San Juan Weekly #99

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August 25 - 31, 2011

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President Declares

Emergency for Puerto Rico P3

Slighted Columbus Statue Seeks Home on Desecheo Island

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Barbera: I Knew It When

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Cancer’s Secrets Come Into Sharper Focus Health P18

In Future Math Whizzes, Signs of ‘Number Sense’

Sending the Police Before There’s a Crime

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Business P26 Fashion & Beauty P14 San Juan Weekly Star has exclusive New Times News Service in English in Puerto Rico

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August 25 - 31, 2011

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President Declares Emergency For Puerto Rico

T

he U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that federal aid has been made available to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to supplement commonwealth and local response efforts in the area struck by Hurricane Irene on August 21, 2011.

The President’s action authorizes the

Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect pro-

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Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.

Emergency protective measures, limited to direct federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent federal funding.

Justo Hernández has been named as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area.

Follow FEMA online at blog.fema. gov, www.twitter.com/fema, www.facebook.com/fema, andwww.youtube.com/fema.

Also, follow Administrator Craig Fugate’s activities at www.twitter.com/craigatfema.

The social media links provided are for reference only. FEMA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies or applications.

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

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The San Juan Weekly Star August 25 - 31, 2011

Slighted Columbus Statue Seeks Home on Desecheo Island

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towering statue of Christopher Columbus shunned by several U.S. cities may finally find a home on an uninhabited Puerto Rican island.

Rep. David Bonilla filed a resolution asking the government to study the viability of installing the roughly 600-ton bronze statue, which is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty without its pedestal, on the tiny island of Desecheo.

The statue began its ill-fated, two-decade journey in 1991, when it was built by controversial Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ 1492 arrival in the Western Hemisphere.

It was rejected by New York, Miami, Baltimore and other cities for reasons ranging from cost to appearance before finally being accepted by Puerto Rico.

The statue shows Columbus

at the wheel of a tiny ship with three billowing sails behind him.

Critics have said the explorer’s arms are too long, the head too small and his one-handed greeting pose silly.

The Puerto Rican plan was to erect the statue in Catano, a seaside suburb of San Juan. But residents protested because the move called for demolishing several dozen homes, and problems arose with airplane flight paths.

The statue was then proposed for Mayaguez, but an appropriate location was never found.

It has been in storage in Mayaguez ever since.

Bonilla said setting up the statue on Desecheo would help attract more tourists to Puerto Rico’s western region. The island is closed to the public, but its waters attract divers.

The Puerto Rican Congress has to approve the proposal.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

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Mainland 6

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Sending the Police Before There’s a Crime

By ERICA GOODE

T

he arrests were routine. Two women were taken into custody after they were discovered peering into cars in a downtown parking garage in Santa Cruz, Calif. One woman was found to have outstanding warrants; the other was carrying illegal drugs.

But the presence of the police officers in the garage that Friday afternoon in July was anything but ordinary: They were directed to the parking structure by a computer program that had predicted that car burglaries were especially likely there that day.

The program is part of an unusual experiment by the Santa Cruz Police Department in predictive policing — deploying officers in places where crimes are likely to occur in the future.

In July, Santa Cruz began testing the prediction method for property crimes like car and home burglaries and car thefts. So far, said Zach Friend, the police department’s crime analyst,

the program has helped officers pre-empt several crimes and has led to five arrests.

The notion of predictive policing is attracting increasing attention from law enforcement agencies around the country as departments struggle to fight crime at a time when budgets are being slashed.

“We’re facing a situation where we have 30 percent more calls for service but 20 percent less staff than in the year 2000, and that is going to continue to be our reality,” Mr. Friend said.

“So we have to deploy our resources in a more effective way, and we thought this model would help.”

Efforts to systematically anticipate when and where crimes will occur are being tried out in several cities. The Chicago Police Department, for example, created a predictive analytics unit last year.

But Santa Cruz’s method is more sophisticated than most. Based on models for predicting aftershocks from earthquakes, it generates projections about which areas and windows

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of time are at highest risk for future crimes by analyzing and detecting patterns in years of past crime data. The projections are recalibrated daily, as new crimes occur and updated data is fed into the program.

On the day the women were arrested, for example, the program identified the approximately one-square-block area where the parking garage is situated as one of the highest-risk locations for car burglaries.

In contrast, CompStat and other crimetracking systems in use in many cities are calibrated less frequently, rely more on humans to recognize patterns, and allocate resources based on past crimes rather than predicted future offenses.

The program was developed by a group of researchers — including two mathematicians, George Mohler and Martin Short; an anthropologist, Jeff Brantingham; and a criminologist, George Tita — in a project that used data provided by the Los Angeles Police Department, which is hoping to begin using the program later this year.

“We’re watching closely what is going on in Santa Cruz,” said Capt. Sean Malinowski of the Los Angeles department’s Foothill Patrol Division, who worked with the researchers when he was head of the department’s crime center under the police chief at the time, William J. Bratton.

Captain Malinowski envisions a time when the police will issue crime forecasts the same way the Weather Service issues storm alerts.

“It would certainly be safer for everyone and more effective,” he said, adding that the forecast might say, “You’re having a rash of shootings and the computer says it’s going to continue in these places and on these days of the week.”

He added, “Now, if we have a problem, we throw a lot of cops at it, and unfortunately, with the economy being the way it is, we don’t have as many cops available.”

The CompStat system, Captain Malinowski said, was a big advance for policing, but the use of computer programs takes prediction to the next level.

With CompStat and other, similar approaches, “we look at these maps and they’re as accurate as we can get them,” he said. “But I’m

looking at a map from last week and the whole assumption is that next week is like last week.

The computer eliminates the bias that people have.”

For the Santa Cruz trial, eight years of crime data were fed into the computer program, which breaks Santa Cruz into squares of approximately 500 feet by 500 feet. New data is added each day.

Officers are given a list of the 10 highestprobability “hot spots” of the day at roll call.

They check those areas during times that they are not out on service calls. Before the program started, they made such “pass through” checks based on hunches or experience of where crimes were likely to occur.

Mr. Friend said that the reaction to the prediction method among officers had been “quite positive.”

“The feedback I’ve received is that there is appreciation that it has validated intuition or provided a new focus area that wasn’t known,” he said.

How accurate the program really is has yet to be demonstrated; its success will be evaluated after six months.

“The worst-case scenario is that it doesn’t work and we’re no worse off,” said Mr. Friend, who enlisted Dr. Mohler, a professor at Santa Clara University.

Mr. Friend said the early indications were encouraging. Burglaries were down 27 percent in July compared with July 2010, suggesting that the targeted policing may have a deterrent effect, he said.

In Los Angeles, Captain Malinowski said, the police department hopes to expand the program to include some violent crimes, like gang shootings.

Predicting crime with computer programs is in some ways a natural outgrowth of the technology that companies like Wal-Mart now use routinely to predict the buying habits of customers, said Scott Dickson, a crime analyst for the police department in Killeen, Tex., who discussed the Santa Cruz experiment on his blog.

Law enforcement agencies, Mr. Dickson noted, have “great warehouses of data” that can be used to feed predictive programs. And in the end, he said, “it’s cheaper to prevent a crime than to solve a crime, and that’s where I think the promise lies.”

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

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Mainland 8

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Virtual and Artificial, but 58,000 Want Course

By JOHN MARKOFF

A

free online course at Stanford University on artificial intelligence, to be taught this fall by two leading experts from Silicon Valley, has attracted more than 58,000 students around the globe — a class nearly four times the size of Stanford’s entire student body.

The course is one of three being offe-

red experimentally by the Stanford computer science department to extend technology knowledge and skills beyond this elite campus to the entire world, the university is announcing on Tuesday.

The online students will not get Stanford grades or credit, but they will be ranked in comparison to the work of other online students and will receive a “statement of accomplishment.”

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For the artificial intelligence course, students may need some higher math, like linear algebra and probability theory, but there are no restrictions to online participation.

So far, the age range is from high school to retirees, and the course has attracted interest from more than 175 countries.

The instructors are Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, two of the world’s bestknown artificial intelligence experts. In 2005 Dr. Thrun led a team of Stanford students and professors in building a robotic car that won a Pentagon-sponsored challenge by driving 132 miles over unpaved roads in a California desert. More recently he has led a secret Google project to develop autonomous vehicles that have driven more than 100,000 miles on California public roads.

Dr. Norvig is a former NASA scientist who is now Google’s director of research and the author of a leading textbook on artificial intelligence.

The computer scientists said they were uncertain about why the A.I. class had drawn such a large audience. Dr. Thrun said he had tried to advertise the course this summer by distributing notices at an academic conference in Spain, but had gotten only 80 registrants.

Then, several weeks ago he e-mailed an announcement to Carol Hamilton, the executive director of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. She forwarded the e-mail widely, and the announcement spread virally.

The two scientists said they had been inspired by the recent work of Salman Khan, an M.I.T.-educated electrical engineer who in 2006 established a nonprofit organization to provide video tutorials to students around the world on a variety of subjects via YouTube.

“The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” said Dr. Thrun.

The rapid increase in the availability of high-bandwidth Internet service, coupled with a wide array of interactive software, has touched off a new wave of experimentation in education.

For example, the Khan Academy, which focuses on high school and middle school, intentionally turns the relationship of the classroom and homework upside down.

Students watch lectures at home, then work on problem sets in class, where the teacher can assist them one on one.

The Stanford scientists said they were focused on going beyond early Internet education efforts, which frequently involved uploading online videos of lectures given by professors and did little to motivate students to do the coursework required to master subjects.

The three online courses, which will employ both streaming Internet video and interactive technologies for quizzes and gra-

ding, have in the past been taught to smaller groups of Stanford students in campus lecture halls. Last year, for example, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence drew 177 students.

The two additional courses will be an introductory course on database software, taught by Jennifer Widom, chairwoman of the computer science department, and an introduction to machine learning, taught by Andrew Ng. Dr. Widom said she had recorded her video lectures during the summer and would use classroom sessions to work with smaller groups of students on projects that might be competitive and to bring in people from the industry to give special lectures. Unlike the A.I. course, this one will compare online students with one another and not with the Stanford students.

How will the artificial intelligence instructors grade 58,000 students? The scientists said they would make extensive use of technology. “We have a system running on the Amazon cloud, so we think it will hold up,” Dr. Norvig said.

In place of office hours, they will use the Google moderator service, software that will allow students to vote on the best questions for the professors to respond to in an online chat and possibly video format. They are considering ways to personalize the exams to minimize cheating. Part of the instructional software was developed by Know Labs, a company Dr. Thrun helped start.

Although the three courses are described as an experiment, the researchers say they expect university classes to be made more widely accessible via the Internet.

“I personally would like to see the equivalent of a Stanford computer science degree on the Web,” Dr. Ng said.

Dr. Widom said that having Stanford courses freely available could both assist and compete with other colleges and universities.

A small college might not have the faculty members to offer a particular course, but could supplement its offerings with the Stanford lectures.

There has also been some discussion at Stanford about whether making the courses freely available would prove to be a threat to the university, which charges high fees for tuition. Dr. Thrun dismissed that idea.

“I’m much more interested in bringing Stanford to the world,” he said. “I see the developing world having colossal educational needs.”

Hal Abelson, a computer scientist at M.I.T. who helped develop an earlier generation of educational offerings that began in 2002, said the Stanford course showed how rapidly the online world was evolving.

“The idea that you could put up open content at all was risky 10 years ago, and we decided to be very conservative,” he said.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31 2011

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New York Times Editorial

How Democrats Hurt Jobs

By New York Times Editorial The airplane’s aft section arrived early Monday morning. That’s what they’d been waiting for at the final assembly plant in North Charleston, S.C. They already had the wings, the nose, the tail — all the other major sections of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. With the arrival of the aft, the 5,000 nonunion workers in the plant can finally begin to assemble their first aircraft — a plane three years behind schedule and critical to Boeing’s future.

The Dreamliner is important to America’s future, too. As companies have moved manufacturing offshore, Boeing has remained steadfast in maintaining a large manufacturing presence in America. It is America’s biggest exporter of manufactured products. Indeed, despite the delays, Boeing still has 827 Dreamliners on order, worth a staggering $162 billion.

Boeing’s aircraft assembly has long been done by its unionized labor force in Puget Sound, Wash. Most of the new Dreamliners will be built in Puget Sound as well. But with the plane so far behind schedule, Boeing decided to spend $750 million to open the South Carolina facility. Between the two plants, the company hopes to build 10 Dreamliners a month.

That’s the plan, at least. The Obama administration, however, has a different plan. In April, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Boeing, accusing it of opening the South Carolina plant to retaliate against the union, which has a history of striking at contract time. The N.L.R.B.’s proposed solution, believe it or not, is to move all the Dreamliner production back to Puget Sound, leaving those 5,000 workers in South Carolina twiddling their thumbs.

Seriously, when has a government agency ever tried to dictate where a company makes its products? I can’t ever remember it happening. Neither can Boeing, which is fighting the com-

plaint. J. Michael Luttig, Boeing’s general counsel, has described the action as “unprecedented.” He has also said that it was a disservice to a country that is “in desperate need of economic growth and the concomitant job creation.” He’s right.

That’s also why I’ve become mildly obsessed with the Boeing affair.

Nothing matters more right now than job creation. Last week, President Obama barnstormed the Midwest, promising a jobs package in September and blaming Republicans for blocking jobcreation efforts. Republicans, of course, have blamed the administration, complaining that regulatory overkill is keeping companies from creating jobs.

They’re both right. Republicans won’t pass anything that might stimulate job growth because they are so ideologically opposed to federal spending. But the Democrats have blind spots, too. No, the Environmental Protection Agency shouldn’t be rolling back its rules, as the Republican presidential candidates seem to want.

But a fair-minded person would have to acknowledge that the N.L.R.B.’s action is exactly the kind of overreach that should embarrass Democrats who claim to care about job creation.

It’s paralyzing, is what it is.

The law, to be sure, forbids a company from retaliating against a union.

But the word “retaliation” suggests direct payback — a company shutting down a factory after a strike, for instance. Boeing did nothing like that. It not only hasn’t laid off a single worker in Washington State, it has added around 3,000 new ones. Seven out of every 10 Dreamliners will be assembled in Puget Sound.

Before expanding to South Carolina, Boeing asked the union for a moratorium on strikes — precisely because it needed to get the airplane into the hands of impatient customers.

The union said it would agree only if Boeing promised never to manufacture anywhere but Puget Sound. Boeing

refused — as any company would.

It is a mind-boggling stretch to describe Boeing’s strategy as “retaliation.” Companies have often moved to right-to-work states to avoid strikes; it is part of the calculus every big manufacturer makes. The South Carolina facility is a hedge against the possibility that Boeing’s union work force will shut down production of the Dreamliner. And it’s a perfectly legitimate hedge, at least under the rules that the business thought it was operating under.

