Some NYTimes articles....
Dec. 2nd, 2005 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
On returning to the Ninth Ward
Months After Katrina, Bittersweet Homecoming in the 9th Ward
By DEBORAH SONTAG
NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 1 - Josephine Butler, 83, returned to her property for the first time since Hurricane Katrina on Thursday, when the city finally reopened the last sealed neighborhood for residents to "look and leave."
She knew that her house in the Lower Ninth Ward was gone, and she was prepared to face the empty lot where two chipped lions now guarded nothing but scrub grass. But something else was missing, something unexpected.
Mrs. Butler, wearing a white cardigan with beaded flowers and stylish sunglasses, walked anxiously across the street to the spot where her house had floated, landed and collapsed. Clutching her black purse, she slowly hunched over and peered under the roof that sat atop the crushed remains of her 51 years on Delery Street.
On Aug. 28, when Mrs. Butler fled the oncoming storm with nothing but an overnight bag, she left the house built by her late husband, Cherry Field Butler, in the care of a guardian angel made of stone. One hundred and one days later, on Thursday, she found a way to focus her grief. "My angel," she said, her voice breaking. "My angel is gone."
While the center of New Orleans is slowly reviving, the African-American community known as the Lower Ninth Ward is still ghostly, like a few other neighborhoods that were devastated by flooding. Until Thursday, the northern half of the Lower Ninth Ward, in particular, was an utter wasteland where virtually no cleanup effort had begun. City officials, citing safety concerns, had barred residents from visiting their homes.
Thursday, when the closing of the area was lifted, almost 2,000 people streamed into the eerily hushed neighborhood that locals call "the back of town." They signed in with Red Cross officials, received numbered day passes and warnings about "extremely dangerous conditions," and fanned out over the debris-littered area.
Donning rubber boots, masks and, in some cases, coveralls that looked like hazmat suits, they excavated soggy belongings from their ruined homes or searched for houses that the floodwaters had relocated.
For most, despite the hugs and jokes when neighbors reunited, it was a somber day.
"It's just like going to a funeral," said George Hill, 66, who surveyed his wrecked house on Delery Street with a pinched face. "We're coming to view the body. "
Many Lower Ninth Ward residents fear that their neighborhood will never be rebuilt, despite Mayor C. Ray Nagin's repeated promises. They fear that the city, in delaying their re-entry into the area for three months, was trying to loosen their ties to a neighborhood that, despite pockets of poverty and crime, had a small-town warmth that they valued.
"If that's the plan, then it's backfiring," said Tanya Harris, 30, Mrs. Butler's granddaughter. "I'm not seeing that laid-back New Orleans character right now. I'm seeing a fighting spirit. I mean, my grandmother would chain herself to that property before she allowed the city to take it. These are homeowners who take their home-owning very seriously."
Mr. Hill works for the Orleans Levee District, a job, he said, that allowed him to buy his first house - "our little rest-of-life place" - just 18 months ago. Asked what he did for the district, Mr. Hill paused and then said softly, "Flood protection."
Mr. Hill had flood insurance on his home, unlike many of his neighbors, who carried only storm insurance. Many are fighting with insurers who say it was water and not wind that damaged their properties. Mr. Hill is not engaged in that battle, but he said that flood insurance will not cover his losses and that he cannot afford to rebuild.
In Houston, where his family has relocated, real estate is more reasonably priced, he said. A co-worker, Lois Gutelius, who accompanied him to his property told him he would never survive outside New Orleans.
"What are you going to do, drive down from Houston every few weeks to stock up on red beans and butter beans and pickle meat?" Ms. Gutelius asked him. "You ain't going nowhere. You're homegrown. You were raised up here, and this is your neighborhood."
Mr. Hill rejoined: "Ain't no more neighborhood. It's gone and it will never be the same." But then he noticed something that gave him pause. "Look it," he said, nudging some leaves poking out of the mud-caked ground, "my watermelon plant survived!"
At that moment, Mary Jones, 49, just arriving from Fort Worth, pulled up in her car and bounded out cheerfully. "How you doing, neighbor?" she called to Mr. Hill. The little green house that belonged to her mother, Mabel, 82, had sailed off its foundations, landing a couple of blocks away, but Ms. Jones was taking it in stride.
"We don't got no house," she said, "but we're all alive and well."
Ms. Jones was determined to make her way into the house to retrieve her teenage son's sports trophies. The house, like many, bore an orange sticker, evidence of a recent inspection that pronounced it unsafe. The entryway was obstructed, so Ms. Jones and her older brother struggled to remove an air conditioner from a window and break in.
"We're like damn burglars," Ms. Jones said, laughing.
Troops and federal environmental officials roamed the neighborhood on Thursday, too, searching for hazardous materials and raising concern among residents that they could be wading into toxic houses.
Mary and Ishmael Molizone were suited up in safety gear that made them look like blue aliens. Mrs. Molizone, 78, said that she had lived 40 years in the house that she was emptying of sodden furniture, but that she had decided it was not worth her while to cry.
"It's all just material things," she said, examining a pile of muddy porcelain figurines. "Look," she said, holding up what she said was a Lladro representation of Martin Luther King Jr. "Dr. King survived."
Census data indicated that the population of the northern part of the Lower Ninth Ward was somewhere between 6,000 and 11,000. About 60 percent of the residents are homeowners; many are elderly and do not like the idea of starting over.
Mrs. Butler said she could not bear to be away from New Orleans when her family relocated to Myrtle Beach, S.C. after the hurricane. She lasted there about two weeks, then took a bus home and stayed at the Marriott Hotel with her niece, who is a housekeeper there.
Thursday, she fought back tears repeatedly. "It hurts so bad," she said, "to look at everything we built gone. I just don't know what I'm going to do now."
Josephine Mitchum, 78, who is staying with her granddaughter just outside New Orleans, said she is having difficulty with her loss of independence. "I'm a free spirit, and I never had to live under someone else's roof before," she said.
With a wink, Ms. Mitchum joked that she would contemplate a fresh start if there was no chance of returning to her home. "I'm a retired domestic worker, but I'm thinking about being in Playboy," she said. "I'm going to be one of them bunnies. I told my reverend, and he said, 'You go, girl!' "
On that gay student's privacy suit
Openly Gay Student's Lawsuit Over Privacy Will Proceed
By TAMAR LEWIN
In a case involving a California high school girl who was openly gay at school, a federal judge has ruled that the girl, Charlene Nguon, may proceed with a lawsuit charging that her privacy rights were violated when the principal called her mother and disclosed that she is gay.
Ms. Nguon filed suit in September after a year of run-ins with Ