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The San Juan Weeekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

The San Juan Weekly

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The San Juan Weekly

February y 10 - 16, 2011

Puerto Rico Tries Retail Lottery to Boost Taxes

By DANICA COTO

D

on’t throw out that lunch receipt: It could be worth $1,000.

That’s the idea behind a campaign to force Puerto Rico’s many tiny markets, food stalls and other mom-and-pop businesses to collect sales tax.

Puerto Rico’s Treasury Department is transforming receipts into lottery tickets, printing contest numbers on each receipt and holding weekly drawings for cash prizes ranging from $100 to $1,000. It also plans to have a monthly drawing for a car.

A pilot program started in December in the southern city of Ponce and will be expanded island-wide in July.

The government wants prizehungry consumers to demand receipts, discouraging businesses from dodging the 7 percent sales tax by making unrecorded cash sales.

Theoretically, the idea should be a winner on an island where lotteries are popular, but initial results aren’t very encouraging: Eight winning tickets have been drawn so far and not a single consumer has come forward to claim a prize. Winners have up to 30 days to collect, and some receipts have already expired.

“It’s a challenge,” concedes Jose Carlos Colon de Jesus, a special assistant in the Treasury Department. “We have to change the mentality of the Puerto Rican so they demand their receipt.”

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Exquisite Cuisine in an Oppulent Setting The government plans a media blitz to promote the program, adding to heavy coverage by local newspapers, TV and radio. So far, though, it’s been to little avail in Ponce, Puerto Rico’s second largest city with nearly 200,000 people.

Wanda Colon, manager of a Church’s Chicken restaurant in the city, said she’s had customers ask where they can check to see if they have a winning number, but said many people don’t seem aware of the program. She has had to remind them to take their receipt and why.

“They open their eyes really wide,” Colon said. “Those who don’t know say, ‘How is that possible?’”

Four of Church’s customers in Ponce have won $1,000. But none has collected.

The government says it is spending about $16 million on the effort, including equipment to print receipts with lottery numbers. But it is seeking a big payoff: The Treasury Department hopes to collect $400 million in additional sales tax revenue in two years as a result of the program.

Puerto Rican officials say they were inspired by Argentina, where a similar program several years ago led to improved tax collection.

That country aimed to crack down on tax evaders and black-market sales, and officials ran the program for about two years, said Oscar Murcia, an adviser to the president of the National Lottery agency.

It ended successfully after people became accustomed to demanding receipts, leading to increased revenues as tax evasion dropped, he said by phone from Buenos Aires.

Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, has a formal economy that looks much like the mainland, with many of the same chain restaurants and stores. But it also has a large and varied underground economy - one where people deal in cash, keep few records and don’t pay all the taxes the government thinks it should collect.

Roadside food stands are ubi-

quitous, offering savory empanadas and fritters, as are the small groceries known locally as colmados, their cramped shelves spilling over with bread, canned goods, beer and crackers.

Puerto Rico took in $1 billion in sales tax last year, but authorities estimate the government is only collecting about 52 percent of what it’s owed under the law. It hopes the lottery will drive that number to 72 percent within three years. Any revenue is a priority for an island government that has laid off thousands of workers in recent years.

Some think the goal is optimistic.

Sergio Marxuach, public policy director with the Center for the New Economy think tank in San Juan, predicted the take will fall short of the $400 million the government seeks. “I am a little bit skeptical of using technological silver bullets to help solve compliance problems,” he added.

Other problems with the pilot program have been reported.

Officials acknowledged that people are not necessarily demanding receipts for more goods. Instead, they are divvying up their purchases to obtain more receipts.

They also said that some might view the program as a form of gambling that goes against their religious beliefs. If that’s the case, they can donate winnings to charity, said Luis Rivera, secretary of the Consumer Affairs Department.

The program rolls out island-wide on July 1, and businesses that refuse to use the state-issued receipt machines will be fined $20,000. Those caught withholding receipts from customers will receive a $100 fine.

Officials hold a drawing each Tuesday for $1,000 prizes and plan to add four $500 prizes and 10 of $100, though the system is still be adjusted and the awards could be changed in coming months. A Saturday drawing will be added by late February.

Once a month, the government also will randomly select a receipt and give away a car.

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The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Palmas Athletic Club Membership Grows 7% to 750 in First Month P

almas del Mar Homeowner Assosiation (PHA) through a newly created cooperative, Palmas Athletic Club (PAC) signed an agreement to takeover the administration of their bankrupt golf,

tennis and beach clubs. The deal between Fomento and the “Not For Profit” PAC provides 18 months for the entity to prove it can assume the $30 million debt owed to Fomento by the 3 clubs.

The titles to the golf, tennis and beach clubs were assumed by PAC for administrative purposes.

The new president of PAC Juan Ramos Diaz must work over the next year and a half to financially make the 3 clubs’ cash flow be able to support the $30 million of debt.

PAC would then assume from Fomento the debt and become owner of the properties.

Carlos Garcia, President of Fomento, stated “We recognize the leadership demonstrated by the residents and the close cooperation established between the government and Palmas residents to achieve the new start. Jobs will be added and facilities reestablished”.

Palmas del Mar has 3000 home owners of which 2000 are full time.

The PAC was able to launch with

an initial commitment of 700 members in the 3 clubs. In its first month since PAC assumed management membership grew 7% to 750.

Certainly if all 2000 full time residents became members the debt burden estimated to cost $1.5 million per year could be met. Fewer members would require higher membership fees to meet the burden.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

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The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Governor Fortuño Asserts “Puerto Rico is Improving” in His Third Annual Message A

has earmarked almost $1 billion infrastructure construction of dams, highways, the airport, etc; (9) added 6000 acres to the Great Natural Reserve in the Northeast; (10) initiated the Via Verde Gas Pipeline to cut energy costs using cleaner energy and (11) reduced TYPE 1 crimes including rape, theft and assault.

The Governor accepted they needed to reduce the murder rate and school truancy, which are rising but refuted the legalization of drugs as an alternative. He said his administration would continue enhancing the programs already initiated and add these

t the mid-point of his 4 year term of office, Governor Luis Fortuño reviewed his first years and explained the agenda for the next years.

Governor Fortuño reported $1.5 billion in the previous administration’s past due payables and three quarters of the inherited $3.3 billion deficit had been paid.

Additionally he (1) created 27,600 new jobs; (2) increased wholesale, auto & housing sales; (3) modernized 100 schools, (4) initiated $3 billion investment through Public / Private Alliances; (5) distributed $4.5 billion in ARRA funds, (6) gave 1.5 million Puerto Ricans healthcare, (7) reformed the tax system, (8) By Senator Juan Eugenio Hernández Mayoral

2 as additional challenges to overcome.

While the list of accomplishments received animated applause, critics later discounted the achievements as being selective, focused only on certain groups of our society and as yet only promises.

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iven the harsh warnings from the Office of the Inspector General of the Federal Department of Education regarding the mismanagement of federal funds by the Fortuño Administration, Senator Juan Eugenio Hernández Mayoral, who is his Party’s leader in the Federal Relations Committee of the Senate, issued the following statement: “Nothing better exposes the two faces of Governor Fortuño as his most recent failure dealing with federal funds for the education of our children. The misuse of these funds is in itself a blow to an education system that already faces serious challenges to the woes of this Administration. But it is equally offensive Fortuño’s political hypocrisy about the funds given by the Obama Administration, “the senator said emphatically.

Mayoral also stated that: “Governor Fortuño lives a double political life.

On one hand, fights for funding in the Obama Administration and then presents it to the Puerto Rican people as his achievements, but on the other hand, aims to cultivate his image as a conservative-style ‘Tea Party’ and ‘Heritage Foundation’ – conservative. These groups are opposed to spending federal funds and the policies of the Democratic Party and President Obama thereby harming the people of Puerto Rico. “ The senator added: “This hypocrisy has staked Puerto Rican interests. In his quest to become known as a conservati-

ve in the U.S., Fortuño made every effort to help elect lawmakers who now militate against the interests of Puerto Rico and have already voted to take away our health benefits and to silence Puerto Rico in Congress, the same legislators who would take away federal stimulus funds, including education, which then became mismanaged under the Fortuño Administration” he continued.

“Fortuño has to choose. He can not serve the people of Puerto Rico effectively while playing politics against measures from the Obama Administration that benefit Puerto Rico. For this reason, we have no choice but to request him to abandon the Republican Party as his fellow New Progressive Party Governor Romero Barceló did during the Carter Administration, “said the legislator.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

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The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

E.P.A. Plans Limits on Toxic Chemicals in Water

By JOHN M. BRODER

T

he Obama administration said that it would impose limits on permissible levels of a new set of toxic chemicals in drinking water, including the first standards for perchlorate, a dangerous compound found in rocket fuel and fireworks that contaminates water supplies in 26 states.

The move, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, is a major step toward updating the nation’s clean water laws, which have lagged far behind environmental and health science.

Numerous studies have found that hundreds of industrial and agricultural chemicals, including several known carcinogens, are present in municipal water systems around the country. The nation’s laws and enforcement programs have not kept pace with spreading contamination, posing significant health risks to millions.

Wednesday’s decision to regulate perchlorate reversed a 2008 finding by the George W. Bush administration that a nationwide standard for the chemical was unnecessary and would do little to reduce risks to human health.

Ms. Jackson announced her intent to review the nation’s drinking water standards a year ago, ordering an extensive review of the health effects of perchlorate and other toxic substances found in city water supplies. She announced on Wednesday that the E.P.A. would set standards for as many as 16 other toxic and carcinogenic chemicals.

The agency said it would take three or four years to finalize the regulations.

“While we’ve put in place standards to address more than 90 drinking water contaminants,” Ms. Jackson said in testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday, “there are many more contaminants of emerging concern, which science has only recently allowed us to detect at very low levels.”

“We need to keep pace with the increasing knowledge and potential public health implications from the growing number of chemicals that may be present in our products, our water and our bodies,” she said.

Perchlorate can occur naturally, but high concentrations have been found near military installations where it was used rocket testing and around facilities where fireworks, flares and solid propellants are made. Health researchers have found that the chemical may impair the

normal functioning of the thyroid, potentially stunting normal growth of fetuses, infants and children.

The military and defense contractors who use the chemical have balked at tighter regulation, saying that substitutes are more expensive. But environmentalists and officials of some municipal water services have been calling for years for tighter rules on perchlorate and a number of carcinogenic chemicals, including industrial and dry cleaning solvents.

The E.P.A. has found measurable amounts of perchlorate in 26 states and two United States territories that it says could contaminate the drinking water of anywhere from 5 million to 17 million Americans. The Food and Drug Administration found the substance in more than half the foods it tested, and health researchers have found traces of it in samples of breast milk.

The agency did not establish an actual limit on the amount of perchlorate allowable in drinking water, but set in motion a rulemaking process to set a standard.

Senator Barbara Boxer of California, chairman of the environment committee, and some environmental advocates welcomed the announcement as a strong step for public health and welfare.

But Rena Steinzor, a law professor at the University of Maryland and president of the Center for Progressive Reform, was critical of the E.P.A. for taking so long to decide to regulate perchlorate and for what she called a “leisurely” timetable for issuing a final rule. The agency said it would publish a proposed regulation within two years and issue a final rule 18 months after that.

“Regulating perchlorate should not be seen as a long-term, we’ll getaround-to-it goal, but an urgent public health priority,” she wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “I can find no excuse for the long trajectory of behind-the-scenes consultations and hand-writing that sets the stage for such long delay on this crucial issue.”

The environmental agency also said on Wednesday it would develop a single rule governing a group of volatile organic compounds used as solvents, including trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, and a number of other unregulated contaminants. By grouping them together, the E.P.A. can move more quickly and provide simpler guidance to officials responsible for overseeing water supplies, agency officials said.

Obama Wants Jobless Aid Help for States T he Obama administration is proposing short-term relief to states saddled with unemployment insurance debt, coupled with a delayed increase in the income level used to tax employers for the aid to the jobless.

The administration plans to include the proposal in its budget plan next week. The plan was described late Monday by a person familiar with the discussions on the condition of anonymity because the budget plan is still being completed.

Rising unemployment has placed such a burden on states that 30 of them owe the federal government $42 billion in money borrowed to meet their unemployment insurance obligations. Three states already have had to raise taxes to begin paying back the money they owe. More than 20 other states likely would have to raise taxes to cover their unemployment insurance debts. Under federal law, such tax increases are automatic once the money owed reaches a certain level.

Under the proposal, the administration would impose a moratorium in 2011 and 2012 on state tax increases and on state interest payments on the debt.

In 2014, however, the administration proposes to increase the taxable income level for unemployment insurance from $7,000 to $15,000. Under the proposal, the federal unemployment insurance rate would be adjusted so that the new higher income level would not result in a federal tax increase, the person familiar with the plan said.

States, however, could retain their current rates, meaning employers could face higher unemployment insurance taxes beginning in 2014.

Though the administration could face criticism for enabling states to increase taxes, the thrust of the administration’s argument is that federal taxes would not increase and that the move is fiscally prudent because the federal government ultimately would be repaid at a faster rate than if it did nothing.

The person who described the plan said only 13 of the 30 states that owe the $42 billion would be expected to repay their share of the money in the next nine years under current conditions. The administration’s proposal would allow 15 more states to repay the money, this person said.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

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February 10 - 16, 2011

The San Juan Weekly

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

11 Mainland

Obama’s Bid to End Oil Subsidies Revives Debate

By JOHN M. BRODER

W

hen he releases his new budget in two weeks, President Obama will propose doing away with roughly $4 billion a year in subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies, in his third effort to eliminate federal support for an industry that remains hugely profitable.

Previous efforts have run up against bipartisan opposition in Congress and heavy lobbying from producers of oil, natural gas and coal. The head of the oil and gas lobby in Washington contends that the president has it backward — that the industry subsidizes the government, through billions of dollars in taxes and royalties, not the other way around.

But even as the president says he wants to do away with incentives for fossil fuels, his policies continue to provide for substantial aid to oil and gas companies as well as billions of dollars in subsidies for coal, nuclear and other energy sources with large and long-lasting environmental impacts.

Mr. Obama’s proposal rekindles a long-running debate over federal subsidies for energy of all kinds, including petroleum, coal, hydropower, wind, solar and biofuels. Opposition to such subsidies — often euphemistically referred to as incentives, tax credits, preferences or loan guarantees — spans the ideological spectrum, from conservative economists who believe such breaks distort the marketplace to environmentalists who believe that renewable energy sources will always lose out in subsidy fights because of the power of the entrenched fossil fuel industries.

David W. Kreutzer, an energy economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, argues that the federal government should take its thumb off the scale by eliminating subsidies for all forms of energy, even it if means slowing development of cleaner-burning fuel sources.

“We would like to get rid of all subsidies,” Dr. Kreutzer said. “We know that petroleum and coal survive just fine in places where there are no subsidies. I

don’t know if that’s true for wind and solar now, but someday it will be, when the price comes down.”

H. Jeffrey Leonard, president of the Global Environment Fund, a private equity firm that invests in clean-technology ventures, said that the current subsidy structure was the legacy of 60 years of lobbying and political jockeying in Washington that largely benefits oil, coal, nuclear power and corn-based ethanol.

He calls for scrapping all subsidies and letting fuel sources compete on equal ground.

Mr. Obama is not willing to go that far. He has supported favored tax treatment for wind and solar power as well as a 50 percent increase in federal research spending on other alternative energy sources. He also has proposed as much as $50 billion in federal loan guarantees for nuclear power plant construction, money he believes is needed because the private market is unwilling to assume the potential costs of a catastrophic accident.

Energy economists say that the president’s call in the State of the Union address for doubling the amount of electricity produced from cleaner technology by 2035 is designed to manipulate energy markets, forcing utilities to shift to the government’s preferred sources of energy on the government’s timetable, although leaving to them the choice of fuels.

A White House spokesman put it a

bit more benignly. “The plan the president outlined would establish a clear goal for clean energy and let utilities achieve that in the most cost-effective way possible,” the official said.

Mr. Obama’s policies encourage utilities to switch from coal to cleanerburning natural gas to generate electricity, which simply substitutes one fossil fuel for another and helps subsidize natural gas exploration and distribution. The president is also proposing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and oil refineries, another hidden subsidy for fossil fuels.

And, many environmentalists argue, every day that goes by without a policy to put a price on carbon emissions from all sources is a day in which the federal government subsidizes energy producers by socializing the long-term health and environmental costs of their products.

“My view is the country is better off on having a neutral playing field for all forms of energy,” said Douglas Koplow, founder of Earth Track, a group in Cambridge, Mass., that studies global energy subsidies.

“President Obama defines ‘clean fuels’ as natural gas, coal with carbon capture, nuclear,” Mr. Koplow said.

“From my perspective, if you subsidize carbon capture and storage, that’s a big subsidy for coal. Nuclear is massively subsidized through a risk transfer from shareholders to ratepayers. It’s hard to justify these technologies that can’t make it on their own.”

“If we’re really concerned about greenhouse gases, we should deal with the problem and cap them,” he added.

“Instead, politicians and lobbyists want to carve out policies for their own industries.”

Mr. Obama specifically proposes to eliminate roughly $4 billion a year in more than a half-dozen tax exemptions for oil and gas companies and an additional $200 million a year in preferences

for coal. The tax breaks for oil have a long history — the so-called percentage depletion allowance for oil and natural gas wells dates to the 1920s — and have withstood repeated efforts to kill them.

The president proposed a global end to such subsidies at the Group of 20 meeting in 2009, and while most nations endorsed the idea in theory, little has been done. And Mr. Obama will have a tough fight trying to get even these relatively modest proposals enacted over the objections of the oil and coal industries, who argue that such tax treatment is necessary to keep drillers drilling and miners mining.

“This is a tired old argument we’ve been hearing for two years now,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s main lobby in Washington. “If the president were serious about job creation, he would be working with us to develop American oil and gas by American workers for American consumers.”

Mr. Gerard noted that there was bipartisan opposition to lifting the tax breaks, adding: “The federal government by no stretch of the imagination subsidizes the oil industry. The oil industry subsidizes the federal government at a rate of $95 million a day.”

Michael Levi, an energy and climate change analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said calls for an end to energy subsidies missed a broader point: that embryonic energy technologies will need some government help to gain a foothold against the fossil fuel lobbies.

“I’d love to find a quick fix for America’s energy problems just as much as the next guy,” Mr. Levi wrote last week on his blog.

“I’d also be delighted to have a reason to cut subsidies, many of which are hugely wasteful,” he added. “But an effort to eliminate all energy subsidies without instituting better alternative policies should be understood for what it is: a recipe for cementing the dominance of traditional fossil fuels against their competitors.”

Mainland 12

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Cut Waste or Invest?

Try Both

By DAVID LEONHARDT

P

resident Obama wants to be sure that the United States keeps making the investments that help the economy grow. Congressional Republicans want the government to stop wasting so much money.

Education — particularly higher education — offers a great opportunity for a compromise that would let both sides claim

victory and, even more important, help the economy.

Why? Education is the single best investment a society can make. High school became universal in the United States in the early 20th century, when other countries viewed universal schooling as wasteful, which goes a long way toward explaining our economy’s 20th-century success.

Likewise, the slowing increase in the number of new college graduates in the 1980s

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and ’90s helped contribute to the slow economic growth of the last decade. So protecting higher education from across-the-board budget cuts, as Mr. Obama is urging, makes sense.

But the status quo is not worth protecting. Both the federal government and the states spend money on higher education in terribly wasteful ways. They don’t offer incentives for success, and they demand little accountability from colleges. Colleges that do a masterful job of graduating students receive no reward, and those that do a subpar job — of which there are many — go unpunished, giving them little reason to improve.

“Colleges are very much like high schools,” as Arne Duncan, the education secretary, says. “Some do a phenomenal job in building college-completion cultures and helping first-generation, low-income and minority students graduate, and some do a horrendous job.” When I asked Mr. Duncan last year whether the Obama administration would consider changing federal financial aid to encourage success, he said, “Yes, stay tuned.”

It has not happened yet, though, which makes it a good opportunity for the White House and Congress to work together now.

The basic problem is that colleges receive government money based largely on how many students they enroll. Perversely, colleges can even help their budgets by having a lot of dropouts. A college with a high dropout rate will have many more freshmen and sophomores than upperclassmen, and freshmen and sophomores are cheaper to have on campus, because they take big lecture classes.

Without any financial incentive to turn students into graduates, most colleges have paid far too little attention to their graduation rates. Nationwide, only about half of teenagers who enroll in college end up graduating.

The economic consequences have been severe. You often hear that income has stagnated in recent years, but it hasn’t stagnated for four-year college graduates. They have received a 19 percent raise since 1979, on top of inflation. People who went to college without getting a four-year degree — a combination of dropouts and two-year graduates — suffered a 7 percent pay cut.

Fortunately, a few states have started to respond. Most intriguingly, West Virginia’s biggest merit scholarship requires students to remain on track to graduate in four years. The policy has lifted the fouryear graduation rate of recipients by almost 7 percentage points, according to research

by Judith Scott-Clayton of Columbia University.

Indiana, meanwhile, has tweaked its formula for financing public colleges, to give more money to those with higher graduation rates. The formula also takes into account students’ economic backgrounds, in an effort to recognize that some colleges have an inherently tougher job turning freshmen into graduates. But even in Indiana, the amount of public money that depends on results is small, less than 10 percent of

the total. And virtually no federal funding is tied to results.

In the federal budget, the obvious candidates for cutbacks come from a grab bag of programs that cost about $12 billion a year and make up about one-fourth of federal spending on colleges. (An additional $32 billion goes to Pell grants, scholarships for low- and middle-income families, which do appear to lift graduation rates by helping students stay enrolled.)

Most of the $12 billion subsidizes student loans so that interest doesn’t accrue while students are still in college. That may be a nice little benefit, but it does not help students stay in school. For one thing, it is too complicated to persuade people worried about tuition costs to enroll in college anyway. Even without the subsidy, their loan repayment would not begin until later; the subsidy merely reduces future payments.

The remainder of the $12 billion is no better. Many of these dollars are matching funds for financial aid awarded by colleges, which means much of the money ends up going to wealthy private colleges. Sandy Baum, a George Washington University economist who led a recent financial aid commission, calls the allocation of this money “inequitable and inefficient.”

It isn’t hard to think of more productive ways to use the $12 billion. Some of it could pay for promising state programs like West Virginia’s or Indiana’s. Other money could turn into additional aid for Pell recipients who remain on track to graduate in four years. Yet other money could reward colleges that succeed in graduating large numbers of low-income students — an idea the White House is considering, officials say.

The fairest objection to policies focused on graduation rates is that they could cause some colleges to graduate undeserving students. And it’s true — they could.

But such cases would probably be the rare exception.

Kevin Carey of Education Sector, a Washington research group, points out that most dropouts today are not students unable to keep up with college work. Instead, they generally attend colleges that, research shows, are neither very rigorous nor very engaged in students’ lives. Many of these colleges devote little energy to thinking about — let alone improving — their graduation rate. Changing the funding rules could help change that mind-set.

The historical returns to education have been so high that I would rather see Washington both increase higher education spending and make it less wasteful. If anything, the federal government’s role is more important now, when many states are cutting education spending.

But even if Congress won’t increase spending, it can still do a lot to improve spending. The same is true of states, which together spend much more on colleges than Washington. A dollar that’s well spent on education today will more than pay for itself tomorrow, through faster economic growth. For that reason, a tougher approach to college funding is actually a form of deficit reduction as well.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

13

EDUCATION 14

The San Juan Weeekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Mom, You’re One Tough Art Critic

By MICHAEL TORTORELLO

A

FTER careful consideration, Jessica Hanff found the ideal spot for art her 4-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, brings home from preschool: the trash can.

“We’re getting two to four pieces of crayon drawing a day,” said Ms. Hanff, a 36-year-old operations manager for an academic research institute. On a recent Tuesday, Ms. Hanff began sorting through a few dozen of Elisabeth’s drawings, stacked in the mudroom of the family’s home.

“Printouts off the computer, colored in.” “C is for Cat! She’s scribbled some things. This is Dora the Explorer.”

Ms. Hanff stopped to observe purplish rings Elisabeth marked around Dora’s eyes. “Looks like someone slapped her face. She’s got big shiners.”

Ms. Hanff is always on the lookout for “exceptional” drawings. This entire batch would be archived in the rubbish bin. “I’m not sentimental about those at all,” she said.

Elisabeth has been known to fish drawings out of the trash and present them to her mother. “I’ll say, thank you,’ ” Ms. Hanff said. Once she turns away, I’ll toss it out.”

Elisabeth’s creative work, it should be noted, can be found all over the house. (At this point, her 2-year-old sister, Charlotte, doesn’t claim as much wall space.) Elisabeth started embroidering last year. And her grandmother gave her a grown-up watercolor set. In a vaguely Dadaist spirit, Elisabeth used a floret of broccoli to paint the pointillist color study that hangs in her bedroom.

“I do think my kids are awesome,” Ms. Hanff said. “I tell them how great they are. But we’re not going to build an addition on the back for every piece of crayon art they’ve ever done.”

We all want our children to be creative. But do they have to be so prolific? Once children enter nursery school, every day produces another masterpiece. Presidents’ Day brings a cotton ball wig; Purim means a bean-box rattle.

All this art may or may not tell us something about the nature of the child.

But it reveals plenty about the parents.

Do they lavish praise on every piece or barely glance up from the iPhone? Do they frame art for the grandparents or turn it into wrapping paper? In the plainest sense, is the parent a keeper or a chucker?

No one quantified how much art children create at school, said David Burton, a professor of art education. Having worked in the field for more than 40 years, Burton refutes the notion present-day parents coddled and attaboyed their children into overproducing.

Art classrooms of the 1960s and

’70s followed “a philosophy of make and take,” Dr. Burton said. That is, at the end of every 40-minute class, an art project would be ready for Mom and Dad. Art educators today have been trained to encourage a deeper exploration of material, process and theory.

Tots now start scribbling with ergonomic crayons by the age of 18 months: “Years and years ago, people — even art educators — believed that children would just waste materials when they were really toddlers.”

Art can be valuable to development of the youngest children. Drawing helps build cognitive and fine motor skills. It teaches children to observe and discriminate when it comes to color, shape and form. Young children can sometimes draw emotions that go beyond their words.

How much does a 4-year-old boy care about his 50th portrait of Thomas the Engine? “Once they’re through with it, they may lose interest very quickly”.

“The process is more important than the product for the child.”

TRACY MILLER, a 44-year-old mother of two, hardly needs to be sold on the value of art. She is a painter herself, with a solo show this month at the Feature Inc gallery on the Lower East Side.

The basement studio of her family’s 1,400-square-foot row house in the Windsor Terrace neighborhood of Brooklyn is stuffed with 6-by-6-foot canvases.

Yet however challenging it can be to edit her own work, Ms. Miller finds it even harder to pare down the yield of her kindergartner, Josie. The 5-yearold seldom leaves home without a sketchbook. She can easily create a dozen pictures a day. While Ms. Miller took measure of her daughter’s art, in fact, Josie was finishing up a life drawing of the school rabbit, her houseguest for the weekend.

Ms. Miller has framed the watercolors Josie made of her dearest stuffed animals. And she stores the pieces that Josie has crafted on buck-a-page art paper. But the collection is reaching unmanageable levels.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do with it,” Ms. Miller said. Some 20 paper grocery bags full of Josie’s art already occupy the storage room, the basement and the closet. “Logically, if we kept everything, there just wouldn’t be room in the house.”

Meanwhile, Josie has made it clear that she does not care to part with her pictures. “Throwing things away has to be done without her knowing about it,” Ms. Miller said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial register.

“I’m getting better about not recycling” the paper, which leaves Josie’s art sitting out where it can be discovered and retrieved, she said. These days, “it

goes into the garbage.”

Ms. Miller has heard of mothers who document their children’s art with a digital camera or a scanner, then shed the bulky originals. She can almost imagine doing that herself when she has a spare moment — five years from now, maybe, when the family moves.

In this fashion, Dr. Burton conceded, “You could save every scrap of paper that the child ever made.” But don’t.

A better plan, he said, is to store a child’s art in two boxes.

The first one is a temporary file for recent creations. The second is a kind of permanent vault, which holds a few selected works, spanning the course of 5 to 10 years. Each piece can include a makeshift museum card. Write the title of the piece, the age of the artist and the date. While parents are at it, they may want to add the story behind the picture in a sentence or two.

In his 2006 book “Exhibiting Student Art,” Dr. Burton discusses an annual fifth-grade art show in Concord, Mass., that features a chronological sampling from each young artist. At the exhibition, he said, a child can look and say, “This horse is much better than my horse from three years ago.”

To create such an anthology at home, Dr. Burton suggests sifting through the boxes with a child, maybe twice a year. Try talking about each piece. Then, together, pick some favorites.

The discarding “has to be done respectfully,” he said with a laugh. “There’s a ritual to disposing of a flag — a formal way to burn it.”

When Julie Wolfson’s two daughters, Vivian, 7, and Sofia, 11, were at their most artistically fruitful, Ms. Wolfson arrived at tidier storage solution: skip the in-box. Ms. Wolfson, a 42-year-old freelance journalist and arts educator.

“I was the mom who opened her child’s school folder at school, walked to the office and recycled 9 out of every

10 pieces,” Ms. Wolfson said.

Vivian and Sofia’s samizdat would sometimes manage to reach their father’s “art gallery.” That would be the corkboard that Steven Wolfson, a 44-year-old teacher and writer, uses to map out screenplays.

Mr. Wolfson appreciates his wife’s will to cast off worksheets of long division, he said. But artifacts like the girls’ self-portraits somehow “become sacred” to him.

“I can’t bear to throw that into the garbage,” he said. “From when Sofia was very young, it’s been easier for Julie to let go of stuff.”

Haley Gibson, 26, tries to send home artwork just twice a year from the pre-K classroom she leads at the Barrow Street Nursery School. As art critics, she observed, parents seem to share one criterion: the less glitter the better.

Ms. Gibson’s experience has given her the rare ability to answer a question every parent has: Is my child a budding artistic genius?

The answer is typically the latter, with a few qualifications. “At this age” — around 4 years old, Ms. Gibson said — “it really depends on the development of their fine motor skills and their ability to draw representationally.”

Still, each class of a dozen students seems to have one standout. This young artist’s work may be elaborately detailed or emotionally complex.

“The parents of these children are definitely very supportive of their children’s artwork,” Ms. Gibson said.

Yet she sees “lots of parents who do the same thing, and their children don’t seem to show that gift.”

ULTIMATELY, when parents save the treasures of their little artists, they are stocking a hope chest of the imagination. In less poetic terms, someday Mom and Dad will try to give the junk back.

Anne Phyfe Palmer’s mother stored sheaves of her juvenilia for decades.

It wasn’t easy. Ms. Palmer’s mother owned a small house without a basement or an attic. Five years ago, she packed the entire contents of her home into a truck and moved. Ms. Palmer, 40, owns a small chain of yoga studios and lives with her husband and two daughters.

Her mother was “memorabilia collector”. Ms. Palmer didn’t know what to do with the four giant portfolios she found, deposited outside the house.

Eventually, Ms. Palmer sorted through the folders. The more intensive projects in the time capsule — like the fishbowl made of plastic wrap — sent her mind gamboling back to elementary school.

Eventually, Ms. Palmer winnowed down her collection to “one plump portfolio, which still needs to be edited.”

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

15

A Sniff of Home Cooking for Dogs and Cats

By SAMANTHA STOREY

O

RION’S appetizer was a giant carrot.

The Alaskan malamute, a 12-year-old who bounced into the kitchen like a puppy, followed that with a main course of ground raw chicken necks and livers, red cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, berries, garlic and parsley, formed into tidy patties. He licked it off a plate.

Like everything Orion has eaten, this meal was prepared for him by his owner, Barbara Laino. Her standard recipe, which will feed Orion along with the other dog and the three cats in her house for around 10 days, calls for grinding 40 pounds of pasture-raised chicken necks with another 20 pounds of chicken giblets. To this, she adds five pounds of carrots, a whole cabbage and several other fruits, all from organic fields.

Ms. Laino, demonstrated her technique at a workshop she gave in her kitchen. In addition to the workshop, which she has led regularly for the last four years, she also coaches human clients who want to eat seasonally and organically. And in fact, her philosophy for the two classes is not all that different. Her pets what she wants for herself: a healthy diet of unprocessed organic foods.

“We know processed foods are wrong for us,” Ms. Laino said, scratching behind Orion’s ears as he licked his nose and paws clean. “It has to be wrong for them. If you can feed yourself healthily and your children, then you can feed your pets healthily, too. It really isn’t that hard.”

According to many veterinarians and pet food producers, it can, in fact, be quite hard to formulate an animal’s diet at home. But Ms. Laino, the students in her workshop and others say they have reasons for taking on the challenge. Many of them say they made the switch out of desperation after their animals had lingering illnesses that resisted medicine and other remedies. With homecooked meals, they say, those health problems cleared up.

They also say it’s hard to justify dumping a can of mystery meat for Bo while the rest of the family is sitting down to grass-fed osso buco with a side of biodynamic polenta. As people eat more sustainable seasonal produce and meat raised and butchered outside the industrial system, so do their pets. And as do-it-yourself hobbies like canning, gardening and raising backyard chickens have taken off in recent years, grinding 40 pounds of pet food starts to look like another fun weekend project.

Only a fraction of American pets are lucky enough to have a live-in cook. But millions have gone organic in recent years. Sales of organic pet food were $84 million in 2009, and have grown more than tenfold since 2002, according to the Organic Trade Association. The group reported a sales increase of 48 percent in 2008, the year after several brands of cat and dog food were recalled for melamine contamination.

Rachael Lingerfelt, a 25-year-old freelance writer in said the only meat she eats is either raised by an organic farmer or hunted by her boyfriend. When she began cooking for her beagle, Maddie-Sue, two years ago, she researched dogs’ dietary needs before coming up with a recipe of brown rice, cooked ground beef or chicken, peas, green beans, yams, dry milk and Tums tablets for calcium.

Most of the ingredients are organic. All are bought at a food co-op nearby.

Each batch lasts about three weeks and costs from

t $12, she said, around the same price as $10 to inex inexpensive commercial pet food.

The butcher shops Marlow & Daughters and Avedano’s Holly Park Market have been selling pet food made from grass-fed mea raised on nearby pastures. Melanie meat Eisem Eisemann, an owner at Avedano’s, said the store custom mix of ground meats, organs, store’s vege vegetables, garlic, eggs, parsley and yogurt sells for $3.25 a pound. Avedano’s also report a robust trade in marrow bones, many ports th bought as snacks for dogs. of them Ms. Eisemann said customers say that they like knowing the source of their meat, whether it will ultimately be served on the table or on the floor. Entering the pet food market has also been a boon for the business, since Avedano’s, like Marlow & Daughters, is a whole-animal butcher where no part of the beast goes to waste.