That is what is so jarring about this case — and not just for Boeing.

Without any warning, the rules have changed. Uncertainty has replaced certainty. Other companies have to start wondering what other rules

could soon change. It becomes a reason to hold back on hiring.

When he was asked about the Boeing case earlier this summer, President Obama said that the N.L.R.B. is an independent agency and that his hands were tied. That may be true, though it’s worth pointing out that most of its top executives are his appointees. But when he gets back from vacation, he might do well looking at his own administration, instead of simply blaming the lack of jobs on the Republicans.

As for the Republicans, there are plenty of regulations that would actually help create jobs — but which they won’t pass because of their own ideological blinders. I’ll be writing about that after Labor Day.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

LETTERS To Myron Herrick: Please, please, please, please don’t complain about uneven sidewalks. That’s Santini’s favorite excuse to chainsaw down trees in the Condado!

Joaquín Serrano, Condado

US Constitution Mandates Democracy in States and Territories When I took a year of law school at UPR way back when, Fernando Martín, then not yet a politician, taught Introduction to Law. One morning he narrated, as if a quaint memory, how Luis Muñoz Marín and his buddies cheated at the elections in the early days, that reams of ballots ended up in the various island rivers.

But that this was not done to hurt in any way, it was all, nobody doubted at the time, for the greater good.

In out time Puerto Rico is saddled by an unabashedly fascist leadership, who’ve managed to dismantle whatever democracy we had by packing deliberative and judicial bodies with partisan hacks. And they’re not averse to use police force, meant meant in principle to protect civilian lives and tranquilty, to instead enforce their will on a hapless populace through violence, intimidation and humiliation, even employing sexual assault as a weapon, complements to the Serbians. Worldwide, folks from Congressman Luis Gutiérrez to Cuba’s Fidel Castro are sounding the voice of alarm.

Yet here everybody’s smug that come 2012 we’ll be done with the penepeístas, that Puerto Rico is, after all, a democracy, with a constitution and citizen rights enforced by federal courts. But may not a federal judge or two be bought over? And what when the media announce on the morning of the election that Fortuño/McClintock/Pierluisi have just been reelected by an unprecedented landslide? A few insiders pop up to squeal on TV that it was all rigged, that it was set up.

Then silence, they travel abroad for no apparent reason, get arrested for selling dope, commit suicide like the macheteros and Salvador Allende were reported to have done in their day or simply get squashed to death in one of our many, many traffic accidents, or holdups, or burglaries, or shootouts. Can anybody countence after all we’ve seen and heard that the New Progessive Party can actually win an election? I guess their most lethal weapon is our silly complacency and our only hope is the fed. No, don’t say you weren’t warned.

And talk about complacency. Over WOSO Radio Speak Out, local attorney and NPP zealot Miguel Pereira, in sneaky drawn out verbiage, told Congressman Gutierrez that the latter was not Puerto Rican enough to voice an opinion and ought to mind his own business.

To which Gutierrez replied that Puerto Rico being a colony of the United States, as surrendered by Spain in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, it’s the responsibilty of the US Congress to watch over the welfare of Island American

citizens. Pereira could then not stand up to Gutierrez, one man’s mind was not a match to the other’s.

Lastly, the American Constitution established a community of sovereign states that surrendered ennumerated attributes of sovereignty to a common government, but beyond that the United States is guarantor to the individual states of “a republican form of government.” In 1789 the Founding Fathers were worried that there might turn out a little monarchy somewhere, it was the evil of the age. But clearly the investiture of a facist state would be a violation of the United States Constitution and the federal government is entrusted with the obligation to set things right by whatever means. When George Wallace’s “riot squad” attempted to force segregation in Alabama universites, President Kennedy summoned and federalized the Alabama National Guard and that was the end of that. Just imagine the Puerto Rico National Guard standing between the Puerto Rico police and the UPR students. And I think Obama would do it too, let’s just hope he’s paying attention.

Joaquín Serrano, Condado

Mean Old Man To Luquillo resident, voter, taxpayer, and concerned citizen D. Coyne: If you’d spent the 4th of July in Connecticut or wherever you’re from, you would’ve had kids tossing firecrackers at your feet, all in the spirit of Patrick Henry. Let the young have their fun, you had your day and if you missed Woodstock, don’t blame anybody but yourself. Mail order a pair of noise-reduction headphones, so you may watch your right-winger fare on cable sans distraction.

Piero Andujar, San Juan

White Night Take thy beak from out of my Heart, quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

The Raven Edgar Allen Poe We’re about to enter White Night. It’s the twelve months before an election, when incumbents actually behave. So till next November police won’t murder or beat anybody, the UPR quota won’t be raised, more penepeísta hacks won’t be added to the Supreme Court, no mass firings, the bill forcing teens to be home by ten, even on weekends, goes to the back burner, penalties for trivial offenses won’t be jacked up, kids texting naughty won’t get slapped around by cops, we might even get some libraries, no they won’t go that far.

Is it that we forget because we’re dumb? Perhaps it’s the colonial mind-set, whatever that is. Or denial.

Child psychiatrists tell us young kids severely abused by parents refuse to acknowledge such a thing is happening, like if your world’s too monstruous to live

in, you have to make it over, you are what you dream, what you hope for, and not the hell you’re forced to live in.

These four years have been worse than most. The word that best describes our politicians is necio, the dictionary tranlates it as fool or foolish, but it’s more than that, it’s a willful stupidity, when your self-worship and undiluted meanness put your say-so above what’s right, like you’re a sort of biblical demon.

Nevertheless, the penepeístas have been grotesque, they’ve tried to take democracy from us, they’re halfway there actually. Our Constitution then becomes merely a footnote of better times, once the Supreme Court/separation of powers is out of the way. And our chance to keep our children above poverty, an honest wage for the parent and a true venue for learning for the child, is forfeited. Triangular governance---politicians, Milla de Oro and narcotraffickers---is the most nightmarish configuration of tyranny.

I implore God, the latent dignity within us as a people, or whatever, that once this White Night is done, come the darkness, as it must once again, the penepeístas will no longer be cawing over us in the night.

Danilo Alvarez, Hato Rey

The Dumb & the Macho What’s happened at UPR is damaging to all of us, it’s the dregs of uncaring and sloppy misgovernance.

I was taking a course or two in business and computers each semester and I had to drop because it would now cost me a couple of thousand in tuition a year over the few hundred I was paying. And there’s plenty of money for devious and ultimately pointless status plebiscites and for fireworks Luis XIV would’ve envied, those things are obscenely expensive.

Rather than attending all those frivolous receptions, inaugurations, luncheons and banquets, Gov. Fortuño ought to take time to sit down and work things out, and that means doing the right and intelligent thing, not ranting that no college kids are going to dictate to the Commonwealth. Macho is fun when you’re 14, but beyond that you’re expected to grow up.

Crisálida Martínez, San Juan

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:

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

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LETTERS She’s Just Dumb Melinda Romero has an obstreperous remark for every occasion. The President’s stopover was no exception. She’s unintelligent, undereducated and she bites.

Yet we must pay her a bundle for her nonsense. Daddy ought to be in the slammer and she flipping burgers.

Mateo Peralta, Guaynabo

War on the Middle Class Citizens become felons not because the devil makes them do it, rather life as a minimum wager is a rough affair and demeaning when Hollywood tells you someone like you isn’t worth much and the politicians who whine at the hustings pass you by in their chauffeured luxury Cadillac SUVs and their wealthy underwriters live lives you can only fantasize.

Plain folks can only rise above hand to mouth through college. And how can the penepeístas claim a war on crime while they’ve just crushed UPR like a ro-

ach, 10,000 fewer now make it into a profession/career every year. That’s a quarter of a million over a generation.

What’s ahead is a crime explosion followed by a very violent police state.

Pyrrhic Governance

It happens that an election outcome may pivot on a triviality. I voted for Sila because she promised to save La Concha. But what would a hotel I hadn’t been to since I was a young fellow have to do with aqnything? It was a symbol, paradigmatic that NPP sharks do anything to fatten their bank accounts and care about little else.

I fancy in November 2012, the TV sequence of that young cop, slowly and deliberately squeezeing the helpless girl’s breasts---first one and then the other---will be the imagery many of us will take into the ballot box and that will make all the difference.

To Gov. Fortuño: You won at UPR. Brute police force squashed Ghandi. Not even the combined clout of US Rep. Luis Guitiérrez and Cuban Pres. Fidel Castro meant anything.

But how many families having to pay the outrageous “quota” do you think will vote for you next year?

And attrition of the middle class means propagation of crime, as is happening, and this is only the beginning.

And the mass firings. You’re not a CEO, you’re the governor, so unemployment reflects on you, particularly when the effect is to depress wages.

Taking over the Judicial Branch, bypassing separation of powers and thereby unplugging democracy hardly endear you to the electorate.

That and endless legislation to feather the nest of big business and exploit the consumer and suppress upstart entrepreneurs.

Indeed, Governor, you’re soon to be snared by your own strawberries.

Agustín Manzano, Santurce

Mara Andere, Miramar

Anita Roig, Santurce

A Matter of Images

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Turkey Warns Syria to Stop Crackdown

By ANTHONY SHADID

T

urkey’s foreign minister demanded the Syrian government end its crackdown on a five-month-old uprising “immediately and unconditionally,” warning unspecified steps would be taken.

The comments by Ahmet Davutoglu, who visited the Syrian capital, Damascus, just last week, were the latest addition to a semantic exercise in diplomatic ambiguity, as the United States, European countries, Turkey and Syria’s Arab neighbors have sought to condemn the violence while leaving President Bashar al-Assad the chance to reform.

The Syrian government has ignored the condemnations. Just days after, the government sent its military and security forces

into the port of Latakia, the third city to fall target to a withering crackdown activists say has killed 260 people this month.

Since August, government forces have retaken control of Hama, in central Syria, and Deir al-Zour, in the east, both of which witnessed demonstrations numbering in the hundreds of thousands earlier this summer.

In Hama, a Western official said security forces used antiaircraft guns against civilian buildings.

The tactic was used in Latakia as well as gunfire originated from ships off the coast.

The Syrian government has denied ships fired at Latakia.

Activists say 31 people have been killed since the beginning of the Latakia assault.

“These operations stop immediately and unconditionally,” Mr. Davuto-

Germany Flies Above Economic Storm

By NICHOLAS KULISH

T

here is no one whose thoughts European officials would rather read than Chancellor Angela Merkel, who meets at the Élysée Palace with France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, as they struggle to find a solution to the European debt crisis.

The most common critique of Merkel is she lacks the necessary sense of urgency to restore confidence in the euro and calm the crisis. A stroll through summertime Berlin makes clear why she remains so cool-headed. While the latest official figures showed German economic growth almost stalling in the quarter, slowing growth across the euro zone, the streets are quiet and the cafes are full. Deeply tanned residents are returning to their jobs after vacations in fiscally compromised nations, like Greece and Portugal.

Germany the only European nation large enough and rich enough to cover the debts of its struggling neighbors, but its citizens are reluctant to be the source of the bailout.

Germany is in many ways in the eye of the storm, with barely a hint of the winds swirling nearby. There is no tear gas, as in Athens; no tires burning, as in London; no chanting crowds packing public squares, as in Spain.

While the rest of Europe is struggling to pass harsh austerity packages, Germany is in a debate over cutting taxes by $14.2 billion.

The only major protests to strike Germany have been over tearing down an old train station in Stuttgart or calling for the end of nuclear power. Animal rights and affordable Internet, rather than jobs and spending cuts, are more likely to cause people to take to the streets right now, and even then not in terribly great numbers.

The simplest explanation is jobs.

By one government measure, 706,000 more Germans were employed in May of this year than the year before, of which 415,000 were full-time positions and 289,000 part time. In terms of relative size, that would be roughly comparable in the United States to nearly 2.7 million more people with jobs in 2011 versus 2010.

With strong unions and legal protections for workers, Germany’s labor market for years was compared unfavorably with the more flexible American one. Even after embarking on painful reforms, it suffered from high structural unemployment. In July, German unemployment was 7 percent, compared with 9.1 percent in the United States.

As Germany’s population shrinks, some economists and policy makers are more concerned about a shortage of qualified workers than joblessness.

As for the young, the unemployment rate is the third lowest in Europe, behind only the Netherlands and Austria. Only 9.1 percent of people between the ages of 15 and 24 are unemployed here, less than half the 20.5 percent average in Europe.

“Young people can study, find jobs and have opportunities for careers.”

Government experts expect the job boom to continue for another four years. In a survey of 1,800 Germans, a majority spoke of an era of increased insecurity, but a full 53 percent said they were optimistic about the next 12 months.

Only 12 percent were pessimistic.

“They hear it on the news but for most Germans what they experience in their lives is completely different. The crisis is virtual,” said Renate Köcher, the institute’s director.

“What’s decisive for most people is their

glu said. “If not there would be nothing more to discuss about steps that would be taken”.

Diplomats said gave the Syrian government two weeks to introduce sweeping changes. The nature of those changes remains unclear, but the window came amid a flurry of conversations between President Obama, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

No less apparent are the Syrian government’s intentions. It has continued to insist that it is facing a rebellion by armed Islamists financed from abroad. It described the violence in Latakia as an issue of security forces pursuing men armed with “machine guns, grenades and explosive devices.”

The escalation in violence seems to have embarrassed Turkish officials, who had only

last week urged at least a measure of patience in seeing whether Mr. Assad would act.

The Syrian military and security forces pressed on with raids in Latakia, especially on a southern neighborhood inhabited by Palestinian refugees and poor Syrians.

Ahmed Bogdash, an activist in Latakia, said by phone that snipers were perched on rooftops and that gunfire rattled across some neighborhoods, whose streets were largely empty.

He said protests were organized in some places the military had yet to enter, in solidarity with neighborhoods besieged since Saturday. Families continued to flee to towns in the countryside or to Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city.

“There’s still gunfire, but it’s quieter than before,” he said.

own situation and for many people that has improved noticeably in the past three or four years.”

Still, for a country reliant on exports for growth, the possible slowdown in the global economy could have drastic and fairly sudden repercussions. No one can predict how the inward-looking Germans would react if things get worse here, as would happen if there were less of a market for their exports, but if the past is any guide, Ms. Köcher said, they are likely to be even stingier toward their neighbors and even less inclined toward the European Union in general.

In France, the second-largest economy in the European Union after Germany and that country’s largest trading partner, consumer spending fell 0.7 percent in the second quarter, and growth was flat. Industrial production for the entire 17-nation euro area fell 0.7 percent in June.

“Germany is very dependent on its export markets and very dependent on world growth,” said Stefan Bach, an economic researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. “But for now the job market continues to develop strongly in contrast to many other European countries.”

