented population each year.

Because of the irresistible draw of the American economy, militarization of the border didn’t really affect undocumented in-migration, but it did reduce out-migration — migrants knew that once they left it would be hard to get back in. Whereas there were an estimated 3 million undocumented migrants in 1990, the number rose thereafter to peak around 12 million in 2007 and 2008, at which point half of all Salvadoran immigrants, 60 percent of all Mexican immigrants and two-thirds of Guatemalan and Honduran immigrants were here illegally.

Thus the sudden creation of a new class of people, working low-wage jobs outside the legal labor markets. Not

only was it difficult for them to safely accumulate wealth, but they were left uniquely vulnerable to economic exploitation — such as the promise of a mortgage with little documentation required at signing.

When the Great Recession arrived, many Hispanics got hit with a double whammy: not only were many Hispanic homeowners left with negative equity, but the collapse of construction jobs, which had been a primary draw for immigrants beforehand, eliminated the very means by which they could continue making mortgage payments.

And because many were working and living in legal gray areas, they had little recourse when they learned their mortgages came with ballooning fee structures and onerous penalties for late payments. What little wealth they had managed to accumulate simply vanished.

Even worse, there is little chance that things will improve when the economy finally begins to expand. Until the country fundamentally changes its immigration policy to remove millions from the legal shadows, the entire economy will continue to suffer as its most vulnerable participants watch their fortunes disappear at the slightest downturn.

Airlines and Carbon The world’s leaders should have reached a deal long ago to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In the absence of such a deal, the European Union’s plan to regulate the carbon emissions of all airplanes that land or take off from European airports is a reasonable attempt to address an urgent problem.

Aviation amounts to about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, a share projected to rise quickly as air traffic surges. The European Union wants to cut these emissions by 3 percent next year compared with a 2004-2006 base line, using a cap-and-trade scheme that would force airlines to buy permits to cover emissions that exceed their target.

Starting next year, any airline flying

in or out of a European airport would need permits for emissions for the entire flight. The International Air Transport Association estimates that the average fare on flights in and out of Europe would rise by $21 to $45, or 2.2 percent to 4.6 percent.

The plan faces enormous opposition: China has threatened a trade war.

India has protested. And the Air Transport Association of America, the airline lobby, has blasted the scheme as a costly and illegal invasion of sovereignty because it charges American carriers for carbon emitted in American airspace.

The group has filed a lawsuit to stop the rules before the European Court of Justice.

The Obama administration has objected, and a bill barring American airlines from participating in the scheme has bipartisan support in the House. “This is the wrong way to pursue the right objective,” Susan Kurland, an assistant transportation secretary, told Congress. “The right way forward is a global solution built on strong domestic action rather than a system imposed on us from outside.”

These arguments are not very strong. Airlines will be given a ceiling and allocated permits; they will have to buy additional permits only if they exceed the cap. Those that boost efficiency could have a surplus of permits to sell.

American airlines are already ma-

king progress. The Transportation Department says American airlines have emitted 15 percent fewer emissions from 2000 through 2009 while carrying about 15 percent more passengers and cargo.

Further, the European scheme is no more intrusive on foreign sovereignty than, say, the tax the United States levies on travelers who enter or leave the country.

A global deal would be great. But international talks to regulate airlines’ emissions have been going on fruitlessly for almost 15 years. The European Union’s plan is a much needed first step to controlling a growing source of dangerous emissions. It may even encourage nations to work toward something broader.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

LETTERS Not Smart Like Daddy Melinda Romero makes up in lip for what she lacks in intellectual candlepower.

Caramelo Rodríguez, Old San Juan

I Don’t Like Dogs Either To Rudy Thomassen: You sound hard-core caninophile. How many do you own, Rudy? Three or four big, loud ones? The critters that leave the dinosaur droppings on the sidewalk.

You write dogs bark at folks who don’t like them.

It’s the other way around, we don’t like dogs because they bark at us. Next you’ll have mice leaping eagerly into the maws of cats.

And who’s hysterical? You blather on and on your disingenuity, while you pretend you didn’t hear the facts.

So because your toothy beloved bit to death a thousand incipient anti-canine children on the mainland, America was made a happier place. And the pack of mutts that devoured a baby in front of his dad here, the community must keep its strays better fed, never mind they’ve got shelters, a frill yet to be extended to human beings. And that lady in France had a big ugly nose, her precious darling just wanted to relieve her of it, the whole face came along, well, nobody’s perfect.

And lockjaw. And rabies.

Dogs are not pets, they’re weapons. So they do what weapons are supposed to do, they threaten and hurt people. You crave something to worship, you’d best try a church instead.

Agustín Manzano , Santurce

Nothing Doing Figueroa Sancha’s out. Good riddance. So everybody was cackling over who’s next. As if it matters.

Reality remains that the more people who don’t make it into a decent living, the more crime we’ll get. No, it’s not religion, it’s not family values, it’s not even perreo.

So Governor, keep the $800 UPR cuota. Though it would be nice if the clever among us grew into professionals and intellectuals rather than gangsters and addicts.

Carrutha Harris, Puerta de Tierra

Urban Train Distress I’m in a college summer course. So I qualify for Urban Train half fare. I managed all the tiresome paperwork and the long wait at Sagrado Corazón while the clerks there giggled away with each other.

I got the student card, only it doesn’t work. More often than not I get charged the half fare but not allowed through, the turnstile monitor reads JUST USED. Then

I’m told I have to wait 20 minutes because I just used the card. Except that I didn’t and they know it, they see me there every morning. I can’t be late to class, I then have to pay full fare with the regular card, meaning paying twice. I went to get the card replaced, but after the wait in the usual crowd, the lady said I had to bring all the documents again. I doesn’t matter that I already submitted everything and they took photocopies. And my classmates say don’t bother, a new card won’t help, it hapens to all of them.

Is this the quintessential Commonwealth agency sloppiness or is it a penepeísta privatized affair making a buck on the sly?

Adam Cramer, Guaynabo

Demise of Predatory Medicine To Dr. Germán Malaret: You write, “No one has a right to health care... health is a responsibility, not a right.” Translation: We have no choice but to pay health merchants whatever because it’s our very lives you threaten us with.

Your days of unconscionably accumulated wealth are numbered.

Carrutha Harris, Puerta de Tierra

Kanines Kill Every time I walk to the grocery store neighbors’ dogs all the way up the street bark at me furiously, as if they’d never seen me before. When I look at them they get even mader and if I approach, then they go into a frenzy, displaying their teeth threateningly. Occasionally one is on the sidewalk and then I walk on the other side slowly and I look ahead, but then the dog comes at me like it’s going to bite the back of my foot. Once I picked up a stick and the owner hollered that I was provoking the animal and it was my fault if I got bitten.

Why did God splice such hatred into the DNA of the critters? Well, they were meant to be wolves, clever pack predators, and we tampered with that, 10K years ago when farming/livestocking got started. Wolves and dogs are still conspecific, you know, you can cross them and get a viable and fertile litter. Nevertheless it’s curious that the brains of dogs are 30% smaller than those of wolves, we’ve bred them dumb.

A dog bites you and you may get lockjaw and/or rabies, we’ve both on the island, the latter on the rise.

You have an even chance of death from either. Neither is treatable, except for tetanus antitoxin administered soon after the attack. Though it’s expensive and there’s a small chance you’ll then croak from anaphylactic shock.

We’ve got all these draconian gun laws. A pistol is a machine, it won’t murder on its own. Shouldn’t there be dog control that at least matches firearm strictures?

I’d say the discrepancy is that tyrannical misgovernance

triggers civil insurrection among an armed population.

But when was the last time a revolution was headed by dogs?

And no, I’m not hysterical. Since World War II a thousand children have been bitten to death by dogs in the United States and a baby was ripped dead in front of his dad here year before last and that woman in France got her face chewed off by her very own precious darling.

Mariano Marte, Santurce

Reasonable Doubt in the Eye of the Beholder I hope that Casey Anthony’s case, unlike O.J. Simpson’s, will serve more than merely as a vehicle for indignation and recrimination. It time to either clarify the concept of “reasonable doubt”, which apparently means different thing to different people, or to change the law so as to give a jury an option between a death sentence and prison time. There’s a third option: Abolishing the Death penalty, in which case justice would have been well served in this case.

Pity the one juror out of twelve who although considering himself a Christian thought during jury selection that he could impartially render a decision of life and death; enough for a “hung jury” right there. The other eleven have probably watched television programs with stories about prisoners on Death Row or in prison for decades, wrongfully convicted for crimes that the DNA evidence now is exculpatory.

Apparently some D.A.’s have not accepted the notion that the bar for “reasonable doubt” has been raised by DNA technology. A charge of first degree murder and death, if brought to fruition, is still the best route to fame.

ELISEO MARTINEZ

Long Live Anarchy!

What would life In Puerto Rico be like WITHOUT a government? Easy. Same efficacy of public services, no taxes and much less bochinche.

Anita Roig, Santurce

The San Juan Weekly Star Send your opinions and ideas to: The San Juan Weeekly Star PO BOX 6537 Caguas PR 00726 Or e-mail us at:

sanjuanweeklypr@gmail.com Telephones: (787) 743-3346 · (787) 743-6537 (787) 743-5606 · Fax (787) 743-5500

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

13

FASHION & BEAUTY

Fighting Cleavage Wrinkles

By TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER

B

ACK when Lisa Barr wore a size 34B bra, she didn’t know from cleavage wrinkles.

But soon after she got breast implants in 1999, augmenting her measurements to a 36C, she started waking up with thick lines on her chest where one breast had fallen against the other as she slept on her side.

“The wrinkles would stay even when I was getting dressed,” said Ms. Barr, 40, a litigation paralegal in Rochester. Nor did they diminish as the day progressed. She could not help wondering why she had gotten the implants if she was going to have to cover the areas around and above them.

The skin just below the neck can reveal a woman’s age and skin-care history just as easily as her hands can. Cleavage wrinkles are deep, vertical creases caused by hours spent sleeping on one’s side, where gravity forces the top breast to bend farther past the body’s midline than it should. The lines can also be caused by sports and push-up bras, A ChestSavers bra.

which smush the breasts together and are often worn for hours.

Once the collagen in skin breaks down from age and sun exposure, those wrinkles tend to linger. And thanks to gravity, the generously endowed — whether naturally or surgically — tend to be more afflicted.

“It is definitely something women complain about,” Dr. Tiffany Grunwald, a plastic surgeon in Santa Monica, Calif., wrote in an e-mail. “Most of what we have to offer is skin care to try and plump up the skin. Unfortunately, there is not a good place to hide the scar from a ‘chest lift’ so we don’t do that.”

Ms. Barr tried applying moisturizer and vitamin E to her chest, and sleeping with a pair of socks between her breasts to keep them separated, but the socks would not stay in place. Then she found the Kush Support ($19.99), a contoured plastic cylinder that is “firm enough to support the breasts yet light enough you won’t feel it’s there,” said its inventor, Cathinka Chandler, 42. The device is placed between the breasts at night.

“When I got it, I thought, there’s no way this is going to work,” Ms. Barr said. “It didn’t even weigh two ounces.”

She tried it anyway. Within a few weeks, she said, both she and her boyfriend saw a reduction in lines on her chest.

