Adoption

August 17, 2006
Overcoming Adoption’s Racial Barriers
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON and RON NIXON
When Martina Brockway and Mike Timble, a white couple in Chicago, decided to adopt a child, Ms. Brockway went to an adoption agency presentation at a black church to make it clear they wanted an African-American baby.
Their biological daughter, Rumeur, 3, is accumulating black dolls in preparation for her new brother or sister. Black-themed children’s books like “Please, Baby, Please” by the filmmaker Spike Lee and his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, share shelf space with Elmo and Dr. Seuss.
But the couple’s decision provoked some uneasy responses. One of Mr. Timble’s white friends asked, “Aren’t there any white kids available?”
Ms. Brockway’s black friends were supportive. “But,” she said, “I also sensed that there was maybe something they weren’t saying.”
Mr. Timble cut in. “Like maybe they were thinking, ‘What do these people think they are doing?’ ”
Ms. Brockway and Mr. Timble are among a growing number of white couples pushing past longtime cultural resistance to adopt black children. In 2004, 26 percent of black children adopted from foster care, about 4,200, were adopted transracially, nearly all by whites. That is up from roughly 14 percent, or 2,200, in 1998, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect at Cornell University and from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“It is a significant increase,” said Rita Simon, a sociologist at American University, who has written several books on transracial adoption. “It is getting easier, bureaucratically and socially. With so many people going overseas, people are also increasingly saying, Wait a minute, there are children here who need to be adopted, too.”
The 2000 census — the first in which information on adoptions was collected — showed that just over 16,000 white households included adopted black children. Adoption experts say there has been a notable increase since 2000.
The reasons for the increase are varied. The Multiethnic Placement Act and its amendments prohibited federally financed agencies from denying adoption based on race. The foster care system has sharply changed in recent years and now includes financial incentives for finding more adoptive families.
The combination of legal changes and greater embracing of multicultural families — Americans have adopted more than 200,000 children from overseas in the past 15 years — have lessened resistance from both blacks and whites. The long wait for white children and the high costs of international adoptions — typically $15,000 to $35,000 — also play a role.
And agencies are offering courses to help adoptive parents enter the process with more cultural openness and awareness.
Ms. Brockway and Mr. Timble decided to adopt after a physically and emotionally wrenching first pregnancy — their daughter was delivered at 25 weeks. They did not want to deal with the long wait for a white infant, and adopting from overseas did not appeal to them.
“Some people see Asian or other ethnicities as closer to white, more acceptable, easier,” said Ms. Brockway, a teacher. “That’s just not us. We feel like we have the open arms and minds to be a good match to an African-American child.”
In practice, however, decisions about adoption placements are still influenced by racial considerations, many families say. Since 1994, white prospective parents have filed, and largely won, more than two dozen discrimination lawsuits, according to state and federal court records. Many more disputes have been settled in arbitration.
The loaded jumble of viewpoints and anxieties related to transracial adoptions of black children are complex and often contradictory.
Rhetoric around the issue has softened considerably since the National Association of Black Social Workers, in 1972, likened whites adopting black children to “cultural genocide.” The group removed the genocide reference from its policy statement in 1994, but it still recommends same-race placements. And organizations like the Child Welfare League have argued in recent years that while race need not be the primary consideration in placements, it should not be disregarded.
Many blacks still worry that white families cannot equip black children to navigate the country’s complicated racial landscape.
“Adoption, like everything else in this country, gets filtered through the lens of race,” said Joseph Crumbley, a black social worker in Philadelphia and a consultant on transracial adoptions. “For blacks, it is about how comfortable can whites be in dealing with the issue of race when their race is in conflict with the race of the child.”

