December 12, 2007
Rape of Girl, 15, Exposes Abuses in Brazil Prison System
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
BRASÍLIA — The police jail at Abaetetuba could not be torn down soon enough for Márcia Soares, a lawyer and federal human rights official here. To her, the jail has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with Brazil’s efforts to safeguard women and children from violence.
It was at Abaetetuba, in the northeastern state of Para on the fringes of the Amazon, that a 15-year-old girl arrested on suspicion of petty theft was illegally placed among 34 male inmates in late October. For 26 days they treated her as their plaything, raping and torturing her repeatedly. Sometimes she traded sex for food; other times, she was simply raped, federal investigators here said.
The police in the jail did more than turn their backs on the violence. They shaved her head with a knife to make her look more like a boy, investigators said, and now are blaming her for lying about her age.
The case is causing soul-searching here in Brazil’s capital, where federal officials have become increasingly concerned about the treatment of women and minors in the nation’s crowded prison system and the failure of judges throughout the country to prosecute cases of torture.
Women make up only 5 percent of Brazil’s prison population, but the number is growing. States have not built enough jails and prisons with separate facilities for women, even though federal law requires such separation. A recent study commissioned by the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva showed that female prisoners were being illegally placed with men or transvestites in five Brazilian states, and being subjected to torture and sexual abuse.
Even as Brazil was raised in November to the United Nations’ highest human development category, its spotty human rights history and mixed record of punishing those guilty of abuses have been an Achilles’ heel internationally. A SWAT team operates in Rio de Janeiro to root out and kill drug traffickers with impunity. The police are rarely convicted under a 1997 law against torture, because of an “institutionalizing of torture” under Brazil’s military dictatorship and more than 300 years of slavery, said Paulo Vanucchi, Brazil’s human rights minister.
The case of the 15-year-old will be another test of justice in the largely lawless Amazon region. Two years ago, a Brazilian rancher ordered the killing of Dorothy Mae Stang, 73, an American-born nun and rain forest advocate. She was shot to death on a jungle road. The rancher, Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
What has been particularly disheartening to federal human rights officials in the case of the 15-year-old girl is how many people had the chance to protect her. Ms. Soares, the lawyer, said the police, the judge and a public defender who had visited the jail all knew the teenager was in an all-male setting.
“Several officials were aware of what was happening, and at worst they were complicit in it,” Ms. Soares said. “It’s a very serious situation.”
Ana Júlia Carepa, the governor of Para, has been scrambling to clean up the mess since the situation became public late last month. Ms. Carepa pressed Raimundo Benassuly, the state police chief, to resign the day after he said publicly that the girl had lied about her age because she had a “mental deficiency.” The police have said that the girl had claimed she was 19, not 15, during several run-ins with the law.
Ms. Soares said that officials, including the judge in the case, a woman, did not press the girl for documentation proving she was an adult, even though she is under five feet tall and weighs about 80 pounds. “When I first saw her I thought she was 12, not 15,” Ms. Soares said.
For Ms. Carepa, the girl’s age is beside the point. “If she is 15, 20, 50, 80 years old or almost 100, it doesn’t matter,” she told journalists in Rio last month. “A woman cannot be in a cell with men.”
Ms. Carepa said that the jail would be torn down and replaced with something that has facilities for women.
The judge who placed the girl in the all-male jail, Clarice Maria Andrade, is being investigated and could lose her job. Two others in her office are accused of altering a document to make it seem as if the judge had approved a transfer from the jail shortly after the police made the request, not 12 days later.
Local officials were already familiar with the girl before she was arrested and placed in the Abaetetuba jail on Oct. 21. Growing up in a broken home, she had left school before and frequented an area known for child prostitution, Ms. Soares said. At the time of her arrest, she was shuttling among her parents’ homes and an uncle’s house, and no one seemed to keep careful tabs on her. During the 26 days, no relative came to the jail looking for her.
Within her first two days in jail, a man raped her in the bathroom, the girl told investigators. Inmates rely on visiting relatives to bring food. With no such visits, extreme hunger soon overtook the girl and she began trading sex for food, investigators said. Other men, however, simply raped her when they wanted to, and tortured her for amusement, investigators said. Some placed crumpled papers between her toes as she slept and lighted them, Ms. Soares said, adding that the girl still had burn marks on her feet.
Residents heard the girl’s screams from the road, which is near the jail windows. Yet for weeks no one came to her rescue. It was only after an anonymous note reached the local child protection services agency that she was removed from the jail.
In recent days, she and her family have been relocated under a federal witness protection program. The girl’s father complained of death threats from the police. He said they had tried to press him to say that the girl was 19 or 20.
“It’s now up to us to protect her and help her to start a new life,” Ms. Soares said. “And we need to keep up the political pressure, so that justice has a chance.”
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Hingis retires, says she tested positive for cocaine
Zurich, Switzerland (Sports Network) - Former World No. 1 Martina Hingis announced on Thursday that she tested positive for cocaine during this year's Wimbledon Championships and also announced her retirement from professional tennis.
Hingis denied the allegations in a statement Thursday saying, "I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous, that I have decided to confront it head-on by talking to the press."
"I am frustrated and angry. I believe that I am absolutely, one hundred percent innocent."
Despite her protests, Hingis said she doesn't want to fight officials or try to battle back from injuries, and instead will call it a career.
"Considering this situation, my age, and the problems I have been having with my hip, I have decided to no longer play tennis on the Tour."
Amid the controversy, WTA CEO Larry Scott released the following statement:
"The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has not received any official information regarding the positive doping test result referred to by Martina Hingis in her press conference today, and as a result we are not in a position to comment on the matter.
"However, it is important to remember that in the area of anti-doping, all players are presumed innocent until proven otherwise. The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to doping in sport, and fully supports the Tennis Anti-Doping Program. The Tennis Anti-Doping program is both rigorous and comprehensive, and is designed to keep our sport clean.
"With respect to her retirement announcement, Martina Hingis is a tremendous champion and a fan favorite the world over. In her most recent comeback, she proved again that she can perform at the very highest levels of the game. Martina will always be respected for not only having achieved the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour World Number 1 ranking, her five Grand Slam singles titles, nine Grand Slam women's doubles titles and two Sony Ericsson Championships titles, but just as much for her incredible touch, on-court intelligence and off-court professionalism."
Hingis, 27, has not played since being bounced in the second round by Shuai Peng in Beijing at the end of September. She announced at the time that she was going to take as much time as needed to recover from hip problems.
This is the second time that Hingis has retired. She stepped aside for the first time in 2002 due to injuries to her feet, left knee and left hip, but returned in 2006.
The "Swiss Miss" had a 24-13 record this season, and is currently ranked 19th in the world. After her return in 2006, Hingis won three tournaments, including one this season, to increase her career total to 43.
Her best finish in the Grand Slams this season was a quarterfinal berth at the Australian Open. She did not play at the French Open and only advanced to the third round in both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
She won five career Grand Slam titles, capturing the Australian three straight years starting in 1997, when she also won her only Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles. She never won the French, advancing as far as the final twice.
Hingis first reached the world's top ranking March 31, 1997. She ended that year at the same position. The next year she ended the season ranked No. 2 before finishing the next two seasons as the top-ranked player in the world.
Zurich, Switzerland (Sports Network) - Former World No. 1 Martina Hingis announced on Thursday that she tested positive for cocaine during this year's Wimbledon Championships and also announced her retirement from professional tennis.
Hingis denied the allegations in a statement Thursday saying, "I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous, that I have decided to confront it head-on by talking to the press."
"I am frustrated and angry. I believe that I am absolutely, one hundred percent innocent."
Despite her protests, Hingis said she doesn't want to fight officials or try to battle back from injuries, and instead will call it a career.
"Considering this situation, my age, and the problems I have been having with my hip, I have decided to no longer play tennis on the Tour."
Amid the controversy, WTA CEO Larry Scott released the following statement:
"The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has not received any official information regarding the positive doping test result referred to by Martina Hingis in her press conference today, and as a result we are not in a position to comment on the matter.
"However, it is important to remember that in the area of anti-doping, all players are presumed innocent until proven otherwise. The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to doping in sport, and fully supports the Tennis Anti-Doping Program. The Tennis Anti-Doping program is both rigorous and comprehensive, and is designed to keep our sport clean.
"With respect to her retirement announcement, Martina Hingis is a tremendous champion and a fan favorite the world over. In her most recent comeback, she proved again that she can perform at the very highest levels of the game. Martina will always be respected for not only having achieved the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour World Number 1 ranking, her five Grand Slam singles titles, nine Grand Slam women's doubles titles and two Sony Ericsson Championships titles, but just as much for her incredible touch, on-court intelligence and off-court professionalism."
Hingis, 27, has not played since being bounced in the second round by Shuai Peng in Beijing at the end of September. She announced at the time that she was going to take as much time as needed to recover from hip problems.
This is the second time that Hingis has retired. She stepped aside for the first time in 2002 due to injuries to her feet, left knee and left hip, but returned in 2006.
The "Swiss Miss" had a 24-13 record this season, and is currently ranked 19th in the world. After her return in 2006, Hingis won three tournaments, including one this season, to increase her career total to 43.
Her best finish in the Grand Slams this season was a quarterfinal berth at the Australian Open. She did not play at the French Open and only advanced to the third round in both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
She won five career Grand Slam titles, capturing the Australian three straight years starting in 1997, when she also won her only Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles. She never won the French, advancing as far as the final twice.
Hingis first reached the world's top ranking March 31, 1997. She ended that year at the same position. The next year she ended the season ranked No. 2 before finishing the next two seasons as the top-ranked player in the world.
November 13, 2007
Italy Moves to Tighten Soccer Security and Control Fans After Riots
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
ROME, Nov. 12 — The Italian authorities moved Monday to ban large groups of soccer fans from traveling to out-of-town matches and imposed stricter security measures in stadiums, in response to rioting that took place in several cities on Sunday after the accidental police shooting of a soccer fan.
In another sign that Italy had had enough of the fan violence that often mars matches, the Italian soccer federation also said Monday that next weekend’s matches in Serie B and C — Italy’s second- and third-tier professional leagues — would be postponed and played at a later date. No matches were to be played this weekend in Serie A, Italy’s premier league, because of a previously scheduled break for international play.
The move to restrict traveling fans fell far short of a general ban. Under the measure passed Monday, supporters of clubs will still be able to attend out-of-town matches; they will be prohibited only from traveling to those matches in large groups.
The new security measures would also give local police chiefs the right to suspend a match if matters appeared to be getting out of control. The authorities also ordered clubs to deploy extra match stewards to monitor crowds in stadiums that hold more than 7,500 people. The stewards must be in place by March 1.
The decisions by the Interior Ministry and the country’s top soccer officials were made after widespread demands for tougher action following “yet another Black Sunday,” as the Rome daily Corriere dello Sport described the weekend riots.
The worst violence on Sunday took place in Rome where hundreds of enraged soccer fans responded to the police shooting by attacking police barracks as well as the headquarters of the Italian Olympic Committee, which is next to the city’s soccer stadium, causing nearly $150,000 of damage. About 40 police officers were injured during the clashes, the news agency ANSA reported.
Gabriele Sandri, a 26-year-old Roman D.J., was killed Sunday morning after a stray bullet hit him in the neck as he was sitting in a car on the highway that leads from Rome to Milan. Mr. Sandri, a supporter of Lazio, one of the capital’s two teams, was on his way to watch Lazio play Internazionale.
According to news reports, a police officer had fired his gun in an attempt to halt a scuffle between soccer fans at a highway rest stop, and hit Mr. Sandri. On Monday, the officer was charged with manslaughter. The authorities on Sunday called the death “a tragic error.”
Italy’s police chief, Antonio Manganelli, said in an interview with the state broadcaster RAI on Monday night that it was unlikely that the officer who shot Mr. Sandri knew that the scuffle he was trying to halt was between opposing soccer team supporters.
Italy has a history of soccer-related violence punctuated by explosions of widespread rioting, usually set off by random incidents like the shooting on Sunday morning. In February, riots broke out throughout Italy after rampaging fans killed a police officer outside a match in Catania, prompting the government to pass a series of stricter security measures for stadiums.
In response to that outbreak of violence, all Serie A matches were postponed for one week.
The soccer authorities suspended three Serie A matches on Sunday as well as one in Serie B. Many fans were angered that only three Serie A matches were postponed in response to the killing of a fan by a police officer, while in February the entire Serie A slate was postponed in response to the killing of a police officer by a fan.
The violence in Rome and other cities “is pure madness,” Roberto Donadoni, coach of the Italian national team, told ANSA. “It’s one of those moments where you just feel nauseous.”
On Monday, prosecutors in Rome said they would be charging four people arrested during the riots in the city with participating in terrorist activities, reportedly the first time such a charge has been levied against soccer rioters.
Italy Moves to Tighten Soccer Security and Control Fans After Riots
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
ROME, Nov. 12 — The Italian authorities moved Monday to ban large groups of soccer fans from traveling to out-of-town matches and imposed stricter security measures in stadiums, in response to rioting that took place in several cities on Sunday after the accidental police shooting of a soccer fan.
In another sign that Italy had had enough of the fan violence that often mars matches, the Italian soccer federation also said Monday that next weekend’s matches in Serie B and C — Italy’s second- and third-tier professional leagues — would be postponed and played at a later date. No matches were to be played this weekend in Serie A, Italy’s premier league, because of a previously scheduled break for international play.
The move to restrict traveling fans fell far short of a general ban. Under the measure passed Monday, supporters of clubs will still be able to attend out-of-town matches; they will be prohibited only from traveling to those matches in large groups.
The new security measures would also give local police chiefs the right to suspend a match if matters appeared to be getting out of control. The authorities also ordered clubs to deploy extra match stewards to monitor crowds in stadiums that hold more than 7,500 people. The stewards must be in place by March 1.
The decisions by the Interior Ministry and the country’s top soccer officials were made after widespread demands for tougher action following “yet another Black Sunday,” as the Rome daily Corriere dello Sport described the weekend riots.
The worst violence on Sunday took place in Rome where hundreds of enraged soccer fans responded to the police shooting by attacking police barracks as well as the headquarters of the Italian Olympic Committee, which is next to the city’s soccer stadium, causing nearly $150,000 of damage. About 40 police officers were injured during the clashes, the news agency ANSA reported.
Gabriele Sandri, a 26-year-old Roman D.J., was killed Sunday morning after a stray bullet hit him in the neck as he was sitting in a car on the highway that leads from Rome to Milan. Mr. Sandri, a supporter of Lazio, one of the capital’s two teams, was on his way to watch Lazio play Internazionale.
According to news reports, a police officer had fired his gun in an attempt to halt a scuffle between soccer fans at a highway rest stop, and hit Mr. Sandri. On Monday, the officer was charged with manslaughter. The authorities on Sunday called the death “a tragic error.”
Italy’s police chief, Antonio Manganelli, said in an interview with the state broadcaster RAI on Monday night that it was unlikely that the officer who shot Mr. Sandri knew that the scuffle he was trying to halt was between opposing soccer team supporters.
Italy has a history of soccer-related violence punctuated by explosions of widespread rioting, usually set off by random incidents like the shooting on Sunday morning. In February, riots broke out throughout Italy after rampaging fans killed a police officer outside a match in Catania, prompting the government to pass a series of stricter security measures for stadiums.
In response to that outbreak of violence, all Serie A matches were postponed for one week.
The soccer authorities suspended three Serie A matches on Sunday as well as one in Serie B. Many fans were angered that only three Serie A matches were postponed in response to the killing of a fan by a police officer, while in February the entire Serie A slate was postponed in response to the killing of a police officer by a fan.
The violence in Rome and other cities “is pure madness,” Roberto Donadoni, coach of the Italian national team, told ANSA. “It’s one of those moments where you just feel nauseous.”
On Monday, prosecutors in Rome said they would be charging four people arrested during the riots in the city with participating in terrorist activities, reportedly the first time such a charge has been levied against soccer rioters.
November 14, 2007
Study Compares States’ Math and Science Scores With Other Countries’
By SAM DILLON
American students even in low-performing states like Alabama do better on math and science tests than students in most foreign countries, including Italy and Norway, according to a new study released yesterday. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that students in Singapore and several other Asian countries significantly outperform American students, even those in high-achieving states like Massachusetts, the study found.
“In this case, the bad news trumps the good because our Asian economic competitors are winning the race to prepare students in math and science,” said the study’s author, Gary W. Phillips, chief scientist at the American Institutes of Research, a nonprofit independent scientific research firm.