Joshua Applestone, an owner at Fleisher’s, a butcher shop, specializing in nose-to-tail butchering and grass-fed meats, said that he started making patties of beef offal and whole ground chicken for about $2 a pound for dogs and cats in 2004. At the time, he sold about 20 to 30 pounds a week. Now, the shop has to run 250 to 300 pounds through the grinder each week to keep up with demand.

“We had to get a designated freezer chest because it sells so well,” he said. He also said more customers were asking for cuts like chicken backs and organs to make pet food at home.

Many converts said their new food choices quickly resulted in healthier animals that no longer required endless trips to the vet. Charlene Smith, a project manager in publishing who attended Ms. Laino’s workshop last year, said that one of her two cats, Polly, had been on a steady diet of antibiotics to treat urinary tract problems before the switch to home cooking. Ms. Smith said that her other cat, Esther, “was angry most of the time” when she ate commercial food, and has a much better temperament now.

Some pet owners also credited better ingredients with helping their animals live longer. Randy Klein feeds her cats and dog a mix of cooked chicken or turkey, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and zucchini, supplemented with vitamins and minerals. She sells this preparation for $8.95 a pound at her pet store, Whiskers. She believes the diet is one reason two of her cats are 25 years old.

Manufacturers of store-bought pet food are skeptical of the do-it-yourself ethos. Nancy K. Cook, the vice president at the Pet Food Institute, a trade association for commercial pet food makers, cautions pet owners that it is hard to create a balanced diet at home, since dogs and cats have specific nutritional requirements.

“When you open a bag or can or box of pet food, you know that every kibble or food in the can is going to be formulated to meet the nutritional needs of the animals according to the feeding directions on the bag,” she said.

Joseph J. Wakshlag, a clinical nutritionist at the Baker Institute for Animal Health at Cornell University, said that if pets are not fed the correct balance of proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins, they can experience several health disorders, including anemia, broken bones and loss of teeth from lack of calcium.

Korinn Saker, a clinical nutritionist at the College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University, who treats animals at the school’s teaching hospital, said she was not against people cooking for their pets. She

cautioned if not done correctly, the consequences could be harmful.

She has seen several dogs with adverse effects from unbalanced homemade pet food diets, including a German shepherd puppy “who was walking on its elbows because it had no strength in its bones,” she said. The dog, it turned out, was not getting enough calcium.

Dr. Saker, asked to analyze the recipe from Ms. Laino’s workshop, found that it was lacking in a number of nutrients recommended by the Association of American Feed Control Officials.

Ms. Laino said she rejects the standards recommended by the feed association, and suggested that her recipe might be richer in certain nutrients because the ingredients are organic. “Homemade pet food is not about recreating the same thing you could get in a high-quality can of premium organic dog food,” Ms. Laino said. “It is about providing your animals with variety and the full gamut of nutrients, antioxidants, micronutrients and a variety of types of fat, et cetera.”

Dr. Wakshlag, who feeds his English mastiff, his Stabyhound, his seven Alaskan sled dogs and his two domestic short hairs various commercial foods, said that any diet must meet the caloric requirements of the individual animal, which varies according to weight. And there are differences in dietary requirements for cats and dogs.

Though Dr. Wakshlag said that protein should come from animal meat, some pet owners apply their personal dietary choices to their pet’s food.

Anastasia St. John, a vegan in Ithaca, N.Y., who works as an administrative manager, makes vegan food for Hazel, a 15-year-old greyhound, and Dixie, a 16-year-old beagle.

“The important thing for me is feeling good about giving my dogs the best thing I can,” said Ms. St. John, 38. “And it’s in line with my values, as well as being healthy.”

She feeds a mix of lentils, rice, kale, carrots, apples, oats, tofu, vegetable oil, a28textured vegetableSERVICIO protein (a AÑOS OFRECIENDO soy-based dehydrated product used as a meat substitute) and mineral and vitamin supplements. The dogs, fed on Ave. Muñoz Marín, Caguas, P.R. 00725 (Al lado Ja this diet since 1999, appear to be thriving.

“No one would think they are as old as they are,” & P E T C E N T E R she said. “The beagle — we call her the Tank because Cuido $ 15.00D/N she is so energetic.”

Grooming a $ 25.00 + Tax With dogs, veganism Todos los días (no incluye desenrredo) may be a fairly new occurrence. But the care and Exijan su certificado, no dejen que los engañen sin experiencia. attention of animal lovers like Ms. St. John have been El #1 CON DOS going on for ages.

GROOMERS CERTIFICADOS “One of the ingreT e n o from pet dients Chmissing ihuaem s huaand food is the love s energy you put in by cooking it,” said Mr. Millan, the television host. “It’s that essence (787) 744-0829 that you can’t purchase an(787) 662-9081 ywhere in the world.”

Wine

16

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Ready for the Next Argentine Invasion?

By ERIC ASIMOV

T

ORRONTÉS has been touted as the hottest thing to arrive from Argentina since the tango. Or at least since malbec. It’s a grape, and a white wine, and some say it will be as popular in the United States as pinot grigio.

Well, one day, perhaps. But first things first. Have you even heard of torrontés? The grape is grown pretty much nowhere else in the world but Argentina. Yes, Spain also has a grape called torrontés, but the two grapes are apparently unrelated. The Argentine grape has been shown genetically to be a hybrid of the muscat of Alexandria and the criolla, or mission, as it’s known in English.

The ancestry of the torrontés is interesting only in that it most definitely bears more than a passing resemblance to the gloriously fragrant muscat. The best torrontés are highly aromatic, exuberantly floral with a rich, hothouse citrus scent as well. Dip your nose into a glass, and you don’t know whether it ought to be sold as a wine or a perfume.

Argentina has a talent for obscure grapes. It took the malbec, a red grape that is forgotten in Bordeaux, overlooked in Cahors and known as côt in the Loire Valley, and turned it into a juicy, fruity, money-generating phenomenon identified purely with Argentina. Can torrontés become malbec’s white counterpart?

Indeed, in 2010, Argentina exported more than 231,000 cases of torrontés to the United States, according to Wines of Argentina, a trade group.

That figure may seem minuscule next to the 3.15 million cases of Argentine malbec the United States received that year. But compared with the mere 29,333 cases of torrontés exported to the United States in 2004, the growth has been remarkable.

Given the rate of the torrontés onslaught, the wine panel felt compelled recently to taste through 20 bottles. We could easily have done 50, given the sheer amount of wine out there. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Brett Feore, the beverage director at Apiary in the East Village, and Carla Rzeszewski, the wine director at the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar on West 29th Street.

It was clear right away that to-

rrontés has issues of identity. These wines were all over the stylistic map.

Some were indeed dry, light-bodied and crisp, like pinot grigios. Others were broad, heavy and rich, like ultraripe California chardonnays.

This may be a problem. All genres of wine have their stylistic deviations, but consumers can often read the cues.

Chablis is a chardonnay that one can reasonably assume will be lean and minerally, without oak flavors. One would likewise expect a California chardonnay to be richer, and oaky flavors would not surprise. Of course, exceptions exist, often from labels that have been around long enough to establish an identity of their own. But torrontés has no clear identity, not yet at least, and the unpredictable nature of what’s in the bottles will not help.

Wherever the wines landed on the spectrum, we found that their level of quality depended on one crucial component: acidity. Whether light or heavy, if the wines had enough acidity they came across as lively and vivacious. The rest landed with a thud, flaccid, unctuous and unpleasant.

Florence had other issues with the wines. “Some were concentrated, but finished with a kind of watery emptiness,” she said. “And often, the nose and the palate were not on speaking terms.” That is to say, the aromas often did not signal clearly how the wines would taste.

So, what did we like? Those beautiful aromas — or as Brett put it, “floral, mandarin, muscat, nice!” Carla found a touch of bitterness in some wines, which she very much appreciated.

Just to make torrontés a little more

complicated, it turns out the grape in Argentina has three sub-varieties: the torrontés Riojano, the best and most aromatic, which comes from the northern province of La Rioja and Salta; the less aromatic torrontés Sanjuanino, from the San Juan province south of La Rioja; and the much-less aromatic torrontés Mendocino, from the Mendoza area, which — fasten your seat belts — may not be related to the other two at all.

While I would never want to assume which sub-variety was used, we did find a geographical correlation. Of the 20 bottles in the tasting, 11 were from Salta and other northern provinces. Eight were from Mendoza, and one was from San Juan. But of our top 10, seven were from the north, including our top four. Only three were from Mendoza, and they tended to be more subdued aromatically.

Our No. 1 wine, and our best value at $15, was the 2009 Cuma from Michel Torino, from the Cafayate Valley in Salta. With plenty of acidity, the Cuma was fresh and lively, which made its aromas of mandarin and cantaloupe vibrant rather than heavy.

Likewise, our No. 2, the 2009 Alamos from Catena, also from Salta, was thoroughly refreshing with aromas of orange blossoms.

The story was similar for Nos. 3 and 4, both from Salta, too. The 2010 Crios de Susana Balbo was fragrant with melon and citrus, and well balanced, as was the 2009 Tomás Achával Nómade, which had an added herbal touch. By contrast the No. 5 Norton Lo Tengo and the No. 6 Goulart, both from Mendoza, were far more reticent aromatically though pleasing and balanced enough.

At this stage in the evolution of torrontés quite a bit of experimentation is still going on. Some wines are clearly made in steel tanks, which accentuates the fresh, lively aromas.

Others may have been briefly aged in oak barrels, adding depth and texture to the wines. Thankfully, we found very little evidence of new oak in our tasting.

For my part, I was encouraged by the wines we liked best, particularly our top five. Their aromatic exuberance is singular and pleasing, with the caution that the wines ought to be consumed while young. As for comparisons to pinot grigio, they seem both premature and misleading. The

big-selling pinot grigios are so indistinct that they offend no one but those seeking distinctive wines. Torrontés, on the other hand, are quite unusual, which confers on them the power to offend. In wine, that’s often a good thing.

Tasting Report BEST VALUE

Michel Torino Cuma, $15, ✩✩✩ Cafayate Valley Torrontés 2009 Fresh and lively with depth, presence and flavors of orange and cantaloupe. (Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York) Catena Alamos, $14, ✩✩✩ Salta Torrontés 2009 Fragrant and refreshing with aromas of flowers and citrus. (Alamos U.S.A., Hayward, Calif.)

Crios de Susana Balbo, $13, ✩✩ ½ Salta Torrontés 2010 Well balanced with lingering flavors of mandarin and honeydew. (Vine Connections, Sausalito, Calif.)

Tomás Achával Nómade, $17, ✩✩ ½ Cafayate Valley Torrontés 2009 Light-bodied and balanced with floral aromas and orange and herbal flavors.

(Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York) Norton Lo Tengo, $11, ✩✩ ½ Mendoza Torrontés 2009 Full-bodied but fresh and balanced with flavors of citrus and tropical fruit. (Tgic Importers, Woodland Hills, Calif.)

Goulart, $14, ✩✩ Mendoza Torrontés 2009 Subtle and restrained with flavors of minerals, melon and herbs. (Southern Starz, Huntington Beach, Calif.)

Colomé Calchaquí Valley, $12, ** Torrontés 2009 Balanced and pleasing with flavors of peaches, flowers and citrus. (The Hess Wine Collection, Napa, Calif.)

La Yunta Famatina Valley, $10, ✩✩ La Rioja Torrontés 2010 Straightforward with orange and herbal flavors. (SWG Imports, Bend, Ore.) San Telmo Esencia, $15, ✩✩ Mendoza Torrontés 2009 Flavors of melon and citrus but a bit heavy. (Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines, Napa, Calif.)

Terrazas de los Andes, $21, ✩✩ Reserva Salta Torrontés 2008 Aromas of ripe oranges and flowers but a touch hot. (Moët-Hennessy, New York)

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

17

Raphael Martos M

iguel Rafael Martos Sánchez (born May 5, 1943), often simply referred to as Raphael, is a worldwide acclamed Spanish singer and television, film and theatre actor. A pioneer of modern Spanish music, he is considered a major influence in having opened the door and paving the way to the flood of Spanish singers that follow. His wide-range voice, added to his quality as showman, has entertained and engaged people worldwide for more than five decades.

Childhood Raphael was born Miguel Rafael Martos Sánchez in Linares, province of Jaén (Spain), on May 5, 1943. As a consequence, he is nicknamed both “El Ruiseñor de Linares” (“Nightingale of Linares”) and “El Divo de Linares” (“The Divo from Linares”). His family moved to Madrid when he was nine months old, and he started singing when he was just three years-old. He joined a children’s choir at age four. When he was 9, he was recognized as the best child voice in Europe at a contest in Salzburg, Austria.

Professional career Raphael began his professional career by signing with the Dutch record label Philips.

To distinguish himself, he adopted the “ph” of the company’s name and christened himself ‘Raphael’. His first singles were “Te voy a contar mi vida” and “A pesar de todo”, among others. Raphael adopted his own peculiar singing style from the beginning; he is known for acting each one of his songs while on stage, emphasizing his gestures with high dramatic effect. It is not unusual for Raphael to ad lib lyrics as to localize a song depending on the venue he’s singing at, wear Latin American peasant costumes and dance folk dances within a song, kicking and demolishing a mirror, or doing the moves of a flamenco dancer or a bullfighter onstage. He also possesses a wide vocal range, which he often used in the beginning of his career as to evoke a choirboy approach to some songs.

When he was nineteen, he won first, second and third awards at the famous Benidorm International Song Festival, Spain, 1962, with the songs: “Llevan”, “Inmensidad” and “Tu Conciencia”. After a brief relation with Barclay record label, who produced just an EP, he signed contract with Hispavox recording company, and began a long artistic relationship with the musical director of this label, the late, talented argentinian orchestrator Waldo de los Ríos and intensify the partnership with outstanding

Spanish songwriter Manuel Alejandro.

In 1966 and 1967 he represented Spain at the XII and XIII Eurovision Song Contest in Luxembourg, singing “Yo soy aquél” and Vienna, “Hablemos del amor” and placing both 7º and 6º position, although he did not win. It was the first time that Spain obtained a high place in the competition,leaving the door ready for the next year victory which Spain got with “La, la, la”, another song of modern style too,which for political reasons still in Spain then was sung instead by Massiel. This served as a turning point in Raphael’s career, making him an international star. He traveled and performed worldwide in Europe, Latin America, the United States, Russia and Japan. Songs such as “Yo soy aquel” (his signature song), “Cuando tú no estás”, “Mi gran noche”, “Digan lo que digan”, “Tema de amor”, “Estuve enamorado” and “Desde aquel día” cemented his status as a major international singing star.

Raphael also began a lucrative film career, appearing in, Cuando tú no estás (Mario Camus, 1966), which was followed by Al ponerse el Sol (Mario Camus, 1967) Digan lo que digan (Mario Camus, 1968, filmed in Argentina), El golfo (1969, filmed in México), El ángel (1969), Sin Un Adiós (1970, partially filmed in England) and Volveré a nacer (1972).

18 Latin American popularity As Raphael became a success in Latin America, he made a habit of recording Latin American folk standards including “Huapango torero”, “Sandunga” and “Llorona”; they were hits in Mexico.

He appeared live on The Ed Sullivan Show with great success on October 25, 1970, singing (in Spanish, English and Italian) “Hallelujah” and “Hava Nagila.” He appeared again on December 27, 1970, with the songs “Maybe”(Somos), “When my love is around” (Cuando llega mi amor) and “The sound of the trumpet” (Balada de la trompeta).

In 1975, Raphael began his own suc-

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

cessful program on Spanish Television called “El Mundo de Raphael”, where he sang with international stars. He also had a radio program, where he and his wife spoke with and interviewed outstanding personalities, and he starred in soap operas, starting with the Mexican production “Donde termina el camino”, shown in the spring of 1978 and later in other countries like Peru and Chile.

Raphael succeeded in the early 1980s with songs such as “¿Qué tal te va sin mí?”, “Como yo te amo”, “En carne viva” and “Estar enamorado.” In 1981, he was awarded with the Uranium Disk for exceeded sales over 50 million albums around the world on Hispavox re-

cord label. During 1984 and 1985 he recorded two albums with songs written

by José Luis Perales like “Ámame”, “Yo sigo siendo aquel”, “Dile que vuelva”, “Y... Cómo es él” and “Estoy llorando hoy por ti”.

In 1984 a parody of “Yo soy aquél” was used in a radio spot in Puerto Rico’s gubernatorial race. Then-governor Carlos Romero Barceló used the parody (complete with a Raphael sound-alike) namely as a jab against opponent, Raphael’s namesake, (and noted Spanophile), former governor Rafael Hernández Colón. Raphael was surprised by the unauthorized use of the music, but was highly amused by the reference.

In 1987 he left Hispavox and signed a contract with Columbia (now Sony Music), where he again recorded songs written by Roberto Livi like “Toco madera”, “Maravilloso corazón”. In 1991 he had a hit with “Escándalo” in Spain, Latin America, and in Japan, where it reached number one. At the end of the 90s, after ending a contract with PolyGram, he went back to EMI. In 1998 the artist published the first part of his memories: “¿Y mañana qué?”, from his childhood until his marriage in 1972.

Raphael took part in the 2000 Spanish version of the stage musical Jekyll & Hyde for seven months, with great success.

Superheroes With New Image Spiderman A Heavier Wolverine New Identity H ugh Jackman is a professional with all the letters. The actor is preparing to put themselves in the comic book character Wolverine. “Spending several hours a day in the gym and follow a strict diet of 6 000 calories. The director of the new film, Darren Aronofsky (“ Black Swan “) asked to increase their physical appearance compared to worn in “X-MeOrigins: Wolverine” by Gavin Hood.

“I do not know how much I talk about it, but Darren told me that in the previous film looked great, but as I am S high in scenes reminiscent of Clint Eastwood, and this aspect is not to Wolverine, “said the actor.

He also stressed that” the director said he wanted that, that was stronger. I always think of Mike Tyson when they first appeared. Wolverine will be like a bulldog. Is exactly how I want. That’s pretend, and if I have a heart attack before, you can tell people what I was trying, “Jackman joked.

The British Superman

A

British will be the new Superman. The Warner Bros. announced Sunday that the actor Henry Cavill will play the legendary superhero in the sixth installment of the saga. Cavill, 27, is known for his role in the series ‘The Tudors’. He has worked in films like ‘Whatever Works’ (Woody Allen) and “Stardust.” The actor and tried to put on the net and the iconic red cape in ‘Superman Returns’, a role that finally got another handsome muscular: Brandon Routh. According to the ‘Daily Telegraph’, the name also sounded to play James Bond and Batman.

“In the pantheon of superheroes, Superman is the most recognized and revered of all time. I am honored to be part of his return to the big screen,” the actor said in a statement. Dwirector Zach Snyder, who has already made into a film other comics will be responsible for the next installment in the adventures of a superhero, which is expected to hit the big screen in December 2012. “I join Warner Bros., Legendary and producers to say that we are excited to have chosen Henry. It is the perfect choice to bring the shield layer and the S” Snyder said in the statement. The film will be the screenwriter of “Batman Begins, David S. Goyer, who developed the story along with Christopher Nolan, the director and scriptwriter of ‘Origin’ (2010) and the final two installments of Batman.

A

ndrew Garfield was elected to lead the new Spiderman movie, which opens in 2012.

After the first three films starring Tobey Maguire, Sony Pictures made the official announcement after weeks of speculation. Andrew Garfield, a little known actor who starred in the film “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” to Heath Ledger, will be the new Peter Parker in the fourth film in the Marvel superhero saga that still has no title but to begin filming in December this year. The film, to be filmed in 3D and was to be released July 3, 2012, will be directed by Marc Webb (director of “(500) Days of Summer”), who expressed confidence in the new protagonist: “Although his name may be new to many, those who know the work of this young actor understand their extraordinary talent. It has a rare combination of intelligence, wit and humanity. Believe me, I will love to Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. “ The 26 year old actor will also appeared in the films “The Social Network” director David Fincher, about the founders of Facebook, and the drama “Never Let Me Go,” starring Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan.

“The First Avenger”

M

arvel presented to Captain America in Russia, South Korea and Ukraine under the title ‘The First Avenger’, not to affect the distribution of the tape in these countries. According to the company, Captain America film will be released in those nations only its subtitle, and argue that the change is not due to “cultural and political factors but only responds to market effects.” For its part, the director Joe Chris Johnston, in charge of Evans the film, explains that the hero is not that kind of jingoistic flagwaving American, also talks about what makes America great and makes the rest of the world’s great too “he added.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

19

New York Times Editorials A Food Manifesto for the Future

By MARK BITTMAN

F

or decades, Americans believed that we had the world’s healthiest and safest diet. We worried little about this diet’s effect on the environment or on the lives of the animals (or even the workers) it relies upon. Nor did we worry about its ability to endure — that is, its sustainability.

That didn’t mean all was well. And we’ve come to recognize that our diet is unhealthful and unsafe. Many food production workers labor in difficult, even deplorable, conditions, and animals are produced as if they were widgets. It would be hard to devise a more wasteful, damaging, unsustainable system.

Here are some ideas — frequently discussed, but sadly not yet implemented — that would make the growing, preparation and consumption of food healthier, saner, more productive, less damaging and more enduring. In no particular order: • End government subsidies to processed food. We grow more corn for livestock and cars than for humans, and it’s subsidized by more than $3 billion annually; most of it is processed beyond recognition.

The story is similar for other crops, including soy: 98 percent of soybean meal becomes livestock feed, while most soybean oil is used in processed foods. Meanwhile, the marketers of the junk food made from the-

se crops receive tax write-offs for the costs of promoting their wares. Total agricultural subsidies in 2009 were around $16 billion, which would pay for a great many of the ideas that follow.

• Begin subsidies to those who produce and sell actual food for direct consumption. Small farmers and their employees need to make living wages. Markets — from super- to farmers’ — should be supported when they open in so-called food deserts and when they focus on real food rather than junk food. And, of course, we should immediately increase subsidies for school lunches so we can feed our youth more real food.

• Break up the U.S. Department of Agriculture and empower the Food and Drug Administration. Currently, the U.S.D.A. counts among its missions both expanding markets for agricultural products (like corn and soy!) and providing nutrition education. These goals are at odds with each other; you can’t sell garbage while telling people not to eat it, and we need an agency devoted to encouraging sane eating. Meanwhile, the F.D.A. must be given expanded powers to ensure the safety of our food supply. (Food-related deaths are far more common than those resulting from terrorism, yet the F.D.A.’s budget is about one-fifteenth that of Homeland Security.)

• Outlaw concentrated animal fee-

ding operations and encourage the development of sustainable animal husbandry. The concentrated system degrades the environment, directly and indirectly, while torturing animals and producing tainted meat, poultry, eggs, and, more recently, fish. Sustainable methods of producing meat for consumption exist. At the same time, we must educate and encourage Americans to eat differently. It’s difficult to find a principled nutrition and health expert who doesn’t believe that a largely plant-based diet is the way to promote health and attack chronic diseases, which are now bigger killers, worldwide, than communicable ones. Furthermore, plant-based diets ease environmental stress, including global warming.

• Encourage and subsidize home cooking. (Someday soon, I’ll write about my idea for a new Civilian Cooking Corps.)

When people cook their own food, they make better choices. When families eat together, they’re more stable. We should provide food education for children (a new form of home ec, anyone?), cooking classes for anyone who wants them and even cooking assistance for those unable to cook for themselves.

• Tax the marketing and sale of unhealthful foods. Another budget booster.

This isn’t nanny-state paternalism but an accepted role of government: public health.

If you support seat-belt, tobacco and alco-

hol laws, sewer systems and traffic lights, you should support legislation curbing the relentless marketing of soda and other foods that are hazardous to our health — including the sacred cheeseburger and fries.

• Reduce waste and encourage recycling. The environmental stress incurred by unabsorbed fertilizer cannot be overestimated, and has caused, for example, a 6,000-square-mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that is probably more damaging than the BP oil spill. And some estimates indicate that we waste half the food that’s grown. A careful look at ways to reduce waste and promote recycling is in order.

• Mandate truth in labeling. Nearly everything labeled “healthy” or “natural” is not. It’s probably too much to ask that “vitamin water” be called “sugar water with vitamins,” but that’s precisely what real truth in labeling would mean.

• Reinvest in research geared toward leading a global movement in sustainable agriculture, combining technology and tradition to create a new and meaningful Green Revolution.

I’ll expand on these issues (and more) in the future, but the essential message is this: food and everything surrounding it is a crucial matter of personal and public health, of national and global security. At stake is not only the health of humans but that of the earth.

Israel, Alone Again?

By YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI

I

SRAELIS want to rejoice over the outbreak of protests in Egypt’s city squares.

They want to believe that this is the Arab world’s 1989 moment. Perhaps, they say, the poisonous reflex of blaming the Jewish state for the Middle East’s ills will be replaced by an honest self-assessment.

But few Israelis really believe in that hopeful outcome. Instead, the grim assumption is that it is just a matter of time before the only real opposition group in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, takes power.

Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.

Either result would be the end of Israel’s most important relationship in the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood has long stated its opposition to peace with Israel and has pledged to revoke the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty if it comes into power. Given the strengthening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas’s control of Gaza and the unraveling of the Turkish-Israeli alliance, an Islamist Egypt could produce the ultimate Israeli nightmare: living in a country surrounded by Iran’s allies or

proxies.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the icon of the Egyptian protesters, and many Western analysts say that the Egyptian branch of the Brotherhood has forsworn violence in favor of soup kitchens and medical clinics. Even if that is true, it is small comfort to Israelis, who fear that the Brotherhood’s nonviolence has been a tactical maneuver and know that its worldview is rooted in crude antiSemitism.

The Brotherhood and its offshoots have been the main purveyors of the Muslim world’s widespread conspiracy theories about the Jews, from blaming the Israeli intelligence service for 9/11 to accusing Zionists of inventing the Holocaust to blackmail the West.

Others argue that the responsibilities of governance would moderate the Brotherhood, but here that is dismissed as Western naïveté: the same prediction, after all, was made about the Iranian regime, Hezbollah and Hamas.

The fear of an Islamist encirclement has reminded Israelis of their predicament in the Middle East. In its relationship with the Palestinians, Israel is Goliath. But in its relationship with the Arab and Muslim

worlds, Israel remains David.

Since its founding, Israel has tried to break through the military and diplomatic siege imposed by its neighbors. In the absence of acceptance from the Arab world, it found allies on the periphery of the Middle East, Iran and Turkey. Peace with Israel’s immediate neighbors would wait.

That doctrine began to be reversed in 1979, when the Israeli-Iranian alliance collapsed and was in effect replaced by the Egyptian-Israeli treaty that same year. The removal of Egypt from the anti-Israeli front left the Arab world without a credible military option; indeed, the last conventional war fought by Arab nations against Israel was the 1973 joint Egyptian-Syrian attack on Yom Kippur.

Since then all of Israel’s military conflicts — from the first Lebanon war in 1982 to the Gaza war of 2009 — have been asymmetrical confrontations against terrorists. While those conflicts have presented Israel with strategic, diplomatic and moral problems, it no longer faced an existential threat from the Arab world.

For Israel, then, peace with Egypt has been not only strategically but also psychologically essential. Israelis understand that

the end of their conflict with the Arab world depends in large part on the durability of the peace with Egypt — for all its limitations, it is the only successful model of a land-for-peace agreement.

Above all, though, Israeli optimism has been sustained by the memory of the improbable partnership between President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin. Only four years before flying to Tel Aviv on his peace mission, Sadat had attacked Israel on its holiest day. Begin, Israel’s most hawkish prime minister until that time, withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, an area more than three times the size of Israel.

Though Egypt failed to deliver the normalization in relations Israelis craved, the thousands of Israeli tourists who have filled the beaches of the Sinai coast experienced something of the promise of real peace.

At least in one corner of the Arab Middle East, they felt welcomed. A demilitarized Sinai proved that Israel could forfeit strategic depth and still feel reasonably secure.

The Sinai boundary is the only one of Israel’s borders that hasn’t been fenced off.

Israelis now worry that this fragile opening to the Arab world is about to close.

20 February 10 - 16, 2011

The San Juan Weeekly

LETTERS A Matter of Worth “It’s the function of language and culture to serve man, and not the other way around.” Thus spoke one Mr. Chardón, twice penepeísta Secretary of Education, when asked over WOSO Radio what was being done to preserve Puerto Rico’s rich Hispanic legacy.

The Governor would’ve loved to answer in kind to the Spaniard media, he instead equivocated, he couldn’t find the nerve.

Insofar as the American Republic is our purported role model, historical notice must be taken of ferocious and consistent defense of Anglo heritage by both Yank leadership and people. Done to a fault actually, not even bilingualism has ever made it there. Attempts by Germans, Scandinavians, French, Natives and Mexicans to the effect have floundered through the generations. Therefore it’s reasonable the Americans don’t respect us, mooching toadies that we are.

Ana Badillo, Hato Rey

Police Brutality Continued During the “civil disobedience” last week at UPR we all saw on TV that Riot Squaders groped the girls as they removed them. Hard to blame them though, some of those females were really hot.

What went unnoticed was police poking into kids’ necks. Even as the discomfort was evident, only obsevers with police, military or medical experience could make out what was going on. They were stanching bloodflow in the carotid arteries or the jugular veins. If the former you go pale, if the latter you turn red, as was visible on the screen. The objective was to render the demonstrators unconscious to more easily carry them away because they’d all locked arms.

Trouble is, a while of that and permanent brain damage results, and death even. The cops were doubtless aware, as they were visibly nervous about it.

Rocco Sastre, Ponce

Shortsightedness As we get older we grow forgiving, whom you hate in youth you do for keeps. It’s not that the young are mean, it’s a matter of time dilation, relative rather than relativistic, when you’re 20 a year is 1/20 of what’s gone on for you, but later it’s increasingly less. Yet more than that it’s the ramifications, everything chain reacts, think about it, the longer the time left, the more consequences will grow exponentially out of whatever.

Mommie when you were little, learning how to swim, Mishu with you as you did your algebra, when you finally kissed him/her, your SAT, what you did eventually with him/her.

Ana Guadalupe, José de la Torre, Figueroa Sancha and Luis Fortuño, names that’ll still make you wince when you’re 80, long after they’re all dead. The way my dad feels about Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara, who almost got him killed.

So what happens to a political party when a generation comes of age getting kicked under its logo, what can the New Progressive Party look forward to? It’s mid-century and oldsters won’t vote for La Palma even if God Himself tells them to. Like my muñocista grandfather held in awe all his life by the benevolence and sanctity he attributed to La Pava. Fat chance the NPP will still be around though. And like Rafael Hernández Colón and Carlos Romero Barceló before him, Luis Fortuño will suffer his old age dodging dirty looks.

Anita Roig, Santurce

For Lust of Privilege To Gov. Fortuño: Weren’t you told in Madrid that university in Europe is mostly free? You went there seeking out fresh moneyed patrons. Nevertheless Spaniards might’ve told you wrecking public higher education isn’t such a hot idea. But then, you hardly care, do you?

Casiopeia Martíne, San Juan

What to do about crime?

To Police Supt. Figueroa Sancha: Kids are born into garbage cans and it’s your job to keep the lids on tight. As Frank Sinatra put it in THE DETECTIVE. But without crime you’re out of a job, aren’t you?

Higher education is the Great Leveler, the only chance out of a lifetime of minimum waging.

Your skinny, smiley boss is feathering the nest of his corporate underwriters. And he’s making sure you and your army of antidemocracy will never be idle, there’ll ever be the hapless attempting to shoot their way out of their misery, if not drug themselves through it. These days we the middle class catch the bullets, but in a generation we won’t be around and without a buffer only horrific tyranny will keep such a socioeconomy in one piece. The sort of dysfunctional future fictionalized often enough, that we don’t believe can actually happen.

Mara Andere, Miramar

Bullies, Cowardice & Corruption The Puerto Rico Police go on en masse at UPR, fingering the necks of the shrimpy students

and groping their girls. Meanwhile, the people of Puerto Rico are getting butchered by narcogangsters, 90 blown away in less than a month, we’re a veritable war zone. But you wouldn’t expect the Governor to put his precious police in harm’s way, would you? Certainly not while he’s partying through the tascas of Madrid and blabbing stupidity to the Spanish media. Remember the drug traffickers are the business colleagues of the politicians, like statehooder Manuel Noriegas, and police operatives the liasons. If the Commonwealth wanted to stop the slaughter, all they’d need is to afford the addict drugstore dope and treatment, jail is beside the point. The way they worked it out in Spain. Fortuño?

NATHAN ARBUNCLE, SANTURCE

Tofu, Anybody?

The week those dogs got tossed over that bridge a gaggle of barking-dog-owning ladies showed up at Capitolio and threw a tantrum and our legislators –snide as ever– made hurting an animal a more grievous offense than murdering a human being –just some animals in fact, Puerto Rico still heartily watches roosters knife each other to pieces every Sunday right after mass, and all while the taxpayer’s been paying for decades millions yearly in federal fines for jail overcrowding.

So the man who hurt the horse got 12 years, while the perps in the Barrio Pájaros massacre got 11.

When I was a child my grandmother bought chicken at a place called Wiroma in Hato Rey. She picked a live rooster or hen among many in a stack of cages, the animals all eyeing us with curiosity. My grandmother scrutinized the lot, chose one and the fellow pulled out the surpised loser by the neck, took him to a large stainless-steel sink and adroitly snapped its pescuezo. I tried to glimpse the chicken’s face when he at some level must’ve realized it was all over for him, but the man was in the middle or the creature’s face was turned the wrong way.

Agustín Manzano , Santurce

The San Juan Weeekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

21

LETTERS Privilege It’s almost evening twilight and I’m standing at the Miramar bus stop waiting for the B-21 home. Only the sign says the bus comes by every 6 to 7 minutes and it’s been 20. It’s taken up to over 40 at often enough.

I see the two small cyan strobes on the front grill of the pearl-white Cadillac SUV coming up the bus lane, the one cars aren’t allowed on, and the fine’s hefty. A legislator or a cabinet secretary. Or the Governor himself. No, the Governor would be have a couple of noisy motorcycle cops escorting him.

The car stops almost in front of me. A police woman approaches from across the street. I notice there’s another strobe flashing dimly from within and another two in the back.

A tall skinny fellow nonchalantly gets off the back of the car, waves offhandishly at the police woman and she smiles back deferentially; he’s holding his cell phone against his left ear but isn’t talking into it. I strain my eyes to see the chauffeur at the driver’s seat by don’t through the supertinted glass. She stays next to the Caddy protectively.