Cleavage wrinkles had bothered Rachel de Boer, too. A former flight attendant who lives in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, Ms. de Boer, 50, noticed the lines on her chest in her 30s. Her solution was to invent La Decollette (about $73 from decollette.co.uk). It looks like a sports bra worn backward: a supportive racer-back swath of fabric — cotton or Lycra, in black, white or animal prints — is in the front.

The problem of cleavage wrinkles is also being tackled close to Los Angeles, the unofficial capital of breast implants. Sheena Seegraves, who lives in Riverside, Calif., was a 23-year-old customer-service representati-

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ve for a propane company when she noticed that her older female relatives had distressed décolletages. She created the ChestSavers bra ($56 to $78) to prevent them. The product resembles La Decollette, except that its cleavage panel is a swath of lace-covered fleece that comes with a removable foam insert, so that the garment will not absorb any moisturizer that may be on the chest. It comes in several styles, including one with cording-lined cups to wear during the day.

There is also the Intimia Pillow ($59.95), which is a doggie-bone-shaped piece of polyester and latex that works like the Kush Support but that has racer-back straps so that it does not move.

“A bra is uncomfortable to wear at night,” said Irene Komsky, 47, its inventor, who is a registered nurse in the Bay Area.

“And a pillow will fall out when you turn over. You have to have a pillow that stays.”

These products are unconventionallooking, to say the least. “A lot of the women describe it as kinky,” Ms. Seegraves said of her creation, with a laugh. “That’s another benefit.”

If kinky isn’t your thing, you could try the subtler Decollette Pads ($28.95 on decollettepads.com and $24.93 on Amazon.com): adhesive-free patches of medical-grade silicone that are placed on the chest at night.

They are the invention of Camille Della Santina, 51, an Emmy Award-winning makeup artist from Sherman Oaks, Calif., who noticed that the silicone-based prosthetics she used on actors smoothed out wrinkles by drawing moisture to the surface.

But for one nonfiction writer who splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, pillows and pads were not enough.

“Few people would notice it,” she said of her cleavage wrinkles. “But I’m very conscious of nipping things in the bud.”

The woman, 55, who did not want to be identified because she considered the matter

Irene Komsky invented the Intimia Pillow, which seeks to prevent cleavage wrinkles. private, visited Danya Hoenig, a physician assistant in Beverly Hills, Calif., who works in the office of her husband, a plastic surgeon.

“All she needed was a syringe of Juvéderm,” said Ms. Hoenig, 39, naming a product with hyaluronic acid that is often used to fill face wrinkles; it costs $550 to $700 per syringe. Ms. Hoenig told the writer the effects could last five months to a year. The first injection was in February, and the writer said she did not yet think she needed another.

“I don’t feel uncomfortable in a lowneck blouse anymore,” the woman said. “At a certain age, you see many women wearing camisoles under their V-necks to hide these wrinkles. I didn’t want to do that.”

Anti-aging advances being what they are, she and other women may not have to.

“I’m 50, and I have still wrinkle-free cleavage,” Ms. de Boer said. If she had not designed La Decollette, she said, “I’d have the cleavage of an 80-year-old.”

But how big a problem cleavage wrinkles are might also come down to perspective. As one flat-chested woman put it: “Some people would be so happy to have cleavage that they would never think to complain about the wrinkles that accompanied them.”

FASHION & BEAUTY

14

August 18 - 24, 2011

The San Juan Weekly Star

Even Marked Up, Luxury Goods Fly Off Shelves “Our business is fairly closely tied to how the market performs,” said Karen W. Katz, the president and chief executive of Neiman Marcus Group. “Though there are bumps based on different economic data, it’s generally been trending in a positive direction.”

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

N

ordstrom has a waiting list for a Chanel sequined tweed coat with a $9,010 price. Neiman Marcus has sold out in almost every size of Christian Louboutin “Bianca” platform pumps, at $775 a pair. Mercedes-Benz said it sold more cars last month in the United States than it had in any July in five years.

Even with the economy in a funk and many Americans pulling back on spending, the rich are again buying designer clothing, luxury cars and about anything that catches their fancy. Luxury goods stores, which fared much worse than other retailers in the recession, are more than recovering — they are zooming. Many high-end businesses are even able to mark up, rather than discount, items to attract customers who equate quality with price.

“If a designer shoe goes up from $800 to $860, who notices?” said Arnold Aronson, managing director of retail strategies at the consulting firm Kurt Salmon, and the former chairman and chief executive of Saks.

The rich do not spend quite as they did in the free-wheeling period before the recession, but they are closer to that level.

The luxury category has posted 10 consecutive months of sales increases compared with the year earlier, even as overall consumer spending on categories like furniture and electronics has been tepid, according to the research service MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse. In July, the luxury segment had an 11.6 percent increase, the biggest monthly gain in more than a year.

What changed? Mostly, the stock market, retailers and analysts said, as well as a good bit of shopping psychology.

Even with the sharp drop in stocks over the last week, the Dow Jones is up about 80 percent from its low in March 2009.

And with the overall economy nowhere near its recession lows, buying nice, expensive things is back in vogue for people who can afford it.

Caroline Limpert, 31, an entrepreneur in New York, says she is happy to spend on classic pieces, like the Yves Saint Laurent tote she has in both chocolate and black, but since the recession, she avoids conspicuous items.

“Over all, you want to wear less branded items,” she said. “If you have the wherewithal to spend, you never want to be showy about it.” Still, she said, she is quick to buy at the beginning of each season. “I buy things that could sell out.”

The recent earnings reports of some luxury goods retailers and automobile companies show just how much the highend shopper has been willing to spend again.

Tiffany’s first-quarter sales were up 20 percent to $761 million. Last week LVMH, which owns expensive brands like Louis Vuitton and Givenchy, reported sales growth in the first half of 2011 of 13 percent to 10.3 billion euros, or $14.9 billion. Also last week, PPR, home to Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and other brands, said its luxury segment’s sales gained 23 percent in the first half. Profits are also up by double digits for many of these companies.

BMW this week said it more than doubled its quarterly profit from a year ago as sales rose 16.5 percent; Porsche said its first-half profit rose 59 percent; and Mercedes-Benz said July sales of its high-end S-Class sedans — some of which cost more than $200,000 — jumped nearly 14 percent in the United States.

The success luxury retailers are having in selling $250 Ermenegildo Zegna ties and $2,800 David Yurman pavé rings

— the kind encircled with small precious stones — stands in stark contrast to the retailers who cater to more average Americans.

Apparel stores are holding near fire sales to get people to spend. WalMart is selling smaller packages because some shoppers do not have enough cash on hand to afford multipacks of toilet paper. Retailers from Victoria’s Secret to the Children’s Place are nudging prices up by just pennies, worried they will lose customers if they do anything more.

While the free spending of the affluent may not be of much comfort to people who are out of jobs or out of cash, the rich may contribute disproportionately to the overall economic recovery.

“This group is key because the top 5 percent of income earners accounts for about one-third of spending, and the top 20 percent accounts for close to 60 percent of spending,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “That was key to why we suffered such a bad recession — their spending fell very sharply.”

Just a few years ago, luxury retailers were suffering. Too many items were chasing too few buyers, and high-end stores began cutting prices. As a result, consumers awaited 70 percent discounts rather than buying right away. Sales of luxury goods fell 17.9 percent in October 2008 from a year earlier, SpendingPulse said, and double-digit declines continued through May 2009.

Now, many stores are stocking up on luxury items, as shoppers flock to racks of expensive goods.

“They’re buying the special pieces, whether it’s the exotic leathers, the more fashion-forward pieces,” said Stephen I. Sadove, the chairman and chief executive of Saks Fifth Avenue. “There’s a dramatic decline in the amount of promotions in the luxury sector — we’re seeing higher levels of full-priced selling than we saw prerecession.”

In 2008, for example, the most expensive Louboutin item that Saks sold was a $1,575 pair of suede boots. Now, it is a $2,495 pair of suede boots that are thighhigh. Crème de la Mer, the facial cream, cost $1,350 for 16 ounces at Bergdorf Goodman in 2008; it now costs $1,650.

“I think that she’s willing to pay whatever price the manufacturer and the retailer deem appropriate, if she sees that there’s intrinsic value in it,” Ms. Katz said.

Part of the demand is also driven by the snob factor: at luxury stores, higher prices are often considered a mark of quality.

“You just can’t buy a pair of shoes for less than $1,000 in some of the luxury brands, and some of the price points have gone to $2,000,” said Jyothi Rao, general manager for the women’s business at Gilt Groupe, a Web site that sells designer brands at a discount. “There’s absolutely a customer for it.”

Jennifer Margolin, a personal shopper in San Francisco, said she had noticed changes in clients’ attitudes. They “pay full price if they absolutely love it,” she said. “Before it was almost completely shying away, where now it’s like, ‘O.K., I’m comfortable getting a Goyard bag,’ but they get it for the quality.”

Goyard bags, in addition to having a distinctive pattern, will usually run a few thousand dollars. And, yes, they are selling out quickly.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

15

Kitchen

Sandwiches Take a Turn With Tomatoes

By DAVID TANIS

O

LD Mr. Brown, a man I knew in Oakland, Calif., never ate anything but sandwiches. Ask him to a meal, pass the breadbasket.

He put everything, from soup to nuts, between two slices. Evidently it was a lifelong obsession.

My pal Susan, when she makes me a tuna on wheat, always serves the lettuce leaves on the side, to be inserted just before eating the sandwich.

The lettuce stays crisp that way, she says, perhaps because her greengrocer father said so.

My Aunt Ruth made an incredible grilled cheese with Muenster on rye that she mangled in a hot waffle iron for a Midwestern panino. The oozing bread became dimpled like crisp inverted croutons, and a little cheese always leaked out to form a crunchy snack. That sandwich remains a benchmark.

Everyone, it seems, if one can extrapolate a worldwide tendency from one’s acquaintances, wants their sandwich customized. It’s an everyday act that provides self-expression and utter self-indulgence.

My sandwich preferences are usually on the simpler side. As a young cook my midnight meal was a butte-

red baguette stuffed with watercress and seasoned with salt and pepper, a sandwich I still crave from time to time. With good Spanish ham, I want just bread and nothing else except a glass of Rioja or fino sherry. On warm focaccia or garlic toast, another favorite is garlicky roasted peppers and fresh mozzarella. Drizzled with olive oil. Basta.

Now that real vine-ripe tomatoes are finally in season, the best sandwiches are tomato. But the tomato sandwich is another minefield of opinion, prejudice and personal history. My friend Kevin goes into a swoon when he thinks about sliced tomatoes on white bread with Miracle Whip, but that is, I imagine, one of those tastes acquired in childhood.

With no such touchstone, I generally veer toward Mediterranean, and inevitably end up with a cross between the pan bagnat from Nice and the Catalan tomato bread with anchovy.

Tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, capers, anchovy and basil. A splash of red wine vinegar. It goes together quickly, but the ingredients need to stay inside the loaf for at least an hour. That way, the juicy tomatoes and all the tasty aromatics permeate the bread in a soggy, heavenly way.

Eat it outside.