The study equated standardized test scores of eighth-grade students in each of the 50 states with those of their peers in 45 countries. Experts said it was the first such effort to link standardized test scores, state by state, with scores from other nations.
Gage Kingsbury, a director at the Northwest Evaluation Association, a group in Oregon that carries out testing in 1,500 school districts, praised the study’s methodology but said “a flock of difficulties” made it hazardous to compare test results from one country to another and from one state to another. “Kids don’t start school at the same age in different countries,” he said. “Not all kids are in school in grade eight, and the percentage differs from country to country.”
Because of such differences, Dr. Kingsbury said, it would be a mistake to infer too much about the relative rigor of the educational systems across the states and nations in the study based merely on test score differences.
The scores for students in the United States came from tests administered by the federal Department of Education in most states in 2005 and 2007. For foreign students, the scores came from math and science tests administered worldwide in 2003, as part of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, known as the Timss.
Concern that science and math achievement was not keeping pace with the nation’s economic competitors had been building even before the most recent Timss survey, in which the highest-performing nations were Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. American students lagged far behind those nations, but earned scores that were comparable to peers in European nations like Slovakia and Estonia, and were well above countries like Egypt, Chile and Saudi Arabia.
The Timss survey gives each country a metric by which to compare its educational attainment with other nations’. The nationwide American test, known as the National Assessments of Educational Progress, allows policy makers in each state to compare their students’ results with those in other states.
The new study used statistical linking to compare scores on the national assessment, state by state, with other nations’ scores on the Timss. Dr. Phillips, who from 1999 to 2002 led the agency of the Department of Education that administers the national assessment, likened the methodology to what economists do when they convert international currencies into dollars to compare poverty levels across various countries, for instance.
On the most recent national assessment, the highest-performing state in math was Massachusetts, and in science, North Dakota. The new study shows that average math achievement in Massachusetts was lower than in the leading Asian nations and in Belgium, but higher than in 40 other countries, including Australia, Russia, England and Israel.
Mississippi was the lowest-performing state in both math and science. In math, Mississippi students’ achievement was comparable to those of peers in Bulgaria and Moldova, and in science, to those in Norway and Romania.
In math, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York students were roughly equivalent with each other and with their peers in Australia, the Netherlands and Hungary.
The study’s contribution is the high-level perspective it offers on the nation’s education system, a bit the way a satellite image highlights the nation’s topography, said Thomas Toch, a co-director of Education Sector, an independent policy group.
“It shows we’re not doing as badly as some say,” Mr. Toch said. “We’re in the top half of the table, and a number of states are outperforming the majority of the nations in the study. But our performance in math and science lags behind that of the front-running Asian nations.”
Study Compares States’ Math and Science Scores With Other Countries’
By SAM DILLON
American students even in low-performing states like Alabama do better on math and science tests than students in most foreign countries, including Italy and Norway, according to a new study released yesterday. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that students in Singapore and several other Asian countries significantly outperform American students, even those in high-achieving states like Massachusetts, the study found.
“In this case, the bad news trumps the good because our Asian economic competitors are winning the race to prepare students in math and science,” said the study’s author, Gary W. Phillips, chief scientist at the American Institutes of Research, a nonprofit independent scientific research firm.
The study equated standardized test scores of eighth-grade students in each of the 50 states with those of their peers in 45 countries. Experts said it was the first such effort to link standardized test scores, state by state, with scores from other nations.
Gage Kingsbury, a director at the Northwest Evaluation Association, a group in Oregon that carries out testing in 1,500 school districts, praised the study’s methodology but said “a flock of difficulties” made it hazardous to compare test results from one country to another and from one state to another. “Kids don’t start school at the same age in different countries,” he said. “Not all kids are in school in grade eight, and the percentage differs from country to country.”
Because of such differences, Dr. Kingsbury said, it would be a mistake to infer too much about the relative rigor of the educational systems across the states and nations in the study based merely on test score differences.
The scores for students in the United States came from tests administered by the federal Department of Education in most states in 2005 and 2007. For foreign students, the scores came from math and science tests administered worldwide in 2003, as part of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, known as the Timss.
Concern that science and math achievement was not keeping pace with the nation’s economic competitors had been building even before the most recent Timss survey, in which the highest-performing nations were Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. American students lagged far behind those nations, but earned scores that were comparable to peers in European nations like Slovakia and Estonia, and were well above countries like Egypt, Chile and Saudi Arabia.
The Timss survey gives each country a metric by which to compare its educational attainment with other nations’. The nationwide American test, known as the National Assessments of Educational Progress, allows policy makers in each state to compare their students’ results with those in other states.
The new study used statistical linking to compare scores on the national assessment, state by state, with other nations’ scores on the Timss. Dr. Phillips, who from 1999 to 2002 led the agency of the Department of Education that administers the national assessment, likened the methodology to what economists do when they convert international currencies into dollars to compare poverty levels across various countries, for instance.
On the most recent national assessment, the highest-performing state in math was Massachusetts, and in science, North Dakota. The new study shows that average math achievement in Massachusetts was lower than in the leading Asian nations and in Belgium, but higher than in 40 other countries, including Australia, Russia, England and Israel.
Mississippi was the lowest-performing state in both math and science. In math, Mississippi students’ achievement was comparable to those of peers in Bulgaria and Moldova, and in science, to those in Norway and Romania.
In math, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York students were roughly equivalent with each other and with their peers in Australia, the Netherlands and Hungary.
The study’s contribution is the high-level perspective it offers on the nation’s education system, a bit the way a satellite image highlights the nation’s topography, said Thomas Toch, a co-director of Education Sector, an independent policy group.
“It shows we’re not doing as badly as some say,” Mr. Toch said. “We’re in the top half of the table, and a number of states are outperforming the majority of the nations in the study. But our performance in math and science lags behind that of the front-running Asian nations.”
November 14, 2007
Four Transplant Recipients Contract H.I.V.
By DENISE GRADY
Four transplant recipients in Chicago have contracted H.I.V. from an organ donor, the first known cases in more than a decade in which the virus was spread by organ transplants.
The organs also gave all four patients hepatitis C, in what health officials said was the first reported instance in which the two viruses were spread simultaneously by a transplant.
Though exceedingly rare, this type of transmission highlights a known weakness in the system for checking organ donors for infection: the most commonly used tests can fail to detect viral diseases if they are performed too early in the course of the infection. Officials say the events in Chicago may lead to widespread changes in testing methods.
“There are important policy implications,” said Dr. Matthew Kuehnert, director of the Office of Blood, Organ and Other Tissue Safety at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is investigating the case. “Clearly, the organ transplant community is going to think about the issues raised by this, and we look forward to being involved in those discussions.”
The cases were first reported yesterday by The Chicago Tribune. Two patients were infected at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and one each at Rush University Medical Center and Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The transplants were coordinated by an organization called the Gift of Hope of Elmhurst, Ill.
Officials would not say what organs were transplanted, but a transplant expert not connected with the case said they were most likely the kidneys, liver and either the heart or lungs. Only four organs, and no other tissue, were taken from the donor.
The University of Chicago said that the operations took place in January, and that the donor was an adult who died in an Illinois hospital “three days after traumatic injury.” Neither the donor’s age nor sex were disclosed. The other hospitals declined to discuss what happened, except to confirm that each had an infected patient.
The situation came to light earlier this month when one of the recipients, who was being evaluated for a retransplant, tested positive for H.I.V. and hepatitis C. At that point, blood preserved from the donor was given a highly sensitive test for viruses, and the infection was found.
Dr. J. Michael Millis, the chief of transplantation at the University of Chicago, said the patients were devastated, and the doctors heartbroken. But Dr. Millis said the diseases were treatable.
Initially, the donor had tested negative for H.I.V. and hepatitis C, apparently because the infection was too recent to be detected by commonly used blood tests. Those tests do not find the virus itself, but instead look for the body’s reaction to the infection — the antibodies produced by the immune system. But the body takes time to react, and if the test is done too soon, within 22 days of H.I.V. infection or 82 days for hepatitis C, antibodies may not yet be detectable.
Doctors say that is what probably occurred in Chicago. It has always been known that this kind of transmission was theoretically possible, but it was considered highly unlikely. And indeed, since 1994 nearly 300,000 transplants from cadavers have occurred without any reported cases of H.I.V. transmission.
Another more sensitive type of test can pick up viral infections earlier, but was not used. That test looks for evidence of the virus itself, and can reduce the “window,” the early period in which the test does not work, to 12 days for H.I.V. and 25 days for hepatitis C.
That test, the nucleic acid amplification test, or Naat, is not widely available, and doctors said it was more difficult and time-consuming than other tests — and there is usually no time to spare with transplants because organs deteriorate quickly when the donor dies. Another concern is that the test is more likely than others to give false-positive results, and lead to the needless destruction of healthy organs, a scarce resource.
Dr. Robert Brown, director of the liver transplant program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia said, “There is always a drive toward better testing, but if it leads to more organ wastage, we’ll probably hurt more people than we help.”
According to the University of Chicago, the organ donor in Illinois was known to be “high risk,” based on a risk factor revealed by a close friend who provided “a health and social history.” The exact nature of the risk was not disclosed. Federal guidelines recommend against transplanting organs from high-risk people unless the recipients are so likely to die for want of a transplant that H.I.V. seems a lesser threat.
Dr. Millis said that he did not know whether the patients there had been informed of the donor’s status.
About 9 percent of organ donors qualify as high-risk based on behaviors like prostitution or drug use with needle-sharing. Transplant experts say the percentage would probably be higher if they had full information on all donors.
Dr. Brown said Columbia got offers of organs from high-risk donors every week.
He also said that at Columbia, patients (or family members) were informed if a donor was high risk, and were required to sign a special consent form acknowledging it.
Dr. Millis said that although the organ supply was generally safe, he hoped it could be made safer, probably by developing regional centers around the country to perform Naat testing reliably and quickly enough to meet transplant needs.
Although it is rare, other diseases like rabies, West Nile fever and a rodent virus called LCMV have also been spread by organ transplants. In all of those cases, patients died.
Four Transplant Recipients Contract H.I.V.
By DENISE GRADY
Four transplant recipients in Chicago have contracted H.I.V. from an organ donor, the first known cases in more than a decade in which the virus was spread by organ transplants.
The organs also gave all four patients hepatitis C, in what health officials said was the first reported instance in which the two viruses were spread simultaneously by a transplant.
Though exceedingly rare, this type of transmission highlights a known weakness in the system for checking organ donors for infection: the most commonly used tests can fail to detect viral diseases if they are performed too early in the course of the infection. Officials say the events in Chicago may lead to widespread changes in testing methods.
“There are important policy implications,” said Dr. Matthew Kuehnert, director of the Office of Blood, Organ and Other Tissue Safety at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is investigating the case. “Clearly, the organ transplant community is going to think about the issues raised by this, and we look forward to being involved in those discussions.”
The cases were first reported yesterday by The Chicago Tribune. Two patients were infected at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and one each at Rush University Medical Center and Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The transplants were coordinated by an organization called the Gift of Hope of Elmhurst, Ill.
Officials would not say what organs were transplanted, but a transplant expert not connected with the case said they were most likely the kidneys, liver and either the heart or lungs. Only four organs, and no other tissue, were taken from the donor.
The University of Chicago said that the operations took place in January, and that the donor was an adult who died in an Illinois hospital “three days after traumatic injury.” Neither the donor’s age nor sex were disclosed. The other hospitals declined to discuss what happened, except to confirm that each had an infected patient.
The situation came to light earlier this month when one of the recipients, who was being evaluated for a retransplant, tested positive for H.I.V. and hepatitis C. At that point, blood preserved from the donor was given a highly sensitive test for viruses, and the infection was found.
Dr. J. Michael Millis, the chief of transplantation at the University of Chicago, said the patients were devastated, and the doctors heartbroken. But Dr. Millis said the diseases were treatable.
Initially, the donor had tested negative for H.I.V. and hepatitis C, apparently because the infection was too recent to be detected by commonly used blood tests. Those tests do not find the virus itself, but instead look for the body’s reaction to the infection — the antibodies produced by the immune system. But the body takes time to react, and if the test is done too soon, within 22 days of H.I.V. infection or 82 days for hepatitis C, antibodies may not yet be detectable.
Doctors say that is what probably occurred in Chicago. It has always been known that this kind of transmission was theoretically possible, but it was considered highly unlikely. And indeed, since 1994 nearly 300,000 transplants from cadavers have occurred without any reported cases of H.I.V. transmission.
Another more sensitive type of test can pick up viral infections earlier, but was not used. That test looks for evidence of the virus itself, and can reduce the “window,” the early period in which the test does not work, to 12 days for H.I.V. and 25 days for hepatitis C.
That test, the nucleic acid amplification test, or Naat, is not widely available, and doctors said it was more difficult and time-consuming than other tests — and there is usually no time to spare with transplants because organs deteriorate quickly when the donor dies. Another concern is that the test is more likely than others to give false-positive results, and lead to the needless destruction of healthy organs, a scarce resource.
Dr. Robert Brown, director of the liver transplant program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia said, “There is always a drive toward better testing, but if it leads to more organ wastage, we’ll probably hurt more people than we help.”
According to the University of Chicago, the organ donor in Illinois was known to be “high risk,” based on a risk factor revealed by a close friend who provided “a health and social history.” The exact nature of the risk was not disclosed. Federal guidelines recommend against transplanting organs from high-risk people unless the recipients are so likely to die for want of a transplant that H.I.V. seems a lesser threat.
Dr. Millis said that he did not know whether the patients there had been informed of the donor’s status.
About 9 percent of organ donors qualify as high-risk based on behaviors like prostitution or drug use with needle-sharing. Transplant experts say the percentage would probably be higher if they had full information on all donors.
Dr. Brown said Columbia got offers of organs from high-risk donors every week.
He also said that at Columbia, patients (or family members) were informed if a donor was high risk, and were required to sign a special consent form acknowledging it.
Dr. Millis said that although the organ supply was generally safe, he hoped it could be made safer, probably by developing regional centers around the country to perform Naat testing reliably and quickly enough to meet transplant needs.
Although it is rare, other diseases like rabies, West Nile fever and a rodent virus called LCMV have also been spread by organ transplants. In all of those cases, patients died.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
October 21, 2007
Raikkonen Wins Formula One Title
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:40 p.m. ET
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Kimi Raikkonen is known as ''The Iceman,'' and he more than kept his cool Sunday, winning the Brazilian Grand Prix and capturing the Formula One title in the tightest race for the championship in 21 years.
Raikkonen won his first F1 crown by taking advantage of Lewis Hamilton's mistake on the first lap and a subsequent gearbox problem with his McLaren, combined with Fernando Alonso's disappointing run.
The Ferrari driver took the lead with 21 laps to go, rallying from third in the drivers' standings to win the closest title race since 1986. Teammate Felipe Massa was second Sunday.
''We had very good speed in both cars,'' Raikkonen said. ''Were just taking it easy, saving the tires and the cars. We could have gone much faster it we wanted to. It was perfect teamwork from the team and it paid off very well.''
Hamilton, trying to become the first rookie to win the title and F1's youngest champion, went off the track on the first lap and went on to finish seventh. Alonso finished third.
''I went into the race and said to myself, 'Whatever happens today, it's been a phenomenal year,''' Hamilton said. ''Who would've thought I would be leading the world championship during the last races? It's a great feeling being in that position. The team did a phenomenal job all year.''
Alonso would have had to finish second and Hamilton fifth to keep Raikkonen from winning the drivers' championship after his victory.
There were some doubts after the race whether Raikkonen would keep the title, however, as Formula One's governing body -- FIA -- opened up an investigation into possible fuel irregularities.
FIA called a meeting involving representatives from BMW-Sauber and Williams, whose drivers finished fourth, fifth, sixth and 10th, and if at least two of them were punished, Hamilton could have moved up to fifth and taken the title.
Nearly six hours after the race, FIA said there wasn't enough evidence to penalize the drivers or the teams.
Raikkonen erased a seven-point gap behind Hamilton coming into the race to finish with 110 points, one more than Hamilton and Alonso.
''This is a great feeling,'' Raikkonen said. ''We had some hard times, some reliability problems and lost some points. A lot of people didn't believe in us, but we showed that they were wrong and we were able to come back. It was a great season.''
The Finn was reserved in his celebrations on the podium, waving his cap to the crowd before briefly throwing his arms in the air.