Coffee

August 15, 2006
Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.
Among them is a systematic review of studies published last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which concluded that habitual coffee consumption was consistently associated with a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. Exactly why is not known, but the authors offered several explanations.
Coffee contains antioxidants that help control the cell damage that can contribute to the development of the disease. It is also a source of chlorogenic acid, which has been shown in animal experiments to reduce glucose concentrations.
Caffeine, perhaps coffee’s most famous component, seems to have little to do with it; studies that looked at decaffeinated coffee alone found the same degree of risk reduction.
Larger quantities of coffee seem to be especially helpful in diabetes prevention. In a report that combined statistical data from many studies, researchers found that people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day had a 28 percent reduced risk compared with people who drank two or fewer. Those who drank more than six had a 35 percent risk reduction.
Some studies show that cardiovascular risk also decreases with coffee consumption. Using data on more than 27,000 women ages 55 to 69 in the Iowa Women’s Health Study who were followed for 15 years, Norwegian researchers found that women who drank one to three cups a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 24 percent compared with those drinking no coffee at all.
But as the quantity increased, the benefit decreased. At more than six cups a day, the risk was not significantly reduced. Still, after controlling for age, smoking and alcohol consumption, women who drank one to five cups a day — caffeinated or decaffeinated — reduced their risk of death from all causes during the study by 15 to 19 percent compared with those who drank none.
The findings, which appeared in May in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggest that antioxidants in coffee may dampen inflammation, reducing the risk of disorders related to it, like cardiovascular disease. Several compounds in coffee may contribute to its antioxidant capacity, including phenols, volatile aroma compounds and oxazoles that are efficiently absorbed.
In another analysis, published in July in the same journal, researchers found that a typical serving of coffee contains more antioxidants than typical servings of grape juice, blueberries, raspberries and oranges.
“We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both in Norway and in the U.S.A.,” said Rune Blomhoff, the senior author of both studies and a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo.
These same anti-inflammatory properties may explain why coffee appears to decrease the risk of alcohol-related cirrhosis and liver cancer. This effect was first observed in 1992. Recent studies,published in June in The Archives of Internal Medicine, confirmed the finding.
Still, some experts believe that coffee drinking, and particularly caffeine consumption, can have negative health consequences. A study published in January in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, for example, suggests that the amount of caffeine in two cups of coffee significantly decreases blood flow to the heart, particularly during exercise at high altitude.
Rob van Dam, a Harvard scientist and the lead author of The Journal of the American Medical Association review, acknowledged that caffeine could increase blood pressure and slightly increase levels of the amino acid homocysteine, possibly raising the risk for heart disease.
“I wouldn’t advise people to increase their consumption of coffee in order to lower their risk of disease,” Dr. van Dam said, “but the evidence is that for most people without specific conditions, coffee is not detrimental to health. If people enjoy drinking it, it’s comforting to know that they don’t have to be afraid of negative health effects.”