It was not clear how long that assessment would hold. According to Germany’s state statistical agency on Tuesday, the economy expanded by only 0.1 percent in the second quarter, compared with the first quarter — an unsettling omen for the broader European economy that left the continent’s stock markets edgy. The slowdown was caused by weak consumer spending and lagging investment in construction projects, the agency said.

In some ways Germany has already been down the bumpy road toward economic restructuring its European partners now find themselves on. Its competitiveness came at a cost. Under the government of Gerhard Schröder, Mrs. Merkel’s predecessor, large-

scale protests broke out in response to difficult labor-market reforms, including making it easier to fire workers. German workers suffered through offshoring and layoffs, and even many who kept their jobs saw years of stagnant wages. But now, from the looks of things, the pain has paid off.

Germany’s strength is not an anomaly but rather evidence of how the euro plays to its advantage. Now that less efficient economies like Greece and Portugal are locked into using the same currency, and cannot devalue to make their products more competitive in terms of price, Germany can keep selling to them.

As a result, Mrs. Merkel is under increasing pressure from abroad to buoy the weaker states, facing accusations that she is risking the financial stability of the bloc and with it the world by endorsing only halfmeasures. At home, she faces sharp criticism for inching closer to what critics here call a transfer union, sending German funds to wastrel neighbors.

The struggles and sorrows of their fellow Europeans are all over the nightly news.

Yet so far, German trust in the euro appears steady. A survey of 2,366 people conducted by the Enmid polling institute in early August and published in Sunday’s Bild found that 65 percent of Germans expect the euro to still be there in 2021, versus 31 percent who do not.

Ms. Köcher from the Allensbach Institute said that one result from the survey had truly surprised her. Of those questioned, 52 percent said they felt empathy for the protesters in Greece, while 39 percent said they did not.

“You always hear in the media and even in private discussions that Germans have no sympathy for the Greeks,” Ms. Köcher said. “But people remember the difficult transition they went through in the last decade, and they know it isn’t easy.”

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

13

Foreigners Follow Money to Booming Brazil, Land of $35 Martini

By SIMON ROMERO

P

ondering the financial storms lashing Europe and the United States, Seth Zalkin, a casually dressed American banker, sipped a demitasse and seemed content with his decision to move here in March with his wife and son.

“If the rest of the world is cratering, this is a good place to be,” said Mr. Zalkin, 39.

For those with even the dimmest memories of Brazil’s own debt crisis in the 1980s, the global order has been turned on its head. The American economy may be crawling along, but Brazil’s grew at its fastest clip in more than two decades last year and unemployment is at historic lows, part of the nation’s transformation from inflationary basket case into one of Washington’s top creditors.

With compensation rivaling that on Wall Street, so many foreign bankers, hedge fund managers, oil executives, lawyers and engineers have moved here that prices for prime office space surpassed those in New York this year, making Rio the costliest city in the Americas to lease it, according to the real estate company Cushman & Wakefield.

A gold rush mind-set is in full swing, with foreign work permits surging 144 percent in the past five years and Americans leading the pack of educated professionals putting down stakes.

Businessmen have long been drawn to Brazil, along with get-rich-quick confidence men, dreamers of Amazonian grandeur and even outlaws like Ronald Biggs, the Briton who absconded here after his 1963 Great Train Robbery.

But now schools catering to American and other English-speaking families have long waiting lists, apartments can cost $10,000 a month in coveted parts of Rio and many of the newcomers hold Ivy League degrees or

job experience at the pillars of the global economy.

Once here, they find a country facing a very different challenge than do the United States and Europe: fears that the economy is getting too hot.

One particular shock for newcomers is the strength of Brazil’s currency, the real. That may help Brazilians snapping up apartments in places like South Beach in Miami, where properties cost about a third of their equivalents in Rio’s exclusive districts. But it also hurts the country’s manufacturers and exporters.

So in a bid to prevent it from going even higher, Brazil is now one of the biggest buyers of United States Treasury securities, becoming a larger stakeholder in the ailing American economy. That is a sharp break from the past, when Washington helped cobble together bailout packages for Brazil’s financial crises.

“Brazil is doing great, but honestly, every other week I ask myself, ‘When is this going to end?’ ” said Mark Bures, 42, an American executive who moved here in 1999, just in time to see an abrupt devaluation of the currency and other sharp swings in Brazil’s fortunes.

A few veteran American expatriates even remember Brazil’s last economic “miracle” in the early 1970s, when The Wall Street Journal quoted an ebullient banker at the start of a front-page article who predicted, “In 10 years, Brazil will be one of the five great powers of the world.” Instead, the country ended up with daunting levels of foreign debt.

The recent commodities boom and growth in domestic consumption, the result of an expanding middle class, helped turn Brazil into a rising power that bounced back handily from the 2008 global financial crisis.

The economy grew 7.5 percent last year and is expected to register about 4 percent growth

this year — slower, but still enviable in the United States.

Yet Brazil offers many challenges to give newcomers pause. Labor legislation favors hiring Brazilians over foreigners, and the lengthy process of obtaining a work visa can surprise those unaccustomed to Brazil’s gargantuan bureaucracy.

Some economists consider the Brazilian real the world’s most overvalued currency against the dollar and inflation has climbed (as evidenced by $6.16 Big Macs and $35 martinis). Interest rates remain stubbornly high and analysts debate whether a credit bubble is forming as consumers continue a multiyear spree on everything from homes to cars.

Brazil is hardly immune to the turbulence in global markets, and its currency has weakened a bit this month. Rio’s real estate has been bustling as soccer’s World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016 approach, but its infrastructure is inadequate. Violent crime, though falling in some areas, plagues big parts of the country and Rio, which suffered through a traumatic bus hijacking this month.

Still, foreigners are arriving, and work authorizations for them jumped more than 30 percent in 2010 alone, according to the Labor Ministry.

“I had very basic Portuguese, but I could tell this place was booming,” said Michelle Noyes, 29, a New Yorker who organized a hedge fund conference in São Paulo.

Shortly after, she made the leap to Brazil for a job at a São Paulo asset management firm.

“I moved from the periphery of the industry to the center,” said Ms. Noyes, citing five other Americans, two from New York and three from Chicago, who are moving to Brazil this month to try their luck.

Americans form the largest group moving here, followed by contingents of Britons and other Europeans. Some are on temporary

assignments. Others are starting ventures big and small.

David Neeleman, the American founder of JetBlue Airways, recently created Azul, a low-cost Brazilian airline. Corrado Varoli, an Italian who oversaw Goldman Sachs’ Latin American operations from New York, now runs his own São Paulo boutique investment bank. New Brazilian dot-coms like Baby.com. br, an online diaper retailer founded this year by two American cousins fresh out of business schools like Wharton and Harvard’s, sometimes give Brazil a bubbly feel not unlike that of the United States in 1999.

Others foreigners take jobs at Brazilian companies thriving from a boom partly created by Brazil’s trade with China.

“Our salaries here in Brazil are at least 50 percent more than salaries in the U.S. for strategic positions,” said Jacques Sarfatti, country manager for Russell Reynolds, a company that recruits business executives.

Foreigners compete with Brazilians returning home from abroad. “It’s really obvious that the labor market is so bad elsewhere,” said Dara Chapman, 45, a Californian who is a partner in a Rio hedge fund, Polo Capital.

She said she was receiving so many résumés from would-be transplants from the United States that they were a “dime a dozen.”

Brazil’s huge deep-sea oil discoveries have also drawn investors and foreigners, including thousands of Filipinos working on ships and offshore oil platforms. For its other industries, Brazil needs an estimated 60,000 new engineers, some of whom must come from abroad, given the country’s lagging educational system.

“I moved from Beijing a year ago and find the potential for professional development incredible,” said Cynthia Yuanxiu Zhang, 27, a Chinese manager at a technology company. “I’m already planning to extend my time here well into this decade.”

FASHION & BEAUTY

14

August 25 - 31, 2011

The San Juan Weekly Star

Waiting for Alaïa

By CATHY HORYN

A

zzedine Alaïa has been busy these last eight years — creating a shoe line with the help of Prada’s factories, tidying up his house, expanding his ateliers with financing from Richemont. He has also been prolific as a designer. Remember the black crackled patent leather coats that fashionistas craved? Or the frilled knit dresses that Michelle Obama wore in Oslo and New York?

Without doing shows (not since 2003), without advertising or being on Twitter, Mr. Alaïa has brought the world to him. And, ideally, that’s how it should be. People find him, or they want to talk about his clothes, because the work speaks so clearly for itself.

One night last March, when he gave me and

Vanessa Friedman of Financial Times a look at his fall ready-to-wear, he temptingly showed us a few works-in-progress. With Mr. Alaïa, that’s how it is: his clothes are ready when they are ready, and not before.

What was most gratifying about the runway show he gave on Thursday, at the end of Paris couture, was how he had developed those ideas. Not added to them but, rather, refined the small details. For instance, he showed coats in black and pistachio wool with a series of identical concave shapes around their dropped waists. The almondshaped indents were a bit like a muffin-pan mold, and they were formed by slightly pinching the wool and creating a seamed ridge around each indent. My guess is it took a lot of steaming, too.

Anyway, Mr. Alaïa had filled in the

ridges ri idges with a tiny, natural-colored cord and left the ends exposed and knotted. I’ve never le seen that indent process before, but the knotse ted cords were the finessing bit of magic. te The collection also included Mongolian lamb — again, part of the Alaia handwriting, along with sexy black wool and croco-leather pencil skirts with a pair of exposed zippers shooting up the back and around the rear.

But now the lamb followed the zigzag hem of flaring skirts or appeared as a palominocolored mini coat. Years ago, Ingrid Sischy wrote that an Alaïa outfit says, “Follow me, garçon.”They still do, but you are more aware than ever that many designers (a) don’t design with a specific woman in mind; and (b) don’t design clothes from a 360-degree perspective. As a result, their clothes look flat.

They should have a sign that warns: “Don’t follow too close.”

“You can tell these clothes have a lot of hours of work, but the results are always so simple,” said the stylist Charlotte Stockdale,

who attended the show with her husband, the designer Marc Newson, as we nosed around backstage afterward. And as often as you see the Alaïa silhouette, Ms. Stockdale added, “you’re never tired of looking at it because it’s so perfect.”

Among the most uplifting designs was a loose-fitting halter dress in a black punched fabric (possibly a Japanese synthetic) with an attached metallic slip. The simple evening design was an antidote to overwrought couture, and the tiny punched holes allowed just enough silvery light to shine through, so that you weren’t quite sure what you were seeing.

Donatella Versace attended the show, and when asked if she was the only designer invited, she laughed and said: “I don’t know.

I invited myself.” Her daughter, Allegra Beck, was helping the stylist Joe McKenna backstage; Ms. Beck seemed thrilled to be at her first Alaïa show. About 40 people stuck around for lunch in the kitchen, with the designer bringing plates of chicken and rice to the table.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

15

Kitchen

With Early Prep Time, Brunch Is a Breeze

By ALICE HART

A

CHEERY weekend brunch provides a most civilized platform for outdoor eating, especially when the dishes can be prepared almost entirely ahead. When all you have to do before you wish to eat are simple assembly jobs, you are left to fill the role of laidback (dare I say glamorous?) brunch hostess.

The menu here, skewed to Southeast Asia, does not pretend to be authentic but borrows fresh, vibrant flavors from there.

Delicate omelets, peppered with fresh herbs and sharpened with tamarind, are cooked a few hours ahead and then cooled. They are destined as wraps for warm, shredded duck, along with a dab of hoisin sauce, rice

noodles, plenty more herbs and a few spears of cucumber and scallion for crunch.

A snappy crab and melon salad can be chopped in advance and kept chilled, ready to be doused with a hot, sweet-and-sour dressing before serving.

For coffee and sweet in one, offer a Zen and sophisticated take on the ice cream sundae born of both the Vietnamese cafe sua da — espresso dripped over condensed milk — and the Italian affogato — espresso poured over ice cream.

In my book, artfully piled groups of cutlery and tumblers say, “It’s brunch, it’s a holiday, and we’re all relaxed,” far more loudly than a formally laid table ever could. Cluster them together with a vase of fresh flowers

and a selection of drinks, ready for your guests to help themselves.

When it comes to beverages, I hardly need mention the obvious fresh juices, mimosas, teas and coffees you could offer, but, for an incredibly refreshing addition, I like to steep aromatics in cool water for an hour or so

before serving. Think pared strips of cucumber or citrus zest, slices of root ginger, fresh mint, Thai basil or lemon verbena leaves. Stuff them into glass pitchers as a single flavor, or in any combination you like, and add plenty of ice. They look beautiful on any table.

Crab and Cantaloupe Salad with Ginger and Mint Dressing Time: 35 minutes 3 tablespoons shavings of fresh coconut, optional 1 cantaloupe, quartered, seeded and peeled 1/2 cucumber, peeled 1/2 small red onion, very finely sliced 1/4 cup mint leaves, chopped 1 thumb-size piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into fine matchsticks 2 long red chilies, seeded and finely sliced 2 stalks lemon grass, tender portion at base only,

trimmed and finely sliced 2 tablespoons fish sauce 3 tablespoons lime juice 2 tablespoons coconut cream 1 1/2 tablespoons palm sugar or brown sugar 1/2 pound fresh white crab meat 2 tablespoons unsalted peanuts, toasted and crushed.

1. If using coconut, heat the oven to 325 degrees. Spread the shavings on a baking sheet and toast until crisp and pale golden at the edges, tossing halfway through, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

2. Cut the cantaloupe into thin slices. Using a vegetable peeler, pare the cucumber into long strips, discarding the core. Place on a serving platter, add red onion and mint, and toss.

3. Finely dice half the ginger and chilies and place in a bowl. Add the lemon grass, fish sauce, lime juice, coconut cream and sugar, and whisk to blend. Taste and adjust dressing if needed; it should be fragrant, sweet, salty and sour.

4. To assemble: Scatter the crab on the salad and spoon the dressing over it. Top with remaining ginger and chilies, coconut, if using, and peanuts. Serve immediately.

Yield: 6 servings.

Asian Herbed Omelet Wraps Time: 50 minutes 6 large eggs 6 scallions, trimmed and finely sliced 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, plus 1/3 cup loosely packed leaves 1 red chile, seeded and finely chopped 2 teaspoons tamarind paste 2 tablespoons coconut milk 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar Pinch of salt 6 teaspoons vegetable oil 1 ounce vermicelli rice noodles

Kitchen 16

6 tablespoons hoisin sauce Meat from half a Chinese roast duck, or rotisserie chicken, shredded.

1/2 cucumber, quartered, seeded and cut into fine matchsticks 1/3 cup shredded mint leaves.

1. Combine the eggs, scallions, 2 tablespoons cilantro, chile, tamarind, coconut milk, brown sugar and salt, and beat lightly.