Incredibly, he walks into the Chinese restaurant, he must’ve been in a hurry. I watch as he places his order and now starts to talk over the cell phone. He’s very well dressed, a dark sports jacket, light trousers and a eye-catching tie. He shoes are surely Florsheims.

My bus arrives. The driver is inconvenienced in that he has to detour around the SUV. But, like the police woman before him, he sees the cyan strobes and knows they mean privilege.

Bob Harris, Condado

Re. N.Y. Times Editorial in Viewpoint “How Many Deaths Are Enough?” is a welcome plea for legislative action to control guns in our society. I don’t agree with the author of the editorial, however, that those who disagree are either “gun fetishists” or “gun crazies”. If we “have allowed the extremists to carry the day” it is entirely the fault of the unregulated influence of the gun lobby’s political campaign contributions. These politicians will not listen to the vast majority of their constituents. Some no doubt fear governmental controls. But they probably would accept a ban on “assault weapons” as reasonable. They are apprehensive, however, on the extent of intervention, lest it go as far as to blatantly violate constitutional rights.

The Founding Fathers wanted to protect the new nation’s citizens against the possibility of tyrannical rule. Guaranteeing the nation’s citizens the right to bear arms seemed the best way. Remember, they had no idea that their experiment would ever evolve into a fully mature

democracy. We may have an imperfect Constitution, and the British none at all, but law and order, not violence, is what has made our elections far more effective against a tyrannical central government than a bunch of gun toting political vigilantes.

This, I believe, is the argument that would convince borderline ideologues. The “gun crazies” are beyond reach.

Ed Martinez, San Juan

“Vergüenza ajena” The “ignorance” that this people of Lares and adjacent towns wants us to believe, regarding the insurer “AFLAC” scam, is truly “bochornoso”.

“Monies growing on trees” scam, spread out within those towns like “pólvora” and every person who acknowledged it, jumped on the wagon to get some extra free money. “My goodness”, how UNTRUTHFUL are some people turning into, how can they teach youngsters that are our future. (?) Are those people changing into another kind of human being?

Just think’, an insurance company that pays for every “ant bite” or “soap in eyes”?

THINK! THINK! This kind of behavior is what is constantly making negative opinions about us “puertorricans”.

I truly feel, “vergüenza ajena” with this kind of situation.

Mayra Moreno, Guaynabo

The Pervs Are the Pols Beyond your teens you’ve had a chance to settle into you own sexuality. But puberty is all fireworks, I mean, you have to appreciate how different it is from what went before. Youngsters texting each other naughty pics is all in the fun.

So it’s truly despicable for politicians here, who seldom do anything worthwhile, and their abject bureaucrat acolytes to squawkily red-herring what’s, after all, natural. And giving the police yet another excuse to maltreat kids.

was primarily the result of the lack of sanitary practices. He observed that medical students and physicians would go directly from dissection and autopsy rooms to a patient’s bedside to assist in deliveries without washing their hands. In these wards, the death rate from childbirth fever approached 20%. In contrast, some women were attended to by midwives and nurses who weren’t allowed in autopsy rooms and who were more sanitary in handling patients. When women were assisted in deliveries by midwives and nurses, the death rate was considerably lower. As a result of his observations, Semmelweis instituted a policy whereby physicians and medical students had to disinfect their hands with a solution of chloride of lime prior to examining obstetric patients or assisting in deliveries. His efforts resulted in deceasing puerperal sepsis down to 1% for women treated by physicians and medical students. But this success was short lived, as complaints by doctors and medical students to the director of the hospital forced Semmelweis to abandon his practice and then death rates for childbirth fever once again soared. Despondent, Semmelweis resigned and returned to his native Hungary.”

Indeed, the practice of medicine has always been more about profit than about healing.

Carrutha Harris, Puerta de Tierra

When Truth Is the Opposite of What Is Said To Gov. Fortuño: I must truly thank you for a good laugh, I giggled all day. You announced on TV that you “intend to strengthen even more the professionalism of the Puerto Anita Roig, Santurce

AylaBond, Miramar

$ Rather Then Healing As narrated in Microbiological Applications by Bensen: “The importance of hand washing in preventing the spread of disease is accredited to Ignaz Semmelweis at the Lying-In Hospital in Vienna in 1847. Semmelweis was head of obstetrics and he noted that the number of cases of childbirth fever (puerperal sepsis)

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

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

Kitchen

22

February 10 - 16, 2011

The San Juan Weekly

Slow-Baked Beans With Kale

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

B

eans baked very slowly for several hours develop a creamy texture, while the liquid they cook in, which thickens to a syrup, acquires a caramelized flavor. The kale practically melts in this casserole, going from bitter to sweet. I love using lima beans in this dish because they’re so big and their texture is so luxurious.

1 bunch kale, stemmed and washed in two changes of water 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 medium onion, chopped 1 carrot, chopped 1 rib celery, chopped 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 2/3 cups white beans (3/4 pound) or dried lima beans, picked over and soaked for at least four hours and drained 1 6-ounce can tomato paste, dissolved in 1 cup water 3 cups additional water A bouquet garni consisting of 4 parsley sprigs, 2 thyme sprigs and a bay leaf 1 teaspoon herbes de Provence Salt and a generous amount of freshly ground pepper 1/2 cup bread crumbs 1. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt generously and add the kale. Blanch for two minutes, then transfer to a bowl of ice water.

Drain, squeeze out water and cut into ribbons. Set aside. (I blanch the kale

to extract some of the bitterness, but you can skip this step if you wish).

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat in a large ovenproof casserole. Add the onion, carrots and celery. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is tender, about five minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute. Add the dissolved tomato paste, and bring to a simmer.

3. Add the drained beans, the remaining water, the bouquet garni and salt and pepper. Stir in the kale, bring to a simmer, cover and place in the oven. Bake three hours until the beans are tender and creamy. Taste and adjust salt.

4. Mix together the remaining olive oil and the bread crumbs.

Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the beans, and continue to bake another 30 minutes to an hour until the bread crumbs are lightly browned. Remove from the heat and serve; or allow to cool slightly and serve.

Yield: Serves six.

Advance preparation: You can make this recipe through Step 3 and store it in the refrigerator up to four days ahead of serving. Top with the bread crumbs, and reheat in a 350-degree oven for 15 minutes until the beans are bubbling and the bread crumbs lightly browned.

Nutritional information per serving (six servings): 370 calories; 8 grams fat (1 gram saturated fat); 0 milligrams cholesterol; 58 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams dietary fiber; 191 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 19 grams protein

February 10 - 16, 2011

The San Juan Weekly

23

Kitchen

The Long Pull of Noodle Making

By JULIA MOSKIN

I

N an open kitchen in NoLIta, two solemn young men work together in virtual silence up to 16 hours a day, their destinies yoked by noodles.

Michael Hodgkins is a stern, passionate chef from upstate New York, with a dedication to local and organic ingredients.

Huacan Chen is an aspiring entrepreneur from Fuzhou in southern China, with a skill that happens to be seriously marketable in New York at the moment: he knows how to spin out endless skeins of la mian, smooth, springy hand-stretched noodles, using nothing but a countertop and his hands.

Hung Ry, a restaurant that opened in October, serves noodle soups that brilliantly combine Mr. Chen’s noodles and Mr. Hodgkins’s broths: deep brews of oxtail, duck belly, roasted squash, star anise, ginger, tamarind, dried chilies and mushrooms. They are the most recent expression — building on David Chang’s ramen and JeanGeorges Vongerichten’s chicken-coconut soup — of the East-West dialogue that has produced some of New York’s most memorable modern dishes.

Because of Mr. Chen’s skills, they are also a high expression of traditional Chinese noodle arts. Even a thousand years ago, there were late-night noodle shops in many Chinese cities; today, niu rou la mian, beef soup with hand-pulled noodles in the hearty style of western China, is a ubiquitous dish.

There is a staggering array of fresh noodles served all over China — far beyond the familiar lo mein and chow fun — and more and more of them are popping up here.

In Chinatown, there are stimulating dishes like Mount Qi noodles from Shaanxi in the west of China, a hot and sour broth with minced pork and wide, stretchy noodles called “biang biang mian,” after the noise the dough makes when it is snapped against the counter.

At Sheng Wang on Eldridge Street, the Fujianese chef JinSheng Zhu makes dao xiao mian, “knife-peeled” noodles with ruffled edges that he rapidly slices off a dough block with a steel blade the size of his fist. Each cut he makes lands with such force that it sends a strip of dough several feet through the air, into a pot of boiling water. (In China, noodle vendors with a taste for showmanship learn to do this with the lump of dough balanced on their heads.)

The boiled noodles are plunged into broth cloudy with pork marrow, or stir-fried, absorbing every drop of flavor from the wok.

In southern China, noodle dishes tend to be light snacks, but northern noodles are thicker and often make up hearty one-dish

meals. Both are found in New York City’s various Chinatowns. There are string-thin noodles combined with Hong-Kong-style clear broth and delicate shrimp-watercress dumplings at Sifu Chio in Flushing, Queens; a mile away, a Shanghai-style noodle shop, Da Jiang Nan Bei, serves thick house-made noodles in a sweat-inducing, chili-red soup thick with beef and preserved mustard greens.

The most basic way to divide Chinese noodles is by flour: rice noodles are called fen, while wheat noodles are mian. There are, however, rice noodles that include wheat starch, wheat noodles that include rice, and noodles from other starches like tapioca or cornstarch. In the Chinese culinary canon, each has its own distinct effect of chewiness, crunchiness or springiness.

There are also two basic ways of cooking noodles: stir-fried in a wok, or plunged into soup. Noodle soup is a standard lunch or anytime snack for millions, always customized to taste with the condiments on every noodle shop table: dried-chili oil (the best places make their own); soy sauce; black, white and red rice vinegars; suan cai, pickled greens; and even fried eggs, wontons or dumplings for a more substantial meal.

During the New Year’s period from Feb. 3 through 17, long noodles are eaten in all corners of China. “Longevity noodles,” also presented at birthday celebrations, are never cut or broken by the cook, and if they can be eaten without biting through the strands, it’s considered even more auspicious. Longevity noodles are usually stir fried, presenting challenges to the home cook.

“Noodles should always be stir-fried alone at first,” said Grace Young, the New York author of several books on Chinese cooking, including the new “Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge.” Noodles should be lightly oiled so that they don’t clump together in the wok, she said, and all ingredients must be completely dry so they sear properly. She uses Chinese egg noodles, but when the sidewalks are snowy and Chinatown seems far away, she said, tagliarini from Raffetto’s on Houston Street does very well.

The main difference between pasta and mian, said Susur Lee, the chef at Shang, on the Lower East Side, is that Italian noodles are never supposed to have chew.

(Even pasta cooked al dente should be resistant, not chewy.)

“Chinese people like chewiness and crunchiness and density in noodles,” said Mr. Lee, who was raised in Hong Kong. “In China, texture and mouth feel are as important as flavor.”

Of all the noodles in China, Mr. Lee chose plump, bouncy “silver needles” to serve in a homey stir-fry at Shang. He said that silver needles remind him of his childhood in Hong Kong, when vendors would sit by the street and roll the dough to order on their thighs, which produces their distinctive shape: fat, with pointed ends. They

are also called pearl noodles or, in Malaysia and Singapore, “rat tails” because of their pointed ends.

At Shang, the noodles are stir-fried in wide, shallow black woks (the northern 2Wstyle, Mr. Lee said, which is easier for Westerners to handle), with searing flames licking up from huge cast-iron wok rings.

Like Ms. Young, he adds soy sauce to the wok only at the end of cooking, swirling it around the hot rim of the pan where it evaporates and then gets sucked, smoky flavor and all, into the noodles.

Shang is an elegant, lacquered room in an expensive hotel, but just a few blocks away, squatting under an archway of the Manhattan Bridge, is Xi’an Famous Foods, a tiny storefront where the cooks make noodles that are hand-stretched, rough-edged and deeply filling.

Jason Wang, who helps run the family business (there are four branches in the city), said that the newest house specialty, Mount Qi noodles, is a 1,000-year-old recipe, created by an emperor who decided to share a pig with all of his subjects. With bits of minced pork and a hot-sour-sweet tang — traditionally from red sorghum vinegar — Mount Qi is the Tiger Mother of noodle dishes: challenging, tear-inducing, but strangely compelling..

In most of the dishes at Xi’an Famous Foods, the wide, ruffled noodles — you po che mian — are seasoned with fresh and dried chilies, cumin and peppercorns (black and Sichuan) that characterize food from China’s western plateau (where Mount Qi is situated). Many of the noodle dishes at Xi’an are described as “spicy and tingly,” Mr. Wang’s translation of “ma la,” a term that embraces the heat of chilies and the

numbing quality of Sichuan peppercorns, a combination that New Yorkers are increasingly drawn to. Dan dan noodles, the iconic Sichuan noodle dish, have become so popular that at least one restaurant, Grand Sichuan in Midtown, serves two different recipes: one with more ma la and one with less.

“I need a 12-step program to deal with my ma la addiction,” said Sang Yoon, a chef in Los Angeles who created a deconstructed version of dan dan noodles for his new noodle shop, Lukshon.

The most popular of all the new noodles, however, are the la mian, or hand-pulled noodles, that Mr. Chen of Hung Ry has mastered. La mian are not the same as the “lo mein” already familiar to Americans: “la” means pulled, while “lo” means tossed, as in tossed in a wok in a stir-fry.

Signs for “Lan Zhou pulled noodles” now line some streets of Chinatown, though most of the men who make it are not native to Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu Province. “Lan Zhou noodles,” like “Chicago pizza” or “New York bagels,” has become a catchphrase that signifies deliciousness everywhere.

Noodles from Gansu are famous for their springy texture, according to Florence Lin, the great teacher of Chinese cooking in the United States. Centuries ago, noodle makers in Gansu learned that certain kinds of ash, called peng, had the effect of tenderizing dough. Ash contains potassium carbonate, an alkali (like lye and lime) that makes the noodles soft by inhibiting the development of gluten. (Potassium carbonate is also used around the world to cure foods like olives, lutefisk and corn for hominy.)

Packages of peng imported from China are the key to Mr. Chen’s noodles, every bowl of them made to order with what he considers an ideal level of jiao jing — roughly translatable from Mandarin as “chew power.”

He works in a kitchen stocked with gadgets, but he begins in the traditional way, with a hill of flour. The flour is organic, shipped from a mill in the Champlain Valley, with extra gluten and protein that lend flavor and resistance. Into the flour, Mr. Chen drizzled a solution of water and peng and began to knead, throwing his entire body weight against the shaggy dough.

“Organic flour is harder than the usual kind,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. Mr. Chen came to the restaurant by way of jobs in Peru and Manhattan’s Chinatown, he said, and learned to make la mian during a two-month apprenticeship in China.

As the dough came together and softened, Mr. Chen divided the lump into baguette-size lengths and twisted each one tight like cheese straw. When the twists were done, he held each weighty length in his hands, letting its belly fall toward the

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Kitchen

24

February 10 - 16, 2011

Comes from page 23 ground, then twirled the ends together as if making a pretzel. After several repetitions, he broke off a handful of dough and began to pull it long, doubling the dough around his left hand and spreading his arms wide apart in a few quick moves that produce a web, like a full-body game of cat’s cradle. A

few extra pulls produce noodles that are xi, or thin; thick noodles are called cu.

When the noodles come out, perfectly tender, Mr. Hodgkins — who worked most recently under the chef Shea Gallante — goes to work. (Since Mr. Chen speaks no English and Mr. Hodgkins no Chinese, they communicate — minimally — in basic Spanish and hand signals.) Mr. Hodgkins added

The San Juan Weekly the broth and highly untraditional toppings like Romanesco broccoli roasted in mustard oil or turnips braised in daikon broth.

“Some days are more Chinese than others,” he said. Mr. Hodgkins has little knowledge of Chinese tradition — a paradox that is part of what makes Hung Ry such an interesting place at which to eat. He has created a complex version of the tradi-

tional soup condiments and is fermenting some cavolo nero cabbage to approximate Chinese suan cai, but making the noodles on his own defeated him.

“His hands just know,” he said of Mr. Chen, who plans to open his own noodle shop soon. “I spent three weeks on a mission to learn it, and at the end I had gotten exactly nowhere.”

Longevity Noodles With Chicken, Ginger and Mushrooms Adapted from “Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge” by Grace Young

Soba Noodles in Broth With Sweet Potato, Cabbage and Spinach

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

T

his simple Japanese soup can be served as a meal or as a starter. As the sweet potatoes and cabbage simmer in the broth of your choice, they infuse it with sweetness.

Spinach is added at the last minute, and the soup is served with cooked soba noodles.

6 cups kombu dashi, chicken stock or vegetable stock Salt to taste 6 ounces Japanese soba noodles, cooked and tossed with 1 tablespoon sesame oil 1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes (about 3/4 pound), peeled and sliced about 1/4 inch thick (cut in half lengthwise first if fat) 2 cups shredded cabbage 1 6-ounce bag baby spinach, rinsed 2 tablespoons minced chives Note: Sweet potatoes may be labeled as yams. Look for dark orange flesh.

1. Bring the stock to a simmer.

Taste and adjust seasoning, adding salt if desired. Add the sweet potatoes and cabbage, and simmer 15 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

2. If the noodles have been refri-

gerated, warm them by placing them in a strainer and dipping the strainer into the simmering broth. Then distribute the noodles among four to six soup bowls. Add the spinach to the stock. Cover, and turn off the heat. Leave for three minutes. Ladle the soup into the bowls, taking care to distribute the vegetables evenly.

Sprinkle the chives over each serving, and serve.

Yield: Serves four as a main dish, six as a starter.

Advance preparation: The noodles can be cooked ahead of serving and kept in the refrigerator for a couple of days. The stock can also be made a day or two ahead.

Nutritional information per serving (four servings): 265 calories; 4 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 51 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 155 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 10 grams protein Nutritional information per serving (six servings): 177 calories; 3 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 34 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 103 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 6 grams protein

Time: 30 minutes 12 ounces thin fresh noodles, like lo mein or tagliarini 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil 12 ounces boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1/4-inch-thick, bite-size slices 1 tablespoon finely shredded ginger 1 teaspoon plus 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry 1 teaspoon cornstarch 1 teaspoon plus 1 tablespoon soy sauce Salt 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper 2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes 5 ounces (about 3 cups) thinly sliced Napa cabbage 4 ounces (about 2 cups) fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps thinly sliced

1/2 cup finely shredded scallions.

1. Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil over high heat and cook noodles until just done, 3 to 5 minutes, stirring to prevent sticking. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water until cool, then shake well to remove water. Return noodles to pot, add sesame oil, and toss.

2. Put chicken in a shallow bowl and add ginger, one teaspoon rice wine, cornstarch, one teaspoon soy sauce, 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper.

Mix gently to combine. In a small bowl, combine remaining one tablespoon rice wine and one tablespoon soy sauce.

3. Heat a wok over high heat until a bead of water evaporates almost on contact. Swirl in one tablespoon peanut oil, add red pepper flakes and stir-fry 10 seconds using a metal spatula. Push pepper flakes aside and add chicken, spreading in a single layer to maximize contact with the wok. Let cook undisturbed one minute, until chicken begins to sear.

4. Stir-fry chicken and pepper flakes together, tossing in the wok, for a minute or 2 until just done. Remove to a bowl.

Add cabbage and mushrooms and stir-fry one minute until just wilted but not cooked. Empty into the bowl with chicken.

5. Reheat wok, swirl in remaining one tablespoon peanut oil, and add noodles. Stir-fry 30 seconds, moving constantly to heat through. Swirl soy saucerice wine mixture and add to wok along with chicken-vegetable mixture and scallions.

Sprinkle on 3/4 teaspoon salt and stir-fry a minute or 2 until chicken and vegetables are heated through.

Yield: 2 to 3 main-dish servings.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

25

Journey To The Mountain Of

THE ARK

By MARVINE HOWE

A

nyone who needs help to climb Mount Ararat should just telephone Ahmet Aga, Dogubayazit 314 (office) or 410 (home). Ahmet Coktin, who is better known by the traditional Turkish title of respect, Aga, or chief, owns the deed to the southern side of the legendary mountain and believes he knows where Noah’s ark can be found.

It’s no easy feat to climb the peak, but Ahmet Aga has enough knowledge and influence to protect mountain climbers from sheep dogs and nomads and save them from dropping into bottomless snow-covered pits.

For the first time in many years, Turkish authorities have opened up Mount Ararat to foreign travelers, who must apply for the necessary permits at least three months in advance. The Mountain of Pain, or Agri Dagi, as it is known in Turkish, has been a restricted zone for at least 13 years and before that there was only limited access. The main reason given was Soviet complaints that the ark seekers were in reality spying on Soviet installations on the other side.

Mount Ararat is that magnificent dormant volcano, whose peak is perpetually covered by ice and snow and usually hidden by clouds, that towers over

the salient of eastern Turkey where the borders converge with Soviet Armenia and Iran. Great Ararat is a vast sprawling dome rising 16,945 feet above sea level, and its companion, Little Ararat, reaches 12,877 feet. The two Ararats are known as Mother and Child in Turkish lore and extend over about 25 miles.

Most Armenians revere Mount Ararat as the Mother of the World and other Christians, as well as many Moslems, believe it is the site where Noah’s ark came to rest after the Great Flood and humanity began again. The Persians called Ararat Noah’s mountain. The Bible mentions ‘’the mountains of Ararat’’ in Genesis 8:4 and the Koran’s 11th sura, or chapter, also recounts the story of Noah, stating that when the flood waters ceased, the boat came to rest on El Jedi, as Ararat is called in Arabic. Even that tourist par excellence, Marco Polo, wrote about the ark on Ararat in the year 1300.

The first man recorded as having climbed to the top of the mountain is a German, Johann Jacob von Parrot, in 1829, who later wrote the book ‘’Journey to Ararat.’’ Since then many travelers have tried to find the ark and a few have claimed to have seen its remains, but their claims have never been proven. A Russian explorer reported sighting the ark around the time of the Bolshevik revolution, but

there was no followup. F. Navarra, author of ‘’Forbidden Mountain,’’ published in 1956 and now out of print, claims to have found wood from the ark on Ararat. More recently, a United States Navy photographer reported seeing what looked like the shape of a boat in the vast Ahora gorge on the northern side of the mountain.

It’s not exactly clear why Turkey’s military regime decided to stand up to the Soviet Union and let foreigners explore Mount Ararat. The Turkish Tourism Ministry had been pressing for years to open one of the country’s major attractions to

the public. Most people give credit to the former American astronaut James Irwin, who went to Turkey in 1982 as the guest of the head of state, Gen. Kenan Evren, and wanted to come back.

Apparently Mr. Irwin convinced Turkish military authorities that most people were interested in Ararat for historical, religious, archeological or sporting reasons, not espionage and that, besides, any Soviet border installations could be identified better by satellite than from the top of Mount Ararat, which is usually shrouded in clouds.

Anyway, Mr. Irwin, with his wife and son, as well as about 500 other climbers, received official authorization to ascend the mountain. Tourism on Mount Ararat was launched. Many of the climbers were Christian Fundamentalists who said they were trying to find the ark ‘’to disprove the Communists and the evolutionists.’’

A Swiss mountaineer led a group to the peak for the first time on skis. Dr. Charles D. Willis from Fresno, California, and his team brought ice saws and dug 17 feet down into the glacier, looking for traces of the ark, unsuccessfully. Dr. John D. Morris of the University of Oklahoma, who last climbed the mountain in 1972 and wrote ‘’Adventure on Ararat,’’ which is also out of print, was back with a group of specialists to study the cuneiform inscriptions on the walls of the gorge. There were also teams from the German Alpine Federation and the Turkish Mountain Climbing Federation there.

Some rash individualists tried to climb the mountain without permits and official guides and had trouble. Eric Berg, a 22-year-old student at the American University in Cairo, and a French couple of experienced mountaineers had to come down after climbing three days without reaching the summit. ‘’We didn’t know how dangerous it is,’’ Mr. Berg acknowledged. He said the Kurdish shepherds had been helpful and gave them water and watermelon, but they couldn’t go on because of the falling boulders, lack of oxygen and brewing storms.

For all its splendor and religious significance, Ararat is a dangerous mountain and should not be climbed without expe-

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26 Comes from page 25 perienced guides and proper equipment, according to mountaineers. The mountain has its own microclimate, with fierce winds, snow and blinding mist even in August. The sun is dangerous too because its heat can cause avalanches and most experts prefer to climb at night.

Although technically Ararat is not a difficult mountain to scale, it requires stamina, nerve and good guidance. Besides sharp changes in weather, and the constant risk of falling boulders, some climbers report they have been shot at by shepherds. Others say convicts and thieves hiding out on the mountain have stripped isolated climbers naked. Then there are the dogs, those savage, wolflike beasts who seem ready to devour any unguarded intruder. Finally, if a climber does make it up and down the mountain alone, he’s likely to be thrown into jail because it is strictly forbidden to go without a guide.

Mount Ararat is not the place to do it on your own.

An American photographer and I duly applied for authorization from the Turkish Government and, once granted, we flew to Erzurum, on the main highway to Mount Ararat about 175 miles away.

Erzurum, by the way, is an ancient caravan center and well worth a visit. The State Tourism Office there was friendly and helpful. There was no car rental agency in town, but a regular bus to Dogubayazit, the main starting point for Ararat, for the modest fare of $3.33. They also advised us to contact Ahmet Aga as soon as we got to Dogubayazit.

In the old days, most climbers used to set out for Mount Ararat from the town of Igdir, on the north side of the mountain. A dirt road was the quickest way to get to the village of Ahora and begin climbing in the valley, where there are reportedly grottoes, ancient rock carvings and Jacob’s Well. Farther up the gorge lies the forbidding glacier, where many believers insist the ark lies hidden. But the gendarme commander at Aralik, only a couple of miles from the Soviet border, informed us that no one was authorized to climb Mount Ararat from the north side because of ‘’Soviet sensitivities.’’

Dogubayazit is a rough pioneer town, with dusty cobblestone streets crowded with pack animals, horse carts and people seeking easy fortunes. It is the main base for traffic to Iran, as well as the expeditions to Ararat.

The best view of Mount Ararat is from the Sim-er Motel, just out of town on the highway to Iran, with a double at just over $11 a night. Most climbers stay, however, at the Ararat Hotel in downtown Dogubayazit, which has the best food in town and a double room at a little over $10 a night.

Capt. Kemal Bayalan, head of the gendarmerie in Dogubayazit, who has been quite cooperative with foreign climbers, expressed the view that the opening of Ararat has been a success. Over glasses

February 10 - 16, 2011

of steaming tea, he explained the basic rules for climbing: - All climbers must have written authorization from the government in Ankara.

- Climbers must be accompanied by an accredited guide. ‘’We want to know who’s on the mountain for their personal security because people can get hurt by falling ice and rocks or lost in the hurricanes,’’ Captain Bayalan said.

- No radio transmitters, receivers or walky-talkies are allowed on the mountain.

The gendarme chief put us in touch with Ahmet Aga. Ahmet Aga is 34 years old, good- humored, suntanned, with a bushy moustache. He operates a transport fleet of some 500 fuel tank trucks and other trade with Iran. He also seems to know every boulder and crevice on the south side of Ararat.

With pride, Ahmet Aga told how he bought the title to the southwestern slopes of Mount Ararat 10 years ago for about $22,000 and says he wouldn’t sell it for $4 million today.

The best way to get to Mount Ararat is over a rutty track, impassable to almost anything but a sturdy truck, four-wheel drive vehicle or mule. Some travel agencies have their own vehicles, but most people make arrangements with Ahmet Aga for transport to Eli. Eli is a settlement at about 7,000 feet, which most climbers use as their point of departure, and is on Ahmet Aga’s property. There are a few goat-hair tents and a new white-washed brick house where Ahmet Aga’s parents spend the summer months. Winters are so bitter that everyone, including the nomads, goes down to the plain.

The area around Eli consists of black volcanic rocks covered with light green moss and good grassland, where Kurdish shepherds bring their sheep and cattle to graze in summer. Great Ararat is almost treeless, but Ahmet Aga showed visitors his new orchard of 4,000 apple, pear and cherry trees and some poplars. He said that he hoped one day to build a guest lodge at Eli for climbers. ‘’I believe the ark is on Ararat, as the Koran says,’’ Ahmet Aga said as he nimbly led us up the mountain. Asked whether he had any evidence, he pointed out that an American professor had sighted an outcrop of wood in the glacier in Ahora gorge on the other side of the mountain. ‘’I believe, with the proper technology, the ark can be found.’’

It’s a relatively easy five-hour walk up to the first camp, at 10,500 feet, through the basalt rocks and grassy spots. Most ordinary mortals can walk or ride a horse to the second camp at 13,780 feet. But, from there on, it’s serious business with slippery pebbles, black volcanic dust and great blocks of basalt. In midsummer the snowline retreats to about 14,000 feet and climbers attempting to get to the summit should be equipped with crampons, ice axes and ropes.

Ahmet Aga had just led a group

of 15 German mountain climbers up to the summit. They set out from the last camp at 4 A.M. and reached the top by 11:30 A.M. and spent only 20 minutes there before beginning the descent. Even experienced climbers rarely stay any longer because of the fierce gales and thin air. Ahmet Aga, who is acclimatized, says he has spent two hours at a time at the summit.

A group of Turkish mountaineers, encountered on the way down from the peak, acknowledged that the climb from 14,760 feet on ice had been ‘’very difficult’’ and they had had to wait at the last camp for three days because of a snowstorm. Most of the Turkish group said they were climbing Ararat for the sport, but a young engineer said he believed Noah’s ark was on the mountain and planned to come look for it the next year.

For the average climber, it takes three days to get to the top. At the first camp, one can see goats grazing on the grassy slopes and nomad tents. Climbers generally shed much of their equipment here and then begin their ascent up the slippery pebbles and rocks. It’s usually necessary to climb through a thick wall of clouds and one can lose his route. Then one must find a flat place on the steep incline to pitch the second camp, just below the ice cap.

The summit of Mount Ararat is generally smothered in clouds except in the early morning on quiet summer days.

Then it’s like flying, according to a Turkish medical student who climbed to the top last year for the second time. (I didn’t try to go to the top as I was not properly equipped.) You can see the plains of Iran, the river that forms the Soviet- Turkish border and the city of Erivan in Soviet Armenia beyond and some claim to see as far as the Caucasus. As one looks down on the northern side of the mountain, the Ahora gorge is a network of canyons spreading out like the branches of a tree.

It is sometimes called the ‘’black glacier,’’ with dark crevices, shadows and rocks where so many climbers believe they have seen Noah’s ark. The actual top of the mountain is a broad dome of snow and ice. There, some climbers have left little piles of stones to show they’ve reached the summit. There are also empty flagpoles and bits of the red Turkish flag lying on the ice, torn by gales sometimes reaching 150 miles per hour.

The climbing season for Mount Ararat is short, really only the months of July and August, although some people go up as early as mid-June and others as late as mid-September. Tour groups or in-

The San Juan Weekly

dividuals generally find it wise and useful to make use of Ahmet Aga’s services.

Transport from Dogubayazit to Eli, pack or riding horses or donkeys and guard for a group of 20 people for an average stay of one week on the mountain costs between $625 and $915, depending on the number of horses required. The easiest way to climb Ararat is with one of the Turkish travel agencies that specialize in mountaineering and trekking. Trek Travel organizes climbs for groups of two to 15 for 12 days from Istanbul, at approximately $600 a person in average hotels or $1,400 a person in deluxe hotels. The fee includes accommodations, ground transport, permits, guides, camping arrangements and community camping equipment, as well as a short course on how to use an ice axe, crampons and ropes. Trek Travel’s representative in the United States is Mountain Travel, 1398 Solano Avenue, Albany, California 94706 (415-527-8100). Their address in Turkey is 10/6 Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey.

Metro Tourism Industry and Travel, affiliated with Camel Tours, can organize tours to Ararat for either individuals or groups, but stresses that anyone hoping to climb the mountain must apply to the Turkish Embassy or Consulate in their country at least 90 days before climbing even longer for ark seekers with research equipment - to get the necessary authorization. Metro can provide all necessary climbing equipment and camp material, as well as camp manager and cook, food, drinks, animals and animal keepers. The price depends on the size of the group, itinerary and length of stay. Metro does not have a representative in the United States. For detailed information or bookings, their address is Metro Tourism Industry and Travel Inc., Cumhuriyet Cad., Platin Apt. No. 43/5, Taksim, Istanbul, Turkey.M. H.

San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Diving Deep to Reach the Surface

By KATHY HARDING

A

FTER three fruitless years of online dating, I went to an acupuncturist and lay down before needles. I’d left the love of my life because he did not want children and had hoped to meet someone else quickly enough to have my own. Now, at 41, I was still single and paying a stranger to burn mugwort on my back.

Many things were going well for me, but sometimes in midlife you see only what you’ve lost.

“Say, ‘Warm,’ ” the acupuncturist said.

Instead I said, “Ow.” He brushed off ashes and stuck me with a needle.

Afterward, I went lightheaded to a party where I met a guy with a Kiwi accent. He had housemates, ratty shoes, a satellite phone and a boat. I pictured, given the contradictions, either a gold-plated yacht or a tugboat. Neither sounded like the kind of vessel a former conservation expert from New Zealand would be working on.

He’d taken a mid-career leap, he explained, to operate a marine exploration business. Open about his cash-flow issues, he’d recently borrowed money from his 70-year-old mother to keep the business (literally) afloat. On a regular basis he left the country to run expeditions for cruise ships, fun work that brought in some money. In fact he was leaving in two weeks for a month to show clients around the deserts of Western Australia.

We made the most of those two weeks.

On our first date we watched ferries glide in blue dusk around Elliott Bay. The days were getting longer and warmer.

He wanted to be upfront with me. His company was in bankruptcy. If they didn’t pay their creditors, the court would shut them down. He’d be deported.

“My father warned me about guys like you,” I said.

He took my hand.

I had news, too. In six months, I’d be matched with a baby from Ethiopia.

“If you fell in love tomorrow,” he asked, “would you have your own?”

I forgave him the question. We were strangers. I didn’t expect him to understand the strength I’d had to find to surrender that very dream.

“Sure,” I said, pushing away the old pain. “Maybe.”

Later that week, after a boat tour and a bottle of pinot noir, we were naked in a single bed that felt as wide as the deck we’d walked across earlier that night. “Caution,” a sign had said. “Electrical currents.”

He’d climbed onto a metal gangplank. Black waters splashed below.

“Come on, girl.”

Plunge ahead or fall into unsafe waters?

In bed with him I asked myself the same question.

Was there going to be a difference with this man? I might have been old enough to know the likely answer, but at that moment, I recognized him. What this means I still don’t know. Did I relax into him because, as science suggests, he smelled to my unconscious like symmetry? Or was I drawn to pine soap and shaving cream, the memory of my father heading to the train before dawn, cool sink on my bare legs, sadness in my heart made, over time, pleasurable by the exquisiteness of his unpredictable return?

Who knows? I’d jumped and kept jumping.

Inside the boat were neon-green robots with bulbous

stomachs and black arms — Deep Rover submersibles, he explained, rated for dives 1,000 meters deep, where 75 percent of marine life existed undisturbed.

There were creatures down there stranger than we could believe. He was going to find them. Did I want to come?

From Australia he sent long emails that I replied to each morning on the laptop I now kept on my nightstand. We told each other everything we could think of that might matter.

He wanted a child, if it were his.

Could he ask for more time?

It was wrong of him to ask, but he didn’t know me well enough to know how wrong.

The adoption newsletters kept arriving, delivering pictures of vulnerable smiles, with futures lost to fate. Putting the process on hold felt like letting go of a rope and waiting for the ground to break my bones.

He returned to Seattle with treasures (shells, kapok pods) and regret for our time apart. Not that I could have been in the desert with my cheap Irish skin. He’d never seen such pale skin, he said. It was like touching warm snow.

We introduced each other to friends. We tried to get our bearings.

A few months later, he left for a two-week cruise around the South Island of New Zealand. Within days he’d sent me a plane ticket. “I want to start our life now,” he said.

I moved the start date of my new job (doing online strategy for a technology company) and flew 14 hours to the Southern Hemisphere.

Beside a waterfall in Milford Sound, he raised a glass of champagne and welcomed the clients in Maori. In the days that followed, we floated through Dusky Sound, tracing Cook’s journey on H.M.S. Resolution in 1773. The nights contained too much beauty. Under ironed sheets, he taught me rare birdcalls I’d hear later, in real life, on Ulva Island.

Real life. I hardly recognized it anymore.

As we approached the Snares, a remote island chain in the sub-Antarctic named for its ability to wreck ships, we hit a storm. He left our cabin for the bridge to help the captain analyze our chances for a safe Zodiac landing.

I wasn’t late. Just had a feeling. Enough to bring a test.

In a bathroom so tiny it was more like a representation of a bathroom, I watched the line appear with rapid certainty. Not a baby but a representation of a baby.

The future perfect.

It was a moment I’d waited for all my life.

I stared at the line, waiting for it to disappear and my longing to return.

The Kiwi will be happy, I assured myself, though I knew he was nervous. But we were not young, and we would not be young again. It was now or never.

I went up to the bridge and pressed the buzzer.

He pulled me inside as the door, suctioned by the wind, slammed shut. Handing me the binoculars, he pointed west.

Hundreds of black penguins were crawling up and down a cliff face 200 feet ahead. They fell on the wet rock, sliding to the sea, struggling to climb out of the high waves.

Those that did got in line, where they pressed against the wind and moved slowly back up.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked.

He led me to an outdoor deck. One minute, he gestu-

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red, shutting the door.

Rain hit my face from the side.

I was wet, cold, hungry, and pregnant by a man who’d steered me into gale winds so he could work quietly. Was this a preview of our future?

Luckily, the gale winds drowned out my thoughts, preoccupied as I was with trying to breathe between gusts.

When you can’t hear, and can’t breathe, things become quiet.

I watched the sea. Under the dark sky, the water’s surface was a vibrant blue, with a greenish tinge to the foam cap. Beneath it lived millions of creatures that felt only the dimmest vibrations from the storm above. They never saw light. They knew nothing of people and people troubles.

We sailed closer to the rock. The clients had paid for penguins, and penguins they would have. These penguins, however, looked like a bunch of delinquents. After scrambling with surprising effort out of the water, they shook themselves out. Their black feathers stuck up in patches before being flattened again by the rain. Their white crests, majestic in the promotional materials, drooped over their eyes.

A voice came over the loudspeaker. The birds were rare, the naturalist explained, with limited migratory paths, their mating and nesting isolated to this small set of remote islands. What looked like a bald, angry rock was a sanctuary designed to protect the world’s fastest diving penguins.

You never know what you’re seeing.

You never know what’s going to happen.

I let the rain pelt me and thought about how, after a certain point in life, everything you gain includes something you’ve lost. There would be no baby from Ethiopia.

Great fortune, and with it, a perpetual absence.

When he joined me outside, his eyes were narrow, glistening pale gray. A year later our son would have eyes that same color and shape.

“Nasty reef,” he shouted, pointing to our right.

I pointed down. “I’m pregnant.”

He looked surprised. Then young again, and happy.

We hugged, holding between us the start of many things. A baby and all the concurrent responsibility. A marriage and all its concurrent promises. Hope, fear, love.

People troubles.

Before us, the sea roiled a thousand shades of blue.

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The San Juan Weekly

Jobs and Age Reign as Risk Factors for Mideast Uprisings

By SARA HAMDAN

A

s demands for regime change sweep the Middle East and North Africa, leaving diplomats and geopolitical analysts struggling to keep abreast, financial analysts are turning to economic indicators to guide their bets on which countries will be most susceptible to contagion.

“Not every country with an employment rate above a certain figure will necessarily face a revolution as each society has its own dynamics, but there are shared and distinct factors driving the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia,” said Tristan Cooper, head analyst of Middle East Sovereigns for Moody’s Investors Services. “Contagion into the wider region is more likely in countries that have large numbers of frustrated, unemployed citizens who are eager for political change.”

Algeria, Jordan and Morocco, countries with high jobless rates and growing young populations, are among the most vulnerable, according to the Standard and Poor’s ratings agency.

A young population and very high unemployment rates — particularly among the young — are common characteristics of economies in a region where countries, on average, have 60 percent of their populations under the age of 30, according to data from S.&P. and the International Monetary Fund. In some countries, the figures are even more striking; in Jordan, nearly two-thirds of the population is under 30 years old. That compares with an average of one-third of the population under 30 in the developed industrial countries of the Group of Seven — the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada.

While regional economies have grown in tandem with their populations, they have failed to generate sufficient overall employment to absorb a growing labor force, or enough demand for skilled labor

to absorb the flow of educated graduates, according to an S.&P. report released last week that outlines how these structural problems have lead to the popular discontent witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt.

“It has been difficult to create jobs at a pace that can keep up with the growth of the labor force, and youth unemployment is thought to be nearly twice as high as official rates,” said Kai Stukenbrock, director of S.&P.’s Middle East sovereign team, who co-authored the report. “The protests are driven by the young population, they are the first ones to go into the streets.”

While regional employment statistics are often patchy or outdated, data from the I.M.F and S.&P. show that Tunisia had unemployment rates that ranged from 13.3 percent to 15.4 percent annually during the past two years. Egypt had a 9.4 percent jobless rate last year.

Mr. Stukenbrock believes that uprisings could take place in other countries with similar profiles, namely Algeria, Jordan and Morocco. Algeria, although it has ratcheted down unemployment from a high of 31 percent in 2003, still had a 12.5 percent unemployment level in 2009 and 10.2 percent in 2010. Jordan, with one of the highest unemployment rates in the region, had 12.6 percent of its labor force out of work in 2009 — a figure which rose to 12.9 percent last year.

On top of all this, the I.M.F. estimates that more than 100 million jobs will need to be created in the region by 2020.

“There is also a tendency to have underdeveloped private sectors to the benefit of sprawling public sectors,” said Philippe Dauba-Pantanacce, senior economist covering the regional markets for Standard Chartered Bank, based in Dubai.

“Add to this a mismatch between the education system and job market needs, and the main objective for aspiring graduates is that of a career as a civil servant.”

Between high unemployment and low incomes, people have also struggled

with rising food and fuel prices — historically a source of rioting in the region.

After a spike in commodities prices in 2007 and 2008, followed by a period of stabilization, food prices have been rising rapidly again since mid-2010, driven by rising demand from developing economies and supply constraints. Food prices rose more than 30 percent between June and December last year, to reach their highest level ever, Mr. Stukenbrock noted in the report.

John Sfakianakis — chief economist at Banque Saudi Fransi, part of the Crédit Agricole group — said by telephone from Saudi Arabia that food inflation was particularly troubling in countries like Egypt, where nearly half of a typical income goes to food.

“There are nearly 40 percent of people below or barely above the poverty line in Egypt, living off of $2 a day, and if you add high double digit food inflation to that — it obviously doesn’t bode well,” said Mr. Sfakianakis, who taught Middle East economics at Harvard University for five years, with a special focus on business in Egypt.

“If people are unfed, unemployed, and see blatant corruption for 10 years, it leads to a dangerous combination,” he said. “People are fed up and they don’t have many options left.”

In response to the rising prices of basic goods and growing discontent — particularly following the events in Tunisia and Egypt — governments in Jordan, Libya and Morocco have introduced measures aimed at lowering the prices of staple foods and fuels, according to Mr. Stukenbrock.

Jordan also resumed public sector hiring in the middle of last month to stimulate job creation, ending a freeze introduced in December 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Yet, despite those measures, central Amman was roiled by rioters protesting against high prices for five days in the second half of January. And, in the long term, the measures will put an additional strain on public finances, particularly for countries that can not rely on oil exports like Jordan and Morocco.

“There is a tradeoff,” Mr. Sfakianakis said. “Either you try to make people happy in the short term by subsidizing basic goods — which won’t last and will ruin the fiscal situation — or you apply fiscal discipline, which is what the I.M.F. encourages, but won’t exactly win people’s hearts.”

The uprisings — and underlying economic structural problems — meanwhile, are already hurting the credit quality of countries in the region. S.&P. lowered its rating for Tunisian long-term local currency debt to BBB+ from A- following the revolution, reflecting the potentially

adverse impact on economic growth and public finances. It also placed the reduced rating on CreditWatch with negative implications — a warning of possible further downgrades in the pipeline — reflecting the continuing risk of a disorderly and disruptive transition, accompanied by lower economic growth and weaker liquidity, according to the note.

In the case of Egypt, the agency this week lowered its foreign currency longterm rating to BB from BB+, and the local currency long-term and short-term ratings to BB+/B from BBB-/A-3, saying that ongoing political instability and unrest would hamper Egypt’s economic growth and adversely affect its public finances. Egypt has also been placed on CreditWatch negative, and other rating agencies are following suit.

The rise in political risk in Egypt prompted Moody’s Investors Service to downgrade Egypt’s debt to Ba2 from Ba1 with a negative outlook. Moody’s also reduced the local and foreign currency of Tunisia’s government bond ratings to Baa3 from Baa2, as well as changing the outlook to negative from stable.

Capital markets across the region have meanwhile shown varying degrees of nervousness. Last week, the Saudi equity market lost all the gains that it had accumulated since October, Mr. Dauba-Pantanacce of Standard Chartered Bank, noted.

Most other stock markets in the Middle East also fell.

“Equity markets have been reacting negatively as investors reassess their judgment and find that the risk-reward profile has suddenly tilted toward the downside,” he said. “Oil prices have also been pushed higher, especially with the Suez Canal identified as one of the ‘seven choking points’ on oil routes, as identified by the International Energy Agency.”

He added that affected countries may see their credit ratings cut, while the cost of credit default swaps — the financial market instruments that offer insurance against sovereign debt default — has edged up to their highest point in 18 months for many of North African countries.

“Should the situation continue to prove unstable, a reduction of foreign capital flows will ensue,” he warned.

Still, analysts are optimistic that regimes will find ways to manage orderly change, if only because it has become unavoidable. “The sustainability of growth of Middle East economies, its status quo, is now being challenged and we can no longer take at face value the fact that populations will remain docile, silent and unwilling to go out in the streets and die,” Mr. Sfakianakis said.

“It’s clear that the region will not remain the same. It is bound to change.”

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‘Catastrophic’ Cyclone Makes Landfall in Australia

By MERAIAH FOLEY

W

ith winds howling at up to 185 miles per hour, a huge cylone made landfall in the predawn hours on Thursday along the coast of the already storm-battered state of Queensland, with widespread reports of property damage and power failures.

Thousands of people crammed into emergency shelters along the northeast coast on Wednesday seeking refuge from a storm that forecasters warned could be larger and “more life-threatening” than any in Australian history.

Witnesses reported roofs being blown off and trees flattened as the cyclone moved inland, with power knocked out to about 90,000 homes, the Associated Press reported.

More than 400,000 people live in communities along the storm’s 370-mile-long front, including in Cairns and Townsville, popular jumping-off sites for the Great Barrier Reef. Residents in low-lying coastal areas were urged to abandon their belongings and flee for higher ground.

“We are facing a storm of catastrophic proportions in a highly populated area,” the Queensland state premier, Anna Bligh, said after officials upgraded Tropical Cyclone Yasi to a Category 5 system, the highest and most destructive storm rating. “The next 24 hours is going to be, frankly, a very terrifying 24 hours for the people in the danger area.”

“I cannot say in strong enough terms, you have to take this window of opportunity now,” Ms. Bligh told local residents who had not yet left their homes. “Do not bother to pack bags, just grab each other and get to a place of safety.”

At a Wednesday evening news conference, Ms. Bligh said the “destructive core” of the cyclone had already reached some areas of Queensland. She said the storm could last two to three days over the state, and warned of the possibility of a second surge Thursday morning.

More than 10,000 people sought refuge in some 20 emergency shelters in the cyclone’s strike zone, the premier said.

Many of the larger centers, including a shopping mall in downtown Cairns, were full by Wednesday afternoon. Residents with their own blankets and bedding were camped on the floor of some shelters, where there was not enough food and bedding for everyone, according to some local news reports.

For those who could not reach the emergency shelters, the police urged residents to bunker down in their cellars and bathrooms. Because of the high winds and dangerous conditions, officials have warned that emergency crews would not be able to respond to individual calls for help as the storm passed.

The police said the atmosphere in Cairns and Townsville was mostly calm, with people evacuating in an orderly manner. Television images showed residents

Families waited outside an emergency evacuation center in Earlville, near Cairn. sandbagging their homes and crisscrossing packing tape across their windows to stop glass from flying in. Many residents lined up early Wednesday to buy groceries and gasoline before the shops were closed.

The residents of Australia’s northern coasts are no strangers to cyclones. But officials at the national Bureau of Meteorology warned that Yasi could be the biggest, most destructive cyclone to strike the country since 1918. It is expected to pack significantly more punch than Cyclone Larry, which devastated parts of Innisfail in 2006, and Cyclone Tracy, which leveled the northern city of Darwin in 1974.

In an ominous warning issued on its Web site, the bureau warned that Cyclone Yasi

was “likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations.”

Innisfail, a banana farming community about 60 miles south of Cairns, is once again in the storm’s path. Forecasters expect that Yasi will strike land somewhere between Innisfail and the coastal hamlet of Cardwell a few hours before midnight.

Several flights carrying tourists and residents fleeing the storm zone left Cairns and Townsville early Wednesday, before both airports were closed. The police and military personnel knocked on doors in many coastal areas warning locals to leave.

Military helicopters also airlifted patients from the region’s largest hospital, Cairns Base Hospital, on Tuesday.

Several mines, railroad lines and coal ports also stopped operating as Cyclone Yasi advanced. Forecasters warned that up to 3 feet of rain could fall over the next two days, creating the risk of flash flooding in a region already saturated from months of torrential rains.

For months, Queensland has been in the grip of one of Australia’s largest, most costly natural disasters. Tropical rains that began in November have flooded an area larger than France and Germany combined, destroying homes, isolating towns and virtually paralyzing the state’s lucrative coal industry. Last month, flash flooding inundated several towns in the state’s south, including the capital, Brisbane, destroying some 30,000 homes and businesses and killing 35 people.

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The San Juan Weekly

In Mexico, Massacres but Claims of Progress

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

O

nly a week into the new year, 15 human heads sat outside a gleaming shopping center on the other side of the lush hills that frame this seaside resort’s big tourist hotels. Within hours, several bodies turned up in a taxi and elsewhere, bringing the number of victims to 33 in a single weekend, scattered around a side of town few visitors see.

Then two weeks later, the government announced that it had captured the leader of a shadowy criminal organization believed to be responsible for the mayhem, as well as for the disappearance of 20 men who came here for vacation last fall.

The twin events — the shock of yet another massacre and the government’s ability to take down those it believes responsible — define the seesawing battle for the right to claim victory at a critical juncture in Mexico’s organized crime war.

The increase in violence is indisputable. The government says more than 34,600 have been killed in the four years since President Felipe Calderón took office and threw the federal police and military at the cartels, with last year’s toll, 15,273, the heaviest yet.

Mexican and American officials, crediting American training of the military and what they consider to be an increasingly professional federal police force, point out that more than half of the 37 most wanted crime bosses announced last year have been captured or killed. The government also maintains that the last quarter of 2010 showed a decline in the pace of killings.

But the public does not seem to believe it. A poll released Jan. 11 by Mexico’s national statistics institute found that more than 70 percent of respondents believed that the country’s security had worsened since 2009.

The findings mirrored similar research by pollsters showing that, for the first time in recent years, Mexicans are more worried about safety than the economy, a near reversal from the year before.

“There is a disconnect between what the government thinks it is achieving and what the public perceives as happening,” said Denise Dresser, a veteran political analyst in Mexico City. Because Mr. Calderón “made the war the center of gravity of his term, he is now being evaluated on whether he is winning it, and the public perception is he is not winning.”

Both Mexican and American officials, who say the two countries have never worked closer in fighting crime, are facing growing pressure to prove that their strategy is working. With Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives, the Obama administration will face renewed scrutiny to account for the $1.4 billion, multiyear Merida Initiative, the cornerstone of American aid in Mexico’s drug fight.

“Right now I am concerned whether the administration is focused on giving Merida a chance,” said Representative Connie Mack, the Florida Republican who is the new chairman of a House subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. He says that while he supports the initiative, he will call hearings over what he considers the slow pace in which it has been carried out.

“There is a lack of execution,” Mr. Mack said. “We are going to find out why this is.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a visit to Mexico last week to reiterate American support for the Mexican drug fight, said $500 million in Merida money would be allocated this year.

But unlike in the past year, when the emphasis was on delivering helicopters and other equipment, United States Embassy officials said the aid this year would focus on attacking the impunity that lets criminals get away with murder, by shoring up local and state police forces and the justice system. Only about 2 percent of those charged with organized-crime-related offenses face trial in Mexico, American officials have said.

Carlos Pascual, the United States ambassador, argued that the longstanding impunity, not Mr. Calderón’s offensive, should

be blamed for the violence.

“The vast majority of the violence we’ve seen over the past decade in Mexico is not because it has arisen as a result of taking on organized crime,” he said, adding, “It’s that you’ve had impunity within the country because there has never been a legacy of investing in state and local police and in a judicial system that was able to crack down and contain it.”

Alarmed at the high death toll, the Mexican Congress summoned Mr. Calderón’s top police official, Genaro García Luna, to a hearing on Monday to explain the violence here and in several northern states.

Mr. García Luna said a corner was being turned, but legislators, chiefly from opposition parties, did not appear convinced.

“The country is under a security crisis, a crisis without precedent in the history of the country, a systemic crisis that you guys, Mr. Secretary, appear to ignore,” said Senator Ricardo Monreal Ávila.

Mr. Calderón, who has struggled politically since narrowly winning office in 2006, has found his proposals to revamp local policing and prevent money laundering stalled in congress. At the same time, human rights groups and the State Department, concerned over accusations of abuse and unexplained disappearances and deaths, are pressing for civilian trials of military personnel.

The coming months may prove even more challenging for Mr. Calderón because his political opponents may be wary of handing him and his party any victories ahead of the presidential election next year, which is likely to focus on security, political analysts said.

The government responds to critics by citing the many kingpins it has killed or captured. “The major networks that kidnap, extort and smuggle drugs are being taken apart,” Alejandro Poiré, the government’s security spokesman, told reporters last week. “Through this, the federal government is building true, authentic security for our country.”

But Mr. Calderón has also tried to reassure tourists and investors that Mexico is about more than drugs and thugs. He urged government officials last week to emphasize

the positive about Mexico and, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, he sought to do much the same.

That message is literally plastered on billboards here carrying the slogan, “Habla bien de Aca,” urging residents and visitors to “speak well” of the city.

Acapulco has long been two towns.

Along the coast is the fading playland for celebrities, with towering hotels and resorts. Over the hills is a sprawl of slums and working-class neighborhoods housing the people who clean the rooms, serve the food and drive the taxis.

With at least three drug trafficking organizations vying for smuggling routes through here, violence has exploded in the last few years, occasionally coming close to tourist sites and ushering in platoons of federal police officers and the military.

“They have put all the focus on using the military and the federal police without nearly as much attention on the other pieces you need to fight organized crime, like attacking corruption and investing in social programs to prevent it in the first place,” said Edgardo Buscaglia, a former adviser to the United Nations on organized crime.

Tourism officials here say the hotels are three-quarters or more full, though a view on the streets finds many empty restaurant tables, few trinkets moving off shelves and the city’s famed cliff divers hurling into the sea for only a smattering of applause.

“It is clear the criminals did this to Acapulco, but we do not know why the police cannot control it,” said Alejandro, a candy vendor who declined to give his full name for fear of reprisals by the police or criminals. “I have to pay a bribe to the gangs every week or I will have trouble.”

Roving patrols of masked and heavily armed federal officers and soldiers caravan through traffic, at once reassuring and rattling visitors.

“It is unsettling,” said Katherine Williams, 67, a retired teacher from Toronto.

“But,” she added, waiting for a truck with soldiers to pass as she headed to a Starbucks, “I have not had any problems, and if you stick to the beach area you would never know there were any troubles here.”

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How Meditation May Change the Brain

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

O

ver the December holidays, my husband went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Not my idea of fun, but he came back rejuvenated and energetic.

He said the experience was so transformational that he has committed to meditating for two hours daily, one hour in the morning and one in the evening, until the end of March. He’s running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life.

I’ll admit I’m a skeptic.

But now, scientists say that meditators like my husband may be benefiting from changes in their brains. The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. The findings will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress.

A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.

But how exactly did these study volunteers, all seeking stress reduction in their lives but new to the practice, meditate? So many people talk about meditating these days.

Within four miles of our Bay Area home, there are at least six centers that offer some type of meditation class, and I often hear phrases like, “So how was your sit today?”

Britta Hölzel, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the study’s lead

author, said the participants practiced mindfulness meditation, a form of meditation that was introduced in the United States in the late 1970s. It traces its roots to the same ancient Buddhist techniques that my husband follows.

“The main idea is to use different objects to focus one’s attention, and it could be a focus on sensations of breathing, or emotions or thoughts, or observing any type of body sensations,” she said. “But it’s about bringing the mind back to the here and now, as opposed to letting the mind drift.”

Generally the meditators are seated upright on a chair or the floor and in silence, although sometimes there might be a guide leading a session, Dr. Hölzel said.

Of course, it’s important to remember that the human brain is complicated. Understanding what the increased density of gray matter really means is still, well, a gray area.

“The field is very, very young, and we don’t really

Can Meditation Curb Heart Attacks?

R

ichard Patterson for The New York Times Recent research suggests transcendental meditation may be good for the heart.

When Julia Banks was almost 70, she took up transcendental meditation. She had clogged arteries, high blood pressure and too much weight around the middle, and she enrolled in a clinical trial testing the benefits of meditation.

Now Mrs. Banks, 79, of Milwaukee, meditates twice a day, every day, for 20 minutes each time, setting aside what she calls “a little time for myself.”

“You never think you’ve got that time to spare, but you take that time for yourself and you get the relaxation you need,” said Mrs. Banks, who survived a major heart attack and a lengthy hospitalization after coronary artery bypass surgery six years ago.

“You have things on your mind, but you just blot it out and do the meditation, and you find yourself being more graceful in your own life,” she said. “You find out problems you thought you had don’t exist

— they were just things you focused on.”

Could the mental relaxation have real physiological benefits? For Mrs. Banks, the study suggests, it may have. She has gotten her blood pressure under control, though she still takes medication for it, and has lost about 75 pounds.

Findings from the study were presented this week at an American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Fla. They suggest that transcendental meditation may have real therapeutic value for high-risk people, like Mrs. Banks, with established coronary artery disease.

After following about 200 patients for an average of five years, researchers said, the high-risk patients who meditated cut their risk of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from all causes roughly in half compared with a group of similar patients who were given more conventional education about healthy diet and lifestyle.

Among the roughly 100 patients who meditated, there were 20 heart attacks, strokes and deaths; in the comparison group, there were 32. The meditators tended

know enough about it yet,” Dr. Hölzel said. “I would say these are still quite preliminary findings. We see that there is something there, but we have to replicate these findings and find out what they really mean.”

It has been hard to pinpoint the benefits of meditation, but a 2009 study suggests that meditation may reduce blood pressure in patients with coronary heart disease. And a 2007 study found that meditators have longer attention spans.

Previous studies have also shown that there are structural differences between the brains of meditators and those who don’t meditate, although this new study is the first to document changes in gray matter over time through meditation.

Ultimately, Dr. Hölzel said she and her colleagues would like to demonstrate how meditation results in definitive improvements in people’s lives.

“A lot of studies find that it increases well-being, improves quality of life, but it’s always hard to determine how you can objectively test that,” she said. “Relatively little is known about the brain and the psychological mechanisms about how this is being done.”

In a 2008 study published in the journal PloS One, researchers found that when meditators heard the sounds of people suffering, they had stronger activation levels in their temporal parietal junctures, a part of the brain tied to empathy, than people who did not meditate.

“They may be more willing to help when someone suffers, and act more compassionately,” Dr. Hölzel said.

Further study is needed, but that bodes well for me.

For now, I’m more than happy to support my husband’s little experiment, despite the fact that he now rises at 5 a.m. and is exhausted by 10 at night.

An empathetic husband who takes out the trash and puts gas in the car because he knows I don’t like to — I’ll take that.

to remain disease-free longer and also reduced their systolic blood pressure by five millimeters of mercury, on average.

“We found reduced blood pressure that was significant – that was probably one important mediator,” said Dr. Robert Schneider, director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, a research institute based at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, who presented the findings. The study was conducted at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, in collaboration with the institute.

An earlier study of high-risk Milwaukee residents, many of them overweight or obese, also found transcendental meditation, along with conventional medications, could help reduce blood pressure. Most of those in the study had only high-school educations or less, about 40 percent smoked and roughly half had incomes of less than $10,000 a year.

The participants found transcendental meditation easy to learn and practice, Dr. Schneider said.

“Fortunately, it does not require any particular education and doesn’t conflict with lifestyle philosophy or beliefs; it’s a straightforward technique for getting deep rest to the mind and body,” he said, adding that he believes the technique “helps to reset the body’s own self-repair and homeostatic mechanism.”

Dr. Schneider said other benefits of

meditation might follow from stress reduction, which could cause changes in the brain that cut stress hormones like cortisol and dampen the inflammatory processes associated with atherosclerosis.

“What is it about stress that causes cardiovascular disease?” said Dr. Theodore Kotchen, associate dean for clinical research at the Medical College of Wisconsin. “Hormones, neural hormones, cortisol, catecholamines — all tend to be elevated in stress.

Could they in some way be contributing to cardiovascular disease? Could a reduction in these hormones with meditation be contributing to reduction in disease? We can only speculate.”

Another recent study focusing on transcendental meditation, published in The American Journal of Hypertension, focused on a young healthy population. It found that stressed-out college students improved their mood through T.M., and those at risk for hypertension were able to reduce their blood pressure. Dr. Schneider was also involved in that study, which was carried out at American University in Washington and included 298 students randomly assigned to either a meditation group or a waiting list.

Students who were at risk of hypertension and practiced meditation reduced systolic blood pressure by 6.3 millimeters of mercury and their diastolic pressure by 4 millimeters of mercury on average.

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Scientists See Dangers in Energy Drinks

By JANE E. BRODY

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ith widespread alarm about deaths linked to alcohol-and-caffeinelaced commercial drinks like the fruity malt beverage Four Loko, it’s easy to overlook problems that may be linked to the so-called energy drinks that spawned them.

But a number of scientists are worried about highly caffeinated beverages like Red Bull, Rockstar, Monster and Full Throttle, which are popular among teenagers and young adults.

The often bizarre combination of ingredients in these drinks prompted three researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the University of Queensland in Australia to examine what is known — and not known — about the contents of these beverages, which are sold alongside sodas and sport drinks in supermarkets, drugstores and highway rest stops.

Their review of all the studies in English in the scientific literature, published in November in The Mayo Clinic Proceedings, led them to question both the effectiveness and safety of energy drinks.

Long-Term Effects Unclear The researchers noted that the drinks contain high levels of caffeine and warned that certain susceptible people risk dangerous, even life-threatening, effects on blood pressure, heart rate and brain function.

The authors noted that “four documented cases of caffeine-associated death have been reported, as well as five separate cases of seizures associated with consumption of energy/power drinks.” Additional reports include an otherwise healthy 28-year-old man who suffered a cardiac arrest after a day of motocross racing; a healthy 18-yearold man who died playing basketball after drinking two cans of Red Bull; and four cases of mania experienced by individuals known to have bipolar disorder.

Using an abbreviation for energy beverages, Dr. John P. Higgins and co-authors wrote in the Mayo journal that because “teens and young adults, both athletes and nonathletes, are consuming E.B.’s at an alarming rate, we need to determine whether long-term use of E.B.’s by this population will translate into deleterious effects later.”

His co-author Troy D. Tuttle, an exercise physiologist at the Houston university, said in an interview: “Almost all the studies done on energy drinks have involved small sample sizes of young, healthy individuals in whom you’re unlikely to see short-term ill effects.

“But what about the long term? What about liver and cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and diabetes? We could speculate about a lot of possible problems, but we just don’t know.”

He urged the Food and Drug Administration to “step in and regulate this market,” which currently has few restrictions on the

kinds and amounts of ingredients and the claims that are made about them. Manufacturers have labeled the beverages “dietary supplements,” which absolves them of the federal regulations that govern sodas and juices and allows producers to make “structure and function” claims, like “Enhances athletic performance” and “Increases caloric burn and mental sharpness.”

As Mr. Tuttle described the marketing strategy for energy drinks, “the companies have taken a cup of coffee — or two or more cups of coffee, added a lot of hip-sounding stuff and marketed it with a hot, modern, trendy push for young people who want to look cool walking around with a can of Red Bull.

“Anyone can buy these drinks, even 11- and 12-year-old kids.”

In an e-mailed statement, the American Beverage Association said, “Most mainstream energy drink brands voluntarily put statements on their containers, including advisories about use by people sensitive to caffeine.” Also, the organization said many of its members voluntarily list the amount of caffeine on their product labels or have provided caffeine content information through their Web sites and consumer hot lines.

Kevin A. Clauson, a doctor of pharmacy at Nova Southeastern University in West Palm Beach, Fla., who had previously reviewed safety issues surrounding energy drinks said that his main concerns were “the amount of caffeine, which can be injurious particularly to people with a pre-existing cardiovascular abnormality” and “the effects of these drinks when they are combined with alcohol, which can have disastrous

consequences.”

After several states made moves to ban Four Loko, it was reformulated to remove the caffeine and two other ingredients, guarana and taurine, but Dr. Clauson said that was “unlikely to have a substantial impact” on young people, who will continue to combine alcohol with energy drinks.

The caffeine and caffeinelike ingredients in these drinks can mask the perception of inebriation — and that can increase the risk of drunken driving or other dangerous behaviors.

Mr. Tuttle, who works with sports teams, is concerned about the effects of energy drinks on athletic performance. “A lot of kids are reaching for energy beverages instead of sport drinks, which unlike the energy drinks are mostly water with a nominal amount of sugar and electrolytes,” he said. “The energy drinks contain a slew of ingredients, most of which are unresearched, especially in combination with one another.”

A Potent Brew For an athlete engaged in intense exercise, the high doses of sugar in energy drinks can impair absorption of fluids and result in dehydration. A 16-ounce can of an energy drink may contain 13 teaspoons of sugar and the amount of caffeine found in four or more colas. Mr. Tuttle noted that caffeine, which is known to improve muscle action and performance, especially in endurance activities, is banned in many sports competitions. Thus, consuming an energy

drink close to an event could disqualify an athlete.

Other ingredients often found in energy drinks include taurine, glucuronolactone, B vitamins, ginseng, guarana, ginkgo biloba and milk thistle. Mr. Tuttle calls guarana particularly worrisome because it acts as a stimulant, like caffeine.

“The B vitamins, which are important enzymes for energy utilization, are added to legitimize the high levels of sugar,” he said.

“But the American diet, which is very high in protein, already has plenty of B vitamins.

These drinks are a kind of sensory overload for the body, with too much stuff coming in at the same time.”

Adding alcohol to the mix, as some consumers were doing even before drinks like Four Loko came along, can be a recipe for disaster. Under the stimulation of energy drinks, people may think they are sober when they are not. Such was the fate of Donte’ Stallworth, a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns who killed a pedestrian with his car in March 2009 after drinking multiple shots of tequila and a Red Bull. Mr. Stallworth said he did not feel intoxicated at the time of the accident.

“Caffeine is being treated as a flavoring agent, not a drug,” Dr. Clauson said.

“The average healthy person who consumes one serving of an energy drink is unlikely to encounter difficulty.” Those most likely to get into trouble, he said, are “toxic jocks” who overindulge and those with an underlying heart condition.

Diet: Bigger Breakfast, Bigger Daily Calorie Count

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

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ieters are sometimes told to have a substantial breakfast, because it reduces the amount of food consumed during rest of the day. Not so, a new study reports.

German researchers studied the food intake of 280 obese adults and 100 of normal weight. The subjects kept records of everything they ate over two weeks, and were carefully instructed about the importance of writing down what they ate as soon as they ate it.

For both groups, a large breakfast simply added to the number of daily calories they consumed. Whether they ate a large breakfast, a small one or none at all, their nonbreakfast calorie intake remained the same.

The study, published in Nutrition Journal, found that the foods most often responsible for the variations in daily calories were among the morning’s favorites: bread, eggs, yogurt, cheese, sausages,

marmalade and butter.

This may mean that exactly the opposite of the commonly offered advice is correct: A smaller breakfast means fewer daily calories consumed, not more.

“Whenever someone comes to me for dietary advice and says, ‘I never eat breakfast,’ I say, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,’ ” said the senior author, Dr. Volker Schusdziarra, a professor of internal medicine at the Technical University of Munich. “Eating breakfast is just added calories. You’ll never compensate for them at subsequent meals.”

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

37

More Bone (and Less Fat) Through Exercise

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

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or those requiring additional reasons to show up at the running path or at the gym in the dreary heart of winter, science has come up with a compelling new motivation. Exercise can, it appears, keep your bone marrow from becoming too flabby.