Energy

August 3, 2006
Energy From the Restless Sea
By HEATHER TIMMONS
NEWCASTLE, England — There is more riding the waves here than surfers, thanks to a growing number of scientists, engineers and investors.
A group of entrepreneurs is harnessing the perpetual motion of the ocean and turning it into a commodity in high demand: energy. Right now, machines of various shapes and sizes are being tested off shores from the North Sea to the Pacific — one may even be coming to the East River in New York State this fall — to see how they capture waves and tides and create marine energy.
The industry is still in its infancy, but it is gaining attention, much because of the persistence of marine energy inventors, like Dean R. Corren, who have doggedly lugged their wave and tidal prototypes around the world, even during the years when money and interest dried up. Mr. Corren, trim and cerebral, is a scientist who has long advocated green energy and pushed through numerous conservation measures when he was chairman of the public energy utility for the city of Burlington, Vt.
Another believer in the technology is Max Carcas, head of business development for Ocean Power Delivery of Edinburgh. “In the long run, this could become one of the most competitive sources of energy,” said Mr. Carcas.
His company manufactures the Pelamis, a snakelike wave energy machine the size of a passenger train, which generates energy by absorbing waves as they undulate on the ocean surface.
With high oil prices, dwindling fuel supplies and a growing pressure to reduce global warming, governments and utilities have high hopes for tidal energy. The challenge now is turning an accumulation of research into a viable commercial enterprise, which for many years has proved elusive.
No one contends that generating energy from the oceans is a preposterous idea. After all, the “fuel” is free and sustainable, and the process does not generate pollution or emissions.
Moreover, it is not just oceans that could be tapped; the regular flow of tides in bodies of water linked to oceans, like the East River, hold promise too. In fact, it seemed like such a sensible idea that inventors started making the first wave of such generators centuries ago. Many operated like dams, trapping water and then releasing it after the tides fell. But they were outmoded with the rise of steam engines and other more efficient fuel sources.
Ocean energy had a brief revival when oil prices rose in the 1970’s, and prototypes were tested in Europe and China. But financing dried up when oil prices were low in the 1990’s, and advances in wind turbines and other renewable energy elbowed out tidal projects.
These days, wave power designs vary from machines that look like corks bobbing in the ocean to devices that resemble snakes pointing into waves. There are shoreline machines that cling, like limpets, to rocks.
Tidal power machines, in contrast, often come in the form of turbines, which look like underwater windmills, and generate energy by spinning as tides move in and out; some inventors also are testing concrete-and-steel machines that lie on the seabed and pipe pressurized water back to the shore.
Even big commercial power companies are joining the action. General Electric; Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian company; and the Germany power giant Eon have recently pledged money for new projects or investments in tiny marine energy companies.
“It is an untapped renewable energy source,” said Mark Huang, senior vice president for technology finance in General Electric’s media and communications business, which is financing marine projects. “There is no where to go but up,” Mr. Huang said. He added that solar or wind energy should be viewed “as a case study” for the direction marine energy could take.
Right now, wave power generators are being tested near the shores of New Jersey, Hawaii, Scotland, England and Western Australia. A long-awaited East River tidal turbine project is to start this fall, and Representative William D. Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, has proposed that the United States follow in Britain’s footsteps to build an ocean energy research center, the country’s first, off the Massachusetts coast.
A handful of commercial projects are also in the works, including the world’s first “wave farm,” as the fields of machines are known, being installed off the north coast of Portugal. A field of tidal turbines is also being built off the shore of Tromso, Norway.
Britain could generate up to 20 percent of the electricity it needs from waves and tides, according to an estimate by a government-financed group here called the Carbon Trust. That is about 12,000 megawatts a day at current usage, or three times what Britain’s largest power plant produces now. In fact, England and Scotland have become experimental laboratories for ocean energy development. As reserves shrink and the offshore oil business in the North Sea winds down, governments are trying to capture the accumulated knowledge and transform oil industry jobs into other ways of generating energy.