2. Place a 6-inch skillet over medium-low heat and add 1 teaspoon oil. Using a small ladle, add about a sixth of the egg mixture, swirling it quickly to thinly cover the base of the pan. When the underside is golden and the top looks set, 2 to 3 minutes, turn it onto a plate to cool and repeat with the remaining egg mixture to make 5 more omelets.

3. Pour boiling water over the rice noodles and soak until soft, 5 to 10 minutes, then pour cool water over them, drain and cut into shorter lengths with kitchen scissors.

4. Lay one omelet golden-side down and spread a tablespoon of hoisin sauce over it. In a line, just off center, lay about a tablespoon of rice noodles, a little duck or chicken, cucumber matchsticks, a few cilantro leaves and a little shredded mint. Roll up as firmly as possible, from the edge nearest the filling ingredients. Cut in half through the middle, and repeat with the remaining omelets and filling.

Yield: 6 servings.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Vietnamese Coffee Sundaes Time: About 45 minutes, plus at least 6 hours’ freezing 1 cup granulated sugar 3 1/2 cups very strong hot black coffee 2 teaspoons cocoa powder 1 1/2 cups sweetened condensed milk 2 cups light cream 1 cup crème fraîche or heavy cream 1 teaspoon vanilla extract A pinch of salt 1/4 cup dark chocolate shards, optional.

1. Mix 1/2 cup of the sugar in 2 1/4 cups of the hot coffee until it dissolves. Pour into a shallow lidded container and cool. In a bowl, combine the remaining 1 1/4 cups coffee and 1/2 cup sugar with cocoa powder; stir until the sugar dissolves to make a syrup, cover, and refrigerate.

2. Whisk together the condensed milk, light cream, crème fraîche, vanilla and salt, and pour into a shallow lidded container. Place both sha-

llow lidded containers in the freezer for 2 hours.

3. Remove condensed milk mixture (ice cream) from the freezer, and whisk vigorously, breaking down the ice crystals until the texture is smooth. Return to freezer to set firm before scooping, about 4 hours or overnight.

4. Remove coffee mixture (granita) from freezer and rake the surface with the tines of a fork to form icy crystals. Return it to the freezer and repeat this raking every hour for about three more hours, until the texture is free-flowing but completely crystalline. At this point, it may be frozen overnight.

Rake over again before serving to loosen.

5. To serve, place scoops of the ice cream into glasses or bowls, alternating each scoop with coffee granita. Douse with coffee syrup, scatter with chocolate shards, if using, and serve immediately.

Yield: 6 servings.

Pasta With Anchovies and Arugula

By MARK BITTMAN

T

he original version of this recipe, which I wrote in 2000 to accompany a column about the many wonders of anchovies, is one of the rare Minimalist recipes I wasn’t entirely happy with when I recently re-examined it. The basic idea is good: chewy pasta with salty, complex anchovies. And hot, muddy arugula is a fantastic combination. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes and you’re really talking.

The problem was the proportions of the ingredients. In the past 11 years, my thinking about pasta dishes has evolved, and the more-sauce-less-pasta approach that’s emerged is one that’s pretty brilliant, if I do say so myself. So it was a bit of a shock to look back at my original recipe and find that, for four people, I called for a full pound of pasta but only two cups of arugula. The resulting dish is delicious, thanks to garlic and anchovies, but uniformly starchy and a bit lacking in textural and flavor contrast. You can barely even taste the arugula when there’s only a half-cup in each serving.

So I decided to do a little tweaking. My new version contains almost equal parts cooked pasta and raw arugula, which wilts when you toss it with everything else. The amounts of the other ingredients — olive oil, garlic, anchovies and red pepper flakes — stayed the same, and they still give the dish an irresistibly punchy flavor profile. But thanks to the increase in greenery, Pasta With Anchovies and Arugula 2.0 is lighter and more interesting than the original, though no less satisfying.

Yield 4 servings Time 30 minutes Mark Bittman Ingredients Salt 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 4 large cloves garlic, peeled and slivered 8 anchovy fillets, or more to taste, with some of their oil 1/2 teaspoon or more crushed red pepper flakes 6 cups arugula 1/2 pound linguine or other long pasta Freshly ground black pepper.

Method 1. Bring a large pot of water to boil and salt it.

2. Put the oil in a deep skillet, and turn heat to medium. A minute later,

add the garlic, and then the anchovies and red pepper flakes. When the garlic sizzles and the anchovies break up, turn the heat to its lowest setting.

3. Cook the pasta until it is tender but not mushy. Reserve 1 cup cooking liquid, and drain. Add pasta to skillet, along with enough reserved cooking water to make a sauce. Off the heat, combine the pasta with the greens. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss, taste and adjust the seasoning and serve.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

17

Wine

Barbera: I Knew It When

By ERIC ASIMOV

O

H, me. Oh, barbera. Are we growing old together? My once youthful scruff now comes in gray, while you, Giacomo Conterno Barbera d’Alba, who sustained me in my graduate-school days at $8 a bottle, cost $50 now!

Inevitable, of course — I mean the graying. But $50 for barbera, what can this signify?

Partly, I suppose, the price indicates that more people appreciate this once-humble wine. More important, though, it demonstrates how the estimation of Giacomo Conterno as a great producer has risen spectacularly in 30 years, as has the worldwide thirst for Barolo, Conterno’s primary stock in trade. Just as an unassuming little Bourgogne rouge made by an exalted vigneron costs as much as another Burgundy producer’s premier cru, so have the prices risen for barberas from top Barolo and Barbaresco producers.

In the Langhe region of the Piedmont, in northwestern Italy, barbera largely remains the little brother to nebbiolo, the grape of Barolo and Barbaresco. Around Alba, prime Barolo country, nebbiolo hogs most of the best vineyard sites. Barbera must settle for leftovers, some choicer than others.

This was the natural order of things.

Barolos sold for big bucks and were socked away to age, and age, and age.

Barberas were bottled for immediate pleasure, were sold cheap and were opened at dinner.

That’s how it was when I was first developing a taste for wine. Those memorable, and inexpensive, bottles of Conterno captured me with their gorgeous, juicy, yet bitter red fruit that danced a tightrope between sweet and savory, propelled along by an energetic, vivacious acidity. For me, it was an easy-to-swallow lesson in how wine could be both pleasurable and thoughtprovoking, while performing its basic function of making food taste better.

Barberas from the hilly Asti region to the northeast of the Langhe would seem to have it a little easier than their Alba siblings. Nebbiolo is not grown so much around Asti, so barbera gets the best vineyard sites. Indeed, in the 1980s

Braida di Giacomo Bologna, a producer of Barbera d’Asti, pioneered the aging of single-vineyard barberas in barrels of new French oak, winning critical acclaim and raising prices accordingly.

Braida’s success inspired other producers to age their wines in new oak, often with unfortunate results.

The lively immediacy of this honest wine often ended up buried beneath vanilla and chocolate cheesecake, wiping away any trace of regional identity.

Nonetheless, my affection for barberas remains both sentimental and real. To check in on barberas currently in the marketplace, the wine panel recently tasted 20 bottles, 14 from Alba, 6 from Asti. Indeed, the tasting confirmed our belief that top Barolo and Barbaresco producers tend also to make the best barberas, at prices that reflect the esteem in which they are held.

For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Lacey Burke, a sommelier at Del Posto, and Levi Dalton, a sommelier at Bar Boulud.

All of us, I think, came away with the feeling that barbera has settled into a more confident period after a prolonged, awkward battle with its oak issues. While some wines were indeed marked and even marred by oak, we found much less of it than we had feared. Perhaps, as with Barolo, producers are using oak in subtler ways? Or maybe, as Levi suggested, our sample was not entirely representative.

In any case, we had bigger issues than oak: namely, balance. The structure in barbera comes from its buzz-saw acidity, which keeps it fresh and cuts through rich fatty foods. If the acidity is out of whack, barbera can be unpleasantly aggressive, like heartburn in a glass.

Other issues with balance emerged as well. The 2008 vintage of my old favorite, the now $50 Giacomo Conterno Barbera d’Alba, still showed robust fruit and mineral flavors, but something seemed disjointed. It was a bit sweet and a little hot, from high alcohol.

We had no such problems with our top wines. Our No. 1, the 2006 Vietti Barbera d’Asti La Crena (another $50 barbera) was gorgeous: zesty and

energetic as barbera ought to be, with lovely flavors of red fruit and earth.

Our No. 2, the 2008 Bartolo Mascarello Barbera d’Alba, a $45 bottle, was beautifully balanced on that knife’s edge between sweet fruit and mouthwatering acidity, the tension keeping the wine lively.

Our No. 3 wine, the 2008 Barbera d’Alba from Bruno Giacosa, was by comparison downright cheap at $30. It was what Levi called “real-deal barbera,” with that pull between sweet and bitter that exemplifies many good Italian wines but is impossible to imagine in, say, a French wine.

By contrast with our top three, our No. 4 bottle, the 2008 Michele Chiarlo Barbera d’Asti Le Orme, really was inexpensive at $13. It’s a wine reminiscent of the simple barberas of yore, fermented and aged in big, old oak barrels and offering direct, uncomplicated pleasure. Year in and year out this wine is a good value.

Of the 13 Barberas d’Alba, 6 made our top 10, as did 4 of the 7 Barberas d’Asti. One that did not was the 2007 Bricco dell’Uccellone from Braida. Aside from being the most expensive at $65, the wine was powerful, hot and a bit clunky at 15.5 percent alcohol. It was not oaky, though.

Are differences between the Asti and Alba barberas discernible? Levi, along with many producers, says the Barberas d’Alba tend to be plusher and fruitier while the Barberas d’Asti are tauter in texture. Honestly, with so many variables in the vineyard and cellar, it’s very hard to tell the difference.

Barbera remains a good friend, even if I don’t see as much of it as I once did. My gray beard is just temporary. High prices for barbera, I’m afraid, are here to stay.

Vietti Barbera d’Asti, $50, ✩✩✩ La Crena 2006 Ripe, energetic and tangy, with lively flavors of fruit and earth. (Dalla Terra, Napa, Calif.)

Bartolo Mascarello Barbera d’Alba, $45, ✩✩✩ San Lorenzo 2008 Zesty and beautifully balanced with

subtle, savory fruit and smoke flavors.

(Robert Chadderdon Selections, New York) Bruno Giacosa Barbera d’Alba, $30, ✩✩ ½ 2008 Classic barbera, slightly bitter and tensely balanced between sweet and savory. (Leonardo LoCascio Selections/Winebow, New York)

BEST VALUE Michele Chiarlo Barbera d’Asti, $13, ✩✩ ½ Le Orme 2008 Densely textured yet understated with floral aromas and flavors of purple fruit. (Kobrand, New York) Cigliuti Barbera d’Alba, $24, ✩✩ ½ Compass 2008 Lingering fruit and floral flavors with a touch of oak. (David Vincent Selection, New York) Elio Grasso Barbera d’Alba, $35, ✩✩ ½ Vigna Martina 2008 Straightforward and savory with earthy fruit flavors and a little oak. (Martin Scott Wines, Lake Success, N.Y.) Vietti Barbera d’Asti, $22, ✩✩ ½ Tre Vigne 2008 Pleasing, long-lasting flavors of plums and spices. (Dalla Terra) Giacomo Conterno Barbera d’Alba, $50, ✩✩ Cascina Francia 2008 Brash, spicy flavors of fruit and minerals, but slightly unbalanced. (Polaner Selections, Mount. Kisco, N.Y.) Coppo Barbera d’Asti, $19, ✩✩ Camp du Rouss 2007 Direct and sprightly with earthy, floral flavors. (Leonardo LoCascio Selections/Winebow) Pio Cesare Barbera d’Alba, $25, ✩✩ 2008 Silky texture and flavors of black fruit, but oakiness is overbearing. (Maisons Marques et Domaines, Oakland, Calif.)

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Medicaid Pays Less Than Medicare for Many Prescription Drugs

By ROBERT PEAR

M

edicaid gets much deeper discounts on many prescription drugs than Medicare, in part because Medicaid discounts are set by law whereas Medicare prices are negotiated by private insurers and drug companies, federal investigators said in a new report.

The report, from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, could be used by lawmakers trying to cut drug prices as Congress looks for ways to rein in the cost of Medicare under the new deficit-reduction law.

Under existing law, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of Medicare’s outpatient drug benefit will increase an average of nearly 10 percent a year, to $175 billion in 2021, from $68 billion this year.

Medicaid and Medicare receive discounts in the form of rebates, which are paid by drug manufacturers when their products are dispensed to people enrolled in the programs.

The inspector general, Daniel R. Levinson, found that rebates reduced spending on 100 widely used brand name drugs by 19 percent in Medicare and by 45 percent in Medicaid. After taking account of the rebates, Mr. Levinson said, Medicaid paid significantly less than Medicare for the same drugs.

Federal law specifies how the discount, or rebate, is calculated under Medicaid, the program for low-income people.

The minimum rebate for a brand-name drug was increased last year to 23 percent of the average price that manufacturers receive for sales of the product to retail pharmacies.

Drug companies must pay additional rebates to Medicaid if a drug’s price rises faster than general inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index. The inspector general said these added rebates accounted for slightly more than half of all rebates paid to Medicaid on the top 100 drugs. Prices for many of these drugs have been rising at a brisk pace.

“The inflation-based additional rebate is the primary reason Medicaid rebates are

substantially higher” than Medicare rebates, Mr. Levinson said.

“Manufacturers for virtually all brand name drugs under review paid inflationbased rebates” to Medicaid because their prices rose faster than inflation, the report said.

For 68 of the 100 brand-name drugs examined in the study, the Medicaid rebate was at least twice as large as the rebate paid to Medicare.

About 30 million older Americans and people with disabilities receive drug coverage through Part D of Medicare. More than 50 million low-income people have drug coverage through Medicaid.

When Congress added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in 2003, it prohibited the government from negotiating drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries and stipulated that outpatient drug coverage should be provided entirely through private insurers like UnitedHealth and Humana, under contract with Medicare.

Insurers have aggressively negotiated with pharmaceutical companies, so

Medicare’s prescription drug program has cost the government less than originally predicted. But the private insurers have not obtained discounts or rebates as large as those secured by Medicaid, the inspector general said.

The study comparing Medicare and Medicaid was required by the new health care law.

Drug companies oppose the type of discounts required by Medicaid, seeing them as government price controls. Drug makers say they prefer Medicare’s market-oriented approach, in which discounts are negotiated by drug plans and manufacturers.

Two Democrats, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, recently introduced bills that would require drug manufacturers to pay the higher Medicaid rebates for drugs provided to Medicare beneficiaries who are also eligible for Medicaid. President Obama’s deficit-reduction commission has endorsed the proposal, saying it could save $49 billion over 10 years.

Cancer’s Secrets Come Into Sharper Focus

By GEORGE JOHNSON

F

or the last decade cancer research has been guided by a common vision of how a single cell, outcompeting its neighbors, evolves into a malignant tumor.

Through a series of random mutations, genes that encourage cellular division are pushed into overdrive, while genes that normally send growth-restraining signals are taken offline.

With the accelerator floored and the brake lines cut, the cell and its progeny

are free to rapidly multiply. More mutations accumulate, allowing the cancer cells to elude other safeguards and to invade neighboring tissue and metastasize.

These basic principles — laid out 11 years ago in a landmark paper, “The Hallmarks of Cancer,” by Douglas Hanahan and Robert A. Weinberg, and revisited in a follow-up article this year — still serve as the reigning paradigm, a kind of Big Bang theory for the field.

But recent discoveries have been complicating the picture with tangles of new detail. Cancer appears to be even

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more willful and calculating than previously imagined.

Most DNA, for example, was long considered junk — a netherworld of detritus that had no important role in cancer or anything else. Only about 2 percent of the human genome carries the code for making enzymes and other proteins, the cogs and scaffolding of the machinery that a cancer cell turns to its own devices.

These days “junk” DNA is referred to more respectfully as “noncoding” DNA, and researchers are finding clues that “pseudogenes” lurking within this dark region may play a role in cancer.

“We’ve been obsessively focusing our attention on 2 percent of the genome,” said Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi, a professor of medicine and pathology at Harvard Medical School. This spring, at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Orlando, Fla., he described a new “biological dimension” in which signals coming from both regions of the genome participate in the delicate balance between normal cellular behavior and malignancy.

As they look beyond the genome, cancer researchers are also awakening to the fact that some 90 percent of the protein-encoding cells in our body are microbes. We evolved with them in a symbiotic relationship, which raises the question of

just who is occupying whom.

“We are massively outnumbered,” said Jeremy K. Nicholson, chairman of biological chemistry and head of the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London. Altogether, he said, 99 percent of the functional genes in the body are microbial.

In Orlando, he and other researchers described how genes in this microbiome — exchanging messages with genes inside human cells — may be involved with cancers of the colon, stomach, esophagus and other organs.

These shifts in perspective, occurring throughout cellular biology, can seem as dizzying as what happened in cosmology with the discovery that dark matter and dark energy make up most of the universe: Background suddenly becomes foreground and issues once thought settled are up in the air. In cosmology the Big Bang theory emerged from the confusion in a stronger but more convoluted form. The same may be happening with the science of cancer.

Exotic Players According to the central dogma of molecular biology, information encoded in the DNA of the genome is copied by messenger RNA and then carried to subcellular structures called ribosomes, where

The San Juan Weekly Star the instructions are used to assemble proteins. Lurking behind the scenes, snippets called microRNAs once seemed like little more than molecular noise. But they have been appearing with increasing prominence in theories about cancer.

According to the central dogma of molecular biology, information encoded in the DNA of the genome is copied by messenger RNA and then carried to subcellular structures called ribosomes, where the instructions are used to assemble proteins.

Lurking behind the scenes, snippets called microRNAs once seemed like little more than molecular noise. But they have been appearing with increasing prominence in theories about cancer.

By binding to a gene’s messenger RNA, microRNA can prevent the instructions from reaching their target — essentially silencing the gene — and may also modulate the signal in other ways. One presentation after another at the Orlando meeting explored how microRNAs are involved in the fine-tuning that distinguishes a healthy cell from a malignant one.

Ratcheting the complexity a notch higher, Dr. Pandolfi, the Harvard Medical School researcher, laid out an elaborate theory involving microRNAs and pseudogenes. For every pseudogene there is a regular, protein-encoding gene. (Both are believed to be derived from a common ancestral gene, the pseudogene shunted aside in the evolutionary past when it became dysfunctional.) While normal genes express their will by sending signals of messenger RNA, the damaged pseudogenes either are mute or speak in gibberish.

Or so it was generally believed. Little is wasted by evolution, and Dr. Pandolfi hypothesizes that RNA signals from both genes and pseudogenes interact through a language involving microRNAs. (These signals are called ceRNAs, pronounced “sernas,” meaning “competing endogenous RNAs.”) His lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston is studying how this arcane back channel is used by genes called PTEN and KRAS, commonly implicated in cancer, to confer with their pseudotwins.

The hypothesis is laid out in more detail this month in an essay in the journal Cell.

Fueled by the free espresso offered by pharmaceutical companies hawking their wares, scientists at the Orlando meeting moved from session to session and browsed corridors of posters, looking for what might have recently been discovered about other exotic players: lincRNA, (for large intervening noncoding), siRNA (small interfering), snoRNA (small nucleolar) and piRNA (Piwi-interacting (short for “P-element induced wimpy testis” (a peculiar term that threatens to pull this sentence into a regress of nested parenthetical explanations))).

August 25 - 31, 2011

In their original “hallmarks” paper — the most cited in the history of Cell — Dr. Hanahan and Dr. Weinberg gathered a bonanza of emerging research and synthesized it into six characteristics. All of them, they proposed, are shared by most and maybe all human cancers. They went on to predict that in 20 years the circuitry of a cancer cell would be mapped and understood as thoroughly as the transistors on a computer chip, making cancer biology more like chemistry or physics — sciences governed by precise, predictable rules.

Now there appear to be transistors inside the transistors. “I still think that the wiring diagram, or at least its outlines, may be laid out within a decade,” Dr. Weinberg said in an e-mail. “MicroRNAs may be more like minitransistors or amplifiers, but however one depicts them, they still must be soldered into the circuit in one way or another.”

In their follow-up paper, “Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation,” he and Dr. Hanahan cited two “emerging hallmarks” that future research may show to be crucial to malignancy — the ability of an aberrant cell to reprogram its metabolism to feed its wildfire growth and to evade destruction by the immune system.

Unwitting Allies Even if all the lines and boxes for the schematic of the cancer cell can be sketched in, huge complications will remain. Research is increasingly focused on the fact that a tumor is not a homogeneous mass of cancer cells. It also contains healthy cells that have been conscripted into the cause.

Cells called fibroblasts collaborate by secreting proteins the tumor needs to build its supportive scaffolding and expand into surrounding tissues. Immune system cells, maneuvered into behaving as if they were healing a wound, emit growth factors that embolden the tumor and stimulate angiogenesis, the generation of new blood vessels. Endothelial cells, which form the lining of the circulatory system, are also enlisted in the construction of the tumor’s own blood supply.

All these processes are so tightly intertwined that it is difficult to tell where one leaves off and another begins. With so much internal machinery, malignant tumors are now being compared to renegade organs sprouting inside the body.

As the various cells are colluding, they may also be trading information with cells in another realm — the micro-organisms in the mouth, skin, respiratory system, urogenital tract, stomach and digestive system. Each microbe has its own set of genes, which can interact with those in the human body by exchanging molecular signals.

“The signaling these microbes do is dramatically complex,” Dr. Nicholson said

in an interview at Imperial College. “They send metabolic signals to each other — and they are sending chemicals out constantly that are stimulating our biological processes.

“It’s astonishing, really. There they are, sitting around and doing stuff, and most of it we don’t really know or understand.”

People in different geographical locales can harbor different microbial ecosystems. Last year scientists reported evidence that the Japanese microbiome has acquired a gene for a seaweed-digesting enzyme from a marine bacterium. The gene, not found in the guts of North Americans, may aid in the digestion of sushi wrappers. The idea that people in different regions of the world have co-evolved with different microbial ecosystems may be a factor — along with diet, lifestyle and other environmental agents — in explaining why they are often subject to different cancers.

The composition of the microbiome changes not only geographically but also over time. With improved hygiene, dietary changes and the rising use of antibiotics, levels of the microbe Helicobacter pylori in the human gut have been decreasing in developing countries, and so has stomach cancer. At the same time, however, esophageal cancer has been increasing, leading to speculation that H. pylori provides some kind of protective effect.

At the Orlando meeting, Dr. Zhiheng Pei of New York University suggested that the situation is more complex. Two different types of microbial ecosystems have been identified in the human esophagus.

Dr. Pei’s lab has found that people with an inflamed esophagus or with a precancerous condition called Barrett’s esophagus are more likely to harbor what he called

19

the Type II microbiome.

“At present, it is unclear whether the Type II microbiome causes esophageal diseases or gastro-esophageal reflux changes the microbiome from Type I to II,” Dr. Pei wrote in an e-mail. “Either way, chronic exposure of the esophagus to an abnormal microbiome could be an essential step in esophageal damage and, ultimately, cancer.”

Unseen Enemies At a session in Orlando on the future of cancer research, Dr. Harold Varmus, the director of the National Cancer Institute, described the Provocative Questions initiative, a new effort to seek out mysteries and paradoxes that may be vulnerable to solution.

“In our rush to do the things that are really obvious to do, we’re forgetting to pay attention to many unexplained phenomena,” he said.

Why, for example, does the Epstein-Barr virus cause different cancers in different populations? Why do patients with certain neurological diseases like Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and Fragile X seem to be at a lower risk for most cancers? Why are some tissues more prone than others to developing tumors? Why do some mutations evoke cancerous effects in one type of cell but not in others?

With so many phenomena in search of a biological explanation, “Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation” may conceivably be followed by a second sequel — with twists as unexpected as those in the old “Star Trek” shows. The enemy inside us is every bit as formidable as imagined invaders from beyond. Learning to outwit it is leading science deep into the universe of the living cell.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

For Some in Menopause, Hormones May Be Only Option

By TARA PARKER-POPE

F

or women hoping to combat the symptoms of menopause with nonprescription alternatives like soy and flaxseed supplements, recent studies have held one disappointment after another.

Last week, a clinical trial found that soy worked no better than a placebo for hot flashes and had no effect on bone density. That followed a similar finding about hot flashes from a clinical trial of flaxseed.

“We wish we could have told women that, yes, they work,” said Dr. Silvina Levis, director of the osteoporosis center at the University of Miami, who led the soy study. “Now we have shown that they don’t.”

Before 2002 women were routinely treated with the prescription hormones estrogen and progestin, which rapidly fell out of favor after the landmark Women’s Health Initiative study showed that older women who used them had a heightened risk of heart attacks and breast cancer.

But now some doctors are arguing that those risks do not apply to the typical woman with menopause symptoms, and even some longtime critics of hormone treatment are suggesting that it be given another look for women suffering from severe symptoms.

Study after study has shown that many nondrug treatments — black cohosh, red clover, botanicals, and now soy and flaxseed — simply don’t work. Prescription medicines, including antidepressants, the blood pressure drug clonidine and the seizure drug gabapentin may have some benefit, but many women cannot tolerate the side effects.

“There is no alternative treatment that works very well, whether it’s a drug or over-the-counter herbal preparation,” said Dr. Deborah Grady, associate dean for clinical and translational research at the University of California, San Francisco.

About 75 percent of menopausal women experience hot flashes. Depending on the woman, symptoms can be mild, occurring only a few times a week, or moderate, occurring several times a day. Many women with mild to moderate symptoms cope without needing further treatment.

But about a third of women have severe symptoms, experiencing 10 to 20 hot flashes day and night that disrupt their workdays and interfere with sleep.

While doctors often reassure women that it will all be over in just a few years, a May report in the journal Obstetrics and

Gynecology found that during one longterm study of women, menopausal hot flashes recurred for some women, for 10 years or more.

A hot flash is usually described as a sudden warmth first felt in the face and neck. Hot flashes can turn a woman’s face red and lead to excessive sweating and then chills. On the Web site MinniePauz. com, women describe feeling lightheaded and dazed, with heart palpitations and anxiety.

“Whoosh, a rush of heat originating from the core of your body,” is how one woman put it. “Hair goes lank and you know that even if you stripped naked and ran down the high street waving your arms to fan your body, well you still wouldn’t get cool because the heat is inside you, not outside.”

The exact cause of hot flashes is not known, but it is believed that menopause disrupts the function of the hypothalamus, which is essentially the body’s thermostat.

As a result, even small changes in body temperature that would normally go unnoticed can set off hot flashes.

Among prescription drug treatments, the most effective may be antidepressants, including Effexor, Paxil and Pristiq, which have been shown to reduce hot flashes by as much as 60 percent, doctors say. Antidepressants are particularly useful for women with breast cancer or blood-clot disorders who do not have the option of taking a hormone drug.

But some doctors say they are frustrated by the message given to many women that they must seek an alternative treatment to prescription hormones. Dr. Holly Thacker, director of the center of specialized women’s health at the Cleveland Clinic, said that for many women the benefits of effective hormone treatment would outweigh the risks and that they should not be scared off from considering the drugs.

“It would be like telling someone with insulin-dependent diabetes that they should try to use other things besides insulin,” she said. “I see women look to alternative agents and coming in with bags of things, and they have no idea what they are putting into their body. There has been so much misinformation, and they are confused.”

Dr. Grady, a longtime critic of widespread hormone use, said doctors and women appeared to be less tolerant of risks associated with hormones than of those with other drugs, even though menopause symptoms can be just as intolerable as mi-

graine pain or other health problems.

“Somehow we’re quite willing to take a migraine drug with its associated adverse effects because it works so well, but we’re not willing to take estrogen,” she said. “We worry about the adverse effects associated

with estrogen, but the important adverse effects are reasonably uncommon.

“The question is whether a woman is willing to trade off that risk for a very effective treatment for symptoms that are otherwise ruining her life.”

Watch Your Step While Washing Up

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

T

he smallest room in the house can be a dangerous place.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year about 235,000 people over age 15 visit emergency rooms because of injuries suffered in the bathroom, and almost 14 percent are hospitalized.

More than a third of the injuries happen while bathing or showering. More than 14 percent occur while using the toilet.

Injuries increase with age, peaking after 85, the researchers found. But injuries around the tub or shower are proportionately most common among those ages 15 to 24 and least common among those over 85. People over 85 suffer more than half of their injuries near the toilet.

Fainting is not a common cause of injury, but it occurred most often in the 15-to-24 age group. Alcohol use may be a factor, the researchers suggested, but there is no data to prove it.

The bathroom injury rate for women was 72 percent higher than for men, the analysis found. Studies have shown that women are at higher risk than men for injuries in falls, and the authors speculate that the disparity might also be attributed to differences in physical activity, lower-body strength, bone mass or even more willingness to seek treatment.

The most hazardous activities for all ages are bathing, showering and getting out of the tub or shower. (Only 2.2 percent of injuries occur while getting into the tub or shower, but 9.8 percent occur while getting out.) Injuries in or near the bathtub or shower account for more than two-thirds of emergency room visits.

“Injuries getting on and off the toilet are quite high in people 65 and older,” said Judy A. Stevens, an epidemiologist with the C.D.C. and the lead author of the report. “Having grab bars by the toilet would be helpful for people in their older years, and everyone would benefit from having grab bars both inside the tub or shower and where you get in and out.”