He finished the race on the 2.6-mile Interlagos track in 1 hour, 28 minutes, 15.270 seconds -- 1.493 seconds ahead of Massa and 57.019 ahead of Alonso.
Raikkonen -- second in the drivers' championship in 2003 and '05 -- became only the third Finn to win the F1 title, and the first since two-time winner Mika Hakkinen in 1998 and '99. The first Finnish champion was Keke Rosberg in 1982.
It was a hectic start for the Brazilian GP.
Hamilton, who started in the front row beside pole-sitter Massa, was passed by Raikkonen and Alonso on the first turn. Hamilton then made a mistake trying to recover the position from Alonso three turns later.
''I locked up behind Fernando to avoid hitting him and I went a bit wide,'' Hamilton said.
''When I saw Hamilton going off, I knew that maybe we had some chances,'' Raikkonen said. ''I wasn't 100 percent sure, I was really just waiting. It took a long time to hear that we had finally won it.''
The Englishman moved back to sixth place after six laps, but his car slowed dramatically with a gearbox problem two laps later and he seemed on the verge of retiring from the race. His car suddenly picked up pace again, but he had already dropped to 18th.
''Lewis has enjoyed phenomenal reliability from his car this year,'' McLaren team chief Ron Dennis told British television. ''It was just a default in the gearbox which selected neutral for a period of time, but then sorted itself out.''
Hamilton's car was without problems for the rest of the race as he moved past the slower cars with ease. By lap 18 of 71, Hamilton was 11th, but he couldn't manage to move up past seventh.
He had needed a top-two finish to guarantee the title Sunday without depending on other drivers.
''It has been an incredible season,'' Hamilton said. ''Under extremely difficult conditions, I beat the two-time world champion, which was my objective from the very beginning.''
Massa and Raikkonen stayed 1-2 from the start. Raikkonen took the lead after a final pit stop, coming ahead of Massa as the Brazilian apparently slowed his pace.
''Felipe worked hard ... he's been a big help,'' Raikkonen said.
Massa, who had won four times in the previous five races he started from the pole, had an emotional victory in Interlagos last year as he became the first Brazilian to win at home since the late Ayrton Senna in 1993.
Alonso was trying to become only the third driver to win three consecutive titles in the history of F1, along with Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher.
''I knew it was going to be a difficult situation for me,'' Alonso said. ''It was impossible to keep the pace from Ferrari. I was just waiting for something.''
It was the third year in a row the F1 season was decided at the Brazilian GP. Alonso won both of his titles at the Interlagos track in 2005 and '06.
Raikkonen Wins Formula One Title
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:40 p.m. ET
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Kimi Raikkonen is known as ''The Iceman,'' and he more than kept his cool Sunday, winning the Brazilian Grand Prix and capturing the Formula One title in the tightest race for the championship in 21 years.
Raikkonen won his first F1 crown by taking advantage of Lewis Hamilton's mistake on the first lap and a subsequent gearbox problem with his McLaren, combined with Fernando Alonso's disappointing run.
The Ferrari driver took the lead with 21 laps to go, rallying from third in the drivers' standings to win the closest title race since 1986. Teammate Felipe Massa was second Sunday.
''We had very good speed in both cars,'' Raikkonen said. ''Were just taking it easy, saving the tires and the cars. We could have gone much faster it we wanted to. It was perfect teamwork from the team and it paid off very well.''
Hamilton, trying to become the first rookie to win the title and F1's youngest champion, went off the track on the first lap and went on to finish seventh. Alonso finished third.
''I went into the race and said to myself, 'Whatever happens today, it's been a phenomenal year,''' Hamilton said. ''Who would've thought I would be leading the world championship during the last races? It's a great feeling being in that position. The team did a phenomenal job all year.''
Alonso would have had to finish second and Hamilton fifth to keep Raikkonen from winning the drivers' championship after his victory.
There were some doubts after the race whether Raikkonen would keep the title, however, as Formula One's governing body -- FIA -- opened up an investigation into possible fuel irregularities.
FIA called a meeting involving representatives from BMW-Sauber and Williams, whose drivers finished fourth, fifth, sixth and 10th, and if at least two of them were punished, Hamilton could have moved up to fifth and taken the title.
Nearly six hours after the race, FIA said there wasn't enough evidence to penalize the drivers or the teams.
Raikkonen erased a seven-point gap behind Hamilton coming into the race to finish with 110 points, one more than Hamilton and Alonso.
''This is a great feeling,'' Raikkonen said. ''We had some hard times, some reliability problems and lost some points. A lot of people didn't believe in us, but we showed that they were wrong and we were able to come back. It was a great season.''
The Finn was reserved in his celebrations on the podium, waving his cap to the crowd before briefly throwing his arms in the air.
He finished the race on the 2.6-mile Interlagos track in 1 hour, 28 minutes, 15.270 seconds -- 1.493 seconds ahead of Massa and 57.019 ahead of Alonso.
Raikkonen -- second in the drivers' championship in 2003 and '05 -- became only the third Finn to win the F1 title, and the first since two-time winner Mika Hakkinen in 1998 and '99. The first Finnish champion was Keke Rosberg in 1982.
It was a hectic start for the Brazilian GP.
Hamilton, who started in the front row beside pole-sitter Massa, was passed by Raikkonen and Alonso on the first turn. Hamilton then made a mistake trying to recover the position from Alonso three turns later.
''I locked up behind Fernando to avoid hitting him and I went a bit wide,'' Hamilton said.
''When I saw Hamilton going off, I knew that maybe we had some chances,'' Raikkonen said. ''I wasn't 100 percent sure, I was really just waiting. It took a long time to hear that we had finally won it.''
The Englishman moved back to sixth place after six laps, but his car slowed dramatically with a gearbox problem two laps later and he seemed on the verge of retiring from the race. His car suddenly picked up pace again, but he had already dropped to 18th.
''Lewis has enjoyed phenomenal reliability from his car this year,'' McLaren team chief Ron Dennis told British television. ''It was just a default in the gearbox which selected neutral for a period of time, but then sorted itself out.''
Hamilton's car was without problems for the rest of the race as he moved past the slower cars with ease. By lap 18 of 71, Hamilton was 11th, but he couldn't manage to move up past seventh.
He had needed a top-two finish to guarantee the title Sunday without depending on other drivers.
''It has been an incredible season,'' Hamilton said. ''Under extremely difficult conditions, I beat the two-time world champion, which was my objective from the very beginning.''
Massa and Raikkonen stayed 1-2 from the start. Raikkonen took the lead after a final pit stop, coming ahead of Massa as the Brazilian apparently slowed his pace.
''Felipe worked hard ... he's been a big help,'' Raikkonen said.
Massa, who had won four times in the previous five races he started from the pole, had an emotional victory in Interlagos last year as he became the first Brazilian to win at home since the late Ayrton Senna in 1993.
Alonso was trying to become only the third driver to win three consecutive titles in the history of F1, along with Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher.
''I knew it was going to be a difficult situation for me,'' Alonso said. ''It was impossible to keep the pace from Ferrari. I was just waiting for something.''
It was the third year in a row the F1 season was decided at the Brazilian GP. Alonso won both of his titles at the Interlagos track in 2005 and '06.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
October 18, 2007
Recycling the Whole House
By KRISTINA SHEVORY
IF the idiosyncratic, ’40s-era cottage Alice Keller bought in Shoreline, a small city just north of Seattle, had a style, it might be called classic teardown. The ceiling in one room was so low she couldn’t stand up under it. A downstairs bathroom was so narrow she had to wiggle sideways to get to the toilet. None of the windows matched.
“It was livable, and quirky,” Ms. Keller said, “but in ways I didn’t find amusing.”
The place was crying out for a wrecking ball, but Ms. Keller, a 63-year-old retired teacher of English as a second language, who has an environmentally aware conscience, didn’t want to scrap the building materials only to buy new ones. Instead of having her 1,300-square-foot house bulldozed, she hired Jon Alexander, a contractor who shared her environmentalism and was willing to dismantle the home shingle by beam, and build a replacement with the same two-by-fours.
The crew left the garage and a portion of the subfloor intact and broke the concrete driveway into chunks for a back patio. A gas water heater, fiberglass insulation and windows landed at the RE Store, a local nonprofit shop that sells used or excess construction materials. The drywall, shingles and extra concrete went to a recycling center.
Ms. Keller was able to reuse around 90 percent of the original house. “I just like reusing things,” she said. “You can end up with something with more character.”
Due to rising landfill costs, tighter recycling guidelines and the growing trend toward ecologically sound building methods, this sort of home “deconstruction,” as the practice is called, is starting to catch on. About 1,000 homes a year are disassembled this way, according to the Building Materials Reuse Association, a nonprofit educational group in State College, Pa., which reports growing interest in the practice.
Fueling that interest are efforts by cities and states across the country to stanch the flow of demolition rubble into landfills. Some 245,000 houses in the United States are razed each year, generating nearly 20 million tons of debris, according to a 1996 report from the Environmental Protection Agency, the most recent data available.
Confronted with mounting waste, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has banned brick, concrete, metal, wood and asphalt from landfills.
In San Jose, Calif. — where construction and demolition refuse accounts for 30 percent of landfill waste, according to official estimates — homeowners who apply for a city permit to demolish, remodel or build an addition have to pay a deposit based on the size and type of project. To get the money back, they must show that 90 percent of the material generated has been reused or sent to a certified recycling or reuse center. Cities including Seattle, and Chicago have also introduced measures to reduce construction and demolition waste.
Using old materials for new buildings isn’t a new idea. The Coliseum in Rome was used as a quarry to build St. Peter’s Basilica and other Roman landmarks. In the United States, families often reused building materials to save money in the early part of the 20th century, a custom that fell out of favor as the country grew wealthier in the 1950s.
Today, according to the Building Materials Reuse Association, up to 85 percent of the average house can be recycled or reused; the hard part is harvesting the materials in a way that preserves their integrity.
Unbuilding a home takes longer than leveling it the usual way and often costs more, at least initially. While almost anyone who’s watched a TLC rehab show can rip out a kitchen cabinet, unpiecing an entire house without having the roof collapse isn’t a job for the uninitiated. The Building Materials Reuse Association, which introduced a deconstruction training program in May, has certified 60 builders so far.
When Carolyn Bronstein and John Tapper wanted to dismantle a 2,500-square-foot Victorian adjacent to their house in the Southport section of Chicago, they could not find a local deconstruction contractor. They recruited Ted Reiff, a contractor and the president of a group called the Reuse People of America, based in Oakland, Calif. The couple bought the house for about $800,000, intending to knock it down so their children could have more space to play, and to make sure a developer didn’t snap up it up.
While the standard demolition quotes were around $25,000, the couple spent $38,000 to have a contractor trained by Mr. Reiff unpiece it over six weeks last summer. They expect to come out even or better after selling door hardware, windows, appliances and other components at a salvage auction and reaping a tax deduction by donating the rest to a reuse store.
“It was cleaner and quieter than demolition,” said Ms. Bronstein, an assistant professor of communication at DePaul University in Chicago. “We didn’t have dust flying everywhere.”
Usually, the real savings comes in the reconstruction phase. Paul Pedini, the owner of the Big Dig House in Lexington, Mass., possibly the country’s most celebrated recycled dwelling, estimates he shaved at least $200,000 from his materials costs by using concrete on-ramps and steel beams recovered from the Big Dig highway project in Boston for his modernist structure.
“There were these materials and we wanted to build a house. We just put two and two together,” said Mr. Pedini, a civil engineer who was a contractor on the Big Dig. “I told them, why not keep the money you’d pay in disposal costs and give the materials to us to reuse?”
Although few home builders have access to the remains of a $14.6 billion highway project, many cities now have “reuse” stores, which sell salvaged goods — from wall sockets to vintage redwood floorboards — for 50 to 75 percent off what similar products would cost if purchased new.
There are about 1,000 such stores nationwide according to the Reuse Association, most of them nonprofits that offer tax deductions in exchange for donations of used housing materials. Habitat for Humanity International, the affordable housing organization, runs 500 such shops in 45 states, mostly selling easily recoverable accessories like cabinets, doors and flooring. Unlike architectural salvage stores, which sell marble fireplace mantels, stained glass and spiral staircases, reuse stores generally traffic in mundane items like light switches and insulation.
As with buying secondhand clothes, the challenge — and potential charm — of reuse shopping is its unpredictability. Build it Green! NYC, a reuse shop in Astoria, sells sets from nearby film studios alongside items rescued from residential demolitions. Recently, $25 diner stools from “The Knights of Prosperity,” a short-lived ABC show, were for sale alongside $40 doors from “The Sopranos” and a set of cherry-finish kitchen cabinets removed from an Upper East Side apartment. The original owners paid $18,000 to buy and install the cabinets, according to Justin Green, a founder of the store, who was asking $1,200 for the set — top and bottom cabinets as well as counters.
“I love shopping there,” said Timothy Etienne of Garden City, N.Y. “You never know what you’re going to find.”
He has purchased windows, doors and paint at the store for a second home upstate, along with a six-foot-tall wooden tepee ($30) that is now a backyard playhouse for his four daughters.
Ms. Keller, meanwhile, has been combing the RE Store in Seattle for months, trying to find secondhand glass blocks for the master bath in her new 1,600-square-foot home. She recently scavenged a double-pane glass door for her balcony and a cast-iron double sink for a craft room.
To outfit a home this way, it helps to have a retiree’s schedule.
“You have to be patient,” Ms. Keller said. “It’s the thrill of the hunt that keeps me going back.”
Recycling the Whole House
By KRISTINA SHEVORY
IF the idiosyncratic, ’40s-era cottage Alice Keller bought in Shoreline, a small city just north of Seattle, had a style, it might be called classic teardown. The ceiling in one room was so low she couldn’t stand up under it. A downstairs bathroom was so narrow she had to wiggle sideways to get to the toilet. None of the windows matched.
“It was livable, and quirky,” Ms. Keller said, “but in ways I didn’t find amusing.”
The place was crying out for a wrecking ball, but Ms. Keller, a 63-year-old retired teacher of English as a second language, who has an environmentally aware conscience, didn’t want to scrap the building materials only to buy new ones. Instead of having her 1,300-square-foot house bulldozed, she hired Jon Alexander, a contractor who shared her environmentalism and was willing to dismantle the home shingle by beam, and build a replacement with the same two-by-fours.
The crew left the garage and a portion of the subfloor intact and broke the concrete driveway into chunks for a back patio. A gas water heater, fiberglass insulation and windows landed at the RE Store, a local nonprofit shop that sells used or excess construction materials. The drywall, shingles and extra concrete went to a recycling center.
Ms. Keller was able to reuse around 90 percent of the original house. “I just like reusing things,” she said. “You can end up with something with more character.”
Due to rising landfill costs, tighter recycling guidelines and the growing trend toward ecologically sound building methods, this sort of home “deconstruction,” as the practice is called, is starting to catch on. About 1,000 homes a year are disassembled this way, according to the Building Materials Reuse Association, a nonprofit educational group in State College, Pa., which reports growing interest in the practice.
Fueling that interest are efforts by cities and states across the country to stanch the flow of demolition rubble into landfills. Some 245,000 houses in the United States are razed each year, generating nearly 20 million tons of debris, according to a 1996 report from the Environmental Protection Agency, the most recent data available.
Confronted with mounting waste, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has banned brick, concrete, metal, wood and asphalt from landfills.
In San Jose, Calif. — where construction and demolition refuse accounts for 30 percent of landfill waste, according to official estimates — homeowners who apply for a city permit to demolish, remodel or build an addition have to pay a deposit based on the size and type of project. To get the money back, they must show that 90 percent of the material generated has been reused or sent to a certified recycling or reuse center. Cities including Seattle, and Chicago have also introduced measures to reduce construction and demolition waste.
Using old materials for new buildings isn’t a new idea. The Coliseum in Rome was used as a quarry to build St. Peter’s Basilica and other Roman landmarks. In the United States, families often reused building materials to save money in the early part of the 20th century, a custom that fell out of favor as the country grew wealthier in the 1950s.
Today, according to the Building Materials Reuse Association, up to 85 percent of the average house can be recycled or reused; the hard part is harvesting the materials in a way that preserves their integrity.
Unbuilding a home takes longer than leveling it the usual way and often costs more, at least initially. While almost anyone who’s watched a TLC rehab show can rip out a kitchen cabinet, unpiecing an entire house without having the roof collapse isn’t a job for the uninitiated. The Building Materials Reuse Association, which introduced a deconstruction training program in May, has certified 60 builders so far.