Tomato Salad on a Roll Time: About 15 minutes, plus 1 hour’s resting 1 pound ripe tomatoes, in assorted colors and sizes Salt and pepper 2 garlic cloves, finely minced 2 anchovy fillets, rinsed and roughly chopped, optional 1 teaspoon capers, rinsed 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar Pinch red pepper flakes 12 basil leaves A few tender parsley leaves 4 fresh French rolls or a long baguette.

1. Cut larger tomatoes in thick slices or wedges and smaller ones into

halves, and put them in a salad bowl.

Season with salt and pepper.

2. Add the garlic, anchovies (if using), capers, olive oil, vinegar, pepper flakes and half the basil, torn or chopped. Gently toss with the tomatoes and leave for 5 or 10 minutes.

3. Split the rolls or baguette lengthwise. Spoon tomato salad and its juices onto bottom of each roll (or bottom half of the baguette). Lay a few basil and parsley leaves over tomatoes. Replace tops and press lightly.

If using baguette, cut crosswise into 4 pieces.

4. Cover sandwiches with a clean dish towel and wait for an hour or so before serving.

Yield: 4 servings.

White Peaches, Pistachios, Honey and Ricotta Adapted from Seamus Mullen Time: 10 minutes 2 or 3 firm white peaches Juice of 1 lemon 1 pound fresh ricotta 4 tablespoons honey 1/4 cup shelled pistachios, toasted in a dry, hot pan for 30 seconds 2 tablespoons fruity extra virgin olive oil.

1. Quarter and pit the peaches, and slice them into thin curls on a mandoline. Toss them with the lemon juice in a bowl.

2. Divide the ricotta among 4 dessert bowls, drizzle a tablespoon of honey on each, and toss on a handful of toasted pistachios. Top each with a mound of peach slices and a drizzle of olive oil.

Yield: 4 servings.

Kitchen 16

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

Smoked Trout Salad, Cucumber and Roasted Pepper Sandwich

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

processor, and flake them. Mix in the yogurt and 1 teaspoon of the mayonnaise. It should have the consistency of or this sandwich I use canned smoked trout — it’s packed in tuna salad. Stir in the chopped celery oil and not dry, so it lends itself and dill.

2. Lightly toast the English mufto a tuna salad-like mixture. I flake it fins. Spread a little mayonnaise on in my mini-processor, then mix it up with a little yogurt and mayonnaise. both halves. Spread half the trout mixOne 3.9-ounce can smoked trout in ture over the bottom buns. Top with canola oil cucumber slices, and douse with a little lemon juice. Layer half the roasted 1 tablespoon plain yogurt pepper over the cucumber slices. Place 1 tablespoon mayonnaise the other halves of the English muf2 tablespoons finely diced celery fins on top, press down, slice in half 1 teaspoon minced fresh dill 2 small (3 1/2-inch) whole wheat if desired and serve. Alternately, you may wrap the sandwiches in plastic, English muffins About 1 1/2 ounces roasted red pepper refrigerate and serve later.

Yield: Two sandwiches.

Sliced cucumber Nutritional information per serAdvance preparation: These sandA few drops lemon juice wiches will keep well for a day. Wrap ving: 282 calories; 1 gram saturated fat; 1. Drain the trout. Place the fillets tightly in plastic wrap, and place in a 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 27 milligrams in a bowl or in the bowl of a mini-food bag. Keep cold if possible.

F

cholesterol; 29 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 710 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 18 grams protein

Pappardelle With Fresh Ricotta, Squash Blossoms and Basil Oil Time: About 30 minutes FOR THE BASIL OIL: About 12 basil leaves, roughly chopped 1 garlic clove, minced 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil Salt and pepper FOR THE PASTA: 1 pound pappardelle or other pasta 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1/2 pound small zucchini, thinly sliced Salt and pepper About 12 squash blossoms, stems removed 1/2 pound fresh ricotta (about 1 cup), at room temperature Pecorino cheese, for grating.

1. To make the basil oil, in a small dish stir together the basil, garlic, lemon zest and olive oil. Add a little salt and

pepper. Set aside for at least 15 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the pasta, and cook until al dente.

2. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add the zucchini, season with salt and pepper, and cook until barely done, 1 or 2 minutes.

Turn off the heat. Tear the squash blossoms into strips.

3. Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup pasta water. Add pappardelle to the skillet with the zucchini. Add squash blossoms, ricotta and a little salt and pepper. Quickly stir together with 2 wooden spoons, leaving the ricotta a little chunky. Add pasta water if necessary and transfer to a warm serving bowl.

4. At the table, top each serving with 2 teaspoons basil oil and a sprinkling of grated pecorino.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

17

Wine

Partners Push a Tap Wine Manifesto

By ASHLEY PARKER

W

ARNING: Wine Not Beer,” reads the disclaimer on the draft handle behind the bar at Terroir Tribeca, a wine bar on Harrison Street in Manhattan. You’ll find the same thing at the restaurants Buttermilk Channel and Colicchio & Sons, where the taps dispense red, white and rosé, all from a keg-wine company known as the Gotham Project.

Serving some wines by the glass straight from the barrel has long been a practice in Europe, and it slowly began catching on in California seven or eight years ago. In New York, Daniel Boulud’s downtown outpost, DBGB, and City Winery, which opened in 2009, also pour wines on tap.

But at a growing number of restaurants, many of them trendy locavore spots known as much for their cutting-edge attitudes as for their culinary prowess, the draft wine comes from Gotham, which was founded in 2010. Gotham installed its first tap, dispensing riesling, at Terroir Tribeca when it opened in April 2010.

Charles Bieler and Bruce Schneider, founders of the company, say the kegs are not just a gimmick — they are dedicated to changing the way Americans drink wine.

“We’re not just selling a concept; we’re selling a better glass of wine,” Mr. Bieler said.

The benefits, according to Mr. Bieler and Mr. Schneider, include freshness, ecofriendliness and convenience. Besides, the idea of wine from a keg is kind of cool — and the moment just felt right.

The Gotham Project places special “

emphasis on wines from the Finger Lakes region and the North Fork of Long Island (though it also sells imported varieties), and most of its wines, which are sold by the glass, are in the $8-to-$10 range. Among the other places dispensing wine from its stainless steel casks are Marcus Samuelsson’s new hot spot, Red Rooster Harlem; the Lot on Tap, an outdoor bar below the High Line on the West Side of Manhattan; and Terrance Brennan’s cheese-focused Artisanal.

The magazine Food & Wine chose the Gotham Project as one of its Best Wine Trends of 2010, and named Mr. Bieler one of the “40 Big Food Thinkers Under 40.”

“I wanted to do something locally,” said Mr. Bieler, 36, explaining the start of his collaboration with Mr. Schneider in the Gotham Project. “I was always amazed by the trend of eating local, but when it came to drinking local, people sort of ignored it.”

“Eat local, drink French wine,” quipped Mr. Schneider, 41.

Now, more than two dozen restaurants in New York and about two dozen more outside the state carry Gotham Project wines.

Carla Rzeszewski, the wine director at the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar — both co-owned by the celebrity chef April Bloomfield — said keg wines helped create a more casual and communal atmosphere. She likened it to buying a pitcher of beer at a dive bar, where “everyone immediately becomes part of the ceremony of the pitcher.”

Not all wine is meant to be put on tap.

Ms. Rzeszewski said she would never dream of offering, say, a grand cru on draft. But a 2010 Finger Lakes riesling?

“I think there are certain wines that are beautiful on tap,” Ms. Rzeszewski said. “It’s this perfect yummy, yummy, yummy spring rosé, chilled, coming out of the tap.”

Mr. Bieler and Mr. Schneider are natural ambassadors for wine in kegs. Mr. Schneider is the grandson of a bootlegger and the son of a wine and spirits importer and distributor. Since 1994, he has made wines, in bottles, with grapes from the North Fork, specializing in cabernet franc, and for a time he owned a vineyard as well.

Mr. Bieler’s father bought a chateau in Provence in 1992 and started making rosé.

When Mr. Bieler was in college, his father asked for help in marketing the wine, so Mr. Bieler bought a 1965 Cadillac de Ville, painted it pink and set off across the country for two years promoting it.

Now, Mr. Bieler and Mr. Schneider are oenological jacks-of-all-trades. Not only do they produce some of their own wine, but they have also been known to head behind

the bar with a tool kit when some part of a restaurant’s keg system is not working quite right.

Standing in the bar of the Breslin one afternoon, Mr. Bieler, wearing blue jeans and a gray button-down, and Mr. Schneider, in glasses and a plaid shirt tucked into khakis, were the very picture of the customers they

hope to draw.

“I think this sort of environment is the picture of where we’re most well suited,” Mr. Bieler said, gesturing to the buzzing lunchtime crowd. “It tends to be younger, it’s hip, it’s people who are more thoughtful about their food and drink. It tastes good, but it’s not elite or expensive.”

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18

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

A Better Way to Keep Patients Safe

By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.

N

ot long ago, a few colleagues and I were discussing the challenges of improving health care quality and patient safety. We debated the merits of clinical benchmarks that payers and regulatory groups now require, crude proxies of quality care like giving antibiotics at certain times, ordering specific tests at set intervals or permitting our results to be reported publicly.

One colleague, a devoted and highly respected clinician in his department, admitted that he found this growing list of directives from others exasperating. “I’m all for taking great care of patients,” he said, the muscles along his jaw tightening.

“But how can some insurance bureaucrat or policy wonk who’s not in the clinical trenches know more about taking good care of real patients than someone like me?”

Since 1999, when a national panel of experts released a landmark report on the high number of medical errors, insurers, policy makers and regulatory groups have been piling onto the quality-improvement wagon with ever increasing gusto. As a result of their enthusiastic efforts, hospital accreditation procedures and standards have become more rigorous, physician duty hours have been trimmed, handsanitizing gel dispensers in hospitals have multiplied and physician reimbursement has been linked increasingly with quality goals and less with the number of CT scans ordered.

But few of these quality enthusiasts are actually caring for patients. And when a study in The New England Journal of Medicine last fall reported that despite all the efforts and new financial incentives, there was no significant decrease in patient injuries, these same enthusiasts were quick to point to the inertia and intractable attitudes of the medical “culture.” They

noted that less than 2 percent of hospitals had installed comprehensive electronic medical records systems, doctors and nurses were routinely working in excess of limits on duty hours and few were paying attention to even simple hand-washing recommendations. It would take nothing short of an all-out legislative, financial and regulatory assault to change the system, many of them concluded.

But what these “experts” failed to take into account was the same thing that has led to the downfall of countless other groups’ efforts to create sustainable change: They ignored the contributions of the people within the system.

There have been a handful of grassroots endeavors, but most have focused on specific clinical dilemmas. Now that may be changing. Last week, nearly 1,000 surgeons, nurses and hospital administrators from across the country convened in Boston to discuss what is quickly becoming one of the most far-reaching of such efforts, the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program from the American College of Surgeons, the largest professional organization of surgeons. With the average American undergoing nine operations in his or her lifetime, the implications of a program that can improve how patients do after surgery are enormous.

Based on an initiative in the 1990s that sharply decreased surgical complication rates in the Veterans Health Administration, the program was offered to all hospitals beginning in 2004 and is now used by surgeons at more than 400 institutions. Unlike most other quality programs, which gather data from insurance claims and coding data, it relies on information from patients’ hospital charts and follows patients for 30 days. A detailed analysis, along with statistics comparing results with those of all other participating hospitals, is then sent back to participating hospitals.