The analysis appeared in the June 10 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

21 SCIENCE / TECH

In Future Math Whizzes, Signs of ‘Number Sense’

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

C

hildren as young as 3 have a “number sense” that may be correlated with mathematical aptitude, according to a new study.

Melissa Libertus, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, and colleagues looked at something called “number sense,” an intuition — not involving counting — about the concepts of more and less. It exists in all people, Dr. Libertus said, including infants and indigenous peoples who have had no formal education.

The researchers measured this in-

tuition in preschoolers by displaying flashing groups of blue and yellow dots on a computer screen. The children had to estimate which group of dots was larger in number. Since the display was fleeting, they had to use their number sense rather than count the dots.

Children with a better number sense were also better at simple math problems the researchers posed. The children were asked to count the number of images on a page out loud, read Arabic numbers and make other simple calculations.

Previous studies have shown that there is a connection between number sense and mathematical ability in adoles-

cents. But this is the first study to explore the connection in children with little formal education.

“We were interested in the earliest math abilities that children have, from before they enter school,” Dr. Libertus said. Understanding this could help level the playing field in mathematics among children.

Dr. Libertus hopes that, with more insight, games or training programs could be developed for children to improve their number sense.

The research is reported in a recent issue of the journal Developmental Science.

Charting Brain Growth in Humans and Chimps

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

A

lthough baby humans and baby chimpanzees both start out with undeveloped forebrains, a new study reports that the human brain increases in volume much more rapidly early on.

The growth is in a region of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex and is part of what makes humans cognitively advanced compared with other animals, including the chimpanzee, our closest relative. The prefrontal cortex plays a major role in decisionmaking, self-awareness and creative thinking.

Tetsuro Matsuzawa, a zoologist at Kyoto University in Japan, and his colleagues performed magnetic resonance imaging scans on three young chimpanzees over about six years, starting when the chimps were 6 months old. The researchers compared these scans with M.R.I. scans taken of human infants and chWWildren. They found that the white matter in the prefrontal cortex of chimpanzees does not grow as rapidly as it does in humans.

Their findings appear in the journal Current Biology. That the brains of both animals

undergo significant growth indicates that brain development in both is shaped by life experience. This may be why human babies and chimp babies share some similarities — like the impulse to smile at caregivers.

But the rapid development of the prefrontal cortex in humans may contribute to superior skills in communication and social interaction.

Dr. Matsuzawa and his colleagues hope to track how human and chimpanzee brains differ as each animal enters young adulthood.

The team plans to continue its study of the three chimpanzees it observed, which are now 11 years old.

Early Plants Grew Wood as Plumbing

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

T

wo small plants, both about 400 million years old, are the oldest known examples of wood, according to a new study. The older of the two plants pre-

dates other early examples of wood by at least 10 million years.

Philippe Gerrienne, a geologist at the University of Liège in Belgium, identified the specimens along with colleagues from France and the United States.

They describe the plants in the current issue of the journal Science.

Both plants are from the Devonian era, and the fossilized cross sections of the stems show rings of cells radiating out from the center, similar to tree rings. One specimen is 397 million years old and comes from Canada; the other, from France, is thought to be 407 million years old. Previously, researchers have debated whether wood evolved to help plants grow taller or developed as a way for plants to pull water up.

Because the recently identified plants were just a few inches tall, it is more likely that the wood served as a plumbing system to draw water up, the researchers write. Although the origins of wood remain a mystery, scientists believe that it is what eventually gave rise to large perennial plants.

The findings also support previous research indicating that wood may have evolved independently in different plant lineages and in different places.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Downloadable. Unsustainable, Too.

By CHRIS OSBORN

I

FINALLY met Amy at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport a couple of Mays ago. I recall walking through the Atlanta airport’s terminal among pictures of nebulae and galaxies, floating along corridors with only a backpack.

I called my friend Devin, hyperventilating, feeling downright Neil Armstrong, needing to broadcast this moment to someone.

Amy and I had already known each other for five years by then. We had connected online when we were high school students on opposite coasts; I was in Oregon, and she was in Georgia. I liked her because she listened to Bobby Darin, knew who Italo Calvino was, and posted cute pictures of herself digitally multiplied to play the banjo, guitar, trombone and tambourine at the same time, a full band of Amys.

I was 15 and had just started dating.

My first kiss was at a school dance, regrettably to Usher’s “Burn.” I was terrified to find my date’s tongue in my mouth, not knowing what it was. This was before Facebook had opened its doors to everyone, and before Twitter condensed everything, so all we had were long-winded blogs, which typically fell into two categories: daily observations or teenage angst. Mine was famous for the latter.

Something about the format was enticing: being able to say whatever you wished without ever having to face your audience.

Not only did I write about girls and my social anxieties, I wrote on subjects I rarely spoke about: existentialism, family, religion and the wars. I broadcast everything that scared and exhilarated me.

If my blog was a miserablist exercise in self-discovery, Amy’s was the opposite, filled with sweet stories of riding her bike in McDonough, Ga., singing to her dog and dancing in fields with her friends. Her photos were amber-tinted and pastoral.

She was a folk singer, and I tried to sing folk songs, so we had that in common. When we first started talking, Amy was unable to

record her songs, but as time and technology changed it became easier than ever, until she was able to e-mail me her songs.

After years of “chatting,” I actually heard her voice: a weathered, pretty thing, seemingly encased in a bygone era, unmarred by modernity. It was Southern, lilting, traumatizing, and this was just an MP3.

It’s strange how the phone is the next step in social connection these days, as if that is somehow more serious, more personal, more dangerous than, say, letting someone into your daily thoughts and photos.

But Amy and I started to call each other.

A blizzard had just swept through Portland, so during a bout of cabin fever I began writing songs for her. In these songs I could travel south for the winter, run away from home and feel something tangible. I distracted myself with these notions of what might be if I were there, or if she were here.

At the same time, our calls grew longer.

We started to tell each other secrets. She spoke with inflections that couldn’t hide behind text, sweet memories that translated only by hearing her voice, however distorted and fractured a poor signal might cause it to be.

In the spring we graduated to Skype. Finally, face to face. She would sit in the computer lab at her university and we’d talk into the early morning. We brought guitars and played our songs to each other. I sang louder than I had ever sung. I hit my highs and didn’t crack at the lows. I wonder how much she actually heard and how much was garbled by my weak Wi-Fi, her beautiful face often contorted into a mess of pixels.

Then it was her turn. Somehow, I heard every word. One verse in particular stood out: Sparrow, won’t you fly down south by me?

Sparrow, build your home in the belly of the beast.

Lay me in the sand, in the sand by the sea, There’s a devil in the land and a devil that’s in me.

When she was done, we just looked at

each other. We didn’t have to say anything.

If we were to be together, it would be at the expense of many things in our real worlds.

Still, was she singing that to me because she couldn’t say it? Or was it like that Carly Simon song, and I just thought it was about me?

Vain or not, we started planning my escape.

“What if she’s different in person?” my friend Matt posited one morning over breakfast in the dorms. “What if you don’t like her?” I had already assured him that she wasn’t a 400-pound man who wanted to murder me.

I responded with a laugh, never actually thinking of the risks. I was giving myself a four-day weekend on the other side of the country right before finals. What could go wrong?

All of my friends half-supported and half-laughed at what I was about to do. Jeremy rightfully smiled at my naïveté but gave me his blessing. When I cautiously told Beth, prefacing it with disclaimers, she reassured me: “Hey, that’s the world we live in now: no borders.” Samiat drove me to the airport, and on the way she kept gushing at how “cute” I looked.

I was on air. The mere act of leaving felt almost as good as seeing Amy. This act would be my pièce de résistance, the existential proof that love was the answer, the convergence of art, romance and technology that would make everything beautiful.

On the airplane, though, I was really sweaty. Just roasting. My hair was a mess, and I’d forgotten to brush my teeth. I had decided not to shave, thinking Amy might like my “beard.” But feeling my face, I realized it was a terrible idea.

As the plane approached the runway, I pictured myself in a lunar module, anticipating the impact. I was a space kid, always traveling in my imagination, and old habits die hard. I exited the plane and walked down that corridor. I felt weightless; my heart was pounding and some insects entangled with my insides.

Every girl looked like Amy. My heart skipped with every imitation Amy. I walked past the automatic doors. Each of them opened with another possible Amy. I half expected to find one with a trombone, and one with a banjo, like those charming pictures she used to post.

It was a comedy; how many cute girls with asymmetrical bangs and perfect bone structure could exist in Georgia? I paced back and forth, walking around the baggage claim, frantically checking my cellphone.

And then, there she was. Just like that, I could feel her in my arms. This was her body.

This was her face. She was here. I was here.

I felt enveloped; feeling her close to me was

like outer space, with all its questions: Is it infinite or contained? Linear or cyclical?

Now, here is where there are gaps. I know we held hands through Piedmont Park in Atlanta as a busker played “I’m Waiting for the Man,” and I know we drove to McDonough and kissed for the first time on the floor of her turquoise childhood bedroom, and I know we went to a Wal-Mart and danced for the security cameras, and I know I took a nap in her lap at a cemetery in Macon.

And I know that we decided not to continue our relationship. We both knew we couldn’t move close. But we also knew, after this, that we couldn’t just go back behind our computer screens. All of these things are knowable and definable and yet obscured and opaque.

The truth is, Amy feels like a ghost in static now. I have kept all the evidence: old e-mails and chats, text messages, her songs.

My memory of her feels contained within servers and hard drives, locked away and inaccessible. In my mind’s eye, I keep parsing through the same remnants of my time with her, the same jpegs, the same docs, the same pieces to construct a patchwork past of those four days.

WHEN I went to Georgia, we took photographs with a black-and-white disposable camera, and this is what I can remember: only the threads between these pictures. We thought we were documenting it for posterity, but there they are, haunting me with an exactness that doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Then, sometimes, there will be a moment, like catching a breeze from a window, where a wisp of memory will trigger and flood: the goldenrod color of her blouse, her freckles and cheeks stretching into a smile, holding her crying face.

And, of course, Amy’s voice, finally clear and finally close, a song whispered in French, a foreign tongue I never learned.

When we have spoken since our last meeting, Amy has always reached out through the distortion. On one such occasion, when I was feeling quite low, she simply told me that love is a moment in time.

Even in this time — because of this time — our moment was possible. Sometimes, I have to remind myself.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

23

Piñones, Loíza L

oíza is a small town and municipality (municipio) in the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico, north of Canóvanas; east of Carolina; and west of Río Grande. Loíza is spread over 5 wards and Loíza Pueblo (The downtown area and the administrative center of the city).Río Grande de Loíza (Loíza River) Loíza was proclaimed a town officially in 1719 and original spelling was Loaiza. In honor of Yuisa or Luisa, one of the women caciques on the island when the Spanish conquerors arrived.

A beach-town with apartment complex buildings, Loíza is on one of the two main landing paths to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport; pilots of airliners landing from the east at Luis Muñoz Marín usually fly over Loíza. The airport would today be part of Loíza, had Isla Verde not been annexed to Carolina and the residents of that area displaced. Loíza was populated by freed or escaped African slaves during the town’s first years. Due to neglect from the government and ineffective mayors, many in Loíza live below poverty as on the rest of the island.

In the early 1930s, residents from Loíza were displaced from what is now Isla Verde in Carolina in order to build what was then called Isla Verde International Airport, but was later changed to Luis Muñoz Marín In-

are made of coconut, and painted in multiple colors.

Loíza is known as “La Capital de la Tradicion”- “The Capital of Traditions”- for its “bomba” music, traditional Taíno and African dishes, artisanry, and distinct culture. Loíza is home to such celebrities as the “Hermanos Ayala”, William Cepeda, Samuel ternational Airport. These residents were moved to Sabana Abajo in Carolina. Because of this, many residents of this area in Carolina have their roots in Loíza, and many families claim to be from both areas.

One of Loíza’s barrios, Loíza aldea, is famous across Puerto Rico because it has been a talent pool for dancers and artisans.

Formerly a center for black Puerto Rican music, it is said to be the traditional birthplace of the musical form known as plena along with Ponce. Though “Loíza Aldea” refers to “El Pueblo” or “Downtown Loíza”, many across the island refer to it as such as a means of discrimination as aldea means “village” in Spanish. Each year there is a celebration in Loíza where people parade around wearing Máscaras de Vejigante. Máscaras de Vejigante are a type of mask made in Loíza. They

Lind, Daniel Lind, DJ Eliel, DJ Tito, La Sista, Abrante, Mangani, etc. and many artists have roots in Loíza like Daddy Yankee (his father is known as El Negro from “Los Hermanos Ayala”, Ramon Ayala),Tego Calderon, Don Omar, Lennox from “Zion y Lennox”, Mackie from “Mackie y Yaga”, Producer Brian Smith and many others.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

36 Hours in San Sebastián, Spain (Avenida de Zurriola 16; no phone; ondarraclub.com) in Gros, the neighborhood that flanks the surfing beach Zurriola.

Early in the evening, the tables that spill onto the sidewalk are the ideal spot for a round of gin and tonics with new friends.

Later, the downstairs club, 16 bis, plugs in.

Saturday 9:30 a.m.

5) EAT YOUR HOMEWORK Don’t sleep through this class. A multi-Michelin-starred chef might be at the head of the classroom at the Basque Culinary Center (Paseo Juan Avelino Barriola 101; 34-943-535-103; bculinary.com), a new culinary school and research institute with an international consultancy board

By INGRID K. WILLIAMS

T

O visit San Sebastián, on Spain’s northern coast, is to fall in love. The first sight of the shimmering scallop-shaped bay, replete with crescents of golden sand and turquoise waves, will sweep you off your feet. Pairing this natural beauty with the unrivaled local cuisine — from decadent Michelin-starred feasts to delectable bite-sized pintxos (Basque-style tapas) — may leave your head spinning.

A spruced-up seaside promenade, a renovated museum and a forthcoming culinary school all add to the city’s allure. But this love affair doesn’t have to be a fling.

In June, the city secured a coveted designation as a 2016 European Capital of Culture, ensuring that it will put its best foot forward for years to come.

Friday 4 p.m.

1) PHANTOM BEACH Start with a stroll along the fourmile oceanfront promenade that hugs the city’s three sandy beaches. The loveliest segment cradles La Concha beach and the bay. Or, for a new perspective of this gorgeous shore scene, take the 10-minute boat ride offered by Motoras de la Isla (Paseo Mollaberria; 34-943-000-450; motorasdelaisla.com; 3.80 euros, or $5.35 at $1.41 to the euro) from the port to Isla Santa Clara in the middle of the bay. Depending on the tides, the uninhabited islet might reveal its own slip of sand — San Sebastián’s phantom fourth beach.

6:30 p.m.