When Carolyn Bronstein and John Tapper wanted to dismantle a 2,500-square-foot Victorian adjacent to their house in the Southport section of Chicago, they could not find a local deconstruction contractor. They recruited Ted Reiff, a contractor and the president of a group called the Reuse People of America, based in Oakland, Calif. The couple bought the house for about $800,000, intending to knock it down so their children could have more space to play, and to make sure a developer didn’t snap up it up.
While the standard demolition quotes were around $25,000, the couple spent $38,000 to have a contractor trained by Mr. Reiff unpiece it over six weeks last summer. They expect to come out even or better after selling door hardware, windows, appliances and other components at a salvage auction and reaping a tax deduction by donating the rest to a reuse store.
“It was cleaner and quieter than demolition,” said Ms. Bronstein, an assistant professor of communication at DePaul University in Chicago. “We didn’t have dust flying everywhere.”
Usually, the real savings comes in the reconstruction phase. Paul Pedini, the owner of the Big Dig House in Lexington, Mass., possibly the country’s most celebrated recycled dwelling, estimates he shaved at least $200,000 from his materials costs by using concrete on-ramps and steel beams recovered from the Big Dig highway project in Boston for his modernist structure.
“There were these materials and we wanted to build a house. We just put two and two together,” said Mr. Pedini, a civil engineer who was a contractor on the Big Dig. “I told them, why not keep the money you’d pay in disposal costs and give the materials to us to reuse?”
Although few home builders have access to the remains of a $14.6 billion highway project, many cities now have “reuse” stores, which sell salvaged goods — from wall sockets to vintage redwood floorboards — for 50 to 75 percent off what similar products would cost if purchased new.
There are about 1,000 such stores nationwide according to the Reuse Association, most of them nonprofits that offer tax deductions in exchange for donations of used housing materials. Habitat for Humanity International, the affordable housing organization, runs 500 such shops in 45 states, mostly selling easily recoverable accessories like cabinets, doors and flooring. Unlike architectural salvage stores, which sell marble fireplace mantels, stained glass and spiral staircases, reuse stores generally traffic in mundane items like light switches and insulation.
As with buying secondhand clothes, the challenge — and potential charm — of reuse shopping is its unpredictability. Build it Green! NYC, a reuse shop in Astoria, sells sets from nearby film studios alongside items rescued from residential demolitions. Recently, $25 diner stools from “The Knights of Prosperity,” a short-lived ABC show, were for sale alongside $40 doors from “The Sopranos” and a set of cherry-finish kitchen cabinets removed from an Upper East Side apartment. The original owners paid $18,000 to buy and install the cabinets, according to Justin Green, a founder of the store, who was asking $1,200 for the set — top and bottom cabinets as well as counters.
“I love shopping there,” said Timothy Etienne of Garden City, N.Y. “You never know what you’re going to find.”
He has purchased windows, doors and paint at the store for a second home upstate, along with a six-foot-tall wooden tepee ($30) that is now a backyard playhouse for his four daughters.
Ms. Keller, meanwhile, has been combing the RE Store in Seattle for months, trying to find secondhand glass blocks for the master bath in her new 1,600-square-foot home. She recently scavenged a double-pane glass door for her balcony and a cast-iron double sink for a craft room.
To outfit a home this way, it helps to have a retiree’s schedule.
“You have to be patient,” Ms. Keller said. “It’s the thrill of the hunt that keeps me going back.”
Schumacher to leave Toyota at season's end.
Cologne, Germany (Sports Network) Ralf Schumacher announced that he would not be back with the Toyota Formula One team after the final race of 2007 in Brazil.
"Having been a Toyota driver for the past three years, I've decided to look for a new challenge," said Schumacher. "I joined Toyota with high expectations. It was an exciting challenge to be involved in developing a new car and team, but I am waiting for years for a competitive car."
Ralf Schumacher is the younger brother of seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher. He owns six F1 wins, but none with Toyota. All of his wins came when he drove for Williams, his last coming in 2003. The 32-year-old earned five points this season, with a best finish of sixth at the Grand Prix of Hungary.
10/01 14:05:36 ET
Cologne, Germany (Sports Network) Ralf Schumacher announced that he would not be back with the Toyota Formula One team after the final race of 2007 in Brazil.
"Having been a Toyota driver for the past three years, I've decided to look for a new challenge," said Schumacher. "I joined Toyota with high expectations. It was an exciting challenge to be involved in developing a new car and team, but I am waiting for years for a competitive car."
Ralf Schumacher is the younger brother of seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher. He owns six F1 wins, but none with Toyota. All of his wins came when he drove for Williams, his last coming in 2003. The 32-year-old earned five points this season, with a best finish of sixth at the Grand Prix of Hungary.
10/01 14:05:36 ET
October 18, 2007
Sports of The Times
In Need of a Plan B to Deter Young Athletes From Drug Use
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
As much as many of us abhor drug testing in principle, with drug use exploding around us we accept the premise — I did, at least — that drug testing at the high school level was a necessary deterrent to drug use.
But a study released today in the Journal of Adolescent Health challenges the deeply held, or at least hopeful, notion that high school drug testing is a deterrent.
According to the study, these drug tests may not be the deterrent we expect them to be.
Even as state high school associations across the nation begin to implement programs to test athletes for drug use, Dr. Linn Goldberg, the head of the division of health promotion and sports medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and a co-author of the study, raises the sobering possibility that these tests do not deter athletes from using drugs.
“The big thing that people say is you got to give kids a reason not to use drugs, and drug testing is a reason,” Goldberg said Tuesday from his home in Oregon. “That’s not what we found. You can look at testing as a way to catch an early addiction, but as a deterrent, which this study was looking at, we didn’t find any evidence that testing was a deterrent.”
The researchers tested for all illicit drugs, including steroids. The two-year study of 11 Oregon high schools, based solely on questionnaires given to student-athletes, found that random drug and alcohol testing did not reliably keep student-athletes from using.
•
The Saturn (Student Athlete Testing Using Random Notification) study used six schools with no drug-testing policy and five with random drug and alcohol testing.
The researchers found that the presence of a drug-testing program was a minimal deterrent to drug use.
“If drug testing was so great, if it was so wonderful, we wouldn’t have anybody test positive,” Goldberg said. “People would be scared of testing positive and being thrown out; you have a lot of people who test positive.
“Look at the World Anti-Doping Agency Web site, you’ll see people testing positive all the time. Obviously, it doesn’t scare them.”
The study offers no reasons why drug tests failed to deter some student-athletes “other than they’re kids,” said Goldberg, who has five sons.
“Kids take risks and they are willing to challenge authority — that’s part of being a kid.”
The study does not advocate the removal of drug testing at the high school level. However, high school administrators who read the study may consider thinking before plunging in, using precious resources on drug tests that may or may not do what they want them to do.
Administrators and especially coaches often aren’t clear on why they want testing. Do you test to level the playing field to catch so-called drug cheats? Do you test to catch early addiction?
What Goldberg found in Oregon and beyond is that drug testing in high schools takes the place of substantial education.
“Here’s what I see is the big problem,” Goldberg said. “If you put in drug testing and you think it works, then you’re not going to put anything else in. You’re not going to care about anything else because you probably feel, ‘We’ve taken care of it.’ ” Goldberg cited one school in the study that used hair samples as a test for drugs. The tests did not turn up any users.
“Then we gave our surveys,” he said. “They had a ton of drug users; they’re just not catching them. They’re happy as can be that they think they’ve got just a wonderful program. In reality, kids are using just as many drugs and the administrators are walking around in their dream world.”
Among other things, the journal’s study raises the question in my mind of whether this focus on testing at the high school level is a deterrent or a burgeoning cottage industry.
The governor of Texas signed a bill that allows testing of athletes in all sports. The state set aside $3 million a year for testing.
In Florida beginning this fall, high school athletes in football, baseball and weight lifting will be subjected to random steroid testing under a one-year pilot program. The Florida High School Athletic Association will supervise the testing with a budget of $100,000.
New Jersey became the first state to start a statewide testing policy for high school athletes last year. Its initial testing for performance-enhancing drugs among 150 random samples taken last fall failed to produce a positive result, according to the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. As Goldberg points out, however, the association tests only during the playoffs. “You can use drugs until you reach the tournament,” he said.
•
The Oregon study raises compelling issues in the ongoing game of cops and robbers among illegal drug agents, the agencies trying to catch them and the athletes often caught in the middle.
“The kids let us know what they were doing,” Goldberg said of the athletes who participated in the Oregon study. “It was really the kids who were speaking as clearly as they could. This is just their self-report, and you can either believe it or not believe it.”
What the study makes clear is that there is a need for education and detection. This is not an either/or proposition.
Sports of The Times
In Need of a Plan B to Deter Young Athletes From Drug Use
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
As much as many of us abhor drug testing in principle, with drug use exploding around us we accept the premise — I did, at least — that drug testing at the high school level was a necessary deterrent to drug use.
But a study released today in the Journal of Adolescent Health challenges the deeply held, or at least hopeful, notion that high school drug testing is a deterrent.
According to the study, these drug tests may not be the deterrent we expect them to be.
Even as state high school associations across the nation begin to implement programs to test athletes for drug use, Dr. Linn Goldberg, the head of the division of health promotion and sports medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and a co-author of the study, raises the sobering possibility that these tests do not deter athletes from using drugs.
“The big thing that people say is you got to give kids a reason not to use drugs, and drug testing is a reason,” Goldberg said Tuesday from his home in Oregon. “That’s not what we found. You can look at testing as a way to catch an early addiction, but as a deterrent, which this study was looking at, we didn’t find any evidence that testing was a deterrent.”
The researchers tested for all illicit drugs, including steroids. The two-year study of 11 Oregon high schools, based solely on questionnaires given to student-athletes, found that random drug and alcohol testing did not reliably keep student-athletes from using.
•
The Saturn (Student Athlete Testing Using Random Notification) study used six schools with no drug-testing policy and five with random drug and alcohol testing.
The researchers found that the presence of a drug-testing program was a minimal deterrent to drug use.
“If drug testing was so great, if it was so wonderful, we wouldn’t have anybody test positive,” Goldberg said. “People would be scared of testing positive and being thrown out; you have a lot of people who test positive.
“Look at the World Anti-Doping Agency Web site, you’ll see people testing positive all the time. Obviously, it doesn’t scare them.”
The study offers no reasons why drug tests failed to deter some student-athletes “other than they’re kids,” said Goldberg, who has five sons.
“Kids take risks and they are willing to challenge authority — that’s part of being a kid.”
The study does not advocate the removal of drug testing at the high school level. However, high school administrators who read the study may consider thinking before plunging in, using precious resources on drug tests that may or may not do what they want them to do.
Administrators and especially coaches often aren’t clear on why they want testing. Do you test to level the playing field to catch so-called drug cheats? Do you test to catch early addiction?
What Goldberg found in Oregon and beyond is that drug testing in high schools takes the place of substantial education.
“Here’s what I see is the big problem,” Goldberg said. “If you put in drug testing and you think it works, then you’re not going to put anything else in. You’re not going to care about anything else because you probably feel, ‘We’ve taken care of it.’ ” Goldberg cited one school in the study that used hair samples as a test for drugs. The tests did not turn up any users.
“Then we gave our surveys,” he said. “They had a ton of drug users; they’re just not catching them. They’re happy as can be that they think they’ve got just a wonderful program. In reality, kids are using just as many drugs and the administrators are walking around in their dream world.”
Among other things, the journal’s study raises the question in my mind of whether this focus on testing at the high school level is a deterrent or a burgeoning cottage industry.
The governor of Texas signed a bill that allows testing of athletes in all sports. The state set aside $3 million a year for testing.
In Florida beginning this fall, high school athletes in football, baseball and weight lifting will be subjected to random steroid testing under a one-year pilot program. The Florida High School Athletic Association will supervise the testing with a budget of $100,000.
New Jersey became the first state to start a statewide testing policy for high school athletes last year. Its initial testing for performance-enhancing drugs among 150 random samples taken last fall failed to produce a positive result, according to the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. As Goldberg points out, however, the association tests only during the playoffs. “You can use drugs until you reach the tournament,” he said.
•
The Oregon study raises compelling issues in the ongoing game of cops and robbers among illegal drug agents, the agencies trying to catch them and the athletes often caught in the middle.
“The kids let us know what they were doing,” Goldberg said of the athletes who participated in the Oregon study. “It was really the kids who were speaking as clearly as they could. This is just their self-report, and you can either believe it or not believe it.”
What the study makes clear is that there is a need for education and detection. This is not an either/or proposition.
October 18, 2007
Birth Control Allowed at Maine Middle School
By JOEL ELLIOTT
PORTLAND, Me., Oct. 17 — The Portland school board on Wednesday approved a measure allowing middle-school students to gain access to prescription birth control medications without notifying parents.
The proposal, from the Portland Division of Public Health, calls for the independently operated health care center at King Middle School to provide a variety of services to students, including immunizations and physical checkups in addition to birth-control medications and counseling for sexually transmitted diseases, said Lisa Belanger, an administrator for Portland’s student health centers.
All but two members of the 12-person committee voted to approve the plan.
The school principal, Mike McCarthy, said about 5 of the school’s 500 students had identified themselves as being sexually active.
Health care professionals at the clinic advised the committee that the proposal was necessary in order for the clinic to serve students who were engaging in risky behavior.
The conference room at the Wednesday night meeting was packed with parents, students and television cameras as school board committee members discussed the issue and heard testimony from experts and residents.
“It has been shown, over and over again, that this does not increase sexual activity,” said Pat Patterson, the medical director of School-Based Health Centers.
Reaction was mixed.
“This is really a violation of parents’ rights,” Peter Doyle, a Portland resident, told the committee. “If there were a constitutional challenge, you guys would be at risk of a lawsuit.”
Others argued for approval.
“Not every child is getting the guidance needed to keep them safe,” said Richard Veilleux, who said his child attends King Middle School. “This is about giving kids who are sexually active the tools that they need.”
According to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, about 30 percent of the 1,700 school-based health centers in the United States provide birth control to students, Dr. Patterson said.
Birth Control Allowed at Maine Middle School
By JOEL ELLIOTT
PORTLAND, Me., Oct. 17 — The Portland school board on Wednesday approved a measure allowing middle-school students to gain access to prescription birth control medications without notifying parents.
The proposal, from the Portland Division of Public Health, calls for the independently operated health care center at King Middle School to provide a variety of services to students, including immunizations and physical checkups in addition to birth-control medications and counseling for sexually transmitted diseases, said Lisa Belanger, an administrator for Portland’s student health centers.
All but two members of the 12-person committee voted to approve the plan.
The school principal, Mike McCarthy, said about 5 of the school’s 500 students had identified themselves as being sexually active.
Health care professionals at the clinic advised the committee that the proposal was necessary in order for the clinic to serve students who were engaging in risky behavior.
The conference room at the Wednesday night meeting was packed with parents, students and television cameras as school board committee members discussed the issue and heard testimony from experts and residents.
“It has been shown, over and over again, that this does not increase sexual activity,” said Pat Patterson, the medical director of School-Based Health Centers.
Reaction was mixed.
“This is really a violation of parents’ rights,” Peter Doyle, a Portland resident, told the committee. “If there were a constitutional challenge, you guys would be at risk of a lawsuit.”
Others argued for approval.
“Not every child is getting the guidance needed to keep them safe,” said Richard Veilleux, who said his child attends King Middle School. “This is about giving kids who are sexually active the tools that they need.”
According to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, about 30 percent of the 1,700 school-based health centers in the United States provide birth control to students, Dr. Patterson said.
October 18, 2007
Stalled Health Tests Leave Storm Trailers in Limbo
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Three months after the Federal Emergency Management Agency halted the sale of travel trailers to survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita over possible risks from formaldehyde and promised a health study, none of the 56,000 occupied units have been tested.
“It is inexcusable that 19 months after the first questions were raised, testing of occupied trailers has yet to begin,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
At a Congressional hearing on the trailers in July, R. David Paulison, FEMA’s administrator, said the agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “are scheduled to begin Phase 1 of the study in the Gulf Coast next week.”
But the first teams did not reach New Orleans and Mississippi until the end of September, and then began only a baseline assessment of unoccupied trailers, laying the groundwork for the full-scale study, said a C.D.C. spokeswoman in Atlanta, Bernadette Burden.