“When you feed back data that clinicians can believe and tell them that there is room to improve, most will work to get better,” said Dr. Clifford Y. Ko, who has directed the program for the last five years.

Surgeons and hospitals that discover, for example, that their rate of wound infections after surgery is higher than other participating hospitals have convened forums to discuss the issue, established electronic checklists to remind staff to administer timely prophylactic antibiotics and instituted mandatory training courses to improve how doctors and nurses care for patients’ incision sites before, during and after an operation.

The efforts pay off. Within two years of adopting the program, almost 70 percent of hospitals decrease their mortality rates, and over 80 percent decrease their complication rates. Costs also decrease.

Surgeons at Baptist Hospital in Miami, for example, reduced their rate of surgical incision infections to less than 2 percent from 4.5 percent and saved $4 million each year. Surgeons at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit ended up saving their institution $2 million annually by decreasing their patients’ average hospital stays by almost two days.

“If a surgeon is doing several hundred operations a year and the department is doing several thousand, it’s difficult to keep track of all the urinary tract infections that patients might be having,” said

Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi, surgeon in chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, which has been a part of the surgical improvement program for several years. “NSQIP has the power to let us examine complications and outcomes on a large scale, drill down and make systemwide changes, then see their effects.”

The program has also slowly transformed the traditional hierarchy of surgery. Nurses are crucial members of the surgical quality improvement team at each site, and employees from administration, pharmacy and central processing and sterilization are sometimes included on review teams. “There isn’t anyone who isn’t a part of this process,” said Jennifer Ritz, a nurse who has helped to run NSQIP at Henry Ford Hospital since 2006.

But not all hospitals have adopted the program. Many are already overwhelmed with the administrative demands of existing quality improvement programs, and the cost — a yearly fee of $10,000 to $24,000, plus the training and support of at least one full-time nurse — can be prohibitive. There’s also no immediate return on investment. “If you buy some hightech surgical robot, more patients and surgeons are going to come to your hospital,” said Dr. Dennis Begos, chairman of surgery at Winchester Hospital, a 250-bed community hospital north of Boston that participates in the program.

The American College of Surgeons hopes eventually to collaborate with regulatory and federal agencies so that more hospitals, and patients, might be able to benefit. And it’s working with participating hospitals to further refine the program. “We all know that it’s hard to move the quality improvement dial,” Dr. Ko said. “But NSQIP has shown us that it is really possible to change care and give our patients better outcomes.

“And that quality improvement is local.”

Study Sheds Light on Auditory Role in Dyslexia

By PAM BELLUCK

M

any people consider dyslexia simply a reading problem in which children mix up letters and misconstrue written words. But increasingly scientists have come to believe that the reading difficulties of dyslexia are part of a larger puzzle: a problem with how the

brain processes speech and puts together words from smaller units of sound.

Now, a study published last week in the journal Science suggests that how dyslexics hear language may be more important than previously realized. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that people with dyslexia have more trouble recognizing voices than

those without dyslexia.

John Gabrieli, a professor of cognitive neuroscience, and Tyler Perrachione, a graduate student, asked people with and without dyslexia to listen to recorded voices paired with cartoon avatars on computer screens. The subjects tried matching the voices to the correct avatars speaking English and then an unfamiliar language,

Mandarin.

Nondyslexics matched voices to avatars correctly almost 70 percent of the time when the language was English and half the time when the language was Mandarin. But people with dyslexia were able to do so only half the time, whether the language was English or Mandarin. Experts not involved in the study said that was a

The San Juan Weekly Star striking disparity.

“Typically, you see big differences in reading, but there are just subtle general differences between individuals who are afflicted with dyslexia and individuals who aren’t on a wide variety of tests,” said Richard Wagner, a psychology professor at Florida State University. “This effect was really large.”

Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a director of the Center for Dyslexia and Creativity at Yale University, said the study “demonstrates the centrality of spoken language in dyslexia — that it’s not a problem in meaning, but in getting to the sounds of speech.”

That is why dyslexic children often misspeak, she said, citing two examples drawn from real life. “A child at Fenway Park watching the Red Sox said, ‘Oh, I’m thirsty. Can we go to the confession stand?,’ ” she said.

“Another person crossing a busy intersection where many people were walking said, ‘Oh, those Presbyterians should be more careful.’ It’s not a question of not knowing, but being unable to attach what you know is the meaning to the sounds.”

August 18 - 24, 2011

Dr. Gabrieli said the findings underscored a critical problem for dyslexic children learning to read: the ability of a child hearing, say, a parent or teacher speak to connect the auditory bits that make up words, called phonemes, with the sight of written words.

If a child has trouble grasping the sounds that make up language, he said, acquiring reading skills will be harder.

The research shows that spoken language deficiencies persist even when dyslexics learn to read well. The study subjects were mostly “high-functioning, high-I.Q. young adults who had overcome their reading difficulty,” Dr. Gabrieli said. “And yet when they had to distinguish voices, they were not one iota better with the English-language voices that they’ve heard all their life.”

Experts said the new study also shows the interconnectedness of the brain processes involved in reading. Many scientists had considered voice recognition to be “like recognizing melodies or things that are primarily nonverbal,” Dr. Gabrieli said. Voice recognition was thought to be a separate task in the brain from understan-

ding language.

But this research shows that normal reading involves a “circuit, the ability to have all of those components integrated absolutely automatically,” said Maryanne Wolf, a dyslexia expert at Tufts University.

“One of the great weaknesses in dyslexia is that the system is not able to integrate these phoneme-driven systems” with other aspects of language comprehension.

As a follow-up, the M.I.T. researchers have been scanning the brains of subjects performing voice recognition and other activities, and have found “very big differences in dyslexics and nondyslexics in a surprisingly broad range of tasks,” Dr. Gabrieli said. “We think there might be a broader kind of learning that’s not operating very well in these individuals and that in some areas you can circumvent it pretty well. But in language and reading, it’s hard to circumvent.”

One of the unusual aspects of the M.I.T. study is that it isolated the skill of processing vocal speech from reading and from skills involving the meaning of language, experts said. The sentences were

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basic, like “The boy was there when the sun rose,” and the Mandarin sounds meant nothing to the listeners.

Dr. Wagner suggested that something like the voice-recognition task might be used to identify young children at risk for dyslexia.

Often diagnostic tests require separating sounds from words. A child might be asked to say “cowboy” without the “boy” part.

“For young children, it’s a real difficult task,” Dr. Wagner said. “Sometimes they’ll say, ‘cowboy without saying boy,’ because that’s exactly what you’ve asked them. The holy grail is to come up with tasks you can give to a 3-year-old.”

Dr. Shaywitz said the study also has implications for teaching.

If a teacher asked, “ ‘Oh, Johnny, what is the capital of New York State?,’ Johnny will go, ‘Uh, uh, uh,’ and the teacher will say, ‘Oh, gee, you don’t know it,’ ” Dr. Shaywitz said. “It’s more likely to be a problem of word retrieval than knowledge. If she reframes it as, ‘Is the capital Houston or Albany?,’ Johnny is more likely to answer correctly.”

How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

F

or those of us hoping to keep our brains fit and healthy well into middle age and beyond, the latest science offers some reassurance. Activity appears to be critical, though scientists have yet to prove that exercise can ward off serious problems like Alzheimer’s disease. But what about the more mundane, creeping memory loss that begins about the time our 30s recede, when car keys and people’s names evaporate? It’s not Alzheimer’s, but it’s worrying. Can activity ameliorate its slow advance — and maintain vocabulary retrieval skills, so that the word “ameliorate” leaps to mind when needed?

Obligingly, a number of important new studies have just been published that address those very questions. In perhaps the most encouraging of these, Canadian researchers measured the energy expenditure and cognitive functioning of a large group of elderly adults over the course of two to five years. Most of the volunteers did not exercise, per se, and almost none worked out vigorously. Their activities generally consisted of “walking around the block, cooking, gardening, cleaning and that sort of thing,” said Laura Middleton, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and lead author of the study, which was published last week in

Archives of Internal Medicine.

But even so, the effects of this modest activity on the brain were remarkable, Dr. Middleton said. While the wholly sedentary volunteers, and there were many of these, scored significantly worse over the years on tests of cognitive function, the most active group showed little decline. About 90 percent of those with the greatest daily energy expenditure could think and remember just about as well, year after year.

“Our results indicate that vigorous exercise isn’t necessary” to protect your mind, Dr. Middleton said. “I think that’s exciting. It might inspire people who would be intimidated about the idea of quote-unquote exercising to just get up and move.”

The same message emerged from another study published last week in the same journal. In it, women, most in their 70s, with vascular disease or multiple

risk factors for developing that condition completed cognitive tests and surveys of their activities over a period of five years.

Again, they were not spry. There were no marathon runners among them. The most active walked. But there was “a decreasing rate of cognitive decline” among the active group, the authors wrote. Their ability to remember and think did still diminish, but not as rapidly as among the sedentary.

“If an inactive 70-year-old is heading toward dementia at 50 miles per hour, by the time she’s 75 or 76, she’s speeding there at 75 miles per hour,” said Jae H. Kang, an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.

“But the active 76-year-olds in our study moved toward dementia at more like 50 miles per hour.” Walking and other light activity had bought them, essentially, five years of better brainpower.

“If we can push out the onset of dementia by 5, 10 or more years, that changes the dynamics of aging,” said Dr. Eric Larson, the vice president of research at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle and author of an editorial accompanying the two studies.

“None of us wants to lose our minds,” he said. So the growing body of science linking activity and improved mental functioning “is a wake-up call. We have to

find ways to get everybody moving.”

Which makes one additional new study about exercise and the brain, published this month in Neurobiology of Aging, particularly appealing. For those among us, and they are many, who can’t get excited about going for walks or brisk gardening, scientists from the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and other institutions have shown, for the first time, that light-duty weight training changes how well older women think and how blood flows within their brains. After 12 months of lifting weights twice a week, the women performed significantly better on tests of mental processing ability than a control group of women who completed a balance and toning program, while functional M.R.I. scans showed that portions of the brain that control such thinking were considerably more active in the weight trainers.

“We’re not trying to show that lifting weights is better than aerobic-style activity” for staving off cognitive decline, said Teresa Liu-Ambrose, an assistant professor at the university and study leader. “But it does appear to be a viable option, and if people enjoy it, as our participants did, and stick with it,” then more of us might be able, potentially, to ameliorate mental decline well into late life.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

Ancient Moves for Orthopedic Problems

By JANE E. BRODY

W

ith the costs of medical care spiraling out of control and an evergrowing shortage of doctors to treat an aging population, it pays to know about methods of prevention and treatment for orthopedic problems that are low-cost and rely almost entirely on self-care. As certain methods of alternative medicine are shown to have real value, some mainstream doctors who “think outside the box” have begun to incorporate them into their practices.

One of them is Loren Fishman, a physiatrist — a specialist in physical and rehabilitative medicine affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital. Some in the medical profession would consider Dr. Fishman a renegade, but to many of his patients he’s a miracle worker who treats their various orthopedic disorders without the drugs, surgery or endless months of physical therapy most doctors recommend.

Many years ago, I wrote about Dr. Fishman’s nonsurgical treatment of piriformis syndrome, crippling pain in the lower back or leg caused by a muscle spasm in the buttocks that entraps the sciatic nerve.