Swarovski Crystal

August 3, 2006
Is Shine Losing Its Luster?
By ERIC WILSON
WHEN Swarovski, the century-old Austrian maker of fine crystal, gave a party this spring for the Council of Fashion Designers of America, tens of thousands of sparkling crystals filled pools on a Manhattan rooftop. When Jennifer Lopez showed her first runway collection last year, the catwalk glittered with a carpet of Swarovski crystals. And at the Academy Awards, when Charlize Theron wore Gucci (2004) and Whoopi Goldberg wore Hush Puppies (2002), the Swarovski crystals attached to them were given equal attention by Joan Rivers.
Over the last decade, the name Swarovski has become widely recognized as the brand of crystals that provide the sparkle on Oscar gowns, trendy iPod covers and Paris Hilton’s crystal-crusted cellphone. For many people who had never given much thought to crystals, confusing the multifaceted beads with, say, sequins, “Swarovski” is now inextricably tied to fashion. The company has achieved this prominence by showering designers with financing — it is the main sponsor of the fashion council’s annual awards — and by persuading hot designers to embellish their collections with its crystals.
For anyone who may have missed the message that Swarovski has arrived as a luxury brand, the company introduced an $11 million advertising campaign in fashion magazines this month with models painted as the mythical Three Graces, swathed in a kaleidoscopic mist of crystals. But this climax may have come at an inopportune moment. A headline from Harper’s Bazaar, on a page opposite the Swarovski ad, sums up the more somber mood of clothing for the fall season: “So Long, Sparkle.”
After a decade of what could be described as crystal madness, during which Swarovski’s sales doubled to 2.14 billion euros, or about $2.73 billion, the company is facing a series of threats. The dark and moody direction of many of the fall collections would suggest that difficult times lie ahead for makers of rhinestones, beads, sequins and other sparkly fare.
Perhaps a greater challenge is the rise of less expensive crystal made in Czech Republic, as well as mass-produced stones from China that can cost about one-tenth of the price of Swarovski.
“There has been a general lessening of bling and overglitzed clothes,” said James Mischka, who with his partner, Mark Badgley, designs the Badgley Mischka evening-wear line. Mr. Mischka said that many companies have switched to Czech crystal in recent seasons, although Badgley Mischka continues to buy stones from Swarovski because of its quality and reputation. Even so, they purchased fewer crystals for fall styles like a $6,275 jewel- and crystal-encrusted evening dress, as they sensed the trend for less adornment.
“To make the collection new, you have to move in a different direction,” Mr. Badgley said. “We certainly did beading and embroidery, but not as much as we normally do.”
IN the mid-20th century, when Swarovski began producing crystals for Christian Dior, Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel, the company was the major supplier for designers; it was able to produce an intricately faceted stone thanks to precise cutting machines invented in 1892 by Daniel Swarovski, the founder.
Throughout most of its history, Swarovski did not publicize its involvement with designers, even though the company made the crystals that adorned Judy Garland’s ruby slippers in “The Wizard of Oz” and those that gave the sparkle to the white Jean Louis dress that Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy.
Instead, beginning in the 1970’s, Swarovski became known for crystal-making of a less voguish variety: crafting miniature animals sold as keepsakes to collectors, who display their enchanted mermaids and dancing dolphins in mirrored glass cases.
When designers rediscovered crystals in the late 90’s as embellished styles replaced the austere look of minimalism, a fifth generation of Swarovskis was entering the family business, with ideas for reshaping its image along the lines of rejuvenated luxury labels like Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Nadja Swarovski, a great-great-granddaughter of Daniel Swarovski, and a vice president of the company, wooed designers early in their careers, including Zac Posen, Proenza Schouler, Narciso Rodriguez and Alexander McQueen, by financing their fashion shows in exchange for the designers’ using Swarovski crystals on their clothes.
At the annual Council of Fashion Designer awards, the company gives $10,000 cash and $10,000 worth of crystals to the winners of awards for new talent — typically, in men’s, women’s and accessories design. It has paid for designers to visit its factories in Wattens, Austria, where Swarovski produces a billion crystals each week and operates a rather curious company museum shaped like a giant who lives inside a mountain.
As a result of its fashion initiatives, sales of Swarovski crystals have increased by more than 10 percent each year, said Markus Langes-Swarovski, a member of the executive board and a cousin of Ms. Swarovski. The company also makes binoculars and industrial equipment, but its figurines and fashion crystals are the fastest-growing division, representing 73 percent of total sales.
While sales have not slowed, the company’s share of the fashion market has dropped to about 60 percent from a near monopoly, which the Swarovskis attribute to competition from other companies. This has also been a problem for other fine crystal makers like Baccarat and Waterford, specializing in glassware and ornamental objects.
Synthetic crystal itself is fairly uncomplicated to produce: a combination of quartz sand and water melted at high temperatures. Its value as a luxury commodity comes from the perception of its quality and design — in other words, marketing. The harder part is staying in fashion, and the life cycle of the trend may have been accelerated by a glut of inexpensive crystals cheapening the value of those on the high end.
“As our competition is growing, so are we,” Ms. Swarovski said. “That just means there is an increased demand worldwide for crystal. At this point we have been able to stay at the forefront in terms of sales because we have a competitive advantage — namely, our brand name and our quality.”
While the Swarovski name adds a certain prestige to a designer gown, it also raises the price. A band of crystals from the factory, made up of thousands of stones, can cost more than $200 a yard. Marc Bouwer, an evening-wear designer, said that 70 percent of his gowns include some type of crystal embroidery or brooch, though the gowns are far less extravagant than in years past. He uses Swarovski crystals for some designs but also buys from other companies offering quality crystals at more competitive prices.
“Those days of glittering from head to toe are passé,” Mr. Bouwer said. “Now we use crystals as hints to punctuate a certain drape along the cleavage or the back of a gown.”