One result of the delay in the testing is that the agency has postponed a plan to charge rent on the trailers beginning in March. The rent was intended to encourage people displaced by the hurricanes to move into nonsubsidized housing.
Before sales were halted over the safety questions, 10,839 of the trailers were auctioned off by the General Services Administration and 819 more were sold directly to occupants by the emergency agency from July 2006 to July 2007, raising potential liability issues.
“It’s different now,” an agency spokeswoman, Mary Margaret Walker, said. “The idea of asking people to pay rent for units with health concerns doesn’t seem to make sense.” She said the change had not been announced.
This week, the agency announced a program of relocation subsidies, up to $4,000 a household, to encourage storm victims to return home to the Gulf states or seek permanent housing elsewhere.
But problems with the trailers have dealt further setbacks to self-sufficiency efforts: 4,110 people living in FEMA trailers have asked to be relocated because of health concerns, the agency said. Among these, 771 have been moved to alternative housing, 546 have been given rent subsidies to live elsewhere and 83 have been moved back into hotels and motels at government expense.
The mixed signals have confounded storm victims like Tom and Linda Pieri of Livingston, Tex., who have spent the last 21 months with their two dogs and, on occasion, their grown son, in a 12-by-32 foot Mallard trailer that the agency provided after their East Texas house was wrecked by Hurricane Rita in 2005.
Disabled and living on Social Security, the Pieris said they had made “a handshake deal” to buy their trailer for $300 in August, only to have FEMA withdraw the offer, leaving them facing ruinous rent charges — or so they feared.
The program that the emergency agency now says it has withdrawn would have charged the Pieris $50 a month in March, $100 in April and $50 more each month until the rent hit a ceiling of $600 a month. The charges would have varied according to the occupants’ means. But Mr. Pieri, 60, a former prison laundry manager injured in a work accident in 2001, said the rent would have been prohibitive on the couple’s combined Social Security payments of $1,700 a month.
“I just want to keep a roof over my head, and my wife’s head,” he said.
At the height of relief efforts after the 2005 storms, the emergency agency was providing 134,502 trailers of various sizes up to mobile homes.
The number of trailers still deployed was 55,785, Ms. Walker said. The agency paid about $10,000 each for the trailers, from eight manufacturers, she said.
Kathy Munson, a spokeswoman for one of the suppliers, Fleetwood Enterprises in Riverside, Calif., said dealers commonly aired out the trailers before selling them, which dissipated the formaldehyde. “FEMA ordered so many, they were at staging areas all sealed up and not aired out, and that causes fumes to get worse,” Ms. Munson said.
Charles Green, a C.D.C. spokesman, said that testing was expected to start at the end of this month or early November in at least 300 occupied trailers in Mississippi and 300 in Louisiana. Teams will spend about an hour in each trailer using a portable pump to take air samples. The occupants would also be asked questions about pets, smoking habits and the use of pesticides.
The Environmental Protection Agency lists formaldehyde as a colorless, pungent gas released by building materials and household items, including paint, draperies and pressed wood products. It can cause burning of the eyes, nausea and asthma attacks. It has been shown to cause cancer in animals and, the environmental agency said, “may cause cancer in humans.”
Formaldehyde has become a special concern in trailers, especially when they are new and unventilated, Mr. Paulison told the House oversight committee. The Department of Housing and Urban Development sets formaldehyde limits in manufactured housing, but not trailers.
The Pieris said formaldehyde was not of great concern. Both chain-smoke cigarettes despite asthma and pulmonary problems and, in Mrs. Pieri’s case, breast cancer and a mastectomy several years ago. “I know, we’re dumb,” Mr. Pieri said, adding that he had tried every possible anti-tobacco treatment.
In any case, he said, they were committed to keeping their trailer. Their house, which they bought for $27,000 in 2000 with $1,000 down and a mortgage of $301 a month, needed $32,000 in repairs, Mr. Pieri said, and the $5,300 FEMA had provided was barely enough to fix the roof.
FEMA offered them $411 a month to find housing elsewhere but the cheapest apartment in the area was $600, he said.
“Even if I can find another place,” he said, looking at his damaged house spilling moldy furniture and clothes, “everything we own is right there.”
Stalled Health Tests Leave Storm Trailers in Limbo
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Three months after the Federal Emergency Management Agency halted the sale of travel trailers to survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita over possible risks from formaldehyde and promised a health study, none of the 56,000 occupied units have been tested.
“It is inexcusable that 19 months after the first questions were raised, testing of occupied trailers has yet to begin,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
At a Congressional hearing on the trailers in July, R. David Paulison, FEMA’s administrator, said the agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “are scheduled to begin Phase 1 of the study in the Gulf Coast next week.”
But the first teams did not reach New Orleans and Mississippi until the end of September, and then began only a baseline assessment of unoccupied trailers, laying the groundwork for the full-scale study, said a C.D.C. spokeswoman in Atlanta, Bernadette Burden.
One result of the delay in the testing is that the agency has postponed a plan to charge rent on the trailers beginning in March. The rent was intended to encourage people displaced by the hurricanes to move into nonsubsidized housing.
Before sales were halted over the safety questions, 10,839 of the trailers were auctioned off by the General Services Administration and 819 more were sold directly to occupants by the emergency agency from July 2006 to July 2007, raising potential liability issues.
“It’s different now,” an agency spokeswoman, Mary Margaret Walker, said. “The idea of asking people to pay rent for units with health concerns doesn’t seem to make sense.” She said the change had not been announced.
This week, the agency announced a program of relocation subsidies, up to $4,000 a household, to encourage storm victims to return home to the Gulf states or seek permanent housing elsewhere.
But problems with the trailers have dealt further setbacks to self-sufficiency efforts: 4,110 people living in FEMA trailers have asked to be relocated because of health concerns, the agency said. Among these, 771 have been moved to alternative housing, 546 have been given rent subsidies to live elsewhere and 83 have been moved back into hotels and motels at government expense.
The mixed signals have confounded storm victims like Tom and Linda Pieri of Livingston, Tex., who have spent the last 21 months with their two dogs and, on occasion, their grown son, in a 12-by-32 foot Mallard trailer that the agency provided after their East Texas house was wrecked by Hurricane Rita in 2005.
Disabled and living on Social Security, the Pieris said they had made “a handshake deal” to buy their trailer for $300 in August, only to have FEMA withdraw the offer, leaving them facing ruinous rent charges — or so they feared.
The program that the emergency agency now says it has withdrawn would have charged the Pieris $50 a month in March, $100 in April and $50 more each month until the rent hit a ceiling of $600 a month. The charges would have varied according to the occupants’ means. But Mr. Pieri, 60, a former prison laundry manager injured in a work accident in 2001, said the rent would have been prohibitive on the couple’s combined Social Security payments of $1,700 a month.
“I just want to keep a roof over my head, and my wife’s head,” he said.
At the height of relief efforts after the 2005 storms, the emergency agency was providing 134,502 trailers of various sizes up to mobile homes.
The number of trailers still deployed was 55,785, Ms. Walker said. The agency paid about $10,000 each for the trailers, from eight manufacturers, she said.
Kathy Munson, a spokeswoman for one of the suppliers, Fleetwood Enterprises in Riverside, Calif., said dealers commonly aired out the trailers before selling them, which dissipated the formaldehyde. “FEMA ordered so many, they were at staging areas all sealed up and not aired out, and that causes fumes to get worse,” Ms. Munson said.
Charles Green, a C.D.C. spokesman, said that testing was expected to start at the end of this month or early November in at least 300 occupied trailers in Mississippi and 300 in Louisiana. Teams will spend about an hour in each trailer using a portable pump to take air samples. The occupants would also be asked questions about pets, smoking habits and the use of pesticides.
The Environmental Protection Agency lists formaldehyde as a colorless, pungent gas released by building materials and household items, including paint, draperies and pressed wood products. It can cause burning of the eyes, nausea and asthma attacks. It has been shown to cause cancer in animals and, the environmental agency said, “may cause cancer in humans.”
Formaldehyde has become a special concern in trailers, especially when they are new and unventilated, Mr. Paulison told the House oversight committee. The Department of Housing and Urban Development sets formaldehyde limits in manufactured housing, but not trailers.
The Pieris said formaldehyde was not of great concern. Both chain-smoke cigarettes despite asthma and pulmonary problems and, in Mrs. Pieri’s case, breast cancer and a mastectomy several years ago. “I know, we’re dumb,” Mr. Pieri said, adding that he had tried every possible anti-tobacco treatment.
In any case, he said, they were committed to keeping their trailer. Their house, which they bought for $27,000 in 2000 with $1,000 down and a mortgage of $301 a month, needed $32,000 in repairs, Mr. Pieri said, and the $5,300 FEMA had provided was barely enough to fix the roof.
FEMA offered them $411 a month to find housing elsewhere but the cheapest apartment in the area was $600, he said.
“Even if I can find another place,” he said, looking at his damaged house spilling moldy furniture and clothes, “everything we own is right there.”
Monday, October 01, 2007
Valores apartir de 01 de Março 2009
Campinas, 01 de Março de 2009
Prezados (as)
Segue abaixo, a nova tabela de valores de hora/aula, os quais entrarão em vigor para todos os NOVOS alunos.
Os valores abaixo, serão aplicados à todos os novos alunos, os quais, ingressarem apartir de 01 de março de 2009, ou ainda, àqueles que se ausentarem sem o pagamento antecipado do valor de 50% das horas aula, referente a reserva de horário (previsto em comunicado de reservas http://ifsc.blogspot.com/2006/09/comunicados-importantes-2006.html - férias ou ausência profissional).
Horário VIP 06:00 am a 09:00 am (inclusive); 11:00 am a 13:00 (inclusive) ; 17:00 em diante
Individual
1x por semana R$ 56,38/hora (*) ou R$ 45,10/hora (**)
2x por semana R$ 52,25/hora (*) ou R$ 41,80/hora (**)
3 ou mais x R$ 49,50/hora (*) ou R$ 39,60/hora (**)
Dupla/Trio/Quarteto
1x por semana R$ 39,88/hora (*) ou R$ 31,90 (**)
2x por semana R$ 35,75/hora (*) ou R$ 28,60/hora (**)
3 ou mais x R$ 31,63/hora (*) ou R$ 25,30/hora (**)
Horário Econômico 10:00 am; 14:00 a 16:00 (inclusive)
Individual 1,2 ou 3 x por semana R$ 49,50/hora (*) ou R$ 39,60/aula (**)
Dupla/Trio/Quarteto 1,2 ou 3 x por semana R$ 31,63/hora (*) ou R$ 25,30/aula (**)
-----------------------------------------------
(*) Valores para pagamento até o dia 30 do mês
(**) Valores para pagamento até o dia do mês escolhido pelo aluno ( 01, 05, 10)
(***) Os Valores para Dupla, Trio ou Quarteto indicados são referentes a um individuo do grupo.
Importante: Todos os pagamentos, independente da escolha da data, serão referentes ao mês em que as aulas foram dadas.
Aulas Avulsas
Individual R$ 66,00/aula
Dupla/Trio/Quarteto R$ 41,00/aula por membro do grupo
Serão consideradas aulas avulsas, todas aquelas em que o aluno optar por não manter reserva de horário regular; Devem ser reservadas com antecedência de 01 semana ; pagamento somente antecipado.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
September 24, 2007
U.S. Women Brace for Brazil Challenge
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:53 a.m. ET
TIANJIN, China (AP) -- U.S. coach Greg Ryan is bracing for Brazil. He knows the semifinal will be rough, smoothed a bit by the artistry of Marta, the game's best female player.
Brazil won its quarterfinal Sunday at the Women's World Cup, defeating Australia 3-2 on Cristiane's goal in the 75th minute, a rising drive from 20 yards off rapid-fire passes from Marta and Daniela.
The Americans have ambitions for a third World Cup title, following ones in 1991 and '99. Brazil is in the semifinals for the second time, matching its run in 1999.
''I believe finally we will add one more star on our jersey,'' Daniela said, a reference to the men's team, which has won a record five World Cups. ''We will finally get the World Cup.''
The Americans, top-ranked and undefeated in 51 games, advanced Saturday by beating England 3-0 on goals by Abby Wambach, Shannon Boxx and captain Kristine Lilly.
Germany defeated North Korea 3-0 that day, putting the defending champions into a Wednesday semifinal with Norway in Beijing's neighboring city of Tianjin. Three former champions will be playing in the final four.
Norway defeated host China 1-0 on Sunday in Wuhan before a crowd of 52,000 that stayed until the end, waving flags and lighting flares as the Chinese made a last offensive push.
Brazil figures to be quick and tricky Thursday when it meets the Americans in Hangzhou, the last step to the final Sunday in Shanghai.
The U.S. defeated Brazil 2-0 three months ago in New York, a physical game played without Marta. The Americans also defeated Brazil in the 2004 Olympic final -- 2-1 in extra time -- and 2-0 in a group game in the Olympics.
''Brazil's primary tactic was fouling us to break our rhythm,'' Ryan said, referring to the game three months ago. ''We had more of the ball, and their response to that was just to foul. Brazil has tried to break our rhythm by chopping our players down.''
''The last time we played Brazil, they didn't even try to play football -- they just kicked us from behind,'' Ryan added.
Still, Ryan is fully aware that Brazil can play. The women, in some respects, mirror the style of the famed men's teams led over the years by Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. They also go by a single name, fashioning goals by duping defenders with backheel passes and start-and-stop fakes while hovering over the ball.
''I'm going to do whatever I can to request that we get a referee who understands the difference between a reckless foul and a hard challenge,'' Ryan said, a former defender himself in the now-defunct NASL.
Marta is the 2006 women's world player of the year, and the rest of the lineup isn't far behind with striker Cristiane and other up-front players like Daniela, Formiga and Maycon.
''They are all very creative,'' said U.S. defender Stephanie Lopez, who played against Brazil in New York. ''Sometimes it's not very traditional, but it's very effective. Their offense is very special.''
The Americans' best result of the tournament came against an England team that might have been weaker than any of the other squads in the U.S. group -- North Korea, Sweden and Nigeria. The game turned on three goals in 12 minutes early in the second half.
''I think we've got another gear,'' Ryan said. ''The concern isn't peaking; the concern is winning the next game. I think they can play even better but whether we see it or not just depends on the game, our opponent.''
The United States is undefeated in 51 games, winning mostly in this tournament with defense, set plays and four goals from striker Abby Wambach.
''Every game we've been rising and rising,'' Boxx said. ''We've defended so well in this tournament and now the possession part is coming.''
In Sunday's games:
--Norway's Isabell Herlovsen took advantage of a defensive mistake and scored in the 32nd minute. China, its boisterous fans packing stadiums during the tournament, controlled much of the play in the first half.
--Formiga gave Brazil a 1-0 lead in the fourth minute, scoring on a long shot that went in off the crossbar from 20 yards. Marta converted a penalty kick midway through the first half. Lisa De Vanna and Lauren Colthopre rallied Australia to 2-2 before Cristiane struck in the 75th minute with a blistering shot.
U.S. Women Brace for Brazil Challenge
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:53 a.m. ET
TIANJIN, China (AP) -- U.S. coach Greg Ryan is bracing for Brazil. He knows the semifinal will be rough, smoothed a bit by the artistry of Marta, the game's best female player.
Brazil won its quarterfinal Sunday at the Women's World Cup, defeating Australia 3-2 on Cristiane's goal in the 75th minute, a rising drive from 20 yards off rapid-fire passes from Marta and Daniela.
The Americans have ambitions for a third World Cup title, following ones in 1991 and '99. Brazil is in the semifinals for the second time, matching its run in 1999.
''I believe finally we will add one more star on our jersey,'' Daniela said, a reference to the men's team, which has won a record five World Cups. ''We will finally get the World Cup.''
The Americans, top-ranked and undefeated in 51 games, advanced Saturday by beating England 3-0 on goals by Abby Wambach, Shannon Boxx and captain Kristine Lilly.
Germany defeated North Korea 3-0 that day, putting the defending champions into a Wednesday semifinal with Norway in Beijing's neighboring city of Tianjin. Three former champions will be playing in the final four.
Norway defeated host China 1-0 on Sunday in Wuhan before a crowd of 52,000 that stayed until the end, waving flags and lighting flares as the Chinese made a last offensive push.
Brazil figures to be quick and tricky Thursday when it meets the Americans in Hangzhou, the last step to the final Sunday in Shanghai.
The U.S. defeated Brazil 2-0 three months ago in New York, a physical game played without Marta. The Americans also defeated Brazil in the 2004 Olympic final -- 2-1 in extra time -- and 2-0 in a group game in the Olympics.