The condition is often misdiagnosed as a back problem, and patients frequently undergo surgery or lengthy physical therapy without relief.

Dr. Fishman developed a simple diagnostic technique for piriformis syndrome and showed that an injection into the muscle to break up the spasm, sometimes followed by yoga exercises or brief physical therapy, relieves the pain in an overwhelming majority of cases.

Nowadays yoga exercises form a centerpiece of his practice. Dr. Fishman, a lifelong devotee of yoga who studied it for three years in India before going to medical school, uses various yoga positions to help prevent, treat, and he says, halt and often reverse conditions like shoulder injuries, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and scoliosis. I rarely devote this column to one doctor’s approach to treatment, and I’m not presenting his approach as a cure-all. But I do think it has value. And he has written several well-illustrated books that can be helpful if used in combination with proper medical diagnosis and guidance.

For many years, yoga teachers and enthusiasts have touted the benefits to the body of this ancient practice, but it is the rare physician who both endorses it and documents its value in clinical tests. Dr. Fishman has done both.

Rotator Cuff Relief This year, Dr. Fishman received a prize at the International Conference on Yoga for Health and Social Transformation for a paper he presented on a surprising yoga remedy for rotator cuff syndrome, a common shoulder injury that causes extreme pain when trying to raise one’s arm to shoulder height and higher. He described a modified form of a yoga headstand that does not require standing on the head and takes only 30 seconds to perform, and presented evidence that it could relieve shoulder pain in most patients, and that adding brief physical therapy could keep the problem from recurring.

Rotator cuff injuries are extremely common, especially among athletes, gym and sports enthusiasts, older people, acci-

FASTER THAN AN OPERATION The triangular forearm support may relieve shoulder pain in those with injured rotator cuffs. dent victims and people whose jobs involve repeated overhead motions.

For patients facing surgery to repair a tear in the rotator cuff and many months of rehabilitation, the yoga maneuver can seem almost a miracle. It is especially useful for the elderly, who are often poor candidates for surgery.

Dr. Fishman said he successfully treated a former basketball player, who responded immediately, and a 40-year-old magazine photographer who had torn his rotator cuff while on assignment. The photographer, he said, had been unable to lift his arm high enough to shake someone’s hand.

Instead of an operation that can cost as much as $12,000, followed by four months of physical therapy, with no guarantee of success, Dr. Fishman’s treatment, is an adaptation of a yoga headstand called the triangular forearm support. His version can be done against a wall or using a chair as well as on one’s head. The maneuver, in effect, trains a muscle below the shoulder blade, the subscapularis, to take over the job of the injured muscle, the supraspinatus, that normally raises the arm from below chest height to above the shoulder.

The doctor discovered the benefit of this technique quite accidentally. He had suffered a bad tear in his left shoulder when he swerved to avoid a taxi that had pulled in front of his car. Frustrated by an inability to practice yoga during the month he waited to see a surgeon, one day he attempted a yoga headstand. After righting

himself, he discovered he could raise his left arm over his head without pain, even though an M.R.I. showed that the supraspinatus muscle was still torn.

Dr. Fishman, who has since treated more than 700 patients with this technique, said it has helped about 90 percent of them. “It doesn’t work on everyone — not on string musicians, for example, whose shoulder muscles are overtrained,” he said in an interview.

In a report published this spring in Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation (an issue of the journal devoted to therapeutic yoga), he described results in 50 patients with partial or complete tears of the supraspinatus muscle. The initial yoga maneuver was repeated in physical therapy for an average of five sessions and the patients were followed for an average of two and a half years.

The doctor and his co-authors reported that the benefits matched, and in some cases exceeded, those following physical therapy alone or surgery and rehabilitation. All the yoga-treated patients maintained their initial relief for as long as they were studied, up to eight years, and none experienced new tears.

Yoga for Bone Disease Perhaps more important from a public health standpoint is the research Dr. Fishman is doing on yoga’s benefits to bones. Bone loss is epidemic in our society, and the methods to prevent and treat it are far from ideal. Weight-bearing exercise helps, but not everyone can jog, dance or walk briskly, and repeated pounding on knees and hips can eventually cause joint deterioration.

Strength training, in which muscles pull on bones, is perhaps even more beneficial, and Dr. Fishman has observed that osteoporosis and resulting fractures are rare among regular yoga practitioners.

In a pilot study that began with 187 people with osteoporosis and 30 with its precursor, osteopenia, he found that compliance with the yoga exercises was poor.

But the 11 patients who did 10 minutes of yoga daily for two years increased bone density in their hips and spines while seven patients who served as controls continued to lose bone. He noted that yoga’s benefits also decrease the risk of falls, which can result in osteoporotic fractures.

Medical guidance here is important, especially for older people who may have orthopedic issues that require adaptations of the yoga moves.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

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By Helping a Girl Testify at a Rape Trial, a Dog Ignites a Legal Debate

By WILLIAM GLABERSON

R

osie, the first judicially approved courtroom dog in New York, was in the witness box here nuzzling a 15-yearold girl who was testifying that her father had raped and impregnated her. Rosie sat by the teenager’s feet. At particularly bad moments, she leaned in.

When the trial ended in June with the father’s conviction, the teenager “was most grateful to Rosie above all,” said David A. Crenshaw, a psychologist who works with the teenager.

“She just kept hugging Rosie,” he continued.

Now an appeal planned by the defense lawyers is placing Rosie at the heart of a legal debate that will test whether there will be more Rosies in courtrooms in New York and, possibly, other states.

Rosie is a golden retriever therapy dog who specializes in comforting people when they are under stress. Both prosecutors and defense lawyers have described her as adorable, though she has been known to slobber.

Prosecutors here noted that she is also in the vanguard of a growing trial trend: in Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana and some other states in the last few years, courts have allowed such trained dogs to offer children and other vulnerable witnesses nuzzling solace in front of juries.

The new role for dogs as testimony enablers can, however, raise thorny legal questions. Defense lawyers argue that the dogs may unfairly sway jurors with their cuteness and the natural empathy they attract, whether a witness is telling the truth or not, and some prosecutors insist that the courtroom dogs can be a crucial comfort to those enduring the ordeal of testifying, especially children.

The new witness-stand role for dogs in several states began in 2003, when the prosecution won permission for a dog named Jeeter with a beige button nose to help in a sexual assault case in Seattle. “Sometimes the dog means the difference between a conviction and an acquittal,” said Ellen O’Neill-Stephens, a prosecutor there who has become a campaigner for the dog-incourt cause.

Service dogs have long been permitted in courts. But in a ruling in June that allowed Rosie to accompany the teenage rape victim to the trial here, a Dutchess County Court judge, Stephen L. Greller, said the teenager was traumatized and the defendant, Victor Tohom, appeared threatening. Although he said there was no precedent in the state, Judge Greller ruled that Rosie was similar to the teddy bear that a New York appeals court said in 1994 could accompany a child

witness.

At least once when the teenager hesitated in Judge Greller’s courtroom, the dog rose and seemed to push the girl gently with her nose. Mr. Tohom was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life.

His lawyers, David S. Martin and Steven W. Levine of the public defender’s office, have raised a series of objections that they say seems likely to land the case in New York’s highest court. They argue that as a therapy dog, Rosie responds to people under stress by comforting them, whether the stress comes from confronting a guilty defendant or lying under oath.

But they say jurors are likely to conclude that the dog is helping victims expose the truth. “Every time she stroked the dog,” Mr. Martin said in an interview, “it sent an unconscious message to the jury that she was under stress because she was telling the truth.”

“There was no way for me to cross-examine the dog,” Mr. Martin added.

In written arguments, the defense lawyers claimed it was “prosecutorial misconduct” for the Dutchess County assistant district attorney handling the rape case, Kristine Hawlk, to arrange for Rosie to be taken into the courtroom. Cute as the dog was, the defense said, Rosie’s presence “infected the trial with such unfairness” that it constituted a violation of their client’s constitutional rights.

Ms. Hawlk declined to discuss Rosie.

In written arguments, she said that all Rosie did was help a victim suffering from serious emotional distress, and she called the defense claims “frivolous accusations.”

The defense lawyers acknowledged the risk of appearing antidog. Rosie, they wrote, “is a lovely creature and by all standards a ‘good dog,’ ” and, they added, the defendant “wishes her only the best.”

As the lawyers prepare their appeal, Rosie has been busy. She spent much of her time in recent weeks with two girls, ages 5 and 11, who were getting ready to testify against the man accused of murder in the stabbing of their mother.

The Dutchess prosecutor in that case, Matthew A. Weishaupt, argued that Rosie and dogs like her did not affect the substance of the testimony about horrifying crimes.

“These dogs ease the stress and ease the trauma so a child can take the stand,” Mr. Weishaupt said in an interview.

In the end, Rosie was not needed in the second case: the defendant, Gabriel Lopez-Perez, who had a history of domestic violence, interrupted his trial last week to plead guilty to killing the girls’ mother, his girlfriend, in the Wappingers Falls rooming house where they lived.

But Rosie’s promised appearance next to the children might well have played a role.

“It became obvious,” said Mr. Lopez-Perez’s lawyer, Andres Aranda, “that the children were going to be testifying, and he decided

to avoid that.”

The defense’s appeal of Rosie’s first courtroom outing, in the rape case, is likely to establish legal principles on the issues of dogs in the witness box. “It is an important case, and appeals courts will consider it an important case,” James A. Cohen, a professor of criminal law at Fordham University School of Law, said.

When New York appeals courts study the question, they are likely to look at the experience of courtroom dogs around the country, including in Washington. In Seattle, a developmentally disabled 57-year-old man, Douglas K. Lare, recently recalled how a Labrador retriever named Ellie, who has made more than 50 court appearances, helped him testify against a man charged with a scheme to steal from him.

Ellie gave him courage when he was afraid, Mr. Lare said in an interview: “It was like I had no other friends in the courthouse except Ellie,” he said.

For 11-year-old Rosie, said her owners, Dale and Lu Picard, the courtroom work is a career change after years working with emotionally troubled children at a residential center in Brewster. The Picards’ organization, Educated Canines Assisting With Disabilities, or ECAD, places service dogs after training them to perform tasks like turning lights on and off and opening doors.

Rosie, named for the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, was originally taught to follow 80 commands, including taking off a person’s socks without biting any toes.

But she has a special talent with traumatized children, said Dr. Crenshaw, the psychologist who has worked with all three of Rosie’s witnesses and many other troubled children.

“When they start talking about difficult things,” Dr. Crenshaw said, “Rosie picks up on that and goes over and nudges them.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

An Ex Blogs. Is it O.K. to Watch?

By HELEN SCHULMAN

I

HAVE a good friend who, like countless others, is addicted to Googling ex-boyfriends. Instead of coffee breaks, she goes on periodic search sprees where she looks up old lovers, passing fancies and mere crushes.

When her interest in her own history flags, she encourages me to look up mine.

One of her recent e-mails read: “I wish there were more boys!” Meaning that since we both have been married for 20 years, our backlists are running low.

The men of my past, search-enginewise, are mostly unremarkable. The outcomes seem happy, and there have been no real surprises. Except for one from (gulp) a quarter-century ago, a boy with literary aspirations who had once been a kind of mentor to me. On a lark one morning I typed his name, pressed return and hit a gold mine.

As it turned out, he was the keeper of multiple blogs, some of which he’d been writing for years: opinion pieces on books and music, musings on race and religion, and one blog devoted to his workplace (he was a teacher).

As I read over his various posts, it became clear that he was struggling with finding a way to gather these mini-essays together in order to write a book. That part of his life, writing books, apparently was a dream deferred. But the rest of it (a good marriage, children, work that was valuable) seemed like everything you’d hope to find when looking up an old friend.

Except his blogs weren’t all they seemed to be at first blush. Buried among the philosophical musings and literary exegeses were struggles of a more intimate nature. Somewhere in the course of creating his blogs, my ex had slipped into the role of diarist.

If he were a teenager, I suppose there would be nothing new here; millennial teenagers seem bred to leak their lives online,

to air their private relationships, depressions and frustrations.

But a guy in his 40s? It was surprising to find that amid a cogent dissection of “Infinite Jest,” he had included an account of his outré dream from the night before. There was dirt here.

With just a few clicks, I had entry into an ex’s most-private life, and I didn’t have to suffer through the boring parts. I could skip around the postings and suss out what I wanted.

I did not look up from the screen for several hours, and when I finally realized I had spent my workday this way, I felt kind of sick to my stomach, as if I had climbed through his bedroom window and stolen his journal from his dresser drawer, though in fact all this soul-baring was posted online for any random person to see.

He’d asked for it. I hadn’t gone looking.

Well, I had gone looking. But apparently he’d wanted to be found.

I told no one about what I had read, including my Googling friend and my husband, who wouldn’t have cared. Confession: I was ashamed of my own prurient curiosity, but I was hooked. My ex wanted readers. He got one.

Weeks went by, and day after day, before I turned my attention to my own work, I would first check online to see if my ex had posted anything new. This compulsion reminded me of how at various points in my life I’d religiously tuned in to “General Hospital”; there was a similar pleasure in following a narrative in daily doses.

I tried to stay away from ex’s blog, but I couldn’t. I wondered: Did the art project defuse that particularly nettlesome kid last week? Did ex have a productive visit from his aging parents? At one point he suffered a setback at work and I worried that he was headed for a major depression.

While his tone and interests seemed shockingly familiar to me even after all those years, within days I learned far more about him than I ever had lying next to him in bed.

If we had bumped into each other at an airport or in the supermarket, the way exes do, I wonder if he would have told me even one eighth of what he freely gave up online.

As time passed and I kept reading, I cultivated a stake in his life, in him. “Way to go, honey!” I thought when he turned the troubled boy around. And “No, stop!” when he heedlessly posted explicit musings about his kinky sex dreams. I wanted to tell him, “Just forgive yourself: there’s nothing terrible in these fantasies. But do you really want your kids to stumble upon this stuff the way that I did?”

He was in need of a cyberintervention.

I toyed with the idea of contacting him; I had a bizarre desire to help. The intimacy of his postings reawakened old feelings of loyalty and attachment — and irritation and annoyance.

I thought about writing to ex as myself, and I wondered if he would find it creepy.

Was it creepy? Maybe it was.

I thought perhaps he would resent the intrusion (he’d been my ad hoc mentor, after all, and I didn’t want to appear uppity). He was, and still is, smart and talented. Who was I to offer unsolicited advice? Our relationship had mercifully ended over two decades ago, but online, once again, I was his phantom critic, his cheerleader and his confidant.

In a weird way, it was as if we were together again, on a more intimate level than ever before, though without him knowing it.

And when I pictured him, he still looked the way he had when I last saw him, sometime in his 20s. I did not Google-image him. In this age of omniscience, there are still some things I did not want to know or see.

Eventually, it occurred to me that I could create an online persona who could contact him — another teacher who wanted to comment on his work problems, perhaps.

There was a long-lost love referenced in the postings — not me, but maybe I could re-enter his world cyberdressed as her.

The possibilities were endless. He was naked. I was not. He had defined himself. I

could be anyone I wanted.

This realization was thrilling. Less thrilling was acknowledging what a time-drain my habit had become. The whole business had become an exercise in procrastination.

It wasn’t as if all of ex’s entries were interesting. I learned what he ate for lunch, where he went on spring vacation, his latest running times. I knew when he had a date with his wife to go to the multiplex. Had they liked “The King’s Speech”?

I knew all the daily ups and downs of someone I had not laid eyes on in two decades. And let’s face it, at this point that kind of intimacy usually comes only with someone you live with, someone you have to listen to, someone with whom you have no choice.

But I had a choice. I pictured myself as ex’s shrink, the old-fashioned kind who doesn’t say much as you lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling. The undercurrent of despair in his posts was real. Was he asking for help?

FINALLY I confessed. Not to ex, but to my husband, who, as predicted, didn’t care.

And to my Googling friend, who couldn’t remember who ex was. Alas, their lack of interest did nothing to abate my own. Every morning I logged on. But I was saved.

Or I should say, he was saved. The day after ex posted something he decidedly should not have, talking about his students in a way no teacher ever should (“No,” I said to the screen. I actually said “No!” out loud, hoping he would hear and somehow stop), someone with sense in his real world must have gotten to him. By the next morning, all the blogs had vanished.

And though I continued to Google his name for a while, I came up with nothing, which honestly was a relief. I didn’t like knowing what I knew about my ex. It was a familiarity that came without conversation, a tenderness that lacked back and forth, an intimacy that was unearned.

When I was a child, all the kids in my elementary-school class had been part of an ongoing psychological study. We got used to being subjects in a room with a one-way mirror, although unknown to our observers we could sometimes see their shadows through the glass. Once that awareness took hold, there was nothing for us to do but play to the audience.

By the end of my cybertime with ex, we were a little like that experiment. I was studying him from a distance, or so I thought, and he seemed to have lost sight of the fact that he was performing for a crowd. But perhaps it was the shadow play of readers that kept him going.

Whatever, the lack of interface had turned us both into mirror gazers, constantly examining ourselves, until we had finally learned enough to look away.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

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Get Wild at the Mayagüez Zoo plants and orchids on display. It is a fun way to spend a few hours among animals and tropical plants.

When you pay to park, they will give you a map of the zoo. Everything (the map and the info signs at each area) is in both English and Spanish. The zoo has paved paths (so it is handicap accessible). There are animal enclosures all over, so you don’t have to walk far to get from animal to animal. The zoo has animals from around the world, with a good representation from the African continent – zebra, elephants, rhinos and lions. We

I

f you enjoy animals and are in the Mayaguez area, you might consider spending a few hours at the Mayaguez Zoo. Formally, this little zoo is called the “Parque Nacional Zoologico de Puerto Rico Dr. Juan A. Rivero” (or the Dr. Juan A. Rivero National Zoological Park of Puerto Rico). Wow! That’s a long name for a little zoo! Though this zoo doesn’t house a large number of animals, it does have a pretty good collection of different types of animals – from zebras to hippos, monkeys to giraffes, lions & tigers and a bear, and the obligatory elephant.

We went there for the first time about 15 years ago, and it was a pathetic place.

Only a few animals, housed in small cages and the conditions didn’t look very good. We returned there in early 2008 and found that it has been renovated, and now the animals have more room to move around. Also, the facilities and grounds look well-maintained overall. In addition to the animals, there are a number of nice plantings, with some named

shot a great video of a lioness freaking out at a young child (there’s safety glass between them). It reminds you that, even though they usually look bored and complacent, zoo animals are not your typical domesticated huggable animals. They really are wild!

There are also 3 special areas: the aviary, the arthropod & butterfly house, and the amphibian & reptile house. These are buildings that have a limited capacity, so admission to these displays are monitored, and your walk

through is sometimes guided by a zoo representative. But be aware, they are closed (for lunch) from about 11:30am to 1:30pm.

Of these 3 areas, my favorite was the walk-through part of the aviary – it has a large netted area, with lots of parrots and colorful birds that were flying all around. The other part of the aviary had many other types of birds in cages, such as golden & bald eagles, and owls.

The “Mariposario” is the Butterfly House. It is connected to the arthropod museum. You walk through the butterfly area – a large netted area full of flowers with butterflies flying all around. These were mostly Monarchs, with a few other types. This is a guided walk through, with the guide explaining the life cycle of the butterflies and the food they eat. They had a lab area, were they raise butterflies from eggs, then larvae to adult butterflies. They even let us hold a larvae of a moth – it was about 3 inches long and green, yellow and black striped. Pretty, but kind of gross!

After walking through the Butterfly House, you continue into the Arthropod mu-

seum. In here they have all those disgusting bugs (luckily in cages or behind glass) that you hope to never encounter face-to-face: spiders, centipedes, ants, and cockroaches, among other things. It was geared toward children, so they can learn about the lives and life cycles of these critters. It was a well-done museum, just (obviously) not my thing!

The other building is the Amphibian & Reptile Center. This is a small building of about 10 cages with snakes and lizards in them. They did have some of the local reptiles – like the Puerto Rico Anole and the Puerto Rican Boa Constrictor.

ART

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August 18 - 24, 2011

The San Juan Weekly Star

Populating the Landscape With Idealism

By HOLLAND COTTER

I

f you stumbled into a meeting of French Impressionist painters in the mid-1870s, you’d get some frosty looks. Edgar Degas would eye your clothes. Paul Cézanne, born suspicious, would scowl. Claude Monet might size you up for a sale.

Then a slightly older man with a rabbinical beard and a gaucho hat would step forward and hold out his hand: “Camille Pissarro. Join us, please.”

He’d introduce you around, sett-

le you down and bring the talk back to where he usually left it, a continuing conversation about art, life and revolution.

Pissarro was, by temperament and belief, a welcomer — of people, ideas. And there’s an embracing feel to “Pissarro’s People” at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute here, a modest, openhearted show that demonstrates how central a role human presence played in the work of an artist usually associated with landscape painting.

More than many of his colleagues,

Pissarro understood what it felt like to come from outside, uncertain of the rules. He was born thousands of miles away from Europe in 1830, on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, then a Danish colony. His father was a dry-goods merchant from Bordeaux, his mother a Caribbean-born daughter of French parents. Both sides of the family were Sephardic Jews. Pissarro himself chose to remain a Danish citizen all his life.

Even on St. Thomas his status was outside the norm. His parents were unmarried when he was born, bringing censure from Jews on the island. As a child he went to a local Moravian school with Afro-Caribbean children, where he spoke English instead of French.

After being sent to a school near Paris for a few years to be Europeanized, he returned to St. Thomas in 1847, ostensibly to join the family business. But by then he had other plans: He had decided to be an artist. And he already was one, painting and drawing the island life around him. He eventually hooked up with the footloose Danish artist Fritz Melbye and took off with him for Haiti, then Venezuela, in the first of several bonding relationships he would form with painters, all of them transformative for him.

It was as an aspiring artist that he went back to France more or less permanently in the 1850s. While keeping the examples of Corot, Courbet and Jean-François Millet as his lodestars, he studied with various painters in Paris, taking a little something from each, in a process of sampling and adopting influences that would lead to the criticism

that his art was, stylistically, no more than a sum of many parts.

In 1860 he began a liaison with a young French Roman Catholic woman named Julie Vellay, hired as a servant by his mother, who had also returned to France. In 1861 the first of the couple’s eight children was born. (They married a decade later.)