2) MUSEO PASEO Take the scenic route to the San Telmo Museoa (Plaza Zuloaga 1; 34-943-481-580;

santelmomuseoa.com), which reopened in the Parte Vieja (Old Town) in April, by following the promenade from the port around Mount Urgull, the wooded peak crowned with a statue of Jesus on the eastern edge of the bay. The museum’s new facade — a stark gray wall pocked with holes through which greenery sprouts — mimics the natural rocky surroundings but sharply contrasts with the adjoining building, a refurbished 16th-century former Dominican convent where the permanent collection of Basque art and historical artifacts is displayed.

9 p.m.

3) DRAMATIC DINING Ni Neu (Avenida de Zurriola 1; 34-943-003-162; restaurantenineu.com), which means “I Myself” in Basque, is the new restaurant at the Kursaal, the auditorium and convention center occupying a pair of glowing modernist cubes beside Zurriola beach. The restaurant’s slick black walls and spotlighted tables are the stage upon which the stylish set gathers to dine on tuna tartare with green lemon cream, or roast lamb with flourishes of coffee and cardamom. If you prefer less drama with dinner, consider Narru (Calle de Zubieta 56; 34-943-423-349; narru.es), which reopened in April beneath the Hotel Niza after a crosstown move. The popular subterranean restaurant serves pared-down, unpretentious fare like a meltingly tender secreto Ibérico with Basque apples. Dinner for two (including wine) at either hot spot is about 60 euros.

11:30 p.m.

4) THE LAID-BACK OPTION Avoid the cheesy beachfront discos and seek out the laid-back bar Ondarra

headed by the nonpareil chef Ferran Adrià.

The brand-new campus and four-year degree program won’t make its debut until October, but continuing-education courses for professional chefs and half-day classes for “gastronomic enthusiasts”(the rest of us) — like an introduction to avant-garde sweets or a summer grilling lesson — have already begun in off-site locations around the city. For now, classes are conducted only in Spanish, but the center plans to add courses in English beginning in September.

2:30 p.m.

6) STELLAR CELLAR Hidden among the pintxo bars of the Parte Vieja is a simple staircase that descends to the sunny-walled restaurant Bodegón Alejandro (Calle de Fermín Calbetón 4; 34-943-427-158; bodegonalejandro. com), a longtime bastion of stellar Basque cuisine. The colorful tile and sturdy wooden tables feel traditional, but the six-course tasting menu — a steal at 38.50 euros, without drinks — is a modern riff on regional classics. A recent version included “lasagna” of anchovies and ratatouille atop gazpacho cream, and a rich risotto infused with cuttlefish oil and Idiazábal cheese.

The San Juan Weekly Star

5 p.m.

7) T-SHIRT TIME At Kukuxumusu (Calle Mayor 15; 34-943-421-184; kukuxumusu.com), goofy cartoons are slapped on everything from Tshirts to flasks. This storefront in the Parte Vieja was this design company’s first, but the kooky brand has since expanded all over Spain. For an authentic upstart vibe, instead visit Viva la Vida (Calle de Narrica 12; 34-943-430-378; vivalavidatodalavida. com), which opened last year. The tiny shop peddles playful, original graphic designs, like melting rainbow-colored sunglasses, that are splashed across simple tanks, tees and tote bags.

6:30 p.m.

8) FOR HIPSTERS AND KIDS The sublime mingles with the absurd atop Mount Igueldo (34-943-213-525; www.monteigueldo.es) on the western edge of the bay. Ride the rumbling funicular (2.80 euros) to the summit where the Mount Igueldo Tower claims to offer “the best view in the world” (it is indeed grand). Then revisit childhood at the ancient amusement park, where the rickety rides and classic carnival games are all so ridiculously — though unintentionally — retro that they transcend tackiness and become hilariously fun for small children and hipsters alike.

9:30 p.m.

9) TXIKITEO CHEAT SHEET Tailor a txikiteo — the Basque term for a pintxo-bar hop — around the bars in the Parte Vieja where traditional pintxos are being elevated to haute cuisine in miniature. Start at the long wooden counter of Astelena (Calle de Iñigo 1; 34-943-425-245) with croquetas coated in crunchy pistachios, or crispy crepes stuffed with salmon and cheese. Then squeeze into the narrow La Cuchara de San Telmo (Calle 31 de Agosto 28; no phone; lacucharadesantel-

August 25 - 31, 2011

mo.com) for sumptuous seared foie gras with apple compote, or tangy orzo and goat cheese risotto. Round out the tour at the black-and-red bar A Fuego Negro (Calle 31 de Agosto 31; 34-650-135-373; afuegonegro.com), the pinnacle of pintxo prowess. Order the “Makcobe,” a mini wagyu burger on a ketchup-infused bun with fried banana “txips,” but don’t miss the three icy scoops of spider crab, avocado and licorice (a strangely delicious trio), or pastel cherry-meringue wafer with mackerel, sheep’s cheese and mint. Each pintxo costs about 3 euros.

Sunday 9 a.m.

10) BREADCRUMB TRAIL This year marks the 800th anniversary of the consecration of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, the final destination of the pilgrimage trail known as the Camino de Santiago. One major route of

the Camino passes through San Sebastián, so for a taste of the celebrated trek, hike up Calle de Zemoriya in Gros and follow the yellow trail markings (in reverse), weaving through lush forests and past postcard-perfect panoramas of cliffs sinking into the sea. Before you set off, carbo load with a moist, chewy brioche or a crusty baguette from Galparsoro (Calle Mayor 6; 34-943-420-113; galparsorookindegia.eu), a

phenomenal little bakery that supplies the area’s top restaurants.

1:30 p.m.

11) TWO IF BY LAND ...

Last year, a fire devastated the kitchen of Mugaritz (Aldura Aldea 20, Errenteria; 34-943-522-455; mugaritz.com), a two-Michelin-star restaurant in an understated country house nestled in the hills outside town. After a four-month closure, the restaurant reopened in June 2010 with the chef Andoni Luis Aduriz once again puzzling and delighting diners — often simultaneously — with ingenious dishes like an aromatic mortar soup (which requires diners to pestle-pound spices and seeds before servers add finishing touches of herbs and fish broth) and crispy shredded beef tongue (presented as “mystery meat”).

Curious to find out what clinches that elusive third star? Book a table with a view overlooking the sea at Akelarre (Paseo Padre Orcolaga 56; 34-943-311-209; akelarre. net), the three-Michelin-star gastronomic temple where Pedro Subijana has been fee-

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ding foodies for over 30 years, with concoctions that range from edible paper and foie gras with sugar to ethereal mousses.

Tasting menus (18 courses at Mugaritz; 8 courses at Akelarre) are about 140 euros, without drinks.

IF YOU GO The Hotel Gran Bahía Bernardo (Calle de Trueba 1; 34-943-298-049; www. hotelgranbahiabernardo.com) opened in December 2010 in Gros, a few blocks from Zurriola beach. The 10 simple rooms have hardwood floors, cool photography on the walls and free Wi-Fi. Doubles cost 144 euros, or $203, in high season.

The two-year old, 102-room Hotel Astoria 7 (Calle de la Sagrada Familia 1; 34-943-445-000; astoria7hotel.com) pays homage to the cinema stars of San Sebastián’s annual film festival. The topnotch food emporium Don Serapio is nearby, but the pintxo-packed Parte Vieja is a 20-minute walk. High-season doubles from 140 euros.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Top Tabloid Editors Endorsed Hacking

By SARAH LYALL, RAVI SOMAIYA and ALAN COWELL

A

high-profile parliamentary panel investigating phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid released embarrassing new evidence Tuesday that the practice of intercepting voice mail had been widely discussed at the newspaper, contradicting assertions by its owners and editors.

In light of the new evidence, the panel also announced that it was summoning at least four former News of the World figures for questioning at a hearing next month and could possibly ask Mr. Murdoch’s son James, the head of the Murdoch conglomerate’s European operations, back for more testimony as well. Both father and son testified at a dramatic televised hearing last month. The disclosures threatened to push the scandal back to the forefront of public concern, raising worrying questions for Mr. Murdoch and for the British prime minister, David Cameron, who hired Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor, as his director of communications and has been taunted by the opposition for poor judgment in doing so.

Tom Watson, a Labour lawmaker and member of the panel, also said Mr. Coulson may be among those summoned to give further evidence.

The newest allegations are contained in a four-year-old letter released for the first time from Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s former royal correspondent who served a jail term for hacking the mobile phones of three members of the royal household, to a senior human resources executive who had informed him that he was being dismissed.

In addition to the Goodman letter, the parliamentary panel released a letter from Harbottle & Lewis, a law firm hired by the Murdochs, which they have repeatedly cited as having given the News of the World a “clean bill of health” in reviewing a cache of e-mails in 2007. The law firm’s letter contradicts that assertion and says that its own investigation had been limited strictly to advising the company in its employment dispute with Mr. Goodman.

The scandal has already spread through Britain’s public life and media world. Mr. Coulson quit his job with the prime minister in January as the hacking scandal spread.

Mr. Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, who edited the News of the World until 2003 and eventually rose to be one of the Murdochs’ trusted lieutenants in an execu-

tive role, were arrested in connection with allegations of phone hacking and paying police officers for information last month.

They were released on bail but will have to answer further police questions later this year, as three Scotland Yard investigations into phone hacking, computer hacking and bribery continue.

Rupert Murdoch closed down the 168-year-old News of the World after the scandal exploded last month with reports that the newspaper had ordered the hacking of the cellphone of an abducted 13-year-old schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, who was found murdered in 2002.

The correspondence released Tuesday, made public by the House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport, is likely to embarrass former senior officials in the Murdoch empire who denied that phone hacking was widely practiced.

When both Rupert and James Murdoch testified at the committee hearing last month they said they were appalled by the hacking, in dramatic appearances punctuated by a bizarre episode when a prankster attacked the older Mr. Murdoch with a foam pie.

In Mr. Goodman’s letter, dated March 2, 2007, Mr. Goodman challenged his dismissal, saying that his actions “were carried out with the full knowledge and support” of other senior journalists. He also said another senior journalist arranged for payments to a private investigator who carried out the hacking.

Mr. Goodman also asserted in his letter that the practice of phone hacking was “widely discussed in the daily editorial conference” at the newspaper until “explicit reference to it was banned by the editor.”

Mr. Watson said the committee had seen two versions of the letter, one more heavily redacted than the other. One version sent to the committee by News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of the Murdoch family’s News Corporation, had been redacted to black out references to “editorial conference” and “the editor.”

The News of the World had long insisted that the phone hacking was restricted to Mr. Goodman, a single rogue reporter.

But Mr. Watson said the letter offered a “devastating” rebuttal to Mr. Coulson, the former editor and prime ministerial aide, who has always denied knowledge of the phone hacking. Mr. Watson said it was now “likely” that the panel would recall both James Murdoch and Mr. Coulson.

“We have written to Andy Coulson to ask him whether he would like to amend his previous evidence,” Mr. Watson said.

“Clearly if Clive Goodman’s account is accurate, it shows the evidence he gave us was at best misleading and probably deceptive.”

Mr. Goodman, the former royal reporter, also claimed that he had been promised his job back after serving a four-month prison term starting in January 2007.

He wrote that Mr. Coulson and Tom Crone, the newspaper’s senior legal counsel, had “promised on many occasions that I could come back to a job at the newspaper if I did not implicate the paper or any of its staff in my mitigation plea. I did not, and I expect the paper to honor its promise to me.”

News International said through a spokesman that it “recognized the seriousness” of the material disclosed to the police and Parliament and was committed to working in a “constructive and open way” with all the relevant authorities.

The parliamentary committee said that on Sept. 6 it would recall Mr. Crone, as well as the News of the World’s former editor Colin Myer, the News International human resources director, Daniel Cloke, and its former legal director, John Chapman.

The committee also said that “depending on their evidence under questioning, the committee may also have further questions for James Murdoch and others.”

Fitch Ratings Keeps U.S. at Top Credit Rating F itch Ratings said it will keep its rating on U.S. debt at the highest grade, AAA, and issued a “stable” outlook, meaning it expects the rating to stay there.

That’s better than the other two main ratings agencies: Moody’s lists the U.S. debt at AAA but says its outlook is negative. And Standard & Poor’s set off a maelstrom in the stock market last week after it took its rating on the U.S. down to the second-highest grade, AA-plus, for the first time.

In Washington, the Obama administration welcomed the announcement from Fitch but said it would be important for Congress to take the steps called for in the budget agreement.

“The Treasury Department continues to believe that Treasury securities are AAA investments. Today’s report underscores the importance of Congress taking additional actions to address our long-term fiscal challenges,” Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley said.

The S&P cited bickering in Congress over the debt ceiling earlier this summer, as well as the country’s rising proportion of debt, for its downgrade. But Fitch said that it decided to keep its rating because the “key pillars” of U.S. creditworthiness remain intact, including its “flexible, diversified and wealthy economy.”

It also said that the country’s flexibility in monetary policy gives it the ability to absorb economic shocks. The dollar’s central role in the world economy allows the U.S. to hold a higher proportion of debt to gross domestic product.

Fitch said it would revisit the rating after the congressional committee that is supposed to figure out how to cut government spending presents its findings, due by the end of November.

The rating, which measures the possibility that the U.S. will default on its debt, has been a hot-button issue in the past two weeks. Standard & Poor’s downgrade on Aug. 5 ignited a volatile week on Wall Street, with the Dow rising or falling by at least 400 points for four days. The government and some analysts have criticized the S&P’s decision, calling it unjustified and based on faulty math.

The S&P has defended the move, and some analysts have said it is a necessary wakeup call for a government that has been spending too much. The S&P said its downgrade was based on political grandstanding this summer over the debt ceiling. The S&P analysts also said they predict that the country’s debt a portion of output will continue to rise.

The S&P has also pointed out that its downgrade is only to the second-highest rating, saying that the psychological effects are deeper than the practical ones.

“It’s like going from indigo to navy blue,” S&P analyst John Chambers said in a call after the downgrade.

Moody’s assigned a negative outlook to its rating of U.S. credit on Aug. 2.

Analysts there said they were uncertain how much the congressional committee will be able to agree on cutting spending.

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

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Who Is to Blame if Shares Continue Steep Declines?

By FLOYD NORRIS

A

t the end of last week’s wild stock market gyrations, share prices were down only a moderate amount for the week, leaving investors to wonder whether there was any meaning at all to the volatility.

As is often the case when market gyrations become excessive, governments have good reasons to hope that the significance, if any, lies in market imperfections rather than in fundamental economic problems.

If it is the latter, attention is likely to be focused on issues of sovereign debt in Europe and on whether governments on both sides of the Atlantic have the ability and the will to prevent a new global credit crisis and recession.

If it is the former, then it is the behavior of market participants, or problems of market structure, that is to blame. In the past, that explanation has been much more palatable to politicians. Sometimes it has even been correct.

If it is not real economic problems that are responsible for sharp falls in stock prices, then the blame is likely to fall, as it has in the past, on people who seek to profit from declines and on market innovations, such as stock index futures and computerized trading strategies.