This idea is the focus of a series of intriguing recent experiments by Janet Rubin, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina and other researchers. For the work, scientists removed bone-marrow cells from mice and cultured them. The cells in question, mesenchymal stem cells, are found in bone marrow in both animals and people, waiting for certain molecular signals to tell them to transform into either bone cells, fat cells or, less commonly, something else.

After a stem cell differentiates, of course, it can no longer be anything else: once a fat cell, always a fat cell; once a bone cell, etc. So the fate of marrow stem cells determines the strength and quality of the bone. If a stem cell becomes a fat cell, then the portion of the skeleton to which it might have migrated as a bone cell will be that littlest bit punier.

In a study published late last year by researchers at the University of Southern California, the femurs of healthy adults,

some in their 20s, others past age 55, were scanned with magnetic resonance imaging. The researchers found that, in both young and old, the amount of fat in the leg’s bone marrow was inversely related to the amount of bone. The more fat in the marrow, the less bone in the thigh.

But what drives a particular stem cell to become a fat cell instead of a bone cell, and does exercise play a role? Earlier experiments by Clinton Rubin, Janet Rubin’s brother and the director of the Center for Biotechnology at Stony Brook University, had shown that mice placed on platforms that were gently vibrating — in an approximation of the forces generated by the muscular contractions of a gentle stroll — developed more bone density than mice who just sat around.

Closer examination of the marrow in these experimental mice found that specific genes and gene transcription factors had been stimulated by the vibrations and had, in turn, directed the stem cells to transform into bone.

Something similar happened when Janet Rubin worked directly with the stem cells themselves, even though she was setting them up to become fat cells.

To that end, she and her colleagues bathed them in what she calls “a sweet soup,” a medium infused with extra insulin and other elements that normally would encourage the stem cells to differentiate into

fat. “They love to become fat cells,” Dr. Rubin said. “It’s discouragingly easy to nudge them in that direction.”

But when the mesenchymal stem cells were stimulated with mechanical vibrations, when they were, in effect, exercised, they did not all become fat cells.

“There was a really striking difference in outcomes,” Dr. Rubin said. Her earlier studies with high-magnitude mechanical signals closely approximated a brisk cellular jog. Now she applied lowermagnitude vibrations twice a day, with a rest period of several hours in between.

Once again, the stem cells did not all differentiate into fat, even though their cell medium was highly fat-inducing. Dr. Rubin suspects that complicated issues of biochemical signaling underlay the stem cells’ response to the dual-dose regimen.

She is currently completing experiments she says she hopes will clarify the mechanisms involved.

Already, though, the findings would appear to have compelling, real-world implications. If you don’t want fatty bone marrow and unhealthy bones, Dr. Rubin said, consider breaking up moderate-intensity workouts into several sessions interspersed throughout the day. Dr. Rubin herself often now works out twice a day for 30 minutes, rather than, as she once did, for a single hour-long bout. “This is the first time in my career that something I’ve done in the lab has changed how I exercise,” she said.

Many questions remain, of course.

It’s not clear, for one, whether fat cells generated in bone marrow remain in the marrow or move around to pad, say, the thighs. It’s also not known how exercise affects stem cells located outside the bone marrow. Can it prevent the birth of fat cells all over the body? In Clinton Rubin’s experiments with mice, the vibrated animals wound up with less overall body fat than the control mice, but the reasons are unknown.

Still, one lesson is indisputable.

Don’t sit still more than you need to, Dr. Rubin said, and don’t let your children loll about either. “One of the concerns raised” by these experiments, she said, “is that if you make fat cells when you’re young, then you’ve lost any opportunity to have that particular cell be bone,” and the fat cell will remain just that, for life.

38 February 10 - 16, 2011

The San Juan Weekly

Reputation of a Berry Is Difficult to Confirm

By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.

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or decades cranberry juice has enjoyed a reputation as an effective way to prevent bladder infections. Scientists have doggedly tried to confirm this well-known folk truth with dozens of studies, some in test tubes and some in people.

The latest results are now in, and the answer is conclusive: This field is all bogged down.

Some older studies found the juice worked. Some found it didn’t.

All were too small to be definitive.

In 1998 a substance presumed to be the active component in the cranberry was identified with some fanfare, and two years ago another study suggested that a cranberry extract containing this substance was almost as powerful as an antibiotic.

Now a large, impeccably designed and executed study of cranberry juice has found that the presumed active compound apparently has no effect. And yet the newest study closed no doors. It may simply mean that the juice works, but by an unknown mechanism.

How can one little berry be so difficult to pin down?

For one thing, the cranberry contains more than 200 active substances in addition to vitamin C, citric acid and an array of other acids. The old theory that these acids sterilize the urine by acidifying it has been disproved: It turns out that even after

a person chugs several liters of cranberry juice cocktail in one sitting, the urine does not become acidic enough to slow bacterial growth.

But researchers have repeatedly shown that the juice does effectively prevent some species of bacteria from adhering to the cells that line the urinary tract. More to the point, urine from both mice and people who drank modest amounts of cranberry juice also prevented bacterial adherence.

The substance responsible for this effect was identified in 1998 by a team of researchers in New Jersey as proanthocyanidin, a chemical related to tannin. Blueberry juice also contains it, but other juices do not. The chemical apparently stops tiny hairs on the surface of bacteria from plugging into receptors on cells lining the urinary tract.

In 2009 Scottish researchers reported they had assigned some women with frequent bladder infections to take a daily capsule filled with cranberry extract. It seemed to prevent recurrences almost as well as a daily antibiotic pill, raising hopes that the cranberry could help limit the use of antibiotics.

But meanwhile, armed with a grant from the National Center for Alternative Medicine and cranberry juice cocktail from Ocean Spray, researchers in Michigan had set out in 2004 to do the definitive placebocontrolled study.

They enrolled young, healthy women who had just recovered from a bladder infection. Statistics predicted that about 30 percent of them could be expected to get another infection within six months.

Half the 319 subjects were assigned to drink 16 ounces of low-calorie cranberry juice cocktail daily. The others were given a placebo drink manufactured by Ocean Spray to look and taste the same, but with no cranberry content.

The results were published this month in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

After six months, the women in the placebo group had 23 new infections and those in the cranberry group had 31, a statistically insignificant difference. The juice apparently offered no protection.

But the researchers were intrigued by the strikingly low overall

recurrence rate of 17 percent, far less than the expected 30 percent. “It is possible,” they wrote, “that the placebo inadvertently contained the active ingredient(s) in cranberry juice.”

In an interview, the senior author, Betsy Foxman, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, offered some ideas for what could be going on.

Both the juice drink and the placebo contained vitamin C — could that have prevented recurrent infection? Could just drinking two extra cups of fluid per day have helped?

Could it have something to do with the coloring used to tint the placebo — after all, antibiotics were first identified by the German dye industry.

“It is still a big question mark,” Dr. Foxman said. Her research into the cranberry is continuing.

Focusing on the Stress of Prostate Cancer

By TARA PARKER-POPE

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elping men cope with the stress of prostate cancer surgery before the operation may speed up both their physical and psychological recovery, new research suggests.

The study, published this month in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, showed that stress management did more than just ease a man’s anxiety about surgery. Men who performed the simple stress relief exercises had a stronger immune response in the days after the operation.

“It’s showing that something as brief as a few sessions of stress management can change the postoperative

biological functioning,” said Lorenzo Cohen, professor and director of the integrative medicine program at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“These results speak to the fact that you can get someone more immunologically competent even with something that is very brief.”

Researchers at M.D. Anderson studied the effect of stress management techniques as part of a study of 159 men with early-stage prostate cancer. All of the men were scheduled for radical prostatectomy, which is the surgical removal of the prostate gland.

The surgery is highly successful at eliminating the cancer but takes a physical and mental toll, often leaving men impotent and incontinent for weeks,

months or longer.

A third of the men in the study received routine care. Another group was given “supportive care,” meaning they had access to psychologists one to two weeks before surgery as well as right before the operation and in the days after the procedure. But a third group received stress management training. These men met with a psychologist for support but also learned deep breathing and guided-imagery techniques to help cope with the stress of surgery. They were led through a mental imagery exercise so they understood everything that would be happening to them as they were taken into surgery and recovery. They also were given booster sessions the morning of

the operation and two days after surgery as well as a guide and audiotapes so they could practice on their own.

Two days after surgery, the men who had received stress management had a measurably stronger immune response, based on higher levels of natural killer cell function and circulating pro-inflammatory cytokines, which affect the healing process.

More research is needed to determine if the boost in immune function that occurs with stress management techniques has a meaningful effect on a man’s recovery after surgery. However, the research did show that men who learned stress management reported better physical functioning a year after surgery.

San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

39

FASHION & BEAUTY

Onstage or Backstage, a Kiss for Paris Now, some of Mr. Armani’s creations looked straight out of the Saturday-morning TV shows of the ’60s, and the plastic saucer hats were dippy, but I give Mr. Armani credit for working with those glistening fabrics, for the sense of control over the shapes, even if the futuristic vision was a little hackneyed. He has been on this particular jag for a few seasons, and he might

By CATHY HORYN

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RARELY go backstage to kiss a designer, and at the Giorgio Armani Privé show I remembered why. Privé, in case you’re wondering, means private in French, which is a strange term for one as publicity-minded as Mr. Armani. Did you know that Gertrude Stein had her telephone number listed in the Paris directory? She did. An American lady decided to give it a try. When she got Miss Stein on the phone, she blurted out that she had just moved to the neighborhood. Ms. Stein said she’d be right over.

So you see what a rubber chicken “privé” is.

Because Mr. Armani’s spring couture collection had so many unusual fabrics, and was really quite dazzling — filled with futuristic sculpture in jewel colors — I decided to hoof it backstage. Suddenly the entire audience seemed to converge at the end of the runway, where Mr. Armani waited, with the photographers pushing from the rear and the guards pushing from the front.

I was next to Hilary Alexander, from The Daily Telegraph, and she let out a yelp and cried: “Attaché de presse! Attaché de presse!” But no press officer came to our rescue and, by then, Mr. Armani was posing with the models, his arms spread wide, a picture that will surely be in Hello! magazine next week.

Somehow, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Jodie Foster, who was being ushered through the mob to greet the maestro. I thought that she looked so calm and polite, a real lady, and that if I had been a little closer, I would have asked Ms. Foster for her phone number so I could call her the next time I was in the neighborhood.

Eventually things died down and I was able to ask Mr. Armani about the fabrics, which he said were a blend of nylon and silk. He had lost his voice, but it was clear he wanted to be bold. “It’s 2011!” he said.

have received encouragement from Lady Gaga, a client. If making clothes with spherical necklines and mirrored surfaces gives him something other than beige wool crepe to focus on, I’m all for it.

The couture shows have been pretty wonderful this season. Nobody is crabbing about them being out of touch, maybe because a lot of editors just finished preseason collections and are bored to death.

Jean Paul Gaultier, on Wednesday, was spectacular — easily his most satis-

fying show in years. So much energy and brilliance on that runway, and only the voice of Catherine Deneuve calling out the outfits. He took all his obsessions with French culture, from the tuxedoed, cigarette-smoking lady to the can-can dancer, and combined them with the anarchic spirit that fueled his early career. I have much more to say about this collection on my blog, and how the cabaret dancer Psykko Tico could practically touch her toe to her nose, but suffice to say that each outfit saw Mr. Gaultier in top form.

At Dior, John Galliano did a reprise of the ’50s, inspired by the drawings of René Gruau. I know what you’re thinking: not those old bags again. It’s true that Mr. Galliano should put down the books, but trust me when I say that most of the suits and dresses in this collection would look gorgeous on someone. You have to ignore the ’50s makeup. The little airy jackets with pencil or full skirts are stunning, as were Lido feather numbers, and you won’t find colors like that anywhere nowadays.

CHANEL mesmerized. The collection had that concentrated quality of a single idea explored to Karl Lagerfeld’s satisfaction. Nearly everything was in pink, with

flecks of violet, gray, silver and gold in the tweeds and grid-based embroideries, with a graphic element of black on a collar or sash. The proportions and modern sense of ease were based on the not-so-dumb idea of being able to wear most everything with skinny jeans, which were sometimes covered in sequins. Relieved of the usual Chanel kitsch, this was Mr. Lagerfeld’s effortless futurism.

Givenchy’s dresses were charged with Japanese nature and robotic characters, which must sound thunderous, but Riccardo Tisci’s silk and feathery creations, in white, pale yellow and pink, were very effective. Some of the dresses, with 3-D appliqués in papery organza or chiffon-covered beads, had a built-in quality of decay as time and wear rubbed away the fragile fabrics.

Quickly, a word about Bouchra Jarrar, who shows during couture: she’s a real talent, no nonsense, a young’un with good judgment and something worthwhile to offer. She showed mostly dark trousers (with a sleek Perfecto or a nubby ivory jacket) and minimally cut dresses in solid crepe that hung beautifully on the body. They were harder to do than they looked, and Ms. Jarrar knew it.

FASHION & BEAUTY

40

San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

40 Year Anniversary For Destellos de la Moda By: Daniel Morales Pomales

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estellos de la Moda”, the largest fashion event in Puerto Rico celebrated 40 years. Identified not only as a gateway to the most important designers of the patio, but it has been identified closely with charitable causes.

Founded by Kate Donnelly de Romero, the group has contributed to the needs of children with catastrophic illnesses. This time, it was for the Jorge and Laura Posada Foundation, which provides support for operations and medical services to children craniosynostosis patients, a condition that affects the cranial sutures of infants. The foundation was created by the couple following the condition of son Jorge Luis for 11 years. Jochefy Morgan, president 2011, welcomed and introduced the couple who expressed gratitude for being selected recipients of the revenues to continue to help more children and their families with this terrible condition. The New York Yankees catcher, said he recently went to the White House with President Obama and was the subject of recognition for the work they do for these children.

The fashion show was attended

by Tommie Hernandez, presented swimsuits, David Antonio, casual dresses with black and white print, Lisa Thon, long and short dresses in various colors, Keila Hernandez,

“

short dresses in shiny metallic animal prints. Luis Antonio, presented black and white suits with metallic ties at the waist. The veteran designer and teacher who Carlota Alfaro presented in this stage since its inception made wedding gowns modeled by Wilnelia Merced, Miss World 1975. Carlotta Alfaro received an award for being 60 years in the fashion business.

Merced, meanwhile, thanked the designer for allowing her to model a dress for the second time since she wore the creation at the contest that brought the crown to Puerto Rico. At fifteen she also took modeling classes. Alfaro for his part said that this fashion event is the only gateway that is given to novice designers who then become the most prestigious on the island. Clubman then presented his collection of figures modeled by season as the host Jaime Mayol, former baseball player Carlos Baerga, Edgardo Gonzalez, Charlie Rodriguez model, who at 30 is modeling his third time, the gymnast Luis Rivera, Daddy Yankee’s brother Elvin Ayala, the medalist Carlos Santiago, Javier Crespo, baseball player Sergio Miranda, model Peter Hance, comedian Tavin Pumarejo who brought laughter with particular walking styles on the runway, and Luisito Vigoreaux host and

producer. Jewelry Abislaiman presented their collection of clothing, Carlos Alberto introduced bridal, fifteen, and gold gowns. Ruben Dario presented short dresses in different colors with ribbons at the waist.

Stele Nolasco brought translucent lace dresses with different colors and The former president of Destellos de la Moda, Teresa Pérez, Maria Milagros Vivoni shares.

dresses with belts tight to the body.

Ecliptic presented gowns and pearls.

Sonia Rivera introduced casual white dresses with ruffles and Lisa Capali made dresses for girls with white ruffles and a novel wedding dress.

The presentation ended with the appearance of a contestant on “America’s Got Talent” Puerto Rican tenor Carlos Aponte, in his version of “Genesis” by Guillermo Venegas Lloveras.

Wilnelia Merced (center), flanked by her mother, Mrs. Cruz and her husband british presenter Bruce Forsyth.

The founder of the event Kate Donelly, with her husband, the former governor Carlos Romero Barceló, shared with the First Lady of San Juan Irma Garriga, the representative Sylvia Corum and the first lady of Gutanabo Alba O’Neill

Jorge and Laura Posada Founder and President respectively of the foundation of the same name and Jochefy Morgan President of Destellos de la Moda 2011.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

41 SCIENCE / TECH

Gazing Afar for Other Earths, and Other Beings

By DENNIS OVERBYE

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n a building at NASA’s Ames Research Center here, computers are sifting and resifting the light from 156,000 stars, seeking to find in the flickering of distant suns the first hints that humanity is not alone in the universe.

The stars are being monitored by a $600 million satellite observatory named Kepler, whose job is to conduct a kind of Gallup poll of worlds in the cosmos. On Wednesday, Kepler’s astronomers are scheduled to unveil a closely kept list of 400 stars that are their brightest and best bets so far for harboring planets, some of which could turn out to be the smallest and most Earth-like worlds discovered out there to date. They represent the first glimpse of riches to come in a quest that is as old as the imagination and as new as the iPad. Over the next two or three years, as Kepler continues to stare and sift, astronomers say, it will be able to detect planets in the “Goldilocks” zones, where it is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water.

“What we want is to find life,” said Geoffrey Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, who is part of the Kepler team.

William Borucki, 72, the lead scientist, who has spent the last 20 years getting Kepler off the ground, said recently in an interview in his office: “I’ve argued that Kepler is more important than the Hubble Space Telescope. We provide the data mankind needs to move out into space.”

These are science-fiction times. Kepler is only the first step in a process that experts agree will take decades. Both NASA and the European Space Agency have laid plans for a multidecade quest — employing ever more sophisticated and expensive spacecraft — for planets and life beyond Earth.

A roving robot laboratory named Curiosity will depart for Mars on a $2.5 billion mission this fall. Astronomers argue whether the next such mission should go to Jupiter’s moon Europa, with its subsurface ocean; Saturn’s moon Titan, which is coated with a methane slush; or another of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, which is spouting geysers of water from its interior.

Right now, humans cannot even summon the money or political will to get back to the Moon, let alone set sail for another star. It would take 300,000 years for Voyager 1, now on the way out of the solar system at 39,000 miles per hour, to travel the 20 lightyears, or 120 trillion miles, to Gliese 581, one of the nearest planetary systems; Kepler’s planets are from 500 to 3,000 light-years away. NASA and other organizations, like the Planetary Society, have experimented with devices like solar sails, in which a craft is pushed by sunlight or a powerful laser, and ion drives, in which high-energy particles do the propelling.

This is more than just an intellectual exercise, scientists say. Traditional religious

William Borucki, lead scientist for the Kepler satellite observatory, launched in 2009. images of ourselves as God’s creatures, or even of God, could be in for a rough time if we ever discover pond scum living by completely alien chemical rules on some moon or planet, let alone the Borg — the alien race ruled by a collective mind on “Star Trek” — inhabiting some distant realm.

Moreover, as astronomers keep reminding us, humanity will eventually lose Earth as its home, whether because of global warming or the ultimate plague or a killer asteroid or the Sun’s inevitable demise. Before then, if we want the universe to remember us or even know we were here, we need to get away.

It was only in 1995 that a team of Swiss astronomers led by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory discovered the first planet of another Sun-like star using what is now known as the “wobble” method. A planet gives its star a little gravitational tug as it goes around, causing the star to go back and forth, or wobble, a little as both star and planet circle the same center of gravity. They detected a wobble in the motion of the star 51 Pegasi as an object about half the mass of Jupiter whipped around it every four days.

Like Olives in a Martini Glass Over the next decade, Dr. Mayor’s group and another planet-hunting team led

by Dr. Marcy and R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution leapfrogged each other in finding exoplanets, as they are called. More and more astronomers have joined the hunt, discovering smaller and smaller planets. Astronomers have recorded direct images of four planets swirling like olives in a martini glass around a star known as HR 8799, 130 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus, and another circling Fomalhaut, only 25 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Piscis Austrinus.

There are now more than 500 planets listed on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s PlanetQuest Web site. None are habitable.

Among them is the so-called Styrofoam planet — an early trophy of Kepler’s — a planet that is again half as large as Jupiter, but so puffed up by the heat of its star that it is only one-tenth as dense. Another is a planet composed almost entirely of superheated water and sometimes called the

Steam World; it is known as Gliese 1214b, about 40 light-years from here in the constellation Ophiuchus.

Last year, a team of American astronomers announced that they had discovered a Goldilocks planet orbiting a dim red dwarf star at just the right distance to harbor water on its surface, making it a potential site for life. Gliese 581g, as it is known, is part of the Gliese 581 system 20 light-years from here, in Libra. But then the Swiss astronomers who first spotted that system were not able to find the Goldilocks planet in their own data, causing many astronomers, but not its discoverers, to doubt that the friendly 581g was real.

The Kepler project grew out of Mr. Borucki’s lifelong love of space.

Mr. Borucki grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, shooting homemade rockets into the sky and praying that they did not hit a neighbor’s cow.

“As a kid, this is what you wanted to do,” he said.

After getting a master’s degree in physics from the University of Wisconsin, he went to work on the Apollo Moon program, becoming an expert in precise measurements of light. In 1984, he suggested that such measurements could be used to look for planets.

The idea is that a planet passing in front of its star would block a little of its light — very little. In the case of the Earth, the dip would amount to 84 parts per million in the Sun’s light — less than a hundredth of a percent.

In 1993, when Mr. Borucki and his collaborators proposed building a satellite to do such measurements, NASA said, “If doable, it’s fabulous,” recalled David Koch of the University of Wisconsin, Mr. Borucki’s longtime collaborator. But NASA did not think detectors could be so precise.

NASA rejected their proposal a year later, then again two years after that. “It’s a wonderful thing to have someone tell you over and over again everything that is wrong with your experiment,” Mr. Borucki said. That was the road to improvement.

In 1998, NASA turned the scientists down again, but gave them half a million dollars to spend on lab work.

The Kepler mission finally got the nod from NASA in 2001, but with a twist. The Ames Research Center wound up handing over management of the mission, at least until the launching, to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which developed the Vikings and Voyagers. “Here we had been competing against J.P.L. all these years,” Dr. Koch said. “We got over that.”

Control has since reverted to Ames.

Kepler was launched from Cape Canaveral into an orbit around the Sun on March 6, 2009. Its gaze is fixed on a patch of sky about 20 full moons across near the Northern Cross, in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, containing about 4.5 million stars. That is the neighborhood for Kepler’s cosmic census. The job is simply to measure the brightness of 156,000 of those stars every half-hour, looking for the repeated dips cau-

sed by planet crossings, or “transits.”

The more times a planet crosses its star, the more easily it is picked up and tagged by computers analyzing Kepler’s data.

And Kepler’s first hits were indeed of planets that orbited their suns in a few days in close orbits that would produce oven-cleaner temperatures. The Earth, of course, takes a year to go around the Sun, so it would take two or three years for its analogue orbiting some star in Cygnus to show up in the Kepler data.

“We will find Earth-size planets in habitable zones,” Dr. Marcy stated flatly last month in Seattle.

Required: Absolute Proof There is a hitch to confirming those planets, however. Such planets would not exert enough of a gravitational tug on their suns to be detectable by the “wobble” method, the main way their masses can be measured. Instead of confirming such planets, Kepler astronomers talk about “validating” them by using high-powered telescopes to make sure, for example, that there is only one star there and not a pair of eclipsing stars or some other phenomenon that could mimic a planet’s shadow.

“Earths are difficult,” Mr. Borucki said.

“We’re concerned not to announce anything until we’ve proven six different ways it can’t not be a planet.”

As a result, more and more of Kepler’s future pronouncements will be statistical in nature. Natalie Batalha of San Jose State University, the deputy science team leader for Kepler, said it could be that they will wind up with, say, 100 planets they are 80 percent sure of, which could translate to 80 planets — useful for a census, not so helpful if you’re looking for a place to live.

But providing statistics, and not pinpointing individual planets, has always been Kepler’s prime mission. The road map to new worlds, Dr. Batalha explained, goes like this: First, Kepler figures out how abundant Earths are and how far you have to go out into the universe to find one. That information is needed to design the next step — a mission that would search the sky for Earthlike planets that are close enough to study.

But at 500 to 3,000 light-years away, Kepler’s planets are too far for intense direct scrutiny.

“Once you know where they are, you study the heck out of them,” looking for spectral indications of an atmosphere and anything else, including biomarkers that are the signature of living things.”

A “starshade” would float in front of a telescope and cancel out the bright light from a star, allowing much dimmer planets to stand out.

Some astronomers have proposed building a starshade for the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s successor, which is scheduled to be launched by NASA later this decade. “It could potentially not only image an Earth-like planet, but provide some information about its atmosphere and surface”.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

42 SCIENCE / TECH

Nurturing Nests Lift These Birds to a Higher Perch

By NATALIE ANGIER

A

mid all the psychosocial caterwauling these days over the relative merits of tiger mothers and helicopter dads, allow me to make a pitch for the quietly dogged parenting style of the New Caledonian crow.

New Caledonian crows are renowned for their toolmaking skills.

In the complexity, fluidity and sophistication of their tool use, their ability to manipulate and bird-handle sticks, leaves, wires, strings and any other natural or artificial object they can find into the perfect device for fishing out food, or fishing out second-, thirdor higher-order tools, the crows have no peers in the nonhuman vivarium, and that includes such textbook dexterous smarties as elephants, macaques and chimpanzees.

Videos of laboratory studies with the crows have gone viral, showing the birds doing things that look practically faked. In one famous example from Oxford University, a female named Betty methodically bends a straight piece of wire against the outside of a plastic cylinder to form the shape of a hook, which she then inserts into the plastic cylinder to extract a handled plug from the bottom as deftly as one might pull a stopper from a drain. Talking-cat videos just don’t stand a chance.

So how do the birds get so crafty at crafting? New reports in the journals Animal Behaviour and Learning and Behavior by researchers at the University of Auckland suggest that the formula for crow success may not be terribly different from the nostrums commonly served up to people: Let your offspring have an extended childhood in a stable and loving home; lead by example; offer positive reinforcement; be patient and persistent; indulge even a near-adult offspring by occasionally popping a fresh cockroach into its mouth; and realize that at any moment a goshawk might swoop down and put an end to the entire pedagogical program.

Jennifer C. Holzhaider, the lead author on the two new reports, said that in one year of their three-year field study, the crows they were following gave birth to a total of eight chicks.

“We thought, yay, we’ll have eight juveniles we can watch,” she said. But the goshawks, the rats, the owls and the torrential rains took their toll, and only one of those eight chicks survived. “It’s a hard life in the jungle; that’s all there is to it,” said Dr. Holzhaider.

By studying the social structure and behavior of the crows and the details of their difficult daily lives, the researchers hope to gain new insights into the evolution of intelligence, the interplay between physical and social skillfulness, and the relative importance of each selective force in promoting the need for a big animal brain.

The researchers want to know why it is that, of the 700 or so species of crows, ravens, rooks, jays and magpies that make up the world’s generally clever panoply of corvids, the New Caledonian crow became such an outlier, an avian savant, a YouTube top of the line.

“It’s a big puzzle,” said Russell D. Gray, head of the Auckland lab. “Why them? Why is this species on

a small island in the Pacific able to not just use but to manufacture a variety of tools, and in a flexible rather than a rote or programmatic way? Why are they able to do at least as well as chimpanzees on experiments of cognition that show an understanding of the physical properties of the world and an ability to generalize from one problem to the next?”

If the birds learn to avoid holes and barriers in the experimental setting of a plastic tubed box, for example, they will avoid holes and barriers in the very different conditions of a wooden table. “Knowing their social structure,” Dr. Gray said, “is one part of the jigsaw.”

New DNA studies suggest that corvids first arose at the end of the dinosaur era, roughly 65 million years ago, somewhere in the neighborhood of Australia, and radiated outward from there. The ancestors of the New Caledonian crow didn’t travel far before settling on the 220-mile-long land sprig from which the species derives its name.

The modern New Caledonian crow is funereal of bill and feather and, at an average of 12 inches in length and 12 ounces in weight, a middling sort of corvid: much smaller than a common raven, slightly more compact than the ubiquitous American crow, but beefier than a jay or a jackdaw. Brain size is another matter.

“All corvid brains are relatively big,” said Dr. Gray, “but preliminary evidence suggests that the New Caledonian brain is big even for corvids.” Moreover, the brain is preferentially enlarged, displaying impressive bulk in the avian equivalent of the cogitating forebrain, particularly structures involved in associative learning and fine motor skills.

Their bills are also exceptional, “more like a human opposable thumb than the standard corvid beak,” said Dr. Gray.

The bills “appear specialized to hold tools,” said Anne Clark, who studies American crows at the State University of New York at Binghamton but who also has

observed New Caledonian crows in the field. “When I was watching them, they seemed to grab a stick whenever they appeared unable to figure something out,” she said, rather as a mathematician has trouble solving a problem without a pencil in hand.

The birds are indefatigable toolmakers out in the field. They find just the right twigs, crack them free of the branch, and then twist the twig ends into needlesharp hooks. They tear strips from the saw-toothed borders of Pandanus leaves, and then shape the strips into elegant barbed spears.

With their hooks and their spears they extract slugs, insects and other invertebrates from deep crevices in the ground or in trees. The birds are followers of local custom.

Through an arduous transisland survey of patterns left behind in Pandanus leaves by the edge-stripping crows, Gavin Hunt of the University of Auckland determined that toolmaking styles varied from spot to spot, and those styles remained stable over time. In sum, New Caledonian crows have their version of culture.

Being cultured is hard work. In studying the birds’ social life, Dr. Holzhaider and her colleagues confirmed previous observations that New Caledonian crows are not group-living social butterflies, as many crows and ravens are, but instead adhere to a nuclear family arrangement. Males and females pair up and stay together year-round, reaffirming their bond with charming gestures like feeding and grooming each other, sitting close enough to touch, and not even minding when their partner plays with their tools.

Young birds stay with their parents for two years or more — a very extended dependency, by bird standards — and they forage together as a family, chattering all the while. “They have this way of talking in a quiet voice, ‘Waak, waak, waak,’ that sounds really lovely,” said Dr. Holzhaider.

The juveniles need their extended apprenticeship.

“They’re incredibly persistent, wildly ripping and hacking at Pandanus leaves, trying to make it work,” said Dr. Holzhaider, “but for six months or so, juveniles are no way able to make a tool.”

The parents step into the breach, offering the trainee food they have secured with their own finely honed tools. “By seeing their parents get a slug out of a tree, they learn that there’s something down there worth searching for,” she said. “That keeps them going.”

The carrot-on-stick approach: It works every time.

SCIENCE / TECH 43

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Businesses Take Flight, With Help From NASA

By KENNETH CHANG

S

itting in a testing facility at the University of Colorado, the inner shell of the Dream Chaser space plane looks like the fuselage of an old DC-3.

The test structure has been pushed and pulled to see how it holds up to the stresses and strains of spaceflight. With an additional infusion of money from NASA, the company that makes the Dream Chaser, Sierra Nevada Space Systems, hopes to complete the rest of the structure and eventually take astronauts to orbit.

“Our view is if we could stop buying from the Russians, if we could make life cheaper for NASA, and if we could build a few vehicles that do other things in low-Earth orbit that are valuable, isn’t that, at the end of the day, a good thing?” said Mark N. Sirangelo, the company’s chairman.

The Dream Chaser is one of several new spacecraft that companies are hoping to launch into space with help from the government. Last year, the Obama administration pushed through an ambitious transformation for NASA: canceling the Ares I rocket, which was to be the successor to the current generation of space shuttles, and turning to the commercial sector for astronaut transportation.

So far, most of the attention in this new commercial space race has focused on Boeing, which has five decades of experience building spacecraft, and Space Exploration Technologies Corporation — SpaceX, for short — a brash upstart that gained credibility last year with two launchings of its Falcon 9 rocket.

SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, a founder of PayPal and chief executive of Tesla Motors, already has a NASA contract for delivering cargo to the space station, and says that it can easily add up to seven seats to its Dragon cargo capsule to make it suitable for passengers. Boeing is also designing a capsule, capable of carrying seven passengers, under the corporate-sounding designation of CST-100.

But Boeing and SpaceX are not the only competitors seeking to provide space taxi services, a program that NASA calls commercial crew. Last year, in the firstround financing provided for preliminary development, Sierra Nevada Space Systems won the largest award: $20 million out of a total of $50 million.

In December, another space company, Orbital Sciences Corporation, announced it had submitted a similar bid for a space plane it wants financed during the second round. NASA is to announce the winners by the end of March, and they will divide $200 million.

About half of NASA’s $19 billion budget goes toward human spaceflight — the space shuttles, the International Space Station — and $200 million this year is just

a small slice.

“If this is indeed the path to do this work, it’s probably not what they should be putting into it,” said Mr. Sirangelo, who is also chairman emeritus of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a trade group. “But on the other hand, it’s a lot more than we had before. And it’s an acknowledgment there’s momentum in the industry and what we’re trying to accomplish. So that’s good.”

After the second round, NASA would like narrow its choices down to two, maybe three, systems to finance.

“We think this is in effect a one-year race to see who gets the furthest,” Mr. Sirangelo said, “and at the end of that, presumably the next two years of the authorization bill gets funded, and then you compete for that pot of money.”

The blueprint for NASA, passed

by Congress last year and signed into law

by President Obama, calls for spending on commercial crew to rise to $500 million each year in 2012 and 2013.

Senator Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat who was one of the primary architects of the blueprint, as the authorization act was called, has said the intent was to provide $6 billion over six years.

But what Congress puts into the budget could be far less.

“They’re not getting $6 billion over six years for commercial crew,” said a Senate aide who was not authorized to speak for attribution. “That’s never going to happen.”

The aide estimated commercial crew might receive half that much.

In addition, Congress has not passed the final 2011 budget, and Mr. Obama wants to freeze spending at many federal agencies. Whether the freeze includes NASA will not be known until the president’s 2012 budget request is released in two weeks.

While Sierra Nevada has the lowest profile of the companies seeking commercial crew business, it is not new. The parent company, the Sierra Nevada Corporation, is a privately held defense electronics firm founded in 1963, and a few years ago, it bought several space companies and rolled them into the space systems subsidiary.

The space systems subsidiary, located outside Denver, is the largest manufacturer in the United States of small satellites, Mr. Sirangelo said. The satellites, used for

communications and other purposes, cannot do everything that large ones can do, but what they can do, they do more cheaply and more efficiently.

The Dream Chaser embodies the same philosophy. “There are some tasks that can be done by smaller, cheaper vehicles that used to be done by very expensive vehicles,” Mr. Sirangelo said.

Mr. Sirangelo said the company had invested its own money into the Dream Chaser — indeed, more than the $20 million that NASA has provided. Over the past year, the company has done a test-firing of the engines it plans to use on the Dream Chaser, and it dropped a scale model of the spacecraft from a helicopter to verify the aerodynamics.