By then he also had become deeply immersed in revolutionary politics, specifically in anarchist thinking that espoused a radically egalitarian, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian society. Partly because this way of life was most easily realized in a rural setting, Pissarro moved his growing family to Pontoise, a farming village outside Paris,where, despite bouts of near poverty, he was known for keeping his home open to all visitors.

His guests included hungry, ambitious younger artists. Cézanne was one.

He and Pissarro formed a symbiotic unit that worked at full strength between 1872 and 1874, with Pissarro in a mentor role. Later he paired off for nearly a decade with Paul Gauguin, and then with Georges Seurat, complicated personalities. All these relationships ended in ruptures, when the younger artists went in directions that Pissarro couldn’t or wouldn’t follow. But while the bonds lasted, they had a profound influence on everyone involved, and consequently on modern art.

Pissarro, with his diplomatic skills and forward thinking, also played a crucial role in organizing the group of artists who came to be called Impressionists, a name that began as an insult and became a badge of honor. He was in the first Impressionist salon in 1874, and was the single artist of the original group to appear, loyal to the vanguard cause, in the seven that followed. And, characteristically, he was the Impressionist whose style changed the most, as he experimented with new approaches and theories.

What never changed in his art was the presence of the figure and a trust in human perfectability.

The result, in painting after painting, was a vision of the world as a kind of extended family, or kinship network, with larger circles of relationships rippling outward from Pissarro’s own domestic unit.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

was closely watched by the French police because of his anarchist ties), antiSemitism (he forgave this in Degas) and professional isolation as an artist who was neither born French nor had French citizenship (a status he shared with his friend Mary Cassatt).

Yet the stranger in him, the foreigner looking in, led him to acknowledge the underside of that vision. In late 1880s he made a series of 30 ink drawings illustrating the brutalities of urban capitalist society. The album, titled “Turpitudes Sociales” (“Social Disgraces”), have the bold, crude look of newspaper cartoons and were made for two of his nieces by way of political instruction.

Nothing else by him is like them, and they haven’t been exhibited in a museum until now.

Why? Do they go too much against the grain of Pissarro the temperate utopian? The man who loved children and preached hope? The artist whose work is already considered too stylistically di-

He painted his family fairly often, some members more than others. Julie Pissarro is usually seen as a small figure in landscapes, though in the Clark show, organized by the art historian Richard R. Brettell, there’s a beautiful, kissingclose image of her face, in profile, looking down as she sews. There are separate portraits of their children at varying ages, and four paintings and a print devoted to the brief life of their daughter Jeanne-Rachel, nicknamed Minette, who died in 1874 at the age of 11.

We see her first just out of the toddler stage; then as a young girl posed in a garden and indoors; then, in an oddly off-center composition, looking wan, her hair cut short. Finally, in a lithograph fatalistically titled “Dead Child,” she lies on her sickbed two months before her death.

Along with these portraits of family members come others, comparably candid and tender, of household servants, depicted as if they were family too, Julie Pissarro’s partners in running the household. And a mood of sober concentration extends beyond the home to the countryside, there men and women

work the fields but also take time to chat in the shade, nap on the grass and buy and sell in the village market. In this humane and balanced world people have what they need and want no more.

Pissarro’s idealism was insistent.

Because he wanted his projection of a better future to be realized, he tried to work it out in the present, through his own practice of ethical generosity, firm in the face of political censorship (he

25

ART

verse to be major? In Mr. Brettell’s view, which I share, the drawings complete the picture of him, round out the karma of his insider-outsider career, make him an artist to love, even as you question some of his ideas and ask more of his art when it veers too close to blandness.

And in the worldly way that what goes around comes around, love was what he earned from even the most difficult of his contemporaries. “He looked at everybody, you say! Why not?

Everyone looked at him, too, but denied him. He was one of my masters and I do not deny him.” So wrote Gauguin before Pissarro died in 1903.

The final acknowledgment of debt by the crusty, withholding Cézanne was simpler still. In 1906, just before his own death, by which time he had become a god to young artists internationally, he identified himself in an exhibition catalog of his paintings with a single headbowing phrase, “Paul Cézanne, pupil of Pissarro.”

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

Its Forecast Dim, Fed Vows to Keep Rates Near Zero

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

T

he Federal Reserve made a rare promise on Tuesday to hold short-term interest rates near zero through at least the middle of 2013, in a sign that it has all but written off the chances of an expansion strong enough to drive up wages and prices.

It is now conventional wisdom among forecasters that the economy will plod along through the end of President Obama’s first term in office. Millions of Americans will not find work. Wages will not rise substantially.

By its action, the Fed is declaring that it, too, sees little prospect of rapid growth and little risk of inflation. Its hope is that the showman’s gesture will spur investment and risk-taking by convincing markets that the cost of borrowing will not rise for at least two years.

The Fed’s statement, with its mix of grim tidings and welcome aid, contributed to wild market oscillations as investors struggled to make sense of the economy and the path ahead. The day ended in a huge upward surge on the New York Stock Exchange — the second busiest day this year after the record volume on Monday, during a deep sell-off — that could not be tallied completely until well after the markets had closed.

The Dow swung as much as 600 points in the wake of the Fed statement, at first sinking over 200 points. But after traders absorbed the decision, they quickly reversed course, and the Dow closed the day up 429 points, or 4 percent, to 11,239.77, as some investors expressed hope that the pledge to keep interest rates low could relieve some of the gloom over the economic outlook.

“The economy is in tough shape and the Fed had a difficult job of showing that they understood that without appearing to be alarmist,” said Steven Lear, who helps to manage a $150 billion fixed-income portfolio for J.P. Morgan Asset Management. “We think that they’ve played that hand about as well as they could.”

The policy announced Tuesday is an incremental step that economists described as unlikely to drive significant growth. The Fed already has held rates near zero since December 2008, and the economy is awash in cheap money.

The great impediment, beyond the Fed’s easy reach, is the lack of demand from indebted consumers, nervous businesses and a shrinking public sector.

The Fed demurred, however, from taking stronger steps to aid the struggling economy, a decision that reflected deepening divisions on its policy-making committee, which generally tries to move only by unanimous consent.

The vote to promise two more years of low rates passed by a margin of 7 to 3, the first time in almost 20 years that at least three members recorded votes in dissent.

The internal controversy parallels the broader debate in Washington between those pleading for the government to redouble its support for the faltering economy, and those who doubt the utility of additional aid and fear the consequences of the vast efforts already made. The three Fed members in dissent all have expressed concern that the central bank is not paying enough attention to inflation.

The Fed said in a statement that it would continue to consider additional measures to support the economy, but the split vote suggested that the Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, may struggle to win sufficient support.

The statement, which includes an assessment of the economy, was a patchwork quilt of discouraging language. The labor market is deteriorating, construction is weak, housing depressed, recovery slow.

“Economic growth so far this year has been considerably slower than the committee had expected,” it said. “The committee now expects a somewhat slower pace of recovery over coming quarters.”

Twenty-five million Americans cannot

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find full-time work, a number the Fed said would decline “only gradually.”

The Fed is charged by Congress with minimizing unemployment, and increasingly vocal critics have questioned why the central bank is standing still even as the economy shows clear signs of faltering. The modest step announced Tuesday did not satisfy many of those critics.

“The Fed took the least action possible given the circumstances,” Sherry Cooper, chief economist at the BMO Financial Group, said in a note to clients. “Bottom Line: Holy Cow!” In part, the Fed’s answer is that it is already engaged in an immense program of economic aid.

The central bank has held its benchmark short-term interest rate near zero for more than two years, flooding the financial system with the nearest thing to free money.

It already had promised, most recently in June, that it would keep rates near zero “for an extended period” — at least several months, Mr. Bernanke said earlier this year.

The Fed also has amassed a portfolio of more than $2.5 trillion in Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities, putting downward pressure on long-term interest rates. The purchases have pushed investors into the stock market and other riskier investments, and reduced the value of the dollar, helping American exporters.

The decision announced Tuesday is intended to put additional pressure on longterm interest rates, although not with the same direct force as buying $600 billion in securities, a program it completed in June. The rates on long-term securities reflect a combination of expectations about short-term rates and a risk premium for holding a long-term note. Buying bonds reduces that risk premium; by promising to keep rates low, the Fed aims to reduce expectations about future short-term rates.

The Fed’s statement stopped short of an absolute commitment to provide two years of near-zero rates, preserving some room for movement if economic conditions

change drastically. But Vincent R. Reinhart, who headed the Fed’s monetary affairs division until 2007, said the meaning was clear.

“It’s as close to an unconditional commitment as you can get out of a central banker,” said Mr. Reinhart, now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

“It means that you’ve handcuffed yourself. You can’t change it.

You’ve given up unless there’s an overwhelming case to offset inflation risk.”

A second reason for the Fed’s restraint, it is increasingly clear, is the opposition of a group of Fed officials who are concerned that the central bank is overly discounting the risk of inflation.

The three members who dissented from the majority Tuesday were Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis; and Charles I. Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

By law the Fed is responsible for keeping prices steady and unemployment as low as possible. But Mr. Bernanke, like his predecessors, places greater emphasis on prices, in part because the Fed has concluded that slow, steady inflation — about 2 percent a year — is the best atmosphere for enduring job growth.

The Fed projected in June that inflation could reach 2.5 percent this year, a crucial reason for its announcement then that it would pause before considering new measures.

There are now signs that inflation is abating, as a temporary spike in commodity prices earlier this year works through the economy, and as growth weakens. Mr. Bernanke and his allies on the committee have predicted as much all year, and the announcement on Tuesday reflects confidence in that judgment.

But conservative members of the policy-making board see evidence in past recoveries that inflation can accelerate quickly, with little warning. Their dissents echo the last time the committee was as deeply divided, in November 1992, when three members pressed to begin raising the short-term interest rate, which then stood at 3 percent.

The Fed’s statement, indicating that it will continue to consider additional options despite those internal divisions, sets the stage for Mr. Bernanke’s speech later this month at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Last year, he used the opportunity to indicate that the Fed would undertake a new round of asset purchases. “The markets,” Mr. Lear said, “will be actively interested to hear what he says.”

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

27

Sports

In Boston, Rivera Revisits a Nemesis

By DAVID WALDSTEIN

M

arco Scutaro may have ensured himself a spot on any Boston Red Sox postseason roster Sunday night when he foiled Mariano Rivera for the second time in his career.

Scutaro hit a leadoff double against Rivera in the ninth inning and scored the tying run on a sacrifice fly, and the Red Sox went on to win, 3-2, in 10 innings. In 2007, when he was a member of the Oakland Athletics, Scutaro cost Rivera another save when he hit a three-run game-ending homer in the ninth inning.

Those things do not go unnoticed in Boston, where people know that in order to beat the Yankees in the playoffs, the Red Sox will probably have to beat Rivera at some point during the series.

Although he only has a career .250 average against Rivera, Scutaro has some big hits against him. In that way, he could emulate the success of another unremarkable Red Sox infielder, Bill Mueller.

Mueller was the foil to Rivera twice in 2004, in memorable but different ways. On July 24, Mueller hit a two-run game-ending homer against Rivera, who blew a two-run lead in the ninth inning that day.