''Brazil's primary tactic was fouling us to break our rhythm,'' Ryan said, referring to the game three months ago. ''We had more of the ball, and their response to that was just to foul. Brazil has tried to break our rhythm by chopping our players down.''
''The last time we played Brazil, they didn't even try to play football -- they just kicked us from behind,'' Ryan added.
Still, Ryan is fully aware that Brazil can play. The women, in some respects, mirror the style of the famed men's teams led over the years by Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. They also go by a single name, fashioning goals by duping defenders with backheel passes and start-and-stop fakes while hovering over the ball.
''I'm going to do whatever I can to request that we get a referee who understands the difference between a reckless foul and a hard challenge,'' Ryan said, a former defender himself in the now-defunct NASL.
Marta is the 2006 women's world player of the year, and the rest of the lineup isn't far behind with striker Cristiane and other up-front players like Daniela, Formiga and Maycon.
''They are all very creative,'' said U.S. defender Stephanie Lopez, who played against Brazil in New York. ''Sometimes it's not very traditional, but it's very effective. Their offense is very special.''
The Americans' best result of the tournament came against an England team that might have been weaker than any of the other squads in the U.S. group -- North Korea, Sweden and Nigeria. The game turned on three goals in 12 minutes early in the second half.
''I think we've got another gear,'' Ryan said. ''The concern isn't peaking; the concern is winning the next game. I think they can play even better but whether we see it or not just depends on the game, our opponent.''
The United States is undefeated in 51 games, winning mostly in this tournament with defense, set plays and four goals from striker Abby Wambach.
''Every game we've been rising and rising,'' Boxx said. ''We've defended so well in this tournament and now the possession part is coming.''
In Sunday's games:
--Norway's Isabell Herlovsen took advantage of a defensive mistake and scored in the 32nd minute. China, its boisterous fans packing stadiums during the tournament, controlled much of the play in the first half.
--Formiga gave Brazil a 1-0 lead in the fourth minute, scoring on a long shot that went in off the crossbar from 20 yards. Marta converted a penalty kick midway through the first half. Lisa De Vanna and Lauren Colthopre rallied Australia to 2-2 before Cristiane struck in the 75th minute with a blistering shot.
September 25, 2007
D.E.A. Exposes a Steroid Web With China Tie
By DUFF WILSON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Federal authorities said yesterday that they had exposed a sprawling underground distribution network for steroids, human growth hormone and other illicit bodybuilding drugs supplied by 37 companies in China.
The operation revealed a much wider, more diffuse commerce in performance-enhancing drugs than previously known, with a latticework of bathroom and basement manufacturers and distributors. That contrasted with the more centralized drug network from past years that tapped into established pharmaceutical pipelines.
A network of Internet-based chemical wholesalers, anonymous e-mail services and password-protected chat rooms fueled the trade, federal and state officials said.
“There is no kingpin here,” said Steve Robertson, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington. “We’re going after individual distribution cells. There’s no godfather of steroids.”
The D.E.A. estimates that 99 percent of the illegal steroids originate with chemicals from China. Most of the 124 who were arrested in the operation — including 50 over the past week — were charged with distributing chemicals bought in bulk from China, which as host of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing has been under pressure to deliver a drug-free Games. They are accused of setting up labs in their homes, notably on Long Island, to press them into pills or cook them into injectable liquids, the D.E.A. said.
Sales of the products, which are illegal to buy without a prescription and illegal to sell without a license from the D.E.A., were conducted with presumed anonymity on the Internet.
D.E.A. agents are compiling a computerized database of thousands of buyers. No users of the drugs were identified yesterday, although the D.E.A. said it was trying to establish their identities and might share that information with professional sports leagues and antidoping officials if their athletes are involved.
“They may not all be prosecuted, but we will be identifying them,” said John P. Gilbride, a special agent in charge of the D.E.A. office in New York. “We have names. We have addresses. We have thousands of names, but I cannot give you an exact number."
The F.B.I., the Internal Revenue Service, the National Drug Intelligence Center and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement also worked on the two-year investigation, called Operation Raw Deal. In addition to the United States and China, eight other countries were involved in the investigation.
Authorities seized $6.5 million cash, 25 vehicles, 3 boats, 27 pill presses and 71 weapons while executing 143 search warrants at 56 makeshift steroid labs and other locations, the D.E.A. said. Two distribution rings on Long Island alone accounted for more than $13.5 million in steroids, Mr. Gilbride said. One of the suspects, a 36-year-old Melville man arrested Sept. 12 with his mother and wife, committed suicide last week. The family’s lawyer did not return telephone messages.
The investigation grew out of a similar investigation into Mexican steroid manufacturers that targeted eight companies in 2005. At the time, the D.E.A. said Mexico provided 82 percent of illicit steroids seized in the United States, often in veterinary form. The void created the opportunity for American producers and distributors.
Although most of the Chinese companies involved remain unidentified, one of them, GeneScience Pharmaceutical Company, and its chief executive officer, Lei Jin, were indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Rhode Island. GeneScience says it supplies three-fourths of the Chinese human growth hormone market.
Mr. Gilbride, the D.E.A. agent in New York, said Chinese officials were cooperating as the investigation continued around the world.
The drug case comes at a time when the quality of imports to the United States from China has become an issue between the two countries. Tens of thousands of toys made in China have been recalled in recent weeks on suspicion of having unacceptably high level of lead in paint and other hazards for small children. Some Chinese-made toothpaste was found to contain a chemical usually used in automotive antifreeze and not intended for human consumption.
“Today, we reveal the truth behind the underground steroid market: dangerous drugs cooked all too often in filthy conditions with no regard to safety, giving Americans who purchase them the ultimate raw deal,” the D.E.A. administrator Karen P. Tandy said in a statement.
In related actions, the police in Denmark raided 26 locations, and German authorities closed down five illicit labs. Australia, Belgium, Sweden and Thailand also conducted enforcement actions, the D.E.A. said.
Officials at Major League Baseball and the National Football League said yesterday that they would seek information from the investigation that connected any of their players to performance-enhancing drugs.
Rusty Payne, a D.E.A. spokesman in Washington, said: “If we come across names, are we going to provide them to the leagues? That is going to be the decision of the Department of Justice and the United States attorney’s offices that have those aspects of the case."
Antidoping authorities in sports praised the actions. “This investigation has shown that the use of performance-enhancing drugs is an international problem and not just a sports issue but touches all levels of society," Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, said in a telephone interview.
David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which oversees testing for the Olympics, said he was optimistic that any athletes connected to the investigation could be disciplined before next summer’s Olympics.
D.E.A. officials said the steroid trade in America centered around bodybuilding. Products, prices and doses for underground laboratory steroids are discussed on Internet forums.
“Bodybuilder discussion boards talked about how you make and use the anabolic steroids and most of all how not to get caught,” Mr. Gilbride said. “I think we put an end to that theory.”
In addition to the masses of steroids seized in the case, federal agents also tracked millions of dollars, much of it in Western Union wire transfers. In cases in San Diego, I.R.S. agents were able to track more than $1.8 million in payments to Chinese manufacturers, according to Tami Stine, the acting assistant special agent in charge of criminal investigations in the I.R.S. office there.
Benedict S. Gullo Jr., the lawyer for Carlos Cuevas, 36, of Hempstead, N.Y., who was charged with two counts of selling steroids, said yesterday that his client was pleading not guilty. “I can tell you to the best of my knowledge there are no superstar athletes on any lists,” Mr. Gullo said.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said the D.E.A. contacted her in the spring asking if she wanted her office to cooperate in a major national investigation. She assigned two investigators.
“We seized drugs with a street-value equivalent to about $13 million,” Ms. Rice said. A Melville location alone had about $7 million of contraband drugs.
“There were rooms filled with drugs,” she said, and the locations were used for some processing as well as for packing and shipping.
“You open up the newspaper and hear about this professional athlete or that one, but the problem is here, in our high schools and gyms,” Ms. Rice said. “This hopefully will serve as a wake-up call to parents, students and coaches of the dangers.”
Steve Green, who lives across the street from the Melville house where a man, his wife and his mother were arrested, said, “All I saw were a lot of D.E.A. agents and a lot of Suffolk County police, and I saw an ambulance come and go.”
William K. Rashbaum and Bruce Lambert contributed reporting.
D.E.A. Exposes a Steroid Web With China Tie
By DUFF WILSON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Federal authorities said yesterday that they had exposed a sprawling underground distribution network for steroids, human growth hormone and other illicit bodybuilding drugs supplied by 37 companies in China.
The operation revealed a much wider, more diffuse commerce in performance-enhancing drugs than previously known, with a latticework of bathroom and basement manufacturers and distributors. That contrasted with the more centralized drug network from past years that tapped into established pharmaceutical pipelines.
A network of Internet-based chemical wholesalers, anonymous e-mail services and password-protected chat rooms fueled the trade, federal and state officials said.
“There is no kingpin here,” said Steve Robertson, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington. “We’re going after individual distribution cells. There’s no godfather of steroids.”
The D.E.A. estimates that 99 percent of the illegal steroids originate with chemicals from China. Most of the 124 who were arrested in the operation — including 50 over the past week — were charged with distributing chemicals bought in bulk from China, which as host of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing has been under pressure to deliver a drug-free Games. They are accused of setting up labs in their homes, notably on Long Island, to press them into pills or cook them into injectable liquids, the D.E.A. said.
Sales of the products, which are illegal to buy without a prescription and illegal to sell without a license from the D.E.A., were conducted with presumed anonymity on the Internet.
D.E.A. agents are compiling a computerized database of thousands of buyers. No users of the drugs were identified yesterday, although the D.E.A. said it was trying to establish their identities and might share that information with professional sports leagues and antidoping officials if their athletes are involved.
“They may not all be prosecuted, but we will be identifying them,” said John P. Gilbride, a special agent in charge of the D.E.A. office in New York. “We have names. We have addresses. We have thousands of names, but I cannot give you an exact number."
The F.B.I., the Internal Revenue Service, the National Drug Intelligence Center and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement also worked on the two-year investigation, called Operation Raw Deal. In addition to the United States and China, eight other countries were involved in the investigation.
Authorities seized $6.5 million cash, 25 vehicles, 3 boats, 27 pill presses and 71 weapons while executing 143 search warrants at 56 makeshift steroid labs and other locations, the D.E.A. said. Two distribution rings on Long Island alone accounted for more than $13.5 million in steroids, Mr. Gilbride said. One of the suspects, a 36-year-old Melville man arrested Sept. 12 with his mother and wife, committed suicide last week. The family’s lawyer did not return telephone messages.
The investigation grew out of a similar investigation into Mexican steroid manufacturers that targeted eight companies in 2005. At the time, the D.E.A. said Mexico provided 82 percent of illicit steroids seized in the United States, often in veterinary form. The void created the opportunity for American producers and distributors.
Although most of the Chinese companies involved remain unidentified, one of them, GeneScience Pharmaceutical Company, and its chief executive officer, Lei Jin, were indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Rhode Island. GeneScience says it supplies three-fourths of the Chinese human growth hormone market.
Mr. Gilbride, the D.E.A. agent in New York, said Chinese officials were cooperating as the investigation continued around the world.
The drug case comes at a time when the quality of imports to the United States from China has become an issue between the two countries. Tens of thousands of toys made in China have been recalled in recent weeks on suspicion of having unacceptably high level of lead in paint and other hazards for small children. Some Chinese-made toothpaste was found to contain a chemical usually used in automotive antifreeze and not intended for human consumption.
“Today, we reveal the truth behind the underground steroid market: dangerous drugs cooked all too often in filthy conditions with no regard to safety, giving Americans who purchase them the ultimate raw deal,” the D.E.A. administrator Karen P. Tandy said in a statement.
In related actions, the police in Denmark raided 26 locations, and German authorities closed down five illicit labs. Australia, Belgium, Sweden and Thailand also conducted enforcement actions, the D.E.A. said.
Officials at Major League Baseball and the National Football League said yesterday that they would seek information from the investigation that connected any of their players to performance-enhancing drugs.
Rusty Payne, a D.E.A. spokesman in Washington, said: “If we come across names, are we going to provide them to the leagues? That is going to be the decision of the Department of Justice and the United States attorney’s offices that have those aspects of the case."
Antidoping authorities in sports praised the actions. “This investigation has shown that the use of performance-enhancing drugs is an international problem and not just a sports issue but touches all levels of society," Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, said in a telephone interview.
David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which oversees testing for the Olympics, said he was optimistic that any athletes connected to the investigation could be disciplined before next summer’s Olympics.
D.E.A. officials said the steroid trade in America centered around bodybuilding. Products, prices and doses for underground laboratory steroids are discussed on Internet forums.
“Bodybuilder discussion boards talked about how you make and use the anabolic steroids and most of all how not to get caught,” Mr. Gilbride said. “I think we put an end to that theory.”
In addition to the masses of steroids seized in the case, federal agents also tracked millions of dollars, much of it in Western Union wire transfers. In cases in San Diego, I.R.S. agents were able to track more than $1.8 million in payments to Chinese manufacturers, according to Tami Stine, the acting assistant special agent in charge of criminal investigations in the I.R.S. office there.
Benedict S. Gullo Jr., the lawyer for Carlos Cuevas, 36, of Hempstead, N.Y., who was charged with two counts of selling steroids, said yesterday that his client was pleading not guilty. “I can tell you to the best of my knowledge there are no superstar athletes on any lists,” Mr. Gullo said.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said the D.E.A. contacted her in the spring asking if she wanted her office to cooperate in a major national investigation. She assigned two investigators.
“We seized drugs with a street-value equivalent to about $13 million,” Ms. Rice said. A Melville location alone had about $7 million of contraband drugs.
“There were rooms filled with drugs,” she said, and the locations were used for some processing as well as for packing and shipping.
“You open up the newspaper and hear about this professional athlete or that one, but the problem is here, in our high schools and gyms,” Ms. Rice said. “This hopefully will serve as a wake-up call to parents, students and coaches of the dangers.”
Steve Green, who lives across the street from the Melville house where a man, his wife and his mother were arrested, said, “All I saw were a lot of D.E.A. agents and a lot of Suffolk County police, and I saw an ambulance come and go.”
William K. Rashbaum and Bruce Lambert contributed reporting.
September 25, 2007
Outsourcing Works, So India Is Exporting Jobs
By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
MYSORE, India — Thousands of Indians report to Infosys Technologies’ campus here to learn the finer points of programming. Lately, though, packs of foreigners have been roaming the manicured lawns, too.
Many of them are recent American college graduates, and some have even turned down job offers from coveted employers like Google. Instead, they accepted a novel assignment from Infosys, the Indian technology giant: fly here for six months of training, then return home to work in the company’s American back offices.
India is outsourcing outsourcing.
One of the constants of the global economy has been companies moving their tasks — and jobs — to India. But rising wages and a stronger currency here, demands for workers who speak languages other than English, and competition from countries looking to emulate India’s success as a back office — including China, Morocco and Mexico — are challenging that model.
Many executives here acknowledge that outsourcing, having rained most heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks around the globe. Or, as Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, put it, the future of outsourcing is “to take the work from any part of the world and do it in any part of the world.”
To fight on the shifting terrain, and to beat back emerging rivals, Indian companies are hiring workers and opening offices in developing countries themselves, before their clients do.
In May, Tata Consultancy Service, Infosys’s Indian rival, announced a new back office in Guadalajara, Mexico; Tata already has 5,000 workers in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Cognizant Technology Solutions, with most of its operations in India, has now opened back offices in Phoenix and Shanghai.
Wipro, another Indian technology services company, has outsourcing offices in Canada, China, Portugal, Romania and Saudi Arabia, among other locations.
And last month, Wipro said it was opening a software development center in Atlanta that would hire 500 programmers in three years.
In a poetic reflection of outsourcing’s new face, Wipro’s chairman, Azim Premji, told Wall Street analysts this year that he was considering hubs in Idaho and Virginia, in addition to Georgia, to take advantage of American “states which are less developed.” (India’s per capita income is less than $1,000 a year.)
For its part, Infosys is building a whole archipelago of back offices — in Mexico, the Czech Republic, Thailand and China, as well as low-cost regions of the United States.
The company seeks to become a global matchmaker for outsourcing: any time a company wants work done somewhere else, even just down the street, Infosys wants to get the call.