Short-sellers, who bet that prices will go down and thus perhaps help to push them down, are almost always among the first targets of political criticism, and this year is no exception. At the end of last week four European countries banned short-selling of financial stocks, and Germany renewed its push to get Europe to prohibit what it calls “naked short-selling” of credit-default swaps.

It is particularly angry about swaps that allow people to place bets that governments will default on their debts. Germany’s proposal would mean no one could obtain such protection against, say, an Italian default unless he owned Italian government bonds and needed protection.

Until 2008, Wall Street almost always opposed restrictions on short-selling. But that year investment banks became strong supporters of banning such sales and investigating people spreading negative rumors.

It was not, of course, a coincidence that the rumors then were about banks. After Lehman Brothers collapsed, short-selling of financial stocks was banned. It bolstered stock prices for a while, but did nothing to halt the rot that really was spreading within bank balance sheets.

So far this year, the United States has

not joined in taking action against short-selling, although regulations on it have been strengthened since the 2008 plunge.

In the 1920s, the targets of scorn were Wall Street pools, thought to be pockets of capital that would manipulate a stock up and then profit by dumping overpriced shares on speculators lured into thinking the rising price was a result of more than manipulation. After the 1929 crash, the pools were widely blamed for bear raids, which were more or less the opposite and used shortselling to drive down prices. Attacking the speculators did not, in the end, do much to help the prices.

In the 1987 crash, portfolio trading, made possible by the relatively new stock index futures market, became a target of criticism. That strategy involved taking offsetting positions in the futures market and the stock market, such as by buying a futures contract and selling short the underlying stocks Traditional money managers loved being able to sell a futures contract quickly to protect against losses in a declining market, but were outraged that the buyer of the contract immediately sold shares short, seemingly without regard to price.

Related to that was a product called “portfolio insurance,” which convinced money managers they could buy stocks without much regard to price, secure in the knowledge they could use futures — or options on futures — to exit quickly in a down market.

Since the sale of futures by portfolio insurers was based on a computer program that assumed continuous markets, it had no way to stop selling when prices became ridiculously low. Humans who understood what was happening had no desire to buy until they were sure the portfolio insurance traders were through.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 22 percent on one day, on Oct. 19, 1987.

In a way, the flash crash of May 6, 2010, was similar. It brought high-frequency trading firms to the fore. As markets became more and more electronic, and computers enabled trades to be completed in milliseconds, those firms had come to supply most of the liquidity needed to allow markets to function.

That is, when normal investors wanted to buy or sell stocks, the high-frequency firms were often on the other side of the trade, making small amounts on many trades.

They had taken over a profitable function once restricted to stock exchange specialists and Nasdaq market makers, which were required to post bid and asked prices and to

step in to buy when others did not wish to do so.

The high-frequency firms discovered that when they did not want to trade, they could still get the advantages of being deemed to be market makers through the use of “stub quotes.” A firm that did not want to buy a stock could post a bid of 1 cent for shares that were trading for $30 or $40, and be confident that it would not have to buy.

On May 6, other bids vanished for some stocks. There were lots of reasons for that, including a falling market under stress from worries over Greek debt and an apparent mistake by one money manager, which put in an order to sell far more stock index futures than it meant to. Under the old market structure, trading would have stopped, as it did on the New York Stock Exchange, while things were sorted out. But in the electronic markets, investors who had put in orders to sell shares at market prices got just $1.

The essential point, similar to the portfolio insurance fiasco of 1987, was that computers had been programmed to sell regardless of price under some circumstances, and there was no mechanism for cooler heads to step in and slow things down.

After 1987, the markets imposed circuit breakers to halt trading temporarily if prices fell sharply, and after the flash crash that was extended to individual stocks.

Both the 1987 crash and the 2010 flash crash occurred when markets were under stress for other reasons. It was market structure and trading strategies — related to relatively new financial and technological innovation — that turned what might have been an orderly market decline into a crisis.

The extreme volatility of 2011 began only a few weeks ago, and so far it has not

approached the levels of 1987 or 2010. The largest intraday swing — the difference between the daily high and low — in the Dow industrials this year was 640 points, or 6 percent, last Tuesday. The figures were 1,010 points and 10.2 percent in the flash crash. Similarly, the largest declines from one day to the next this year have been about a quarter of the magnitude of Oct. 19, 1987.

Nonetheless, it is likely there will be investigations seeking explanations of volatility in market structures, and it is probable that short-selling restrictions will spread if prices fall rapidly in coming weeks.

There is one other likely response if prices keep falling. There will be assurances that the markets are overreacting, and that the real economy is doing better than stock prices would indicate.

On Nov. 6, 1929, with the Dow Jones industrial average down 14 percent in little more than a week, this newspaper published a report from Washington citing “views held in high official circles here.”

The article praised the Federal Reserve for its quick reaction in keeping credit available and forecast that a stock market drawing in less cash would make more money available for mortgage loans.

“The effect of the collapse upon productive business, if there is any at all, will be purely psychological,” it added, “as is indicated by the fact there has been no cancellation of orders and no curtailment of buying, except perhaps in the luxury trades, according to the same view.”

Nearly six decades later, on Oct. 20, 1987, this newspaper printed a front page analysis headlined, “Does 1987 Equal 1929?”

It was encouraging: “The quick answer, many economists say, is no.”

That time, the optimists were correct.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Low Rates May Do Little to Entice Nervous Consumers

By MOTOKO RICH and TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

T

he Federal Reserve’s announcement last week that it intended to keep credit cheap for at least two more years was a clear invitation to Americans: Go out and borrow.

But many economists say it will take more than low interest rates to persuade consumers, a crucial driver of the nation’s economy, to take on more debt.

There are already signs that the recent stock market upheaval, turbulence in Europe and gridlock in Washington over the federal deficit have spooked consumers. On Friday, preliminary data showed that the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index had fallen this month to lower than it was in November 2008, when the country was deep in recession.

Under normal circumstances, the Fed’s announcement might have attracted new home and car buyers and prompted credit card holders to rack up fresh charges. But with unemployment high and those with jobs worried about keeping them, consumers are more concerned about paying off the loans they already have than adding more debt. And by showing its hand for the next two years, the Fed may have inadvertently invited prospective borrowers to put off large purchases.

Lenders, meanwhile, are still dealing with the effects of the boom-gone-bust and are forcing prospective borrowers to go to extraordinary lengths to prove their creditworthiness.

“I don’t think lenders are going to be interested in extending a lot of debt in this environment,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, a macroeconomic consulting firm. “Nor do I think households are going to be interested in taking on a lot of debt.”

In housing, consumers have already shown a lackluster response to low rates. Applications for new mortgages have slowed this year to a 10-year low, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Sales of furniture and furnishings remain 22 percent

below their prerecession peak, according to MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, a research service.

Credit card rates have actually gone up slightly in the last year. The one bright spot in lending is the number of auto loans, which is up from last year. But some economists say that confidence among car buyers is hitting new lows.

For Xavier Walter, a former mortgage banker who with his wife, Danielle, accumulated $70,000 on a home equity line and $20,000 in credit card debt, low rates will not change his spending habits.

As the housing market topped out five years ago, he lost his six-figure income. He and his wife were able to modify the mortgage on their four-bedroom colonial in Medford, N.J., as well as negotiate lower credit card payments.

Two years ago, Mr. Walter, a 34-yearold father of three, started an energy business. He has sworn off credit. “I’m not going to go back in debt ever again,” he said. “If I can’t pay for it in cash, I don’t want it.”

Until now, one of the biggest restraints on consumer spending has been a debt hangover. Since August 2008, when household debt peaked at $12.41 trillion, it has declined by about $1.2 trillion, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics of data from the Federal Reserve and Equifax, the credit agency.

A large portion of that, though, was simply written off by lenders as borrowers defaulted on loans.

By other measures, households have improved their position. The proportion of after-tax income that households spend to remain current on loan payments has fallen, from close to 14 percent in early 2007 to 11.5 percent now, according to Moody’s Analytics.

Still, household debt remains high. That presents a conundrum: many economists argue that the economy cannot achieve true health until debt levels decline. But credit, made attractive by low rates, is a time-tested way to bolster consumer spending.

With new risks of another downturn, economists worry that it will take years for debt to return to manageable levels. If the economy contracts again, said George Magnus, senior adviser at UBS, then “you could find a lot of households in a debt trap which they probably can never get out of.”

The market most directly affected by the reluctance to borrow is housing. With many owners still owing more than the current value of their homes, they cannot sell and move up to new homes. New mortgage and refinancing loan volumes fell nearly 19 percent, to $265 billion, at the end of the second quarter, down from $325 billion in the first quarter, the lowest since 2008, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry

newsletter.

Mortgage lenders, meanwhile, burned by the housing crash, are extra careful about approving new loans. In June, for instance, Fannie Mae, the nation’s largest mortgage buyer, said that borrowers whose existing debt exceeded 45 to 50 percent of their income would be required to have stronger “compensating” factors, which might include higher savings.

Even those borrowers in strong financial positions are asked to provide unusual amounts of paperwork. Bobby and Katie Smith have stellar credit, tiny student debt and a combined six-figure income. For part of their down payment, they planned to use about $5,000 they had received as wedding gifts in February.

But the lender would not accept that money unless the Smiths provided a certified letter from each of 14 guests, stating that the money was a gift, rather than a loan.

“We laughed for a good 15 or 20 minutes,” recalled Mr. Smith, 34.

Mr. Smith, a program director for a radio station in Orlando, Fla., said they ended up using other savings for their down payment to buy a $300,000 four-bedroom ranch in April.

For those not as creditworthy as the Smiths, low rates are irrelevant because they no longer qualify for mortgages. That leaves the eligible pool of loan applicants wealthier, “older and whiter,” said Guy D. Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. “It’s creating much more of a divide,” he said, “between the haves and the have-nots.”

Car shoppers with the highest credit ratings can also get loans more easily, and at lower rates, said Paul C. Taylor, chief economist of the National Automobile Dealers Association.

During the recession, inability to obtain credit severely curtailed auto buying

as lenders rejected even those with good credit. Now automakers are increasing their subprime lending again as well, but remain hesitant to approve large numbers of risky customers.

The number of new auto loans was up by 16 percent in the second quarter compared with the previous year, said Melinda Zabritski, director of automotive credit at Experian, the information services company.

But some economists warn that consumer confidence is falling. According to CNW Marketing Research, confidence among those who intend to buy a car this year is at its lowest since it began collecting data on this measure in 2000.

On credit cards, rates have actually inched slightly higher this year, largely because of new rules that curb the issuer’s ability to charge fees or capriciously raise certain interest rates.

At the end of the second quarter, rates averaged 14.01 percent on new card offers, up from 13.75 percent a year earlier, according to Mail Monitor, which tracks credit cards for Synovate, a market research firm. According to data from the Federal Reserve, total outstanding debt on revolving credit cards was down by 4.6 percent during the first half of the year compared with the same period a year earlier.

Even if the Fed’s move helps keep rates steady, or pushes them down, businesses do not expect customers to suddenly charge up a storm.

“It’s not like, ‘Oh, credit is so cheap, let’s go back to the heydays,’ ” said Elizabeth Crowell, who owns Sterling Place, two high-end home furnishing and gift stores in Brooklyn. “People still fear for their jobs. So I think where maybe after other recessions they might revert to previous spending habits, the pendulum hasn’t swung back the same way.”

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 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

30

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

HOROSCOPE Aries

(Mar 21-April 20)

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

You need to use your focus to full effect. Life is inclined to throw a spanner in the works. Things could be dynamic if not a little erratic, whilst Jupiter is in Aries. Remain on track and your resolve will achieve even more than you thought possible. Be patient with you and yours. Trust and be delighted at what happens. The time is now...

Chat away to good effect and prepare to charm the birds off the trees. It is not necessarily what you say, but the way in which you say it that is desperately important. You will need to state your case clearly. Stick to what really matters and bide your time, for patience will reap you a just reward. The time is now!

Taurus

Scorpio

(April 21-May 21)

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Life is messy and complicated; and how! But you have the resources to cope with what is going on.

Keep your cool and use your great diversity and imagination to get through things. You are equal to current tasks and challenges. Give someone the benefit of the doubt. They cannot touch you.

Do not worry.

There is more to life than paying the bills. Expend your energy on what really counts. Dream up your own schedule for success and avoid an obvious recipe for disaster. Deception is not a pretty sentiment. Do not be afraid to speak from the heart. Then, at least, you will know you tried.

All is well. Just believe.

Gemini

Sagittarius

(May 22-June 21)

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Stay focused and determined. There is no need to be thrown off track by anyone or anything. You know all about the need for flexibility at this stage! Hold fast to what you know to be right, true, honourable and good. There is not much opportunity to bend the rules at this stage. Do not even go there!

Work out exactly what you do feel and then act accordingly. Avoid an eternal triangle scenario.

There is really no need to look elsewhere. Is there? It is important that you lose the confusion factor and see where you get to. Do not let anything undermine your good connections. Happiness derives from simplicity.

Cancer

Capricorn

(June 22-July 23)

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Display some trust, focus and imagination and you will not need the props. If something or someone has sent your heart into a spin, panic not. Try to find your feet and settle down. Scan the horizon for a new perspective. A whirlwind of emotion may well descend from the heavens.

Embrace it all.

Projected emotion is a common symptom of disharmony within yourself. Be careful not to point the finger too readily. You need to have a sound measure of what you are dealing with, then you will be able to weigh things up and make cute decisions. Enjoy the wealth at your disposal. Prepare for the best; it will come.

Leo

Aquarius

(July 24-Aug 23)

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

All you have to do is steer a steady course to your destination. You may, of course, have to adapt to an unexpected change of circumstances. Things may not work out as planned, but they will come together just perfectly. A massive distance has been covered, so do not be daunted about where you have to go to next.

Keep things positive and express yourself fully. You can keep things on track by being sensible and productive. Free up the energy that has stagnated and clear all debris from finances, feelings and furniture. Too much clutter would drive anyone insane. Let things flow once again, and all will be well.

Just decide!

Virgo

Pisces

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Soften your perception and approach; for there is no reason to panic. Things are better left out in the open; well and truly on display. An upfront approach will sort out most things for you. Just watch that your stubborn will does not make one particular relationship impossible. Free will is to be honoured.

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Make your personal moves really count. Magical moments should be a priority; seek them out, but do not contrive them. Stake your claim in a competitive love situation. Never mind the Rules; there are less defined ways to get a result. Do not resort to false antics in a bid to impress people.

Let your good self shine.

Answers to the Zudoku and Crossword on page 29

The San Juan Weekly Star

August 25 - 31, 2011

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

Two Cows And A Chicken

Cartoons

31

Ziggi

32

August 25 - 31, 2011

The San Juan Weekly Star