But it was with a bouncing single in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the American League Championship Series that the memory of Mueller — and Dave Roberts, who scored the tying run after stealing second base — became forever imprinted in the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry.

Scutaro has a long way to go to match that history, and when they face one another again, Rivera said he would not be consumed by the memory.

“I don’t think about it,” Rivera said in the quiet Yankees clubhouse early Monday morning. “If I was thinking like that, I wouldn’t be doing this job.”

Rivera is considered by most to be the best closer ever , but he has played long enough that blown saves are inevitable.

In his 17 seasons, Rivera has pitched 105 times against Boston, with a 2.90 earned run average and 52 saves, his third most against any team.

But Rivera also has 14 career blown saves against the Red Sox, more than any other team (he has eight against the Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore). Those 14 do not include the two he had in the 2004 A.L.C.S., with the Game 4 disappointment followed by another blown save in Game 5.

Rivera came into Game 5 with runners on first and third and nobody out in the bottom of the eighth, and surrendered a sacrifice fly to Jason Varitek that pushed home the tying run. The blown save was put on his account, even though no runs were charged to him in two innings.

But Rivera had a save in each of the first two games of the series, and the year before in the A.L.C.S., his three scoreless innings in Game 7 rolled out the carpet from which Aaron Boone hit the more celebrated home run.

Rivera did not receive a save for that outing, but his performance made Boone’s

Rodriguez Nears Return

By DAVID WALDSTEIN

A

lex Rodriguez could play in a minor league rehabilitation game as soon as this weekend, which increases the likelihood that he will return to the Yankees during next week’s seven-game trip that begins Monday in Kansas City, then moves to Minnesota.

“I don’t know if Monday is realistic,” Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said. “Part of it probably depends on where he starts and how he feels in the first couple of games. But I think next week is realistic.”

Rodriguez has been recovering in Tampa, Fla., from arthroscopic surgery last month to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. On Tuesday, he did some running and took batting practice, and Girardi said he was nearing his rehabilitation assignment.

“He’s close,” Girardi said. “There’s

talk that it might be on Friday, it might be on Saturday. We’ll just see where he’s at.”

Although the Yankees are eager to get Rodriguez back, it is not as if they have floundered without him. Going into Tuesday night’s game against the Los Angeles Angels, the Yankees were 18-9 in Rodriguez’s absence, a .667 winning percentage, which was better than their overall winning percentage of .611.

“It’s like you’ve got nine boxes of TNT, and you take one away,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said. “It’s still a deep lineup.”

When he returns, Rodriguez will primarily play third base. But Girardi said he would also use him as the designated hitter in the early stages of his comeback in order to take pressure off his knee.

Girardi said there was no specific number of games for Rodriguez to play in the minors before he returns.

heroics possible.

With an additional 12 playoff appearances against the Red Sox, Rivera simply has a long history with them. From his first blown save opportunity against the Red Sox, on June 1, 1997, at Fenway Park, until Sunday’s game, when he was saddled with his 14th (16th, including the postseason), Rivera has learned to deal with the failure inherent in his position.

After he blew the two save chances in the ’04 A.L.C.S., he squandered his next two opportunities against the Red Sox, on April 5 and 6, 2005, at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees came back to win the first one but lost the other.

Five days later, the Yankees were at Fenway Park for Boston’s home opener when the Red Sox raised their first championship banner in 86 years and handed out rings to their players. When the Yankees were introduced, Rivera received playful applause from the fans, tinged with a combination of taunting and respect for what had happened in October.

Rivera, always able to bounce back from the most bitter defeat, played along by smiling and doffing his cap to the crowd.

Two days after that, he got Manny Ramirez to ground out to second base, and recorded his 28th career save against the Red Sox, with many more to come.

“You can’t really say because you don’t know how he’s going to feel and you don’t know if he’s going to have his timing and don’t know if he’s going to feel stable on his knee running the bases,” Girardi said.

“You can’t just throw a random number out there. When he’s ready, we’ll have him back, I can tell you that.”

POSADA PREPARES Jorge Posada is still unhappy he is no longer the designated hitter, but on Tuesday he vowed to do his best to contribute off the bench in a new, limited role.

“I’m not happy, and I said it on Sunday,” he said. “I don’t need to tell you again that I’m not happy again today. But I’m moving on and I’ll be ready whenever I have to play.”

On Sunday, Joe Girardi took Posada out of the designated hitter spot and used Eric Chavez there instead. He explained at the time that Posada would not be part of the D.H. equation for a while.

“I can’t tell you exactly where I’m going to use Jorge,” he said. “The important

thing is he’s prepared to play every day and I’ll give him a heads-up. Obviously, you could put him at first today, you could D.H. him a couple of innings; different things you could do. I still think he’s going to be a part of this. I just can’t tell you exactly whether it’s tomorrow or exactly when it’s going to be.”

In the two games since he lifted Posada, Girardi has used Chavez as the designated hitter, but he said he might try other players, too, including Alex Rodriguez.

When asked about Posada’s reaction to the demotion, Girardi said it was not unexpected, and he related it to his own experience as a former Yankees catcher in the 1990s, when he was supplanted in part by Posada.

“I was a catcher, and when I was taken from a full-time role to less catching, I didn’t like it,” he said. “I just kept working at it and trying to get better. As a player, that’s really the only thing you can do. Be prepared and when you get your chance, perform and do the best you can.”

Sports

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

Cuba-to-Florida Quest Defeats Swimmer at 61

By DON VAN NATTA Jr.

T

hree miles off Havana on Sunday evening, the Florida Straits were still glasslike when the 61-year-old marathon swimmer Diana Nyad felt her right shoulder seize up with pain. But she kept swimming.

At 1:30 p.m. Monday, with the ocean swells now buffeting her, Ms. Nyad was struck by an asthma attack, her first ever, and struggled to breathe. But she kept swimming.

Nearly twelve hours later, halfway between Cuba and her destination of Key West, Fla., Ms. Nyad was treading water when she began vomiting. She then reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled aboard a support boat named the Bellisimo, where she was quickly wrapped in blankets. After swimming nearly 29 hours, Ms. Nyad abandoned her quest to complete the 60-hour, 103-mile journey, spread across three days, between Cuba and the United States.

“It was my decision to stop and nobody else’s,” Ms. Nyad said during a pho-

ne interview moments after arriving at a Key West marina. “I’m deeply grieved and disappointed, but I can hold my head up high. We pictured that moment of me crawling up on that Key West shore. We knew it was my year and my time, even at 61.”

She added, “It was a fairy tale, but the fairy tale didn’t come true.”

Her doctor, Michael Broder, said Ms. Nyad had not suffered from dehydration but was violently vomiting when she was hoisted out of the water. “Physically, she is exhausted and mentally she is exhausted,” Dr. Broder said. “Considering what she has been through, she looks pretty good.”

Ms. Nyad said she had no regrets.

She had concluded that the combination of her injured shoulder and the asthma attack made continuing impossible. “It was over, I knew it,” she said. “My body was at the absolute very end. Willpower wasn’t a part of it anymore.”

“I wasn’t the best swimmer I could be — the asthma and the shoulder made sure of that,” she said. “I was my most courageous self.”

This time, she tried the swim without a shark cage despite warnings that the warm waters are infested with sharks. She was guarded by a flotilla of boats equipped with satellites, Global Positioning System devices, advanced navigation systems and shark shields.

In 1997, an Australian endurance swimmer named Susie Maroney, swimming inside a shark cage, crossed from Havana to Key West in 24 hours, 30 minutes, an unusually fast time that led some to conclude that the cage helped her make it that fast.

Ms. Nyad had trained and prepared nearly two years for this week’s swim. She

swam 12 hours every other day; in between, she lifted weights. She also organized a group of 22 people to support her.

All of them, with visas, accompanied her to Cuba last week.

Ms. Nyad said she did not feel as if she had let them down, or the thousands of fans who had followed the progress of her swim on Facebook and Twitter.

Will Ms. Nyad try the 103-mile swim again? No, she said quickly.

“I think I’m going to live a life when I did not swim from Cuba to Florida,” she said. “I think I can live with that.”

She added that she hopes her quest might inspire others her age to begin energizing their lives with exercise. “Life goes by so quickly and, at my age, you really feel the passage of time,” she said. “People my age must try to live vital, energetic lives. We’re still young. We’re not our mothers’ generation at 60.”

For people over 60, she said, the goal should be “to live a life with no regrets and no worries about what you are going to do with your time. Fill it with passion.

Be your best self.”

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

29

Games

Sudoku How to Play: Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9 Click the “check sudoku” button to check your sudoku inputs Click the “new sudoku” button and select difficulty to play a new game

Sudoku Rules: Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword

Wordsearch

Answers on page 30

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

HOROSCOPE Aries

(Mar 21-April 20)

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

There is a lot going on in the relationships in your life and you may be feeling as though you don’t have any choice in a matter you thought you controlled. Bide your time. The stars prove that you’re well and truly blessed now. You are facing a memorable time.

There is a lot that you want to do and you must ensure that you don’t accept more offers than you can afford. Good news concerning a social event should arrive and you should be put in touch with a face you have long wanted to meet.

Taurus

Scorpio

(April 21-May 21)

There is a new influence set to enter your life that should be the answer to all your worries. You were doing what looked right; now you will be doing what feels right; about time, Taurus. Some friend is worth putting your reputation on the line for.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Don’t take lightly what close ones are asking you.

The stars bestowed the gift of wisdom upon you and the other signs in the Zodiac will be flocking to you for words of advice. What you say will be taken literally. Some foreign lands will soon be beckoning.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Stop living in the past. You cannot compare the past and the present, as you are stronger now and you must try to have more faith in you.

Try taking a few risks, as you have more than enough energy and experience to take the next step.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

A change you desire may have to be delayed.

Don’t worry, it won’t be forgotten and the time lapse appears to be a blessing in disguise, as events after the 12th are sure to prove. Some people are trying to take advantage of you in the workplace.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Use the aspects at this time to be mature and to curb the spending that is unnecessary. Think about it. Do you really need to buy what is on your mind? Love has much to offer, if you’re willing to speak from the heart after 6pm.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Love is at the forefront of your mind, as you try to work out the best way to let someone know how you are feeling. Simply say what comes naturally. Plan what to say, to avoid talking in circles. Venus is offering you the gift of honesty and clarity.

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Do not be led on by someone’s flirtatious behaviour. You are in need of something permanent News of an important occasion should give you much to look forward to with loved ones. Aries must not be told those secrets you are currently keeping.

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

You may have to make a change in your usual routine, in order to fit in with the plans of another person. However, this should be beneficial to you at a later date when you need to ask them for a favour. investments are well starred at this timeI

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

If you haven’t made up with a loved one after an argument, then do it now. Not only can you not afford to fall out with them, but you could be missing out on an offer they have wanted to make. If you don’t drop the attitude, the offer may be withdrawn. Call now for news in full.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Make some time for yourself today, as you may have taken on too much. Romance is on offer, if you can open your eyes a little wider. Someone is trying to tell you what you have waited months to hear and you don’t want to miss it. You may have family issues.

Answers to the Zudoku and Crossword on page 29

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 18 - 24, 2011

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

Two Cows And A Chicken

Cartoons

31

Ziggi

32

August 18 - 24, 2011

The San Juan Weekly Star