But it is a jump from making spacecraft components and small satellites to building a crew-carrying space plane, and where Sierra Nevada lacks in skills and experience, it has brought in other companies and institutions. Its Dream Chaser partners include Draper Laboratory, which has been designing spacecraft guidance systems since Apollo; NASA’s Langley Research Center, which did much of the development that the Dream Chaser is based on; Boeing, which has also worked on space planes; and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin that builds the Atlas V rocket that the Dream Chaser would ride atop.

Virgin Galactic, the spacecraft division of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin empire, signed on as a strategic partner in December. Among the possible roles that Virgin could play is selling seats on the Dream Chaser. (Virgin signed a similar agreement with Orbital.)

The design of the Dream Chaser also has a long lineage, inspired by a Soviet spacecraft. In 1982, an Australian reconnaissance airplane photographed a Russian trawler pulling something with stubby wings out of the Indian Ocean. It turned out to be a test flight of a space plane called the Bor-4, and the craft captured enough curiosity that engineers at NASA Langley copied it.

NASA called its version the HL-20, and for a while in 1991, it looked to be the

low-cost choice for taking astronauts to and from the space station. Then the NASA administrator who liked it, Vice Adm. Richard Truly of the Navy, left, and the man who replaced him, Daniel S. Goldin, thought it was not cheap enough and ended the work.

The Dream Chaser design keeps the exact outer shape from the HL-20 — a decision that allows Sierra Nevada to take advantage of years of wind tunnel tests that Langley had performed — while modifying the design within. The biggest change is the addition of two engines, which reduces the number of passengers to seven from 10, but adds maneuverability. To finish developing the Dream Chaser would require less than $1 billion, Mr. Sirangelo said, and it could be ready to fly an orbital test flight in three years.

He imagines that one flight could combine a number of tasks — taking astronauts to the space station and then stopping on the return trip to repair or refuel a satellite. “This vehicle is perfectly designed to do all that,” Mr. Sirangelo said.

Officials at Orbital Sciences — a company in Dulles, Va., that builds and launches rockets and satellites for everything from television broadcasts to scientific research — say they are excited by the possibilities of commercial crew, but they are more cautious. Orbital, founded in 1982, was a survivor from the last boom-and-bust in commercial space.

Its space plane design is a refinement of the HL-20. Following in the pattern of tapping Greek mythology for the names of its spacecraft, Orbital calls its plane Prometheus. Orbital says development of Prometheus would cost $3.5 billion to $4 billion, which would include the cost of upgrading the Atlas V rocket and two test flights.

With enough financial support, David W. Thompson, chief executive of Orbital, is sure that his company can build and operate Prometheus. But he is less sure that his industry is at a tipping point for spaceflight to become much more common, driving down prices and opening up space to new businesses.

“I think it depends on what the demand curve really is,” Mr. Thompson said.

“I would say I’m highly skeptical.”

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

44 SCIENCE / TECH

Kepler Planet Hunter Finds 1,200 Possibilities

By DENNIS OVERBYE

A

stronomers have cracked the Milky Way like a piñata, and planets are now pouring out so fast that they don’t know what to do with them all.

In a long-awaited announcement, scientists operating NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting satellite reported Wednesday that they had identified 1,235 possible planets orbiting other stars, potentially tripling the number of known planets in the universe.

Of the new candidates, 68 are one-and-a-quarter times the size of the Earth or smaller — smaller, that is, than any previously discovered planets outside the solar system. Fifty-four of the possible exoplanets are in the so-called habitable zones, where temperatures should be moderate enough for liquid water, of stars dimmer and cooler than the Sun; four of these are less than twice the size of Earth, and one is even smaller.

Astronomers said that it would take years to confirm that all these candidates are really planets — by using ground-based telescopes to try to measure their masses, for example — and not just double stars or other strange systems. Many of them might never be vetted because of the dimness of their stars and the lack of telescope time and astronomers to do it all. But statistical tests of a sample of the list suggest that 80 to 95 percent of the objects on it were real, as opposed to blips in the data.

“It boggles the mind,” said William Borucki of the Ames Research Center, Kepler’s leader.

At first glance, none of them appears to be another Earth, the kind of cosmic Eden fit for life as we know it, but the new results represent only four months worth of data on a three-and-a-half-year project, and have left astronomers enthused about the chances they will ultimately reach their goal of finding Earth-like planets in the universe.

“For the first time in human history we have a pool of potentially rocky habitable zone planets,” said Sara Seager of M.I.T., who works with Kepler. “This is the first big step forward to answering the ancient question, ‘How common are other Earths?’ ” Mr. Borucki noted that since the Kepler telescope surveys only one four-hundredth of the sky, the numbers extrapolated to some 20,000 habitable-zone planets within 3,000 light-years of Earth. He is the lead author of a paper that has been submitted to The Astrophysical

Journal describing the new results.

In a separate announcement, to be published in Nature on Thursday, a group of Kepler astronomers led

by Jack Lissauer of Ames said they had found a star with six planets — the most Kepler has yet found around one star — orbiting in close ranks in the same plane, no farther from their star than Mercury is from the Sun. This dense packing, Dr. Lissauer said, seems to violate all the rules astronomers thought they had begun to discern about how planetary systems form and evolve.

“This is sending me back to the drawing board,” he said.

Summarizing the news from the cosmos, Geoffrey W. Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, a veteran exoplanet hunter and a mainstay of the Kepler work, said, “There are so many messages here that it’s hard to know where to begin.” He called the Borucki team’s announcement “an extraordinary planet windfall, a moment that will be written in textbooks. It will be thought of as watershed.”

Kepler, launched into orbit around the Sun in March 2009, stares at a patch of the Milky Way near the Northern Cross, measuring the brightness of 156,000 stars every 30 minutes, looking for a pattern of dips that would be caused by planets crossing in front of their suns.

The goal is to assess the frequency of Earth-like planets around Sun-like suns in the galaxy. But in the four months of data analyzed so far, a Kepler looking at our own Sun would be lucky to have seen the Earth pass even once. Three transits are required for a planet to show up in Kepler’s elaborate data-processing pipeline, which means that Kepler’s next scheduled data re-

lease, in June 2012, could be a moment of truth for the mission.

Habitable planets, in the meantime, could show up at fainter stars than our Sun, where the habitable, or “Goldilocks,” zone, would be smaller and closer to the star and planets in it would rack up transits more quickly.

Attention has been riveted on Wednesday’s data release since June, when Kepler scientists issued their first list, of some 300 stars suspected of harboring planets, but held back another 400 for further study. In the intervening months, Mr. Borucki said, some of those candidates have been eliminated, but hundreds more have been added that would otherwise have been reported in June this year.

One of the sequestered stars was a Sun-like star in the constellation Cygnus that went by the name of KOI 157, for Kepler Object of Interest. It first came to notice in the spring of 2009 when the astronomers saw that it seemed to have five candidate planets, four with nearly the same orbital periods, and in the same plane, like an old vinyl record, Dr. Lissauer recalled. Two of them came so close that every 50 days one of them would look as large as a full moon as seen from the other, Dr. Lissauer calculated.

“I got very interested in this system,” Dr. Lissauer said. “Five was the most we had around any target.”

Moreover, the planets’ proximity to one another meant that they would interact gravitationally. In the fall, a sixth planet — the innermost — was found.

By measuring the slight variations in transit times caused by the gravitational interference of the inner five planets with one another, Dr. Lissauer and his colleagues were able to calculate the masses and densities of those planets. These confirmed they were so-called super-Earths, with masses ranging from two to 13 times that of the Earth. But they were also puffy, containing a mixture of rock and gas, rather than being pure rock and iron like another super-Earth, Kepler 10b, a hunk of lava announced last month at a meeting in Seattle.

Dr. Lissauer said, “It suggests that most super-Earths may be more like Neptune than Earth-like.”

Alan Boss, a planetary theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said the Kepler 11 system, as it is now known, should keep theorists busy and off the streets for a long time. “This system,” he wrote in an e-mail message, “certainly belongs in the pantheon of

Altering a Mouse Gene Turns Up Aggression

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

F

or some genes, either the father’s version or the mother’s version is active, but not both. Which version of the gene works is determined before conception, as the sperm and egg are developing, in a process called imprinting.

By mimicking that process in the lab, and turning off a gene in mice, scientists have produced a change in social dominance behavior. In laboratory tests, mice with the paternal version of the gene known as Grb10 inactivated were more aggressive in their behavior, according to new research in the journal Nature.

The researchers had two methods of

measuring social dominance. They found that mice with the inactive gene engaged in more social grooming, and nibbled off more fur and whiskers of other mice.

Also, when two mice were placed in a tube and approached each other, mice with the inactive gene were less likely to back down and turn away.

“Both males and females with the paternal gene off are adopting this socially dominant behavior,” said Andrew Ward, a geneticist with the Center for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Bath in Britain.

In natural reproduction, the paternal version of the gene is generally active, Dr. Ward said, but some mice may have

a greater number of active versions than others.

“We’ve shown the extreme,” he said. “But you might have a more subtle variation in how much this behavior is expressed.”

Males may be passing on versions of the gene that vary in strength to different offspring as a means of guaranteeing their legacy.

“It’s a risky strategy to set yourself up as a leader of the pack,” he said. “It’s a good idea to disperse these characteristics through your offspring where some could be regular members and others could be leaders of the group.”

Humans also carry the gene Grb10,

and different manifestations of it may also affect social dominance, Dr. Ward said.

In laboratory tests, genetically manipulated mice with the paternal version of the gene Grb10 inactivated, right, were more aggressive.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

36 Hours in Bali

By NAOMI LINDT

M

AYBE it was the topless women that the German painter Walter Spies captured in his lush landscapes of Bali during the 1930s. But ever since, foreigners have come to undress. Shirtless Australians, surfboards strapped to the side of their motorbikes, cruise around for the best waves. At five-star resorts, bronzed Italian women in tiny bikinis while away the days with wine. Farther inland, spiritual seekers wrapped in body-skimming sarongs commune in temples. The natives don’t go topless anymore, but that doesn’t stop the throngs of sunba-

thers who let it all hang out on Bali’s busiest beaches.

Friday 5 p.m.

1) MODERN-DAY ARTIFACTS Punctuated by temples hidden behind ornately carved archways and petal-filled lanes, Ubud is Bali’s artistic hub. And beyond the painted masks and shadow puppets that spill out of countless storefronts are a string of new galleries that offer one-of-a-kind treasures. Jean-François Fichot (Jalan Raya Pengosekan 6, Ubud; 62-361-974-652; jf-f.com) carries striking gem- and stone-encrusted gold jewelry and objets

d’art. Next door is the Nusantara Gallery (Jalan Raya Pengosekan 7, Ubud; 62-81-797-97804), which sells rare primitive art, including wooden statues and fine weavings gathered from all over the Indonesian archipelago. And at Rio Helmi Photography (Jalan Suweta 24A, Ubud; 62-361-978-773; riohelmi. com), Mr. Helmi, who displays his own photos of Bali and elsewhere, has a new book out, “Memories of the Sacred,” that chronicles 30 years spent witnessing Bali’s enduring traditions.

7 p.m.

2) INSPIRATIONAL EATING Culinary karma seems to emanate from Jalan Raya Sanggingan, a winding

45

road about 15 minutes northwest of Ubud’s center. Joining Mozaic’s famed French-Asian fare and Naughty Nuri’s legendary ribs is Minami (Jalan Raya Sanggingan, Ubud; 62-361-970-013; minami-bali.com), a stylish Japanese restaurant opened in 2009 by Miho Oshiro from Osaka. You can sip a yuzu-infused sake-tini (85,000 rupiah, or about $9.75 at 8,703 rupiah to the dollar) as you settle into the baby blue, jasmine-scented dining room, which overlooks a lanternlit garden. The six-course tasting menu (210,000 rupiah) includes melt-in-themouth Tasmanian salmon sashimi and tissue-papery zucchini leaf tempura.

Even the flavored salt (the recipe is a secret), imported from Japan and served in a tiny bowl, is exquisite.

9:30 p.m.

3) HINT OF HAVANA You’ll most likely have Ubud’s streets to yourself soon after dinner, but cute cocktail spots are on the rise. At Cafe Havana (Jalan Dewi Sita, Ubud; 62-361-972-973; cafehavanabali.com), salsa bands and dance classes take place among mismatched hand-painted chairs and framed photos of Che and Fidel.

Drinks at artsy Lamak (Jalan Monkey Forest, Ubud; 62-361-974-668; lamakbali.com) are mixed at an open-air bar; go for the sweet yet punchy El Diablo, made of tequila, crème de cassis, lemon juice and ginger ale.

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The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Comes from page 49

Saturday 7:45 a.m.

4) TWO-WHEELED BLISS It’s hard not to fall for Bali while cycling its quiet back roads, which are lined with stepped rice fields, blooms in every shade of the rainbow and women in bright sarongs balancing temple offerings on their heads. Half-day tours with Bali Eco-Cycling (Jalan Pengosekan, Ubud; 62-361-975-557; baliecocycling. com; 300,000 rupiah) start with breakfast overlooking the 5,600-foot-high volcanic Mount Batur and its crater lake, followed by a caffeine kick at a coffee plantation.

The mostly downhill 17-mile ride isn’t very challenging, but it is spectacularly scenic and photo-friendly.

1 p.m.

5) VIRTUOUS VEGETARIAN Follow the dreadlocks and Aladdin pants to Kafe (Jalan Hanoman 44b, Ubud; 62-361-780-3802; balispirit.com), a sunny, art-filled cafe that is made of reclaimed wood. Run by Meghan Pappenheim, an ex-New Yorker, the hippie-chic spot serves vegan and raw food like Meg’s Big Salad Bowl — a heaping plate of greens, cabbage, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and crunchy tofu-tempeh cubes (36,000 rupiah) — and kitcheree, a hearty stew of lentil, brown rice, ginger and turmeric (32,000). There’s also a selection of baked goods for the less virtuous.

2:30 p.m.

6) TIMED RELEASE It took 30 months to build Fivelements (Banjar Baturning, Mambal; 62-361-469-206; fivelements.org), a stunning wellness center and five-room hotel tucked away in Mambal, a sleepy village 20 minutes by car from Ubud. Transcendental massages are offered in incensefilled rooms built of polished bamboo, reclaimed wood and spiral thatched ro-

ofs (90 minutes from $80). Post-treatment ginger-lemongrass tea is served on a private deck overlooking a bamboo forest and the Ayung River.

5:30 p.m.

7) LIGHT SHOW Bali’s legendary sunsets can be a controversial affair. Ask around for the best perch to catch the nightly psychedelia, and you’ll get an earful. Still, there’s no denying that one of the most stylish places is the Rock Bar (Ayana Resort and Spa, Jimbaran; 62-361-702-222; ayanaresort.com), an outdoor lounge built into the cliffs at the newly opened Ayana Resort and Spa along the island’s southwestern tip. The muted, minimalist bar with interconnected decks is perched above the crashing waves of the Indian Ocean. Get there early to avoid the lines and to get a good seat (though the best are saved for hotel guests). Order a cold beer (80,000 rupiah) and watch the sun melt into the water, casting the sky in brilliant shades of pink, violet and orange.

8:30 p.m.

8) FISH WITH RICE Seminyak, Kuta’s upscale neighbor, has become Bali’s see-and-be-seen center of night life. So it was refreshing when Sardine (Jalan Petitenget 21, Kerobakan; 62-361-738-202; sardinebali.com), an artsy down-to-earth restaurant, made everyone feel at home. With rice fields as the backdrop, diners sample what the executive chef Michael Shaheen, from

California, calls “cuisine du soleil” — healthy, light food suited to hot climates.

That includes just-caught seafood like pink snapper sashimi with shimeji mushrooms (65,000 rupiah) and pan-seared scallops in a parsley-truffle emulsion (195,000 rupiah).

10:30 p.m.

9) FIND THE PARTY Bali’s beautiful people gather for drinks, jazz and D.J.-spun beats across the street at Métis (Jalan Petitenget 6, Kerobokan; 62-361-737-888; metisbali. com), a candlelit bar that’s the latest venture from the folks behind Kafe Warisan.

In the center of town, design aficionados gather at Word of Mouth (Jalan Kunti 9, Seminyak; 62-361-847-5797; wordofmouthbali.com), a boutique that doubles as a cool lounge at night, with impromptu parties that have developed a loyal following (check its Facebook page for updates).

Sunday 9 a.m.

10) STAY ON YOUR FEET Bali’s giant waves have been luring surfers since the 1960s, promising year-round swells that can soar upward of 10 feet. After spending time admiring the perfect tans and free spirits of Bali’s surfing community, you’ll very likely want to join. Surf shacks with teachers abound. To minimize first-timers’ humiliation, try a private 75-minute lesson (450,000 rupiah) with Marcy Meachin (62-812-385-9454; teachsurf.com), a talented Aussie teacher who’s spent much of the last 30 years chasing surf in Indonesia. Beginner courses are taught on Legian Beach, where the shallow waters, sandy shores and small waves provide a gentle introduction.

11:30 a.m.

11) SAND AND PIZZA Breathtaking beaches edge the Bukit, the island’s southern peninsula.

Book a car and driver to get to secluded spots like Padang Padang, an oasis of calm water shaded by soaring cliffs that was a setting for the film “Eat Pray Love.” Another stunning beach is at the Nammos Beach Club (Karma Kandara Resort; karmakandara.com), reached by a steep trail etched in a limestone cliff.

Interlopers can enjoy aquamarine water for an entry fee of 250,000 rupiah, which includes 100,000 rupiah toward food.

The open-air kitchen serves a mean wood-fired pizza with toppings like fig, prosciutto and Gorgonzola.

2 p.m.

12) SHOPPER’S PARADISE Bring home some Bali chic from Jalan Laksmana, which has emerged as Seminyak’s boutique street in recent years. Try bohemian-cool Press Ban Cafe at No. 50 (62-361-730-486) for handmade wooden shoes, Jackie O. shades and fitted vintage plaid button-downs. Lily Jean (No. 102; 62-361-847-5872; lilyjean.com) carries sexy strapless jersey pantsuits and bandaged cocktail dresses. And Simplekonsepstore (No. 40; 62-361-730-393; sksbali.com) prides itself on one-of-a-kind design: limited-edition graphic T-shirts, origami-inspired bags and hand-dyed tunics that reinvent Bali’s rich tradition of batik in totally unexpected ways.

IF YOU GO The 20 chocolate- and toffee-hued villas at Uma Sapna (Jalan Drupadi No. 20 Basangkasa, Seminyak; 62-361-736-628; coconuthomes.com) come with private pools and outdoor patios. Seminyak’s shops are within walking distance and the beach is a short cab ride away. Doubles from $175.

The W Retreat & Spa Bali-Seminyak (Jalan Petitenget, Seminyak; 62-361-738-106; whotels.com/bali) is expected to open in March or April, with 237 rooms offering knockout water views. Doubles from $575.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

47

Isla de Mona PR The Caribbean Galapagos

M

ona (Spanish: Isla de la Mona) is the third largest island of the archipelago of Puerto Rico, after the main island of Puerto Rico and Vieques. It is the largest of three islands located in the Mona Passage, a strait between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, the others being Monito Island and Desecheo Island. It measures about 11 km by 7 km (7 miles by 4 miles), and lies 66 km (41 miles) west of Puerto Rico, of which it is administratively a part. The original name given to the island by the Taino Indians is Amona, which means “what is in the middle”, referring to the journey between the islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. It is one of two islands that make up the Isla de Mona e Islote Monito Barrio of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

The island is a natural reserve and, though there are no native inhabitants, rangers from the island’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources reside on the island to manage visitors and take part in research projects.

Pre-Columbian history

Mona Island is believed to have been originally settled by Arawak Indians who arrived from Hispaniola (present

day Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

An archeological excavation during the 1980s discovered many Pre-Columbian objects on the island that helped support historians’ theories of the island’s first inhabitants. Stone tools found in a rock shelter have been dated to around 3000 BC. Much later the island was settled by the Tainos, and remained so until the arrival of the Spanish in the 15th century.

Colonial period

On November 19, 1493, during his second voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus encountered the island now known as Puerto Rico, which the natives called Borinquen (or Borikén according to some historians), and which Columbus named San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist). Within hours of setting foot in Puerto Rico, Columbus and his ships headed west to Hispaniola, where he expected to meet several crewmembers who had remained behind from his first voyage. As he left Puerto Rico, he reputedly became the first European to sight the island on September 24, 1494, which was claimed for Spain. The name Mona derives from the Taíno name Ámona, bestowed by the natives in honor of

the ruling Cacique or chief of the island.

In 1502, Fray Nicolas de Ovando was sent to Isla de la Mona to keep an eye, from a safe distance, on the native revolts occurring in Hispaniola. With a group of 2,000 Spanish settlers, Ovando was left in charge of creating a permanent settlement on the island. Due to its small size and location, the island proved inadequate to accommodate such a large settlement, and food became scarce as shipments from Hispaniola and Puerto Rico were received infrequently.

Juan Ponce de León, who accompanied Columbus on his first two voyages, became the first ruling governor of Puerto Rico. In 1508, de León made several visits to Mona Island to gather goods and food from the Taínos residing there. The island, which had an abundant supply of food and other products commonly used by the Taínos on both Mona Island and Puerto Rico, was considered a valuable possession to personally own. In 1509, de Leon became interested in acquiring the island, and this caused a bitter rivalry between him and King Ferdinand II of Aragon who wanted Mona Island for his own private vacation retreat.

In 1515, after some wrangling, Ferdinand II was able to reclaim the island from Diego Colon, Viceroy of the Indies.

By then, Isla de la Mona was an important point of trade between Spain and the rest of Latin America, as well as a rest stop for the crews of boats carrying slaves. With his possession of the island, King Ferdinand II gave the resident Taínos two options if they wished to continue living on the island: they could work by fishing, making hammocks and cultivating plants, or they could become miners and help in the mining of guano and other minerals. Reali-

zing that mining would require intense labor, the majority of inhabitants chose to work as fishermen and farmers. By accepting this option, they also were exempted from paying imposed taxes, and were able to avoid the hard labor many other natives endured in mines. In time, natives from other neighboring islands were brought to Mona Island to assist with labor.

After the death of Ferdinand II in 1516, ownership of the island was transferred to Cardenal Cisneros. The island changed ownership again in 1520, when Francisco de Barrionuevo became the island’s new landlord. By 1524, Alonso Manso, bishop of Puerto Rico, had become interested in gaining personal wealth, and he accused Barrionuevo, among others, of various crimes under the Spanish justice system of the time. Because of this situation, Barrionuevo exiled himself to one of Spain’s colonies in South America, taking many Taínos along with him, and leaving the island practically deserted.

By 1522, ships from other major sea powers such as England, France, and the Netherlands began to arrive at Isla de la Mona to replenish supplies for their transatlantic voyages. The island also provided them and pirates with a refuge from which they could attack and plunder Spanish galleons.

In 1561, during an audience held in Santo Domingo, it was recommended that Isla de la Mona should become a part of that colony (which at the time occupied the eastern half of Hispaniola). The reasons offered were simply that the island was closer to Santo Domingo (presently the Dominican Republic) than to Puerto Rico, and that it had a small population

Continues on page 48

48 February 10 - 16, 2011 Comes from page 47 which could help the colony’s economy in overall agricultural production. However, the petition was turned down and the island continued to remain politically part of Puerto Rico.

In 1583, the Spanish archbishop of Puerto Rico received royal permission to bring Christianity to Mona Island. However, by this time most Taínos remaining on the island had either died or fled to mainland Puerto Rico due to repeated raiding by European (especially French) ships. From the end of the 16th century up until the mid-19th century the island was largely abandoned by the colonial authorities. It seems to have been sporadically inhabited, although records from this period are somewhat sketchy. It continued to be used as a refuge by pirates and privateers, including the notorious Captain Kidd who hid out there in 1699.

The island’s circumstances changed in the mid-19th century when it became the site of commercial guano mining operations. Various companies were granted licences to extract the bat and seagull guano (a valuable fertilizer and key strategic commodity for the production of gunpowder) from the island’s caves. Mining continued until 1927.

20th century

With the 1898 Treaty of Paris, Isla de la Mona, along with the rest of Puerto Rico, was handed by Spain to the United States. Within two years of occupation, the Mona Island Light began operation.

The lighthouse was designed by famous French engineer Gustave Eiffel (who also designed the world famous Eiffel Tower in Paris). It remained in continuous operation until 1976 when it was replaced by a newer automated light.

On December 22, 1919 the island was declared an “Insular Forest of Puerto Rico”, under the auspices of the U.S. Forest Law #22.

During Prohibition the island had a history of smuggling, with its geographic location making it a prime location for rum runners to smuggle rum, bourbon, and other liquor. In 1923, a stash of liquor, drugs, and perfumes, reportedly from the French islands of Martinique and Saint Martin and worth US$75,000, was found in a cave by customs officials.

In 1942, at the height of World War II, a German submarine bombarded the southern coast of the island. This was one of the few incidents of that war in the Ca-

The San Juan Weekly

ribbean. From 1945 to 1955 Mona Island was leased to the U.S. Air Force as a military exercise area.

Since 1941 the island has also been used for camping and hunting goats and wild boar. In 1960 a small ranger post was established to monitor the island, operated by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources.

In July 1972 the Environmental Quality Board of Puerto Rico, because of growing interest in the development of the islands, made a full scientific assessment of Mona and Monita using a local team of volunteer scientists. A two-

volume report with maps of natural and historic features was produced. It evaluated the climate, geology and mineral resources, soils, water resources, archaeology, vegetation, animals and insects, and pelagic life around the island. Shortly after that geotechnical and bathymetry studies were conducted by engineering firms to determine the feasibility of using Mona as a deepwater terminal for transferring oil from supertankers to smaller tankers which would continue to the mainland US. That plan was never implemented.

In 1981, the Mona Island Lighthouse was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as “Faro de la Isla de la Mona”.

In 1993, the island (perhaps all of it), as “Isla de la Mona”, was listed on the National Register.

Geography

Location of the Island of Mona within the archipelago of Puerto Rico.

Mona Island as seen from offshore Mona has an area of about 57 km² (22 square miles) and lies 66 km (41 miles) west of the main island of Puerto Rico, 61 km (38 miles) east of the Dominican

Republic, and 49 km (30 miles) southwest of Desecheo Island, another island in the Mona Passage.

Mona has been designated an ecological reserve by the Puerto Rican government and is not permanently inhabited.

The US census of 2000 reports six housing units, but a population of zero.[7] The island is a ward (barrio) of the municipality of Mayagüez, together with Monito Island 5 km northwest (Isla de Mona e Islote Monito barrio). This is the largest ward of Mayagüez by area, and the only one without permanent population. The total land area of both islands in the barrio is about 56.93 km² (Mona Island 56.783 km² and nearby Monito Island 0.147 km²), and it comprises 28.3 percent of the total land area of the municipality of Mayagüez.

Desecheo Island, 49 km to the northeast, is part of Sabanetas barrio.

Mona is a mainly flat plateau surrounded by sea cliffs. It is composed of dolomite and limestone with many caves found throughout. With an arid climate and untouched by human development, many endemic species inhabit the island, such as the Mona Ground Iguana (Cyclura cornuta stejnegeri). Its topography, ecology, and modern history are similar to that of Navassa Island, a small limestone island located in the Jamaica Channel, between Jamaica and isitors.

Mona Island today

Buildings on Playa Pájaros on the south coast The island presently serves as a retreat for Puerto Ricans and nature enthusiasts from all around the world, and has also become a popular destination for Puerto Rican Boy and Girl Scouts. Due to the islands’ unique topography, ecology and location, Mona, Desecheo and Monito have been nicknamed “The Galápagos Islands of the Caribbean”. Scientists, ecologists, and students have visited Mona Island to explore its distinct ecosystem, which includes the endemic Mona Ground Iguana. The island is also home to many cave drawings that were left behind by the island’s original inhabitants.

Remains of the guano mining industry can also be seen.

An FAA-certified airport that can handle small aircraft was built by the

Puerto Rican government. This airport has no ICAO or IATA code. The United States Coast Guard is able to provide transportation with helicopter flights from Eugenio Maria de Hostos Airport in Mayagüez, to help with medicines and first aid equipment; they also fly whenever an emergency requiring hospitalization occurs.

Private and commercial planes require a special permit issued by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources to use the airport’s facilities.

The most common form of transportation is by private yacht, though commercial excursions are available from Cabo Rojo for small groups of up to twelve people traveling together.

Hunting is permitted in season in order to control the population growth of non-indigenous species (goats, pigs and wild cats) because they can represent a threat to various endangered species. The hunting season usually commences in December and ends in April. Camping is allowed from May through November.

In recent years, the island has become a major drop-off point for Dominicans, Cubans, Chinese, Filipinos and even North Koreans trying to reach Puerto Rico illegally. As a U.S. Commonwealth, Puerto Rico is a seen by many illegal migrants as stepping stone to the United States. With the exception of Cubans, who are allowed to stay permanently in the United States due to that country’s wet feet/dry feet policy, all other illegal immigrants are usually deported immediately.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

49

ART

The Rembrandt of Riyadh

By TIM ADAMS “

T

he thing about being a painter,” Andrew Vicari, who has claims to being the most lavishly rewarded painter in the world, was saying, “is that every night you go to bed thinking the work you have done that day is fabulous.

And then you wake up the next morning and look at your canvas and think it is worthless, a piece of junk, and you start again.”

We were traveling on the upper deck of a double-decker bus along London’s Piccadilly in early December, on the way to meet the artist’s manager.

Vicari, a heavyset man in a big coat, gestured outside in exaggerated despondency. “Sometimes I see pavement artists, working in chalk, work that the rain will wash away,” he said, “and I think: Is Vicari really any better than any of them?” He looked me in the eye, clutched my arm. “I mean, am I?” “Well,” I said, ducking the answer, looking out at the Christmas lights, “street artists are paid in pennies. What’s the most you have been paid for a single picture?”

Vicari scoffed. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, dismissively, “I’m not interested in the money. It is entirely secondary to the work.” And then he brightened a little. “Six million dollars, maybe.”

Andrew Vicari, now in his 70s, grew up in a steelmaking town in South Wales.

During World War II, his father, an Italian immigrant and restaurateur, was interned, and Vicari’s earliest memories are of going to see him, behind barbed wire.

In his late teens, he was initially refused a place at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London, where instructors included Lucian Freud, but then someone dropped out, and he sneaked in. Vicari now lives most of the time in Monte Carlo, where he is friend to Prince Albert and sometime painter to Princess Caroline.

Until recently he divided his time between there and Saudi Arabia, where he made his fortune by producing an extended tribute in oils to several generations of the Saudi royal family. Vicari — who was in London to complete a portrait of the commander of the queen’s household cavalry, a man who revels in the name Silver Stick — is about the last of a dying breed: a court painter. And like all court painters, he is full of gossip.

After we met several times, some of the stories, generally place-and-date-specific but stubbornly impossible to verify, had become old friends. There was the one about how Vicari dated Einstein’s greatniece and got to know a bit about “Uncle Albert.” The tale of how, when he lived in

Rome in the late ’50s, he went to borrow some milk from his neighbor Truman Capote and Jean Genet was sprawled on a chaise. There was the time he danced with the queen’s sister, Princess Margaret; the time he turned down a lunch date with Catherine Deneuve. Vicari is currently at work on a memoir. The problem is, he told me with an exaggerated sigh, he has 3,000 fantastic anecdotes about everyone you’ve ever heard of and no idea how to get them in the right order.

If you were to trace these stories back to a single potent event, then you would have to say Vicari’s life changed

most radically one morning in 1974 when he boarded a plane at Heathrow Airport with two friends, a former diplomat and a development consultant with an interest in Middle Eastern affairs. When he got on that plane, Vicari was under the impression, he says — almost believably — that he was going to meet a client of his associates in Rio de Janeiro. It was only when he asked for a glass of Champagne from the cabin crew and was told they could offer only orange juice that he realized they were in fact bound for Riyadh.

“Christ,” he said. “All that sand.”

There were, he soon discovered, compensations. In the mid-’70s the Saudi royal family and government, awash in petro dollars, was keen to create a mythology to establish its secular power. In the previous decade, nascent fundamentalist Islamic groups had pursued a policy in Medina of “the breaking of the pictures” (taksir al-suwar), destroying portraits and photographs of Saudi royalty, believing them to be idolatrous.

To demonstrate its imperial pedigree, the House of Saud required art. In 1974, a grand conference hall was to be

built in Riyadh that would welcome the oil traders and arms dealers and property developers of the world; it would need to be decorated with a suitably regal narrative. Enter Andrew Vicari. As soon as he arrived, Vicari says, the minister of finance, Mohammed Abalkhail, was sizing him up. “He was looking for their Michelangelo, I suppose.” (Abalkhail, in Riyadh, recalls the encounter in somewhat more prosaic terms. He describes the association with Vicari as “a normal business relationship and usually not exceeding those lines,” and though suggesting Vicari was more of a grand decorator than a Renaissance man, he declines to comment on whether Vicari could have made himself the richest painter in the world through his work.)

Vicari, who refers to Riyadh as “the Vatican of Islam,” had the ambition, at least, for a Sistine ceiling and set to work with gusto. He was initially dispatched across the kingdom, with an architect and a chauffeur, in search of inspiration.

When he returned to Riyadh, Vicari revealed his suitably flattering concept to his patrons: he would make 60 vast paintings that would tell a vivid story of the rise to power of the House of Saud, called “The Triumph of the Bedouin.”

Vicari lived for two years in a suite at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh and painted every day on a monumental scale at the King Faisal Hall. Aarnout Helb, a leading collector of contemporary Saudi art, with a museum dedicated to the subject in Amsterdam, describes Vicari’s pitch as that of “an Italian pizza seller, always wanting to show off the biggest pizza.”

Helb adds: “The Saudis then wanted what looked bigger and better. Though there were obviously fabulous traditions in Islamic art, some of them figurative, they looked to what they saw as Western styles. And what happened inside palaces was always larger than what happened

outside.” Vicari, armed with indefatigable charm and great good humor, expanded to fill the role, and he was in good company. The world, or at least that part of it with an interest in Arab wealth, was passing through the hotel lobby. One day, he says, he would breakfast with Caspar Weinberger; the next he would bump into Spiro Agnew, on a mission to sell bulletproof vests. His best friend in Saudi Arabia was the minister plenipotentiary of France. They used to jog in the evenings, trailed by a man with a prototype portable telephone and three lines of bodyguards.

It was, he recalls, “like jogging with Louis XIV.” Vicari, whose life looks a lot like a manifesto for being in the right place at the right time, claims he was “outrageous” at the Saudi palace. “I used to insult people.” Vicari was expected to make his portraits of Faisal’s successor, Khalid, and his family, from photographs. He insisted on doing so from life. After “six months of foot-stamping,” he was eventually granted an audience with the king, in the company of the deputy chief of protocol.