It is a peculiar ambition for a company that symbolizes the flow of tasks from the West to India.
Most of Infosys’s 75,000 employees are Indians, in India. They account for most of the company’s $3.1 billion in sales in the year that ended March 31, from work for clients like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
“India continues to be the No. 1 location for outsourcing,” S. Gopalakrishnan, the company’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview.
And yet the company opened a Philippines office in August and, a month earlier, bought back offices in Thailand and Poland from Royal Philips Electronics, the Dutch company. In each outsourcing hub, local employees work with little help from Indian managers.
Infosys says its outsourcing experience in India has taught it to carve up a project, apportion each slice to suitable workers, double-check quality and then export a final, reassembled product to clients. The company argues it can clone its Indian back offices in other nations and groom Chinese, Mexican or Czech employees to be more productive than local outsourcing companies could make them.
“We have pioneered this movement of work,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said. “These new countries don’t have experience and maturity in doing that, and that’s what we’re taking to these countries.”
Some analysts compare the strategy to Japanese penetration of auto manufacturing in the United States in the 1970s. Just as the Japanese learned to make cars in America without Japanese workers, Indian vendors are learning to outsource without Indians, said Dennis McGuire, chairman of TPI, a Texas-based outsourcing consultancy.
Though work that bypasses India remains a small part of the Infosys business, it is growing. The company can be highly secretive, but executives agreed to describe some of the new projects on the condition that clients not be identified.
In one project, an American bank wanted a computer system to handle a loan program for Hispanic customers. The system had to work in Spanish. It also had to take into account variables particular to Hispanic clients: many, for instance, remit money to families abroad, which can affect their bank balances. The bank thought a Mexican team would have the right language skills and grasp of cultural nuances.
But instead of going to a Mexican vendor, or to an American vendor with Mexican operations, the bank retained three dozen engineers at Infosys, which had recently opened shop in Monterrey, Mexico.
Such is the new outsourcing: A company in the United States pays an Indian vendor 7,000 miles away to supply it with Mexican engineers working 150 miles south of the United States border.
In Europe, too, companies now hire Infosys to manage back offices in their own backyards. When an American manufacturer, for instance, needed a system to handle bills from multiple vendors supplying its factories in different European countries, it turned to the Indian company. The manufacturer’s different locations scan the invoices and send them to an office of Infosys, where each bill is passed to the right language team. The teams verify the orders and send the payment to the suppliers while logged in to the client’s computer system.
More than a dozen languages are spoken at the Infosys office, which is in Brno, Czech Republic.
The American program here in Mysore is meant to keep open that pipeline of diversity.
Most trainees here have no software knowledge. By teaching novices, Infosys saves money and hopes to attract workers who will turn down better-known companies for the chance to learn a new skill.
“It’s the equivalent of a bachelor’s in computer science in six months,” said Melissa Adams, a 22-year-old trainee. Ms. Adams graduated last spring from the University of Washington with a business degree, and rejected Google for Infosys.
And yet, even as outsourcing takes on new directions, old perceptions linger.
For instance, when Jeff Rand, a 23-year-old American trainee, told his grandmother he was moving to India to work as a software engineer for six months, “she said, ‘Maybe I’ll get to talk to you when I have a problem with my credit card.’ ”
Said Mr. Rand with a rueful chuckle, “It took me about two or three weeks to explain to my grandma that I was not going to be working in a call center.”
Outsourcing Works, So India Is Exporting Jobs
By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
MYSORE, India — Thousands of Indians report to Infosys Technologies’ campus here to learn the finer points of programming. Lately, though, packs of foreigners have been roaming the manicured lawns, too.
Many of them are recent American college graduates, and some have even turned down job offers from coveted employers like Google. Instead, they accepted a novel assignment from Infosys, the Indian technology giant: fly here for six months of training, then return home to work in the company’s American back offices.
India is outsourcing outsourcing.
One of the constants of the global economy has been companies moving their tasks — and jobs — to India. But rising wages and a stronger currency here, demands for workers who speak languages other than English, and competition from countries looking to emulate India’s success as a back office — including China, Morocco and Mexico — are challenging that model.
Many executives here acknowledge that outsourcing, having rained most heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks around the globe. Or, as Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, put it, the future of outsourcing is “to take the work from any part of the world and do it in any part of the world.”
To fight on the shifting terrain, and to beat back emerging rivals, Indian companies are hiring workers and opening offices in developing countries themselves, before their clients do.
In May, Tata Consultancy Service, Infosys’s Indian rival, announced a new back office in Guadalajara, Mexico; Tata already has 5,000 workers in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Cognizant Technology Solutions, with most of its operations in India, has now opened back offices in Phoenix and Shanghai.
Wipro, another Indian technology services company, has outsourcing offices in Canada, China, Portugal, Romania and Saudi Arabia, among other locations.
And last month, Wipro said it was opening a software development center in Atlanta that would hire 500 programmers in three years.
In a poetic reflection of outsourcing’s new face, Wipro’s chairman, Azim Premji, told Wall Street analysts this year that he was considering hubs in Idaho and Virginia, in addition to Georgia, to take advantage of American “states which are less developed.” (India’s per capita income is less than $1,000 a year.)
For its part, Infosys is building a whole archipelago of back offices — in Mexico, the Czech Republic, Thailand and China, as well as low-cost regions of the United States.
The company seeks to become a global matchmaker for outsourcing: any time a company wants work done somewhere else, even just down the street, Infosys wants to get the call.
It is a peculiar ambition for a company that symbolizes the flow of tasks from the West to India.
Most of Infosys’s 75,000 employees are Indians, in India. They account for most of the company’s $3.1 billion in sales in the year that ended March 31, from work for clients like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
“India continues to be the No. 1 location for outsourcing,” S. Gopalakrishnan, the company’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview.
And yet the company opened a Philippines office in August and, a month earlier, bought back offices in Thailand and Poland from Royal Philips Electronics, the Dutch company. In each outsourcing hub, local employees work with little help from Indian managers.
Infosys says its outsourcing experience in India has taught it to carve up a project, apportion each slice to suitable workers, double-check quality and then export a final, reassembled product to clients. The company argues it can clone its Indian back offices in other nations and groom Chinese, Mexican or Czech employees to be more productive than local outsourcing companies could make them.
“We have pioneered this movement of work,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said. “These new countries don’t have experience and maturity in doing that, and that’s what we’re taking to these countries.”
Some analysts compare the strategy to Japanese penetration of auto manufacturing in the United States in the 1970s. Just as the Japanese learned to make cars in America without Japanese workers, Indian vendors are learning to outsource without Indians, said Dennis McGuire, chairman of TPI, a Texas-based outsourcing consultancy.
Though work that bypasses India remains a small part of the Infosys business, it is growing. The company can be highly secretive, but executives agreed to describe some of the new projects on the condition that clients not be identified.
In one project, an American bank wanted a computer system to handle a loan program for Hispanic customers. The system had to work in Spanish. It also had to take into account variables particular to Hispanic clients: many, for instance, remit money to families abroad, which can affect their bank balances. The bank thought a Mexican team would have the right language skills and grasp of cultural nuances.
But instead of going to a Mexican vendor, or to an American vendor with Mexican operations, the bank retained three dozen engineers at Infosys, which had recently opened shop in Monterrey, Mexico.
Such is the new outsourcing: A company in the United States pays an Indian vendor 7,000 miles away to supply it with Mexican engineers working 150 miles south of the United States border.
In Europe, too, companies now hire Infosys to manage back offices in their own backyards. When an American manufacturer, for instance, needed a system to handle bills from multiple vendors supplying its factories in different European countries, it turned to the Indian company. The manufacturer’s different locations scan the invoices and send them to an office of Infosys, where each bill is passed to the right language team. The teams verify the orders and send the payment to the suppliers while logged in to the client’s computer system.
More than a dozen languages are spoken at the Infosys office, which is in Brno, Czech Republic.
The American program here in Mysore is meant to keep open that pipeline of diversity.
Most trainees here have no software knowledge. By teaching novices, Infosys saves money and hopes to attract workers who will turn down better-known companies for the chance to learn a new skill.
“It’s the equivalent of a bachelor’s in computer science in six months,” said Melissa Adams, a 22-year-old trainee. Ms. Adams graduated last spring from the University of Washington with a business degree, and rejected Google for Infosys.
And yet, even as outsourcing takes on new directions, old perceptions linger.
For instance, when Jeff Rand, a 23-year-old American trainee, told his grandmother he was moving to India to work as a software engineer for six months, “she said, ‘Maybe I’ll get to talk to you when I have a problem with my credit card.’ ”
Said Mr. Rand with a rueful chuckle, “It took me about two or three weeks to explain to my grandma that I was not going to be working in a call center.”
Thursday, August 30, 2007
August 24, 2007
Beautifying the World With Amazon Ingredients
By ANDREW DOWNIE
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Brazilians’ longtime devotion to the body beautiful — whether it be spending fortunes on perfumes and cosmetics, slimming down to fit into minuscule swimsuits or revealing body waxing — is paying off.
Exports of the country’s beauty products have been rising quickly in the last few years. In 2006, Brazilian companies exported $484 million of cosmetics, toiletries and fragrances, said João Carlos Basilio da Silva, president of the Brazilian Toiletry, Perfumery and Cosmetic Association. That was up 152 percent from 2001, he said.
In a retail market keen on the word “natural,” the country’s abundant supply of natural oils, fruits and plant extracts has played a crucial role, too, in the increase in sales.
The Brazilian Amazon has around 13,000 plant species, according to the agricultural research agency Embrapa. Only a tiny fraction of those plants have been comprehensively analyzed and less than 1 percent currently provide active ingredients for cosmetics, according to experts.
For years, Amazonia’s indigenous peoples have celebrated fruits for their special qualities. The guaraná berry, for example, is known as a stimulant. The fruit of the cupuaçu tree is a source of oil celebrated for its moisturizing qualities. Açai, another berry, is high in antioxidants and rich in energy. And passion fruit is used throughout Brazil to calm nerves. All are now used in making cosmetics.
Brazilian producers do not claim that those ingredients are better or healthier than those found in species growing elsewhere or that their ingredients are superior to traditional components like animal fats. But they do believe their “Brazilianness” is a major factor in the rising sales.
Industry executives in Brazil say that the country’s products are seen as somehow purer than ones from other parts of the world.
“If you pick a rose from the Amazon and a rose from the middle of France, the Brazilian one will be a lot less polluted,” said Eduardo Rauen, commercial director of Amazonia Natural, a company whose exports are expected to grow 35 to 50 percent this year. “Amazonia is more natural and that is our selling point.”
The executives also say sales have been helped by Brazilians’ image as a healthy, attractive people who go all out to look good.
“Here in Brazil we associate beauty with sensuality, spice,” said Artur Grynbaum, the executive vice president of Boticario, the beauty world’s biggest franchise operation and one with overseas sales growing by an average of 20 percent a year.
Another equally important factor is Brazil’s rich history of miscegenation. The mix of European, indigenous, African and Japanese blood has created a nation with every conceivable skin tone, hair type and body shape. Manufacturers of beauty products are forced to cater to them all, meaning that no matter which overseas market is the target, they have a product to suit.
Murumuru palm oil “is a powerful moisturizer and it is good for people with curlier hair, whether they live in Brazil, China or the United States,” said Alessandro Carlucci, the chief executive of Natura, a direct sales company that is the biggest in Brazil, with 23 percent of the domestic market.
“China has few people with curly hair, so murumuru won’t sell well there,” Mr. Carlucci said. “But in Brazil and the United States, there is an important portion of people who need their hair to be moisturized. Through the diversity of our active ingredients we can offer benefits to different countries and different ethnicities.”
The main destination for Brazilian beauty products is still South America, accounting for 61 percent of Brazil’s exports. With a domestic market of 188 million people, economies of scale enable Brazil to produce beauty products for significantly less than its neighbors. That has prompted some companies to close their operations in places like Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia and move production to Brazil, Mr. Basilio da Silva said.
Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil, however, has expanded its export horizons. Russia, Cuba and Angola have emerged as important customers.
This effort has been aided by the Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, a government body that has been dedicated to creating and diversifying overseas markets for Brazilian goods since 2003. In conjunction with Abihpec, the agency has paid for dozens of small- and medium-size Brazilian companies to display at trade fairs across the globe, particularly in areas like the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa.
That assistance has helped people like Veronika Rezzani promote her line of products based on caipirinha, the cocktail made from sugar cane liquor and lime.
“The help from Apex was critical for me,” Ms. Rezzani said. “They helped pay for me to go to my first international trade fair in Bologna, and if it hadn’t been for them then I couldn’t have gone. They help small businesses participate in international events at reduced costs.”
There are still major obstacles to exporting for small producers. Just a year after setting up a line of caipirinha lip gloss, moisturizer, shower and bath gel, soap and exfoliating cream, Ms. Rezzani said she sells to or is negotiating deals with vendors in Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Britain.
She cannot take more orders because of a bureaucratic system known as the Radar.
Under Brazilian law, small producers can export up to $20,000 each year through the mail and a limited amount more via normal export channels. But registering to increase that amount involves what Mr. Basilio da Silva said was a “stupid and nonsensical” bureaucratic process. Producers like Ms. Rezzani said they could export even more if the government would just cut the red tape.
“We have all these people interested but we can’t export because of the Radar,” she said. “It makes me mad.”
Big companies are not affected by the Radar and expect to keep growing, buoyed by the Brazilian real, which is stronger against the dollar than at any time since 2000.
Looks can be deceiving, but the future looks bright.
Beautifying the World With Amazon Ingredients
By ANDREW DOWNIE
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Brazilians’ longtime devotion to the body beautiful — whether it be spending fortunes on perfumes and cosmetics, slimming down to fit into minuscule swimsuits or revealing body waxing — is paying off.
Exports of the country’s beauty products have been rising quickly in the last few years. In 2006, Brazilian companies exported $484 million of cosmetics, toiletries and fragrances, said João Carlos Basilio da Silva, president of the Brazilian Toiletry, Perfumery and Cosmetic Association. That was up 152 percent from 2001, he said.
In a retail market keen on the word “natural,” the country’s abundant supply of natural oils, fruits and plant extracts has played a crucial role, too, in the increase in sales.
The Brazilian Amazon has around 13,000 plant species, according to the agricultural research agency Embrapa. Only a tiny fraction of those plants have been comprehensively analyzed and less than 1 percent currently provide active ingredients for cosmetics, according to experts.
For years, Amazonia’s indigenous peoples have celebrated fruits for their special qualities. The guaraná berry, for example, is known as a stimulant. The fruit of the cupuaçu tree is a source of oil celebrated for its moisturizing qualities. Açai, another berry, is high in antioxidants and rich in energy. And passion fruit is used throughout Brazil to calm nerves. All are now used in making cosmetics.
Brazilian producers do not claim that those ingredients are better or healthier than those found in species growing elsewhere or that their ingredients are superior to traditional components like animal fats. But they do believe their “Brazilianness” is a major factor in the rising sales.
Industry executives in Brazil say that the country’s products are seen as somehow purer than ones from other parts of the world.
“If you pick a rose from the Amazon and a rose from the middle of France, the Brazilian one will be a lot less polluted,” said Eduardo Rauen, commercial director of Amazonia Natural, a company whose exports are expected to grow 35 to 50 percent this year. “Amazonia is more natural and that is our selling point.”
The executives also say sales have been helped by Brazilians’ image as a healthy, attractive people who go all out to look good.
“Here in Brazil we associate beauty with sensuality, spice,” said Artur Grynbaum, the executive vice president of Boticario, the beauty world’s biggest franchise operation and one with overseas sales growing by an average of 20 percent a year.
Another equally important factor is Brazil’s rich history of miscegenation. The mix of European, indigenous, African and Japanese blood has created a nation with every conceivable skin tone, hair type and body shape. Manufacturers of beauty products are forced to cater to them all, meaning that no matter which overseas market is the target, they have a product to suit.
Murumuru palm oil “is a powerful moisturizer and it is good for people with curlier hair, whether they live in Brazil, China or the United States,” said Alessandro Carlucci, the chief executive of Natura, a direct sales company that is the biggest in Brazil, with 23 percent of the domestic market.
“China has few people with curly hair, so murumuru won’t sell well there,” Mr. Carlucci said. “But in Brazil and the United States, there is an important portion of people who need their hair to be moisturized. Through the diversity of our active ingredients we can offer benefits to different countries and different ethnicities.”