“I insulted the king of Saudi Arabia,” he says. He was, he recalls, telling the king to move his arm this way or that, and the deputy chief of protocol was yelling at him: “Don’t address him, address me!” In the end, though, he got the portrait.

He also got paid. When he talks about money, Vicari, never a notably precise man, becomes vaguer than ever. In the year when his wealth made the most headlines, 2001, he sold a series of paintings about the Persian Gulf war for “about £17m,” or $23 million; The Sunday Times of London calculated that Vicari was then the 18th-richest living Briton — one place behind Sir Paul McCartney. In 2010, the same paper’s list calculated his wealth at £85 million ($114 million).

Continues on page 18

ART

50

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Comes from page 17 VICARI’S WORK, and in particular his prices, have not always traveled as well as he might have hoped. One of the most recent documented sales of his paintings in the U.K. occurred in February 2009 at an auction in Bristol in the west of England. The auctioneer Dreweatts offered “Whitsun Procession,” an original oil painting with full provenance, for the listed price of £100 to £150. It eventually sold to a bidder for £55, or about $87. Critical response is similarly patchy.

While Vicari touts himself as “the king of painters, painter of kings” (a quote he attributes to Pierre Galante, a former editor of Paris Match), most other observers, like the art critic John Berger, the author of “Ways of Seeing” and a friend to many of Vicari’s London contemporaries, are less convinced. “Vicari is of sociological interest as an analysis of where career promotion can get you, but certainly not of artistic interest,” Berger says. “I’m not sure that in any other period but the one we are in could a guy have achieved what he has, that money, doing what he does with all those clichés.”

Vicari puts his comparative anonymity, and miserable prices, in the West down to a mixture of envy and unfashionability. He is currently planning a triumphant homecoming; there will be a “retrospective” in February, he says (though it will be at the London society jewelers Boucheron rather than an art gallery). “I am planning to return like Christ in the temple, turning over the tables, turning over this conceptualism! This Damien Hirst, with his stuffed sharks, is just an ornithologist!”

You mean a taxidermist?

“Yes, that’s it, a taxidermist.”

Most of Vicari’s work includes a signature swirl or vortex, like a dying sun, which he calls “a vigonade,” a word he made up during one long evening at a bar called Chez Vigon in Nice. What does “the vigonade” signify?

“People say it is an enigma, but it is much more mysterious than that.”

More mysterious than an enigma?

“Much more.”

Vicari’s grandfather was a circus

owner, and you can sense some of that theatrical lugubriousness in him. He says he is obsessed with comedy, and with death. This started early. “My father,” he says, “saw it and arranged for me to go to the local slaughterhouse in Wales, and I helped to kill 200 sheep. I was about 16, 17.” He recalls the carnage, shakes his head. “I didn’t do the pigs because the squeals were unbearable. Just the sheep.

It’s all in the work. People say where does the power of my work come from? And I say three things. Menace, menace and menace.”

But he often paints peasant girls with bunches of flowers?

“Menace.”

What about his “Virgin and Gypsy” series?

“Menace.”

His soulful-looking harlequins?

“Menace. It’s in me. As they said of Michelangelo: Sweet and terrible.”

It was partly this compulsion to understand violence, Vicari says, that led him to persuade the Saudis to make him the official war artist in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. His sponsor was Prince Khalid Bin Sultan, the joint commander of the allied forces with General Schwarzkopf.

Initially he was stuck at the command center, but pestered his clients to allow him access to the battlefield. He then set to work on a series of pictures called “From War to Peace: The Liberation of Kuwait.” The last portrait he made was of General Schwarzkopf; the general gave him one of his caps, in which Vicari still sometimes paints. For a long while after the paintings were completed, there was a dispute about Vicari’s price. In hushed tones he claims to have had an offer of $8 million for the series from the Iranian government, which supposedly wanted to destroy the paintings, so partial did they think them to the Saudi cause. In the end, he sold the bulk of them to Prince Khalid Bin Sultan for what was reportedly three times that amount.

One of the closest members of the prince’s entourage from that time gives an insight into Vicari’s methods: “I remember he invited us all to Monte Carlo, where we watched the Grand Prix from his balcony,” this confidant recalls. “He

painted huge, grotesque pictures of the first gulf war — including larger-than-life portraits — which he was flogging to the prince for very large sums. One needs to recall the euphoria of the time. The war was a very big moment in the prince’s life. . . . And he commanded tens of thousands of troops. [Vicari] persuaded the prince to provide him with what I think was a vast aircraft hangar in which to hang his pictures. He also wanted a plane to fly his daubs around the world.” Eventually, the source suggests, Khalid paid Vicari for the paintings but then cut him off abruptly.

THERE IS CURRENTLY a touring exhibition of younger Saudi artists, called “The Edge of Arabia,” which in the last year has received critical acclaim in Berlin and London and at the Venice Biennale.

Prominent in this group is an artist called Abdulnasser Gharem. Gharem leads a curious double life: he is both a cutting-edge conceptualist and a lieutenant colonel in the Saudi Army. When I spoke to him by phone recently, he was preparing to take a break from military duty to open a show in Dubai, where his work would be exhibited alongside that of Damien Hirst. Gharem knows Vicari’s work, in particular the gulf-war paintings. “What you have to remember back then,” he said, “is that we had no galleries, no models really. Not really even books to look at.” As a result, he suggested, art was what was big and vaguely impressionistic. In recent years, Gharem said, Saudi artists have been liberated by the Internet, which allows them to communicate with contemporaries elsewhere and interpret their situation at home in new ways. It is a measure of how far Saudi society has come, he said, that the army supports his radical other life, and that the broadly questioning and critical agenda of the “Edge of Arabia” group is possible. It is still hard to show work in Riyadh, however. “The galleries here are still rejecting me,” Gharem said.

“They think art is still pictures of horses, you know. Like Vicari. But I think that time is passing. The art we are making is much more about what is happening in

our country now.”

In recent years, partly as a result of this shift, Vicari has been going to Saudi Arabia much less often. Typically undaunted by the turn of fashion against him, however, he is looking farther afield for new patrons and, like any court painter worth his brushes, still following the money. India and China are currently the markets that interest him the most. His manager, Philip Oag, talks with excitement about representatives of “fabulously wealthy individuals” and of corporations who “all want to buy into Vicari.”

The artist is quickly tailoring his work to suit. When I met him in December at his friend’s house in Chelsea, in London, three new large portraits of Gandhi were propped against a table. “It is a crazy place,” he said, musing in general on the subcontinent. “I mean, what other nation would worship a man with an elephant’s head, or a woman with six arms?” He feels he has captured some of that spirit in his depictions of the mahatma. It was a process of trial and error. “If you miss him, he looks deranged,” he conceded.

We stood and studied the unhinged and bespectacled triptych, loosely part of an ongoing series of “Icons of the Twentieth Century,” which ranges from Walt Disney to the Pakistani pop star Abrar Ul Haq. I asked Vicari whether it ever irritates him that he seems to be appreciated only a very long way from home?

He answered by describing a recent visit to a van Gogh exhibition in Amsterdam. It filled him with awe and wonder.

And doubt. “When I came out,” he said, “I thought, I am not going to paint anymore.

Nothing seemed worth it.” But then another little voice in his head, the one that has allowed him to get where he is today, countered with a different thought: “But van Gogh was mad, and Vicari is not.

Your paintings should not be along that line: not mad.”

“So that,” he said, “is what I have aimed for.”

“Sanity?” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

51

Consumer Agency Tightens Scrutiny of Baby Sleep Products

By ANDREW MARTIN

T

hree years ago, Dr. Bradley Thach, a professor of pediatrics at Washington University in St. Louis, published findings that had the potential to upend nurseries across the nation, and perhaps save some lives too.

In reviewing data from the Consumer Products Safety Commission, Dr. Thach concluded that crib bumpers — the padding wrapped around the inside of a crib that often matches the bedding— were killing babies. In a 10-year period beginning in 1995, he found 27 suffocation deaths involving bumper pads, and he theorized that many more might have occurred because of inconsistencies in the data.

“Because bumpers can cause death, we conclude that they should not be used,” he warned.

The Consumer Products Safety Commission initially ignored the findings. Last summer, it reached the same conclusion as a trade group representing product manufacturers, which asserted that other factors, like a crib crowded with pillows or babies sleeping on their stomachs, might have been a factor in those deaths, rather than the bumpers.

As a result, most parents remained unaware of the debate over the safety of crib bumpers.

Now, prompted by consumer advocates and news reports highlighting potential dangers, the commission has reversed itself and decided to take a deeper look at crib bumpers as part of a broader regulatory crackdown on the hazards of an extensive line of baby sleep products that have been blamed for more injuries and deaths.

The sweeping overview is another sign of a heightened regulatory atmosphere among many agencies in the Obama administration.

For example, in September, the commission, along with the Food and Drug Administration, warned parents not to use sleep positioners intended to keep babies on their backs. Some sleep positioners were marketed to parents as reducing the risks of sudden infant death syndrome, but in fact, the agencies said, the products had caused the suffocation death of 12 babies over the last dozen years or so.

Then, in October, the commission

warned parents about the dangers of baby monitor cords and urged them to keep the cords away from cribs, bassinets and play yards. Since 2004, the commission has received six reports of babies being strangled by the cords.

In December, the commission approved the first new mandatory standards for cribs in nearly two decades.

The new rules banned existing designs for drop-side cribs, which have been blamed for entrapping and killing at least 32 babies since 2000, and required more rigorous testing on all cribs.

In addition, day care centers will be required to replace over the next two years any cribs that do not comply with the new regulations.

Nancy A. Cowles, executive director of Kids In Danger, a nonprofit organization that monitors the safety of children’s products, said the new crib standards were “a huge leap forward,” after years of relative inaction by the safety commission.

“It’s the safest in the world,” she said of the new standards.

The crackdown on baby sleep products was brought about by a confluence of factors. After an influx of contaminated products, including toys from China, Congress passed the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008 which gave the commission — long criticized as toothless — more money and authority.

As part of the new law, Congress mandated that the commission issue mandatory standards for more than a dozen baby products, including strollers, bassinets, high chairs and cribs, replacing voluntary guidelines that had been the norm. News reports documenting baby deaths from unsafe products, particularly in The Chicago Tribune, put additional pressure on the commission.

Since 2007, more than 10 million cribs have been recalled, and Inez Tenenbaum, who was named chairwoman of the commission by President Obama in 2009, said she had made the safety of baby sleep products a top priority, or what she calls the “Safe Sleep” campaign.

In an interview, Ms. Tenenbaum said that when she became chairwoman she put together a team of experts to review 10 years of injury and fatality data on cribs. The result was 19 crib recalls and expedited regulations, actions which

she says have “cleaned up the marketplace.”

She said the commission had also tried to educate parents about how to keep a sleeping baby safe, distributing a video to pediatricians’ offices and hospitals.

In the next year, Ms. Tenenbaum said her agency would be writing new regulations for bassinets and toddler beds. She declined to comment on why the commission had not taken more forceful action sooner.

Even with a renewed focus on the safety of baby sleep products, Ms. Tenenbaum and others acknowledge that obstacles remain.

Though the commission has ordered the recall of millions of cribs and other sleep products, many of them are still being used by parents. In addition, some parents and caregivers continue to put babies to sleep on their stomachs; experts recommend that babies be put to sleep on their backs to prevent against suffocation or sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. And for all the attention on defective products, the majority of deaths of sleeping infants are caused by suffocation from pillows and other bedding that crowds a crib.

A commission report from July found that 531 deaths from 1992 to May 2008 were associated with pillows or cushions, an average of 35 deaths a year. In a vast majority of the cases, the babies were placed to sleep on their stomachs.

In half the cases, the infants were put to sleep on top of a cushion or pillow.

There also remains some debate about what is safe for babies and what isn’t.

Several small manufacturers offer products that promise to reduce the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome, though medical experts and regulators remain dubious. Indeed, the F.D.A. says products that claim to prevent SIDS would be considered medical devices and therefore would require agency approval.

For instance, the Web site Eve’s Best claims that the BabeSafe mattress cover it sells has been “100 percent successful in preventing SIDS (crib death) for over 12 years.” The cover is promoted as preventing toxic gas from leaking out of the mattress, one controversial theory for the

cause of SIDS. “As a parent, I can tell you that the opinions of ‘government regulators’ as well as the A.A.P. mean absolutely nothing to me,” said Evie Maddox, who runs the Eve’s Best Web site, referring to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

She said the cover was so safe that babies could sleep on their stomachs. “There are many well-educated parents out there who feel the same,” she said in an e-mail late last year.

Manufacturers of baby products, meanwhile, have challenged allegations that their products are unsafe. Michael Dwyer, executive director of the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, said critics frequently claimed that a product was unsafe based on emotion, whereas his members relied on science-based facts.

After federal authorities warned parents not to buy sleep positioners, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association suggested that parents could continue using them, as long as they used them properly.

And the association disputes the Dr. Thach’s findings on crib bumpers.

Mr. Dwyer said the association commissioned its own study and found that it was often unclear what caused the babies’ death since there were other things crowded in the cribs, like pillows or soft toys. The association recommends that crib bumpers be firm, rather than pillowlike, and be removed from the crib when a baby is able to stand.

“Whereas bumpers may have been mentioned as being present in the crib, we really challenge whether the bumper was the cause,” he said.

For his part, Dr. Thach said he remained available to talk to regulators and industry officials about his findings.

He noted that it was nearly impossible to buy bedding for a crib without bumpers.

“They are still selling them,” he said. “People see these in stores and assume they are safe.”

52

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

A Passport Is the Easy Part

By JULIE WEED

M

ost business travelers head to places that are politically stable. Even so, preparing for an overseas trip involves much more than packing a bag, leaving an out-of-office message and e-mailing itineraries to family members.

That’s just the start.

As international business travel begins to rebound, more travelers are dealing with ever-lengthening to-do lists that include international cellphone coverage, credit card notifications, car rental insurance and security.

So travelers who do not do their homework may end up in a situation like Ewa Asmar, founder of Bionée, a skin care company. After meeting a supplier in Paris for dinner, she pulled out her credit card to pay, but was told it had been suspended because of the foreign charges she had made earlier that day. She was chagrined when her colleague had to pay the bill.

“I’ve learned to let my credit card companies and bank know where I am going, so charges or A.T.M. withdrawals don’t look suspicious,” she said. Ms. Asmar also takes plenty of cash for taxi rides, incidentals and any unforeseen problems.

Dhiren Fonseca, president of the Expedia Partner Services Group, spends 50 to 60 percent of his time traveling all over the world. To stay connected on the road, he said travelers also needed to check in with their mobile phone providers before leaving the country. Otherwise, they may find their phones do not work abroad, or are racking up

large charges.

Overseas travelers could temporarily switch to an international calling plan or rent a phone from their carrier in the United States that works internationally. Different countries may require different solutions.

Another option for international calling is to buy a local prepaid SIM card to plug into an existing mobile phone. Mr. Fonseca keeps about seven of these cards with him for different countries, so he can put a local one into his phone when he lands overseas. The calling rates for local SIM cards are generally less expensive than American plans, but any problems that crop up need to be solved locally with the provider there.

Also, the local SIM card ties the phone to a local phone number, so colleagues need to be notified. And SIM card users still need to tell their carriers about their plans, in case their phone needs to be unlocked.

Many hotels have Wi-Fi capabilities, and as an entrepreneur on a budget, Ms. Asmar has found using Skype from her personal computer to be a low-cost solution for international calls. Most laptop computers now come with a microphone, speakers and a camera built in for easy video chatting.

Skype can also be downloaded onto some smartphones.

Travelers also need to check the texting and data charges associated with traveling abroad and to make sure those services are either included in their international plan or turned off when they’re out of the country.

“A co-worker surfed the Web, used his GPS to find his way around and didn’t turn off his sports team notifications while we were tra-

veling,” Mr. Fonseca said. “He got hit with a multithousand-dollar data bill when he got home.”

Minimizing risk is another important aspect of traveling, Mr. Fonseca said. His laptop and phone are password-protected, encrypted and, of course, backed up. Antitheft software is available to track the whereabouts of a stolen phone or monitor the online activities of a computer thief.

Other travelers recommend emptying wallets of all unnecessary identification cards and credit cards, in case of theft. In areas with political unrest, they eschew company logos on any of their luggage and do not spend time in places frequented by foreigners.

Frequent fliers say they photograph images of their passports, driver’s licenses and critical prescriptions and e-mail the images to themselves in case their wallet and laptop are stolen. Travelers with medical needs say they take extra prescription drugs in case of a snowstorm, a volcanic eruption or some other flight-delaying event.

International travelers often pack an electrical outlet adapter for the computer, a small flashlight and a first aid kit for stomach upsets and jet lag headaches. Many travelers speak to their doctors about carrying a widespectrum antibiotic when they go abroad, and even their own syringes if they are traveling in less developed countries. In many cases, learning a few crucial phrases in the local language, like “Do you speak English?” and “I need a doctor,” can come in quite handy.

And then there is the flight itself. Airlines have different carry-on size restrictions, so look on the carrier’s Web site or call be-

The Haves and the Have-Nots

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

I

had a review this weekend about “The Haves and the Have-Nots,” a new book by the World Bank economist Branko Milanovic about inequality around the world.

My favorite part of the book was this graph, next to which I actually wrote “awesome chart” in the margin: Branko Milanovic, “The Haves and the Have-Nots,” p. 116.

The graph shows inequality within a country, in the

context of inequality around the world. It can take a few minutes to get your bearings with this chart, but trust me, it’s worth it.

Here the population of each country is divided into 20 equally-sized income groups, ranked by their household per-capita income. These are called “ventiles,” as you can see on the horizontal axis, and each “ventile” translates to a cluster of five percentiles.

The household income numbers are all converted into international dollars adjusted for equal purchasing power, since the cost of goods varies from country to country. In other words, the chart adjusts for the cost of living in different countries, so we are looking at consistent living standards worldwide.

Now on the vertical axis, you can see where any given ventile from any country falls when compared to the entire population of the world.

For example, trace the line for Brazil, a country with extreme income inequality.

Brazil’s bottom ventile — that is, the poorest 5 percent of the Brazilian population, shown as the left-most point on the line — is about as poor as anyone in the entire world, registering a percentile in the single digits when compared to the income distribution worldwide. Meanwhile, Brazil also has some of the world’s richest, as you can see by how high up on the chart Brazil’s top ventile reaches. In other

forehand. Web sites like SeatGuru.com can help in choosing a comfortable seat for the long haul.

Other items for the preflight checklist include applying for any visas to enter the country or receiving the recommended immunizations. Check on health insurance coverage for any medical needs abroad and whether the car insurance company or corporate credit card cover car rental insurance.

To avoid spending time in line at customs after a long flight home, sign up for the Department of Homeland Security’s Global Entry program, which is available at 20 airports in the United States. “Low-risk travelers” can apply for the program, which lets them match their passport and fingerprints at an entry kiosk. The department can also issue Nexus cards to travelers who often go to Canada and Sentri cards to those who frequently travel to Mexico.

If the international trip to-do list gets too long, travelers can always turn to online “virtual meeting” services, according to PGi, a global provider of meetings and collaboration services that enabled 15.6 million meetings on the Web between American and international business sites last year.

Or, as Ms Asmar said, “Sometimes you can get the business done without flying 6,000 miles to do it.”

words, this one country covers a very broad span of income groups.

Now take a look at America.

Notice how the entire line for the United States resides in the top portion of the graph? That’s because the entire country is relatively rich. In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

Now check out the line for India. India’s poorest ventile corresponds with the 4th poorest percentile worldwide. And its richest? The 68th percentile. Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest.

Kind of blows your mind, right?

Now you might be wondering: How can there be so many people in the world who make less than America’s poorest, many of whom make nothing each year? Remember that were looking at the entire bottom chunk of Americans, some of whom make as much as $6,700; that may be extremely poor by American standards, but that amounts to a relatively good standard of living in India, where about a quarter of the population lives on $1 a day.

As Mr. Brankovic writes: One’s income thus crucially depends on citizenship, which in turn means (in a world of rather low international migration) place of birth. All people born in rich countries thus receive a location premium or a location rent; all those born in poor countries get a location penalty.

It is easy to see that in such a world, most of one’s lifetime income will be determined at birth.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

53

Bet on Foreclosure Boom Turns Sour for Investors

By JULIE CRESWELL and BARRY MEIER

D

avid J. Stern may be the best-known beneficiary of the foreclosure boom, having made millions in recent years from evictions processed by his law firm, the largest of its kind in Florida.

But when he took part of his firm public early last year, he had plenty of help from a constellation of investors also looking to cash in on people losing their homes.

Early in 2010, the back-office processing operations of Mr. Stern’s law firm were converted into a publicly traded company called DJSP Enterprises. Mr. Stern pocketed nearly $60 million from that transaction, public filings show.

Behind that big-money deal was a curious cast of characters, including some with previous run-ins with regulators.

Other parties included a small Wall Street investment bank headed by a former presidential candidate, the retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, and a little-known private equity firm based in New York.

Even before the DJSP windfall, Mr. Stern enjoyed a lifestyle that featured grand mansions, flashy sports cars and a yacht called Misunderstood. But the days of easy money are over for Mr. Stern, his law firm and DJSP investors.

As the Florida attorney general’s office continues to investigate whether Mr. Stern’s law firm falsified documents in order to speed up foreclosures, the firm has lost its biggest clients, including Citibank and Fannie Mae. Many of DJSP’s executives have left the company, and it has laid off about 80 percent of its 1,200 employees.

Meanwhile, investors in DJSP are not doing any better. Shares of the company, which were worth $14 apiece last summer, trade now for about 50 cents on the Nasdaq exchange.

DJSP faces a lawsuit from investors who claim they were misled about its financial prospects, an accusation the company has denied. Separately, former employees of DJSP who performed backoffice work related to Mr. Stern’s law firm have sued, contending that the company failed to follow federal regulations in laying them off; the company filed a motion to dismiss the claims.

In recent years, numerous big and small private equity firms across the country have taken large stakes in the back-office operations — the accounting, document processing and title-search departments — of law firms specializing in foreclosure, often called foreclosure mills.

The private equity firms then make money by providing those services back to the law firm for a fee.

In a handful of cases, homeowners have sued law firms and the associated private equity firms, contending that they were involved in illegal fee-splitting

arrangements. The firms deny the accusation. DJSP does not face such lawsuits, though it has noted in regulatory filings that a court could determine that its fee arrangements with Mr. Stern’s law firm were impermissible.

Mr. Stern, who stepped down as chairman and chief executive of DJSP but remains the company’s largest shareholder, did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and his lawyer, Jeffrey Tew, has said repeatedly that Mr. Stern did nothing wrong.

The events that led to the creation of DJSP Enterprises started back in mid-2008.

At that time, Mr. Stern told The American Lawyer magazine, he was approached

by FlatWorld Capital, a small and littleknown New York private equity firm, which was interested in a transaction with his law firm.

From an investor’s perspective, Mr. Stern’s firm in Plantation, Fla., appeared to be a sure bet: In 2009, it handled 70,000 foreclosures, or about 20 percent of such actions in the state, bringing in $260 million in revenue.

“They said it would give me an opportunity to restructure and reorganize,” Mr. Stern told the magazine, referring to the FlatWorld investors. “To take some chips off the table, yet continue to do what I do.”

It is not clear how FlatWorld Capital and Mr. Stern were introduced. The FlatWorld official who initiated the DJSP transaction was apparently a young New York investment banker named Jeffrey Valenty, public filings show.

Mr. Valenty, who at one point worked for CIBC World Markets, did not respond to repeated calls seeking comment.

FlatWorld, which does not appear to have made any earlier investments, needed investors with deep pockets to make a deal with Mr. Stern. That need would bring two other firms into the story — an investment banking firm, Rodman & Renshaw, that is headed by General Clark,

and a publicly traded company with an odd name, the Chardan 2008 China Acquisition Corporation.

According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, an investment banker at Rodman & Renshaw, Ramnarain J. Jaigobind, introduced Mr. Valenty of FlatWorld to an acquaintance named Kerry Propper.

Mr. Propper, who is in his mid-30s, runs a boutique investment bank on Wall Street. Earlier, in August 2008, Mr. Jaigobind, while at a different investment bank, helped Mr. Propper raise $55 million for Chardan 2008.

Chardan 2008 was set up as a special-purpose acquisition company, known as a Spac. A Spac, sometimes referred to as a “blank check” company, raises money from investors in an initial public offering with the stated purpose of using those funds to acquire a company, often in a particular industry or a specific part of the world.

Mr. Propper had previously been involved in Spacs that had acquired Chinese companies, and Chardan 2008 was another such venture.

But in early 2009, S.E.C. filings show, Mr. Propper and Chardan 2008 changed direction after he was approached by Mr. Jaigobind about the possibility of investing in the back offices of Mr. Stern’s foreclosure operations.

Reached by phone at Rodman & Renshaw, Mr. Jaigobind referred a reporter to the bank’s general counsel, Gregory R. Dow. Mr. Dow declined to comment on the transaction, and he also said General Clark, the firm’s chairman, was unavailable for comment.

After nearly a year of negotiations, Chardan 2008 struck a deal in early 2010 to buy Mr. Stern’s foreclosure operations, giving it the name DJSP Enterprises. Mr. Propper told The New York Observer last summer that he did not have qualms about acquiring a law firm that specialized in foreclosures.

“It only processes them,” he told the newspaper.

Mr. Propper’s father, Dr. Richard D. Propper, acted as a “consultant” on the deal

and, like his son, wound up with a significant stake in DJSP, public filings show.

Dr. Propper has a history of runins with regulators. In the mid-1990s, he settled with the S.E.C. over disclosure problems with investment partnerships he oversaw. And about five years ago, he and other individuals, including his son, were sued by federal officials in connection with their involvement with an equity fund that received money from the Small Business Administration.

Dr. Propper settled those charges late last year, agreeing to pay $1.5 million. He did not return phone calls seeking comment. Kerry Propper, who was also named in the S.B.A. lawsuit, paid a settlement totaling $36,000.

Like Mr. Stern, major holders in DJSP including Mr. Propper and Dr. Propper, who had received millions of shares at a penny each, were poised to make a fortune from the company. However, even though those shares were worth tens of millions of dollars last summer, they were restricted from selling them until earlier this year.

By then, Mr. Stern’s law firm was under fire, and the heady times were over. In an e-mail responding to questions, Kerry Propper said he had not profited from his investment.

“In fact, I bought additional shares and warrants in the open market at a much higher price,” Mr. Propper wrote. “As you could guess, this has not been a profitable investment for any of the insiders.”

Meanwhile, FlatWorld, the investment firm that helped the back-office operations of Mr. Stern’s law firm go public, has since gotten into the Spac business itself.

Recently, with the help of Rodman & Renshaw, it raised $22 million from investors, money that it plans to use to take over some kind of business somewhere in the world, according to its S.E.C. filing.

The filing indicates that FlatWorld did not have a specific investment target.

Instead, the firm said it might use the funds to buy companies involved with activities like financial services, legal processing, health care or education that are located in parts of the world like India or China.

54

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Concierge Medical Care With a Smaller Price Tag

By KATIE HAFNER

W

hen Jennifer Contreras went to see her new physician, she had hardly arrived in the waiting room before she was called in — by the doctor herself.

That was a pleasant surprise, but it was just the beginning. Ms. Contreras, 40, was prepared for a short visit, but the physician seemed to have all the time in the world. Then came another surprise.

After noting Ms. Contreras’s high blood pressure, the doctor told her to take her blood pressure daily using a home monitor and send her an e-mail with each result.

“We did all the careful fine-tuning over e-mail until we got just the right dosage of blood pressure medication,” said Ms. Contreras, an associate dean at the University of San Francisco. “It wasn’t just ‘Oh, take this medication and I’ll see you later.’ It was ‘Let’s make sure we get this right.’ ” Ms. Contreras is a patient at One Medical Group, a new model for primary care that aims to set a nationwide example. With 31 physicians in San Francisco and New York, it offers most of the same services provided by personalized “concierge” medical practices, but at a much lower price: $150 to $200 a year.

One Medical Group doctors see at most 16 patients a day; the nationwide average for primary-care physicians is 25. They welcome e-mail communication with patients, for no extra charge. Sameday appointments are routine. And unlike most concierge practices, One Medical accepts a variety of insurance plans, including Medicare.

The group’s founder and guiding spirit is Dr. Tom X. Lee, a physician and entrepreneur best known as a co-founder of Epocrates, the online medical reference program popular among physicians.

Dr. Lee, 42, trained as a general internist at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and quickly grew disillusioned. “As I went through my training,” he said, “I saw a growing chasm between the ideals of medicine and what’s actually practiced.”

The time and financial pressures of primary-care medicine are alienating many young physicians just out of medical school. By some estimates, there will be a shortage of 45,000 primary-care physicians in the next 10 years as demand grows, and Dr. J. Fred Ralston Jr., president of the American College of Physicians, said that “those primary-care physicians already in practice are under such stress that they are looking for an exit strategy.”

In 2005, with Epocrates already a success, Dr. Lee set out to reverse that

THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW The waiting room at One Medical Group in New York City looks more like the entrance to a day spa than a typical doctor’s office. trend. He began One Medical Group as a solo practice in a small office in San Francisco.

Two years later, Dr. Lee, who has a master’s in business administration from Stanford, approached venture capitalists to help him expand; the Silicon Valley firm Benchmark Capital invested several million dollars, its first investment in health care services.

Some experts say it remains to be seen whether Dr. Lee’s experiment is sustainable — in particular, whether he can continue to recruit physicians and deliver the same level of care without relying on new venture capital.

Nor are they sure the One Medical model can be replicated on a broad scale.

“I envision a small number of organizations that will be successful using models like this, and in general I think it’s great,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, an associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. “But whether such models can scale to cover a large swath of the population that is in greater need of health care is unclear.”

Still, the wiry and intense Dr. Lee remains bent on reversing what he calls “bizarre habits that have been ingrained” in the world of primary care.

When he started One Medical Group, he said, “it was very clear that health care organizations were lacking both the service hospitality mind-set of hotels and the operational efficiency you’d see in manufacturing industries.”

Indeed, a One Medical waiting room could be mistaken for a lobby at a boutique hotel or day spa. Patients are greeted at a large, open reception desk, and phones have been relegated to an office in the back.

“The people who greet you don’t seem frazzled,” said Bruce Dunlevie, a general partner at Benchmark Capital, “and there aren’t four people sneezing on you.”

One Medical physicians say their jobs are like what they envisioned when they first went into the field — before they got their first job in a typical family practice, with its long waits and blizzards of paperwork.

Dr. Andrew Diamond, a One Medical physician in San Francisco, says he now sees 16 patients a day, compared with 24 in his previous practice.

“The most important thing you can do with that amount of time is build a rapport and make people feel at ease,” he said. “It’s when people are at ease that they can give you get the critical information you need to make a diagnosis.”

In his old job, he went on, “when I’d finally see the patient, I would get this very frustrated vibe, which completely got in the way of caring for them.”

Dr. Lee’s practice is not the first to offer more personalized primary care. Dr. Richard Baron, a former chairman of the American Board of Internal Medicine, runs Greenhouse Internists in Philadelphia, a practice with seven physicians that offers much of what One Medical offers, but without the fee.

And in Portland, Ore., GreenField Health charges a sliding fee based on age (from $195 to $695) that is far below the typical concierge rate, which ranges from $1,000 to $5,000 a year. GreenField’s physicians split their time evenly between office visits and consultations by e-mail or telephone.

But One Medical is the first to try to

carry out such a model on a large scale.

It now has several thousand patients and a growth rate of 50 percent a year, fueled largely by word of mouth. Dr. Lee said he planned to open a third office in Manhattan next month and expand to a third large city next year.

Dr. Baron said One Medical had found “a sweet spot for $200 a year, because there has been a failure on the part of the insurance system and the primarycare community to meet this need for patients.”

Dr. Jha, at Harvard, wonders just how large the sweet spot is. “One Medical could potentially scale by getting more and more younger people who are relatively healthy,” he said. “But it gets much harder when you have 85-year-olds with multiple medical problems.”

Dr. Lee remains confident that his approach is broadly applicable. “We’ve designed the model so that on average we’ll do fine, no matter how often people come in,” he said. “Independent of the people we see, our cost structure is lower, and because it’s lower we can care for any demographic.”

To keep overhead low, he has automated wherever he can. Where most primary-care offices have at least four administrative employees per physician, Dr. Lee has cut that ratio in half. Using the One Medical Web site or a new iPhone application, patients can schedule appointments and refill prescriptions, and, in limited cases, originate new ones.

Tests can be unnecessary and expensive, and Dr. Philip Baird, who works at One Medical Group in New York, says he orders fewer than he used to. A woman in her 40s came in recently with a terrible headache, unlike any she had ever had.

After examining her, Dr. Baird said, he doubted it was serious, but was prepared to order a CT scan to rule out a tumor.

As the conversation continued, the woman told him her mother-in-law had just been given a diagnosis of brain cancer. “She admitted she was just really scared,” he said. “She saw I was taking the time, and taking her seriously.”

He did not order the scan, and the patient is fine.

Mark Hurst, 38, who runs a consulting firm in Manhattan, joined One Medical as a patient after months of having trouble reaching his longtime physician.

At One Medical, someone answers the phone right away — even at lunchtime.

And no one is put on hold.

“I cannot go back to the kind of practice I was at before, that looked, felt, sounded and smelled so different,” he said.

Mr. Hurst never told his doctor there that he was leaving, he said: “I wasn’t able to get through to him.”

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

55

ARCHITECTURE & HOME DECOR

House Hunting in ... Thailand

By VIRGINIA C. McGUIRE A FOUR-BEDROOM VILLA WITH AN INFINITY-EDGE POOL AND OCEAN VIEWS IN PHUKET, THAILAND $2 MILLION (60,200,000 BAHT)

T

his villa was built in 2001 in a traditional style known as Lanna, characterized by steeply pitched, multitiered roofs. The open living and dining area has vaulted ceilings, designed to draw hot air up and keep the rooms cool, though the house also has central air-conditioning for the hottest days. The Western-style kitchen has black granite countertops and a double sink. Two of the bedrooms are on the main level and two are on a lower level. All four have en-suite baths; there is an additional half bath for guests off the main living area. The ceilings, floors

clubs. Phuket airport is 20 minutes from the house.

and windows throughout are built of makka, a local hardwood.

The property also has two small houses, called salas, on either side of the infinity-edge pool. One is a lounge area, and the other is set up for outdoor dining. There are two koi ponds and several coconut trees.

Although the house is a private single-family residence, it sits on the grounds of the Ayara Hilltop Resort.

Homeowners in the development have access to all the hotel’s facilities, including concierge service, security and a spa. The hotel runs a shuttle service to Surin Beach.

The beach area, on the west coast of the island of Phuket, has been a popular second-home destination since the 1920s. It is quiet, and there are a number of restaurants along the water. Forty minutes away in Phuket Town, there are shops and night-

MARKET OVERVIEW “The market in Phuket is flat at the moment,” said Richard Lusted, the chief executive of Siam Real Estate in Phuket. The global recession and unfavorable exchange rates have been the major impediments.

Volume has suffered, too, but with many sellers holding off until the market recovers, prices have at least held their own because of reduced supply. Also, Mr. Lusted said the cash-only nature of the Phuket market had insulated it somewhat from the credit woes found in other countries. The market’s shift to include more resale properties represents a departure from the norm of three years ago, when nearly all the sales on the island were villa and condominium developments sold before construction began.

The western area around Bang Tao and Surin Beaches, the site of this house, is one of the most upscale parts of the island. “This area is sort of a little Beverly Hills of Phuket,” said Luke Remmers, a broker with

Continues on page 56

ARCHITECTURE & HOME DECOR

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February 10 - 16, 2011

that more people from Hong Kong and Singapore are making their perSansuri Luxury Condominiums in manent homes in Phuket.

Surin Beach. A house here might cost 25 percent more than a comparable BUYING BASICS house on the east coast, Mr. Remmers “Under Thai law, a foreigner said. may not own the freehold to land,” Luxury villas near Surin Beach Ms. Adenius said. To get around this start around $1.2 million, said Ann restriction, set up a Thai company.

Adenius, the director of Signature ReAccording to Mr. Anthony, setsidences Worldwide, a British comup costs are about $10,000, and onpany that sells property in Phuket. going operating costs run $500 to She said villas with beachfront loca$1,000 a year. He says foreign buyers tions or panoramic ocean views starneed a Thai nominee to hold the titted around $3 million. The villa profile to the property; company start-up led here, priced at $2 million, is about fees include the cost of hiring a law average. firm to act as a nominee.

Transfer taxes and stamp duty WHO BUYS IN PHUKET are about 2.5 percent of the purchase “A third of our buyers come price, Mr. Anthony said. The real esfrom Hong Kong, a third come from tate agent commission is paid by the Europe and the rest is very mixed,” seller. Properties are usually priced in said Nick Anthony, co-owner of the baht, but Mr. Anthony said it was not Phuket company Indigo Real Estate. uncommon to see them listed in UniThere are many buyers from Singapo- ted States dollars. re, China, Australia and India, but not very many Americans, he said.

“Phuket has always been a very attractive weekend home, second home, vacation home and retirement market,” said Ms. Adenius, “but we see a new trend now.” She was alluding to the fact

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WEB SITES Thailand official tourism site: tourismthailand.org Thai Laws (in English and Thai): thailaws.com Thailand Property Doctor: thailandpropertydoctor.com/ Ayara Hilltops Resort and Spa: ayarahilltops.com

LANGUAGES AND CURRENCY Thai; Baht (1 baht=$0.03)

TAXES AND FEES Maintenance fees are about $2,000 a month, according to the listing agent. This includes all running costs: utilities, security, cleaning and concierge service. There are no property taxes.

CONTACT Nick Anthony, Indigo Real Estate, indigore.com, 011-66-89-873-2042; indigore.com.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

His Sport Dismissed,

Venezuelan Is Now Star

Jhonattan Vegas in the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego, where he finished tied for third.

By LARRY DORMAN

H

ugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, is no friend of golf. He has called it a “bourgeois sport” played primarily by lazy, rich people in carts. He has closed six of the country’s courses and said the government should appropriate private urban land for public housing. “Do you mean to tell me this is a people’s sport?” he said in 2009. “It is not.”

That was before Jhonattan Vegas came along. Two Sundays ago, Vegas, 26, a rookie on the PGA Tour whose golfing family suffered as a result of Chavez’s course closures, won the Bob Hope Classic in La Quinta, Calif., in a stirring playoff, becoming the first player from Venezuela to win a Tour event.

He was almost instantly acclaimed a national hero, then solidified that position a week later by finishing tied for third in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. Vegas had a share of the lead midway through Sunday’s final round, and after a gutsy but unsuccessful go-for-broke final hole he finished three strokes behind the winner, Bubba Watson.

Although Vegas may not have made a convert of Chávez, he certainly had him bobbing and weaving. After Vegas won the Hope Classic, Chávez, who has not, it is believed, put buildings on any of the courses, proclaimed that he was not “an enemy of golf, or any other sport.” He said he would call to congratulate Vegas. “He beat all of the gringos,” he said.

Vegas declined to discuss in detail Chávez and his attitude toward golf as he prepared last week at Torrey Pines. Neither would he talk about how Chávez’s actions had affected him or even of the apparent softening of the mercurial president’s position.

“You know what, he’s the president,”

Vegas said, laughing. “He does whatever he feels like. I just got to focus on being a golfer and doing my thing.”

Several years ago, Chávez closed three courses in the Vegas family’s home state, Monagas. All were essentially clubs for workers in the nation’s wealthy oil industry. Vegas’s father, Carlos, who at one time worked as a caddie and later became a food concessionaire to two of the clubs, decided his son would have to leave Venezuela if he were to pursue golf seriously.

Vegas was 17 and spoke no English when he was separated from his parents and three brothers. He was eventually placed in the care of Franci Betancourt, a Venezuelan golf pro, and his wife, Alba, who had settled in Houston. Under the tutelage of the Betancourts and Kevin Kirk, a prominent golf instructor in Texas who had been taught by Franci, Vegas learned the language and American culture, and he worked on his game. He went on to graduate from the University of Texas with a degree in kinesiology, to make the second-tier Nationwide Tour and ultimately to reach the PGA Tour.

“All of a sudden, his father didn’t have a job; the kids didn’t have anywhere to play golf,” Jonathan Coles, an eight-time Venezuelan national champion golfer who is from Cambridge, Mass., said of Vegas’s departure. “Everything in their family that had been built around golf was just taken away from one day to the next.

“The old man told me that when he told Jhonattan, the kid thought it was totally impossible,” continued Coles, the retired chairman of the Venezuelan food company Mavesa who also served as minister of agriculture from 1990 to 1993 under President Carlos Andrés Pérez. “He didn’t speak a word of English and thought he was going to have a terrible time going to school.”

Vegas acknowledged that his transi-

tion was not an easy one. There were days, he said, when school, golf and English studies took him well into the night.

The long climb to the verge of stardom has seemingly fashioned Vegas into a golfer who is mentally tough and outwardly cheerful, a single-minded, focused individual who appreciates his good fortune and makes time for just about everyone he meets.

“He is a very special kid,” said Betancourt, who had been the head pro at two of the courses closed by Chávez. “He is unique.”

Vegas has ramrod-straight posture, which makes him look taller than his 6 feet 2 inches. His shoulders are wide and thickly muscled, and when he throws them back as he walks, he creates an imposing presence even heftier than his 230 pounds.

Embracing the made-for-Hollywood sobriquet Johnny Vegas, he exhibits the kind of joy that the young, unburdened Tiger Woods, his third-round playing partner Saturday at Torrey Pines, used to bring to the course.

The similarities between Woods and Vegas are striking. They share a love of competition, of playing under intense pressure and of shotmaking. The differences are obvious, too. Vegas smiles his way around the course, makes more eye contact and sometimes even laughs after the occasional The PGA Tour rookie Jhonattan Vegas, 26, during the final round of the Bob Hope Classic.

He won in a playoff.

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mis-hit. Last weekend he waved to his fans in the gallery from South America and Venezuela.

“It’s because he’s enjoying the game, even when he hits it bad,” Betancourt said.

“That’s not common. I would say that’s one attribute that is something that is really personal. You can see it in the way he walks between the ropes. He has that look that says: ‘Well, sir, here I am. I guess I belong here.’ ” Vegas had no trouble making a case for his belonging on the Tour during the pressure of the final round Sunday when, stalking Watson, he tried to read a long, difficult putt at the sloping green at the par-3 11th. Needing to bleed his first putt to the very edge of a slope, Vegas did not hit the ball hard enough and left it sitting on the ridge an embarrassing 8 feet from the hole. He smiled playfully and shrugged, then went on to miss the par putt, a crucial three-putt at that juncture. And yet the smile said much about his appreciation for the breaks of the game, good and bad.

“I’ve been playing great golf,” he said.

“I’m enjoying the moment, and enjoying everything about the PGA Tour so far. It’s been a dream come true.”

As he said this, the ripples had barely cleared from the pond in front of the 18th green, where his ball lay in the depths. Trailing Watson by a stroke, he had tried a highrisk shot from the rough with a 5-iron from 217 yards. The shot very likely cost him second place and maybe $300,000.

“Even when I hit the ball in the water on 18, I went, Oh well, let’s see if we can make it now,” Vegas said.

This ability to refocus calmly impressed Kevin Sutherland, who played alongside Woods and Vegas on Saturday. After praising every aspect of Vegas’s game, Sutherland stopped, turned and said, “What I liked best about him was his demeanor.”

The demeanor did not change even when Vegas talked about having spoken with Chávez, and what he hopes will come about as a result of the chat: perhaps a friendlier attitude toward the sport in the presidential palace so that some Venezuelan youngster playing baseball might think of switching to golf, as Vegas did when he was 12 and a power-hitting third baseman.

“The president congratulating me; that means a lot,” Vegas said, adding, “Just to have the support of your country, it’s huge.”

That support was in evidence at Torrey Pines. An all-sports television network came here from Caracas to video the star who Mike Perez, the executive producer, said was “right there with Omar Vizquel and Andres Galarraga,” the baseball players. Another television personality, Jeanette Vargas Lovelle of Hoyo 19, who did a three-part series on Vegas before the season, said in an e-mail, “In effect, Jhonattan is becoming a kind of a national hero.”

That is a long way from a scared 17-year-old who immigrated to Houston nine years ago. If the country he left is leaning that way about a golfer, can the president be far behind?

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The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Packers Rewrite Winning Formula

By JUDY BATTISTA ike McCarthy, the Green Bay Packers’ coach, spent time last week looking at the lockers of the players his team had placed on injured reserve this season. It was a curious exercise for a coach with the biggest game of his life ahead, but it was impossible to ignore the 15 stalls that have been mostly empty in Green Bay this season.

The Packers, McCarthy said, took a path to Super Bowl XLV unlike any he has seen, and certainly unlike any he would like to retrace. The Packers lost six starters from the season-opening depth chart to injury, and eight of the 15 men on injured reserve started at least one game this season. Their running game was eviscerated when Ryan Grant was hurt in Week 1. Their tight end, Jermichael Finley, was gone after four weeks. There were tackles and safeties and linebackers and defensive ends.

When cornerback Charles Woodson cracked his collarbone in the first half of Sunday night’s game, and receiver Donald Driver sustained a high ankle sprain, it was oddly, sadly fitting. The Packers were held together by duct tape this season, a deep roster constructed largely through the draft tested so significantly that the team that was a preseason favorite to wind up exactly

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where it did somehow felt like a surprise.

The Packers are not a surprise anymore.

With one Lombardi Trophy in tow, McCarthy gets back what amounts to an extra free agent and draft class — and a really good one — setting the Packers up for what quarterback Aaron Rodgers predicted could be four or five years of runs at championships.

Success is fleeting in the N.F.L. The last time a National Football Conference team went to consecutive Super Bowls, Brett Favre led the Packers to a championship after the 1996 season, only to lose the next season’s Super Bowl to the Broncos. (The Packers also went back to back in their other two appearances, in Super Bowls I and II).

The Packers, and the Pittsburgh Steelers, too, would seem well positioned to challenge for the title again next year. They are loaded with young players, and their philosophy is to build through the draft. They have top-five defenses and extraordinary quarterbacks, both of whom have now won Super Bowls.

Last week, as the teams prepared for the Super Bowl, the Packers’ president, Mark Murphy, recalled the painful spring and summer of 2008, when Ted Thompson’s decision to wrest the Packers from Favre’s hands after the 2007 season and place it in Rodgers’s set off a firestorm.

The Packers were transformed into a nearly pass-only team for most of the season, their prospects only seriously threatened when Rodgers sustained two concussions. Rodgers said he first realized what an opportunity the Packers might have when he saw how closely the Packers played the New England Patriots in a 31-27 loss in December without him. When the Packers, then, had to prepare for a Steelers’ defense that does not allow any opponent much rushing room, they were ready.

McCarthy told Rodgers before the game that he intended to put the game on his shoulders with an aggressive plan that emphasized the pass from the opening drive. The Packers rushed only 13 times for 50 yards, but Rodgers attempted 39 passes, completing 24 for 304 yards and 3 touchdowns. He might have had at least 100 yards more passing if not for several significant drops by his receivers.

This, then, is a Packers team built not by the formula Vince Lombardi would appreciate but one for the N.F.L.’s new age, when teams really might not need offensive balance to win. The Packers and the Steelers, in fact, set a Super Bowl record for fewest rushing attempts, combining for only 36.

The Packers, he said, have had tre-

mendous success with getting most of their players to participate in the team’s offseason program in Green Bay. For a young team, that is particularly critical — it boosts bonding, but also helps a young, gifted offense develop time with their young and extremely gifted quarterback.

But with a lockout looming in March unless owners and the players union agree to a new collective bargaining agreement, off-season plans are complicated by uncertainty. Football coaches are nothing if not regimented — most of the Super Bowl winners flip the page to next season by the time they show up to their day-after news conference — but labor strife will make the Packers’ task that much more difficult.

Rodgers talked of reloading for next year, with all the injured players returning to the nucleus of a team that is built for the long run. His performance, particularly his accuracy, in the last six weeks was astounding. Rodgers won the Super Bowl in his sixth N.F.L. season, the same as Favre did, and in his first three seasons as a starter, he is 31-21, six victories better than Favre was in his first three seasons.

The N.F.L. has plenty of bad omens to worry about. Rodgers and the Packers will wait until the uncertainty is sorted out.

Manchester United’s Fans Are Many, and Merciless

By JERÉ LONGMAN ore than halfway through a soccer season in which the world’s most valuable sports franchise has yet to lose a match, the singing and banners proclaim, “We’re Man United, we do what we want.”

If such a declaration seems arrogant, perhaps it is because the haughtiness has not yet been fully earned.

Through 24 matches, Manchester United sits atop the English Premier League with 15 victories, 0 defeats and 9 ties, even though the team has not yet wholly coalesced.

Still, the Red Devils are seeking to become only the third top-flight English team to finish undefeated since the Football League was established for the 1888-89 season. It is now widely considered the world’s most competitive soccer league. Preston North End built an 18-0-4 record that inaugural 19th-century season and Arsenal finished 26-0-12 in 2003-4 with a team known as the Invincibles.

American comparison might be the Los Angeles Lakers’ winning 33 straight games during the 1971-72 season.

An awakening occurred in United’s 3-1 victory over Aston Villa at Old Trafford Stadium. The star forward Wayne Rooney scored two goals, emerging from a scoring slumber that began when he sprained an ankle last spring. Since then, he has made headlines mostly for a contract squabble and revelations about his personal life that are more often written about Tiger Woods.

Perhaps no other team has the global reach of Manchester United, which is seeking a record 19th English title and is valued by Forbes at $1.84 billion, first among all sports franchises, ahead of the Dallas Cowboys ($1.65 billion) and the Yankees ($1.6 billion).

Manchester United counts 139 million core fans worldwide and as many as 339 million followers, has a jersey sponsorship with the insurance broker Aon that pays

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$34 million a year and a long-term deal with Nike worth $470 million plus profit sharing. Some fanatical fans have their ashes spread beside the field when they depart for that Premier League in the sky.

Manchester United has struggled on the road with only three victories and eight ties in league play. Few consider it equal to the 1998-99 squad, which won the Premier League, the Football Association Cup tournament and the European Champions League. Yet it possesses resilience and a flair for the dramatic comeback, as evidenced by last week’s 3-2 victory at Blackpool in which Manchester United trailed, 2-0, until the 72nd minute.

That night, and frequently this season, Manchester United was rescued by forward Dimitar Berbatov, who can be as playful as a seal with the ball and leads the Premier League with 19 goals — having scored 5 in one match and hat tricks in three others. He is ascendant after being called Berbaflop in the past, criticized because he played with a detached elegance that did not always coincide with the Premier League’s demand for industry and speed and muscle.

Given his pallid features and widow’s peak, Berbatov was also derided as a Count Dracula lookalike.

Berbatov, 30, happens to be from Bulgaria, while the Dracula myth is centered in the Transylvania region of Romania.

“People are always quick to point their finger at a foreigner,” said Zuckernain Abbas, 22, a Manchester United fan here. “Now he is our savior. It shows you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”

With its own television channel that reaches 192 million homes, 20 million unique monthly visitors to its Web site and 8.5 million followers on Facebook, Manchester United can control its message. A reporter seeking interviews was told that nothing was possible without three to four

weeks’ notice.

The club reaches its fans directly, and averages nearly 75,000 in attendance another 300,000 visiting its team museum.

Bjorn Vegge is a season-ticket holder, hardly unusual, except he lives in Norway, flying in several times a season and selling tickets he does not use.

Steven Brown visited for his birthday gift, wearing a Berbatov jersey. Brown has grown enamored of Manchester United forward, Javier Hernández, 22, the team’s first player from Mexico, who was signed as a shrewd bargain before his encouraging performance at last summer’s World Cup. Known as Chicharito, the Little Pea, Hernández has delivered 11 goals in all competitions this season with a poacher’s predatwory appetite, composure and timing.

In a 2-1 F.A. Cup victory over Southampton, Hernández scored the decisive goal in the 76th minute while falling to the ground.

Hernandez’s winning goal blossomed from a pass from midfielder Ryan Giggs, who made his debut with Manchester United at 17 and is still playing with a maestro’s sense of orchestration at 37.

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

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Madoff Had Wide Role in Mets’ Finances

By SERGE F. KOVALESKI and DAVID WALDSTEIN

W

hen Fred Wilpon’s son Jeff was married at Fresh Meadow Country Club on Long Island, Bernard L. Madoff and his wife were there. When Mr. Madoff’s son Mark was married at the same country club, Mr. Wilpon, the principal owner of the Mets, was a guest as well.

When the Mets negotiated their larger contracts with star players — complex deals with signing bonuses and performance incentives — they sometimes adopted the strategy of placing deferred money owed the players with Mr. Madoff’s investment firm. They would have to pay the player, but the owners of the club would be able to make money for themselves in the meantime. There never seemed to be much doubt about that, according to several people with knowledge of the arrangements.

“Bernie was part of the business plan for the Mets,” a former employee of the club said.

But Mr. Wilpon involved more than his team with Mr. Madoff. He also encouraged certain friends to invest.

Robert Tischler was such a friend.

A onetime fellow commuter on the Long Island Rail Road with Mr. Wilpon — they would meet on the platform of the Manhasset station before Mr. Wilpon made it big — he came to own a piece of an apartment building with Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Wilpon’s brother-in-law, Saul Katz.

When the men sold the building in the 1980s, Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz, who owns a portion of the Mets, suggested that he invest some of his profits from the deal with Mr. Madoff, he said.

“The numbers were always going up and never going down,” Mr. Tischler said. “I was withdrawing $65,000 to $70,000 a year from my Madoff accounts.

They were part of my living expenses.

“It was terrific,” he said, “until the day of the disaster.”

Since the day of the disaster — Mr. Madoff’s December 2008 arrest for orchestrating a $65 billion Ponzi scheme — Mr. Wilpon’s relationship with Mr. Madoff has been generally acknowledged but not well understood. Mr. Wilpon and his family have offered scant details about the friendship, except to indicate they felt deeply betrayed by the scam and were harmed financially.

Now, however, a lawsuit against Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz brought by the trustee for victims of Mr. Madoff has suggested the relationship — financially and personally — was deeper than anyone might have suspected. The trustee, Irving H. Picard, has alleged that the two men’s dealings with Mr. Madoff were extensive

and longstanding, and that they went on even after suspicions about Mr. Madoff’s operation were raised, according to two lawyers involved in the case.

As a result, according to the lawyers, Mr. Picard has asserted that Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz either knew or should have known that Mr. Madoff’s operation was a potential fraud. Mr. Wilpon, Mr. Katz and their lawyers have refused to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed under seal in December in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan.

But interviews with current and former associates of Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz, as well as former employees of the club, former employees of Mr. Madoff and others, make it clear that the relationship was substantial and that the role Mr. Madoff played in the financial life of the ball club and the Wilpon and Katz families was pervasive.

“The relationship between Fred and Bernie became closer and closer because Bernie was returning more and more to Fred in terms of his investments while Bernie is getting exposure from Fred and Saul,” said Jerry Reisman, a lawyer in Garden City, N.Y., who has represented 10 or so commercial real estate investors who lost a total of some $150 million to Mr. Madoff.

“They both relied on one another,” he said. “It was reciprocal, symbiotic.

They both relied on each other for money, and Bernie also relied on Fred for contacts.”

One former executive with the Mets recalled how it could work: “I remember vividly Madoff’s name being brought up a lot when” the team “would negotiate contracts, particularly with deferments,” said the former executive, who would not be identified because he did not want to harm his career in baseball. “That money would be turned over to Madoff.

“And as part of friends and family of the Mets, they offered people the opportunity to invest in Bernie. There was talk about Bernie averaging like 15 percent for the Wilpons. It just seemed too good to be true, but then you think the owner has vetted it.”

Frank Cashen, the former general manager of the Mets who built the team that won the 1986 World Series, said it was his understanding that several million dollars of his deferred compensation had been invested with Mr. Madoff, but that he had been paid. Asked whether it was Mr. Wilpon or Mr. Katz who was more likely to push the idea of investing with Mr. Madoff, Mr. Cashen, who stepped down as general manager in 1991, said, “To me, they operated in unison.”

The Madoffs and the Wilpons raised their children in Roslyn, N.Y., and

Fred Wilpon, the principal owner of the Mets, left, with Bernard L. Madoff at Shea Stadium in 1995. their sons were friendly. They traveled together occasionally, according to mutual friends and associates. And the three men — Mr. Wilpon, Mr. Katz and Mr. Madoff — came to support and involve themselves in a number of the same philanthropic endeavors.

When Mr. Madoff moved his offices from Manhattan’s financial district, he took up office space in a Midtown building owned in part by Mr. Wilpon’s real estate company.

Three days before Mr. Madoff’s arrest, there was a meeting of the board of the Gift of Life, a bone marrow donor registry. It was held in Mr. Madoff’s office, his former secretary said. Mr. Wilpon was there.

“There was always Fred Wilpon,” said Eleanor Squillari, Mr. Madoff’s longtime secretary. Mr. Katz, she said, was even more of a presence. And Mr. Wilpon’s son Jeff would stop by to visit with Mr. Madoff’s son, Mark, or call and joke with her on the phone. Mr. Madoff, she said, went to Japan with the Mets in 2000. He brought her back a kimono.

Still, Ms. Squillari thought Mr. Madoff was a little more formal around Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz.

“Bernie acted differently with Fred than he did with his closer circle of friends — the Shapiros, the Blumenfelds, the Picowers,” she recalled. “They weren’t as chummy. Fred wasn’t part of that clique.

Bernie was more businesslike with Fred and Saul.”

She and others interviewed said they were convinced Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz did not know about Mr. Madoff’s criminal enterprise. But others interviewed, including two former employees of the Mets, said they were struck, both years ago and in hindsight, by the outsize confidence Mr. Wilpon had in Mr. Madoff.

The employees would not be identified because they did not want to embarrass

their former bosses, whom they continue to admire.

“It was almost like Fred and the others were marveling over it,” one former employee of the club said. “But it was unclear how Madoff would make the returns or where he would park the money.”

Another former employee said he was offered a chance to invest with Mr. Madoff by Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz. He said he asked them, “How does Bernie do it?”

“He’s smarter than everyone else,” he said he was told. “I remember hearing the conversations about how Bernie returned 18 percent. And the answer was that he was a very smart guy who was creative and knows where to make plays.

Fred was expressing admiration for Bernie.”

Indeed, the breadth and depth of investing done with Mr. Madoff by the Wilpon and Katz families and their financial holdings, including the Mets, are remarkable. The trustee, in his lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from the men, takes aim at roughly 100 accounts held by Mr. Wilpon, Mr. Katz, their families or business operations.

According to an analysis of the list of Mr. Madoff’s 15,000 clients, done by Jamie Peppard, a former financial auditor who has studied the Madoff case, more than 500 accounts can be tied to Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz. Mr. Wilpon had at least 17 accounts just under his name, according to her analysis.

The former employees of the Mets said substantial aspects of the club’s financial operations seemed to flow through, or wind up with, Mr. Madoff — annuities set up for players, cash generated by sponsorship deals, and more. The team regularly discussed investing deferred money from long-term player contracts in Madoff accounts. Bobby Bonilla was among the players who had their deferred money put with Mr. Madoff, one former employee said.

In those cases, the players would agree to take less money up front and be paid over a number of years, earning interest. It appears the Mets would be able to keep any money earned over that agreed rate, and Mr. Madoff regularly produced returns that outdid prevailing interest rates.

And when the costs of disability insurance spiked, the former employee recalled, the Mets began to self insure.

They did it by investing premiums with Mr. Madoff, he said.

“He was an investment vehicle that existed for Fred and the organization,” one former employee said. He added, “I always wondered why Bernie was smarter than everyone else.”

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By BILL PENNINGTON

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The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

oseph Chirlee is an American citizen and a private in the United States Army stationed in Colorado. He is also a world-class marathoner with a shot at qualifying for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He had hoped to run in the national cross-country championships in San Diego.

But Chirlee, who emigrated from Kenya five years ago, will not be permitted to race, not even in the armed forces division, in which military personnel traditionally compete for their own championship within the national race. He is barred because he has been a United States citizen for less than two years, and that has entangled him in a new international eligibility rule that USA Track and Field, which oversees the race, has chosen to enforce.

“I came to America because I was told it was about equality for all,” said Chirlee, 30, who became a citizen in June. “But any average person I pass on the street can run in Saturday’s race, and I can’t. I took an oath as a soldier to serve and defend the country, but I can’t run in the country’s national championship? I don’t understand how that is fair or equal treatment.”

Chirlee’s coach, Lisa Rainsberger, a three-time United States Olympic team alternate and the last American woman to win the Boston Marathon, criticized USA Track and Field’s policymaking.

“He’s caught in a doughnut hole of a rule that our track and field leaders did not have to apply to American athletes,” Rainsberger said. “We understand Joseph can’t compete internationally for two years, but doesn’t he have any rights to run in elite American races before then? He can take a bullet for us someday in Afghanistan, but he can’t run with his American contemporaries?

What purpose does that serve?”

USA Track and Field officials insist that their rule is not discriminatory and that it is not directed at Chirlee or several other athletes who are in his situation.

“We have an obligation to make sure competitive opportunities to represent the U.S. internationally go to individuals who are eligible to do so,” said Jill Geer, the chief public affairs officer for the organization.

Chirlee must be kept out of Saturday’s field, including the armed forces subdivision, Geer said, because he could affect the outcome of the overall race. Geer said that based on race tactics — if, for example, Chirlee set an unusually fast early pace — he could cause other runners in the field to try to match his pace, which could negatively influence their strategy or performance, altering the tenor of the race. There is

He Can Serve, but

He Can’t Run also the matter of prize money, which is awarded only to eligible competitors.

The men’s and women’s winners Saturday will each receive $2,000, and six men and women will qualify to represent the United States in the world cross-country championships next month in Spain.

“Is the rule perfect? No,” said Geer, who added that USA Track and Field officials, acting on Chirlee’s behalf, tried unsuccessfully to get the International Association of Athletics Federations, the sport’s global governing body, to reassess Chirlee’s eligibility.

“We understand that Mr. Chirlee has done no wrong,” Geer said. “We will continue to look at our rules. But this is a rule that applies to every track and field event, not just distance runners. There are a lot of ramifications that have to be considered, from event to event.”

The new international rule, imposed by the I.A.A.F., was meant to inhibit athletes who jump from country to country for better competitive opportunities or because they are paid to do so. Until last year, the I.A.A.F. required any athlete who had competed internationally and then changed citizenship to wait three years before competing for his new country. Athletes who had never competed internationally were exempt and could change citizenship and be immediately eligible internationally.

Chirlee never competed for Kenya, or any other country, and applied to become a United States citizen late in 2009, expecting to be able to run for the United States once his citizenship was granted. He also joined the Army last March and went through basic training at Fort Benning, Ga. But in April, the I.A.A.F. revised the rule, changing it to require any athlete switching citizenship to be a citizen of the new country for two years before competing in an international competition.

Since the mid-1980s, USA Track and Field has adopted I.A.A.F. eligibility rules as its own, Geer said. So when the international rule changed in April, two months before Chirlee became a citizen, in effect so did the USA Track and Field rule.

“I accepted the two-year wait to represent the country,” Chirlee said.

“But I was confused why it applied

to races on home soil. I just wanted to be treated like any other U.S. citizen. I went to a race in Connecticut, and they told me I shouldn’t be there. I told them I had worked hard for the race and that in America with hard work you can accomplish anything. So I ran anyway.”

Rainsberger worries that Chirlee is being deprived of a valuable opportunity to compete against American runners he will attempt to defeat for one of three Chirlee emigrated to the United States five years ago, but has been a citizen for less than two years.

Joseph Chirlee, right, training at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

Olympic team spots at the Olympic marathon trials on Jan. 14, 2012. USA Track and Field has said Chirlee will be permitted to compete in the Olympic trials even though he will not have been a citizen for two years because he would be internationally eligible by the London Olympics in July 2012.

“But in the meantime he’s not getting to test himself against his American rivals,” said Rainsberger, who noted that Chirlee did not run in the national half-marathon championships Jan. 29, an event contested on the course where the Olympic trials will be held.

“There’s a lot of knowledge and intuition gained by running side by side with your competitors for 26 miles,” she said. “Joseph is missing all that.”

Chirlee was one of six runners selected to run for the Army on Saturday.

Liam Collins, the Army coach, twice petitioned USA Track and Field last month to allow Chirlee to compete. Each pe-

tition was denied.

Geer said she believed Chirlee would have “hundreds of quality competitive opportunities” throughout the year to get ready for the Olympic trials.

And Chirlee, whose fastest marathon is 2 hours 12 minutes — or about a minute behind the third-place American Olympic qualifying time four years ago — is expected to run in April’s Boston Marathon, an event not under the purview of USA Track and Field.

Chirlee, who originally settled in Georgia and attended Chattahoochee Technical College in Marietta, has a wife and two small children in Kenya.

He said he was working with immigration services to have his family join him in Colorado Springs, where he has been assigned to the Army’s World Class Athlete Program, allowing him to train for the Olympics.

“We all know if we don’t make the Olympics, we go back to regular Army duties,” said Chirlee, who said he received an Army stipend of $1,600 a month.

“I know they could call me any time. I am ready. I will defend the country if asked.”

Rainsberger said she had worked with three runners dropped from the Army athlete program who served in Iraq and in Kuwait.

“Joseph runs 100 miles a week,” Rainsberger said. “He’s working hard on his window of opportunity.”

On Wednesday morning, as he prepared for another workout, Chirlee said he once considered immigrating to a European country.

“But I liked the American way where everybody is given the same chance,” he said. “Now I feel like a half citizen. I didn’t think there were half citizens.”

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

61

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 62

62 February 10 - 16, 2011

HOROSCOPE Aries

(Mar 21-April 20)

You deserve a pat on the back for your composure.

Many a storm has been weathered recently and you have held it together. A loving embrace to warm the heart is around the corner. Fortify your energy with strong foods and exercise. You will need added oomph to get through the next chapter. Be firm and direct with people.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

You must stay as flexible as a Taurean can. Life will keep you on your toes; that is for sure.

With the love stuff; are you the cat that got the cream at the moment? Just be sure not to take anything for granted and remember that cream turns sour very readily. Do not hold back with your feelings; but do leave tears and emotional distress in the past.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Drive carefully around all the corners in your life and if you cannot see further than the next bend panic not. There really is not quite the pressure on that you think. Take it easy, sit back and enjoy the ride. Make the most of your opportunities and talents. Things are not necessarily going to drop into your lap. You can improve your chances.

Scorpio

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Prepare for a spot of jealousy as your well-earned reward lands in your lap.

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Mixed feelings about travel plans will fade as soon as you make the effort to get out and about. Stir the pot to keep your pet project bubbling nicely. You need to put in the good efforts now. Is a loved one acting out a role to keep you sweet? What does it matter really as long as they are treating you well? It is no more than you deserve.

At all costs you are to avoid dissolving in a heap. Get down to the job of picking up the pieces, if emotions have been tested. It is time now to make amends and build bridges. You may have a fight to survive on your hands; but you are more than able for it. Never mind those who wish to undermine you. You are more than equal.

Cancer

Capricorn

(June 22-July 23)

Do not resort to the demon drink to drown a problem. Your outstanding issues will not go away, especially not if you run forever in the opposite direction. Surely it is better to face the truth? Finances are not ultimately that important: a sense of personal completion and arrival is. Reach out and accept the inevitable; then change.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

In relationships guard against irrevocable The power is in your hands with most things, if only you would care to admit it. Do not let work commitments scupper your chance of romance.

Certain things can wait so make sure you prioritise your existence from the start of the week to the finish. Be aware that you do not need to win approval. Just be your good self. All is well.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Circumstances which are too challenging get Use your natural intelligence and good communication to shift the energy of controversy. Try to make peace with the past and see where you get to. See what comes up naturally and take things as they come. A Soul Mate is shining close by like a beacon; open your eyes. Do not waste your time with time wasters. You are on a roll creatively.

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

A romance is looming with someone that you perceive only as a work mate. Enjoy the intrigue and merrily wind people up as they try to work out what is going on. Watch your diet.

Happiness is in the air and all will be well. Do not worry about things that are past their sellby date. ‘Ever onwards and upwards’ should be your motto.

Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19) Do make sure you are not married to your work; especially not to the exclusion of everything else. In love triangles, know when you are beginning to look ridiculous. Nothing is worth the sale of your most precious commodity; your heart and soul. You can retrieve the situation before it is too late. Live and let live. Things will pan out.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Your hunger for the big, wide yonder may be heightened this week, as claustrophobia sets in.

Never mind, there will soon be a way through what troubles you. Take little steps towards your goals as this is more effective than jumping in with two big feet. Mellow out a bit and try to be philosophical about the changing landscape.

The San Juan Weekly

Answers to the Zudoku and Crossword on page 61

The San Juan Weekly

February 10 - 16, 2011

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

Two Cows And A Chicken

Cartoons

63

Ziggi

64

February 10 - 16, 2011

The San Juan Weekly