The main destination for Brazilian beauty products is still South America, accounting for 61 percent of Brazil’s exports. With a domestic market of 188 million people, economies of scale enable Brazil to produce beauty products for significantly less than its neighbors. That has prompted some companies to close their operations in places like Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia and move production to Brazil, Mr. Basilio da Silva said.
Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil, however, has expanded its export horizons. Russia, Cuba and Angola have emerged as important customers.
This effort has been aided by the Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, a government body that has been dedicated to creating and diversifying overseas markets for Brazilian goods since 2003. In conjunction with Abihpec, the agency has paid for dozens of small- and medium-size Brazilian companies to display at trade fairs across the globe, particularly in areas like the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa.
That assistance has helped people like Veronika Rezzani promote her line of products based on caipirinha, the cocktail made from sugar cane liquor and lime.
“The help from Apex was critical for me,” Ms. Rezzani said. “They helped pay for me to go to my first international trade fair in Bologna, and if it hadn’t been for them then I couldn’t have gone. They help small businesses participate in international events at reduced costs.”
There are still major obstacles to exporting for small producers. Just a year after setting up a line of caipirinha lip gloss, moisturizer, shower and bath gel, soap and exfoliating cream, Ms. Rezzani said she sells to or is negotiating deals with vendors in Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Britain.
She cannot take more orders because of a bureaucratic system known as the Radar.
Under Brazilian law, small producers can export up to $20,000 each year through the mail and a limited amount more via normal export channels. But registering to increase that amount involves what Mr. Basilio da Silva said was a “stupid and nonsensical” bureaucratic process. Producers like Ms. Rezzani said they could export even more if the government would just cut the red tape.
“We have all these people interested but we can’t export because of the Radar,” she said. “It makes me mad.”
Big companies are not affected by the Radar and expect to keep growing, buoyed by the Brazilian real, which is stronger against the dollar than at any time since 2000.
Looks can be deceiving, but the future looks bright.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
August 29, 2007
Recipe: Eggplant, La Tavernetta Style
Time: About 30 minutes
2 pounds eggplant of any variety, the smallest you can find
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, slivered
12 good cherry tomatoes, halved, or a couple plum or medium-size regular tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 cup roughly chopped basil leaves.
1. Cut eggplant into pieces about an inch or two long and no more than a half-inch wide; each piece should have a bit of skin and a bit of flesh. (If eggplant are small, cut them first in long strips, then cut them crosswise. If large, you may end up discarding or reserving the fleshy, seedy center.)
2. Put 1/3 cup oil in a skillet over medium heat; a minute later add eggplant. Cook, stirring occasionally, and seasoning with salt and pepper until very soft, about 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, put remaining oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add garlic and cook until it colors slightly. Add tomatoes and about 2/3 of the basil, raise heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture is saucy, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
4. When both sauce and eggplant are done, combine them. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature, or over pasta, garnished with remaining basil.
Yield: 2 to 4 servings.
Recipe: Eggplant, La Tavernetta Style
Time: About 30 minutes
2 pounds eggplant of any variety, the smallest you can find
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, slivered
12 good cherry tomatoes, halved, or a couple plum or medium-size regular tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 cup roughly chopped basil leaves.
1. Cut eggplant into pieces about an inch or two long and no more than a half-inch wide; each piece should have a bit of skin and a bit of flesh. (If eggplant are small, cut them first in long strips, then cut them crosswise. If large, you may end up discarding or reserving the fleshy, seedy center.)
2. Put 1/3 cup oil in a skillet over medium heat; a minute later add eggplant. Cook, stirring occasionally, and seasoning with salt and pepper until very soft, about 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, put remaining oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add garlic and cook until it colors slightly. Add tomatoes and about 2/3 of the basil, raise heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture is saucy, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
4. When both sauce and eggplant are done, combine them. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature, or over pasta, garnished with remaining basil.
Yield: 2 to 4 servings.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
August 22, 2007
Recipe: Multicolored Tomato Tartlets
2 to 3 small firm heirloom tomatoes, preferably in different colors
Flour for dusting
1 14-ounce package puff pastry, defrosted but cold
1/4 cup mascarpone, optional
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Coarse sea salt, to taste (fleur de sel is a good choice)
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese.
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper. Slice stem and bottom ends from tomatoes. Slice remaining tomato crosswise into rounds 1/2 inch thick. You will need 6 or more nice rounds (see Step 2). If you like, you can cut rounds from 6 different-colored tomatoes. (Use leftover tomato for another recipe.)
2. Dust a flat surface with flour, and unfold pastry onto the surface. Cut pastry into circles about 1 inch wider than tomato slices. You will need at least 6 circles. (If your tomato slices are small and you can cut more than 6 circles out of the puff pastry, cut more rounds of both tomato and pastry. The important thing is that the pastry circles be close to an inch larger than the tomato slices.)
3. Transfer pastry to baking sheet. Spread some mascarpone, if using, over each pastry circle. Sprinkle pastry with basil; top with a tomato slice. Pinch edges of pastry up around edges of tomato. Season tomato rounds with salt and pepper. Scatter Parmesan over rounds. Bake until pastry is puffed and golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Serve warm.
Yield: 6 or more tartlets.
Recipe: Multicolored Tomato Tartlets
2 to 3 small firm heirloom tomatoes, preferably in different colors
Flour for dusting
1 14-ounce package puff pastry, defrosted but cold
1/4 cup mascarpone, optional
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Coarse sea salt, to taste (fleur de sel is a good choice)
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese.
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper. Slice stem and bottom ends from tomatoes. Slice remaining tomato crosswise into rounds 1/2 inch thick. You will need 6 or more nice rounds (see Step 2). If you like, you can cut rounds from 6 different-colored tomatoes. (Use leftover tomato for another recipe.)
2. Dust a flat surface with flour, and unfold pastry onto the surface. Cut pastry into circles about 1 inch wider than tomato slices. You will need at least 6 circles. (If your tomato slices are small and you can cut more than 6 circles out of the puff pastry, cut more rounds of both tomato and pastry. The important thing is that the pastry circles be close to an inch larger than the tomato slices.)
3. Transfer pastry to baking sheet. Spread some mascarpone, if using, over each pastry circle. Sprinkle pastry with basil; top with a tomato slice. Pinch edges of pastry up around edges of tomato. Season tomato rounds with salt and pepper. Scatter Parmesan over rounds. Bake until pastry is puffed and golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Serve warm.
Yield: 6 or more tartlets.
August 23, 2007
Life’s Work
I Lost My Laptop in Outer Space, and Other Tales of Office Theft
By LISA BELKIN
YEARS ago, back before children and bulk shopping, back when running out of something meant a separate errand, I stole a roll of toilet tissue from the office restroom. It was in the company’s interest that I stay longer rather than race out before the shops closed, I reasoned. It wasn’t stealing. It was a strategic investment of my time.
I have periodically thought of that moment with embarrassment. Who on earth steals toilet paper? Then, last month, the Government Accountability Office released a report estimating that NASA employees had stolen $94 million in office supplies and equipment over the last decade. One thief appropriated an office laptop as his own by declaring the machine lost. It had been thrown from the International Space Station, he explained, apparently with a straight face, and burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
In any workplace in America, at any moment of the day, someone is probably “borrowing” something, a loss to business of about $14 billion a year, according to the National Retail Federation. Studies find that 20 percent to 65 percent of employees admit to various degrees of supply theft at work, depending upon how the question is asked, and that those who earn the most money are most likely to be the culprits, meaning this is not really about need.
“Employees have been dipping into supplies for years,” said Vicki Donlan, a writer who specializes in the subject of business leadership. What has changed, she said, is that there is a new rationalization out there for the dipping: the portable nature of work. Home has become an extension of work, and we spend more time at work than we do at home. So if I am finishing that report on my home computer, doesn’t it make sense that my employer provide the paper for the printer? The Aeron chair?
One of the favorite stories I have collected on this subject over the years was about the office manager who filled his car with the five-gallon jugs from the water cooler, to care for his tropical fish. He then returned the empty containers.
The new laxity about what’s mine and what’s not creates a new need for businesses to clarify the rules and “give employees an opportunity to be honest about their pilfering,” Ms. Donlan said.
Her belief that what is needed is transparency, not cabinet padlocks, is shared by Dov Seidman, the chief executive and founder of LRN, a company that helps employers create ethical business environments. Mr. Seidman is the author of “How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything ... in Business (and in Life),” and he is less concerned that employees are taking supplies than that they are doing it surreptitiously.
Small transgressions are like broken windows, he said, in that not paying attention to the little things sends a message that the company will tolerate larger missteps. The solution may be as simple as not classifying minor thefts as transgressions in the first place, he said. Being open about paper clips and pencils can create an atmosphere that is open in other ways, he said.
How much borrowing is too much borrowing is one of those “shared values” that come to shape a corporate culture, Mr. Seidman said. (For the record, no one I interviewed for this article suggested that taking laptops or furniture was in remotely the same realm as taking everyday office supplies. For openers, the former is usually a felony.)
If a company “can’t agree on Post-its, they’re not going to agree on anything larger,” he said of staffs that hoard supplies.
The poisonous potential of pilfering is underlined by the fact that it is so often a result of anger. Even if employees don’t think they’re angry, said Armand DiMele, who runs the DiMele Center for Psychotherapy and Counseling in Manhattan, they probably are.
“Anybody who’s in a position of being an employee has some sense that somebody up there is more powerful,” he said, “and that breeds resentment.”
Theft certainly seems to increase during times of tension. Angela Hult watched it happen at First Interstate Bank in Portland, Ore., after it was acquired by Wells Fargo a decade ago. The merger brought layoffs, said Ms. Hult, who is no longer with the bank, and “as executives received their pink slips, a lot of artwork, office supplies, computers and even small pieces of furniture began to disappear.”
“One senior-level manager even had the company-paid magazine and newspaper subscriptions that he received at work forwarded to his home,” Ms. Hult added.
Retaliation may explain that first wave of theft, but it doesn’t explain what happened later, she said. Things began to disappear from her office on the executive floor. The thief, she discovered, was a woman who had more seniority, making it awkward to turn her in. The woman “took my artwork out of my office one evening after I left because she liked mine better than hers,” she said in an e-mail message. “About a week later she also took my chair. Eventually, she came back and took a piece of pottery, but had to return it when I informed her that it belonged to me, not the company.”
Kamille Kirk, an assistant to the president of YogaFit Inc., a fitness company based in Torrance, Calif., also has seen things disappear off her desk. Perhaps it’s because hers is the last desk before the stairway down to the supply cabinet. (Though you would think that a few steps wouldn’t stop employees of a company called YogaFit.) Pens, calculators, reams of printer paper have all up and left.
Even while she is grousing, though, Ms. Kirk is not shy about her own guilt. She has “accidentally” appropriated a calculator (“I needed to borrow it for a test, and it conveniently remained at home”) and purposely taken a box of staples (“Why buy them when our office has so many?”) and quite proudly taken an intricately styled lamp that had been sitting in the corner of the office dining area (“No one ever used it, and, to be honest, no one has noticed that it was gone”).
If it makes Ms. Kirk feel any better (though she doesn’t seem to feel terribly bad about it in the first place), Mr. DiMele said that a little stealing can be good for a workplace.
“There is an advantage to being stolen from,” he said. “If you steal from me, I own you. Unconsciously, if I’m using a Post-it that I stole from my boss, I somehow still have my boss on my mind.”
Which puts my toilet tissue caper in a whole new light.
Believe me, I will never do that again.
Life’s Work
I Lost My Laptop in Outer Space, and Other Tales of Office Theft
By LISA BELKIN
YEARS ago, back before children and bulk shopping, back when running out of something meant a separate errand, I stole a roll of toilet tissue from the office restroom. It was in the company’s interest that I stay longer rather than race out before the shops closed, I reasoned. It wasn’t stealing. It was a strategic investment of my time.
I have periodically thought of that moment with embarrassment. Who on earth steals toilet paper? Then, last month, the Government Accountability Office released a report estimating that NASA employees had stolen $94 million in office supplies and equipment over the last decade. One thief appropriated an office laptop as his own by declaring the machine lost. It had been thrown from the International Space Station, he explained, apparently with a straight face, and burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
In any workplace in America, at any moment of the day, someone is probably “borrowing” something, a loss to business of about $14 billion a year, according to the National Retail Federation. Studies find that 20 percent to 65 percent of employees admit to various degrees of supply theft at work, depending upon how the question is asked, and that those who earn the most money are most likely to be the culprits, meaning this is not really about need.
“Employees have been dipping into supplies for years,” said Vicki Donlan, a writer who specializes in the subject of business leadership. What has changed, she said, is that there is a new rationalization out there for the dipping: the portable nature of work. Home has become an extension of work, and we spend more time at work than we do at home. So if I am finishing that report on my home computer, doesn’t it make sense that my employer provide the paper for the printer? The Aeron chair?
One of the favorite stories I have collected on this subject over the years was about the office manager who filled his car with the five-gallon jugs from the water cooler, to care for his tropical fish. He then returned the empty containers.
The new laxity about what’s mine and what’s not creates a new need for businesses to clarify the rules and “give employees an opportunity to be honest about their pilfering,” Ms. Donlan said.
Her belief that what is needed is transparency, not cabinet padlocks, is shared by Dov Seidman, the chief executive and founder of LRN, a company that helps employers create ethical business environments. Mr. Seidman is the author of “How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything ... in Business (and in Life),” and he is less concerned that employees are taking supplies than that they are doing it surreptitiously.
Small transgressions are like broken windows, he said, in that not paying attention to the little things sends a message that the company will tolerate larger missteps. The solution may be as simple as not classifying minor thefts as transgressions in the first place, he said. Being open about paper clips and pencils can create an atmosphere that is open in other ways, he said.
How much borrowing is too much borrowing is one of those “shared values” that come to shape a corporate culture, Mr. Seidman said. (For the record, no one I interviewed for this article suggested that taking laptops or furniture was in remotely the same realm as taking everyday office supplies. For openers, the former is usually a felony.)
If a company “can’t agree on Post-its, they’re not going to agree on anything larger,” he said of staffs that hoard supplies.
The poisonous potential of pilfering is underlined by the fact that it is so often a result of anger. Even if employees don’t think they’re angry, said Armand DiMele, who runs the DiMele Center for Psychotherapy and Counseling in Manhattan, they probably are.
“Anybody who’s in a position of being an employee has some sense that somebody up there is more powerful,” he said, “and that breeds resentment.”
Theft certainly seems to increase during times of tension. Angela Hult watched it happen at First Interstate Bank in Portland, Ore., after it was acquired by Wells Fargo a decade ago. The merger brought layoffs, said Ms. Hult, who is no longer with the bank, and “as executives received their pink slips, a lot of artwork, office supplies, computers and even small pieces of furniture began to disappear.”
“One senior-level manager even had the company-paid magazine and newspaper subscriptions that he received at work forwarded to his home,” Ms. Hult added.
Retaliation may explain that first wave of theft, but it doesn’t explain what happened later, she said. Things began to disappear from her office on the executive floor. The thief, she discovered, was a woman who had more seniority, making it awkward to turn her in. The woman “took my artwork out of my office one evening after I left because she liked mine better than hers,” she said in an e-mail message. “About a week later she also took my chair. Eventually, she came back and took a piece of pottery, but had to return it when I informed her that it belonged to me, not the company.”
Kamille Kirk, an assistant to the president of YogaFit Inc., a fitness company based in Torrance, Calif., also has seen things disappear off her desk. Perhaps it’s because hers is the last desk before the stairway down to the supply cabinet. (Though you would think that a few steps wouldn’t stop employees of a company called YogaFit.) Pens, calculators, reams of printer paper have all up and left.
Even while she is grousing, though, Ms. Kirk is not shy about her own guilt. She has “accidentally” appropriated a calculator (“I needed to borrow it for a test, and it conveniently remained at home”) and purposely taken a box of staples (“Why buy them when our office has so many?”) and quite proudly taken an intricately styled lamp that had been sitting in the corner of the office dining area (“No one ever used it, and, to be honest, no one has noticed that it was gone”).
If it makes Ms. Kirk feel any better (though she doesn’t seem to feel terribly bad about it in the first place), Mr. DiMele said that a little stealing can be good for a workplace.
“There is an advantage to being stolen from,” he said. “If you steal from me, I own you. Unconsciously, if I’m using a Post-it that I stole from my boss, I somehow still have my boss on my mind.”
Which puts my toilet tissue caper in a whole new light.
Believe me, I will never do that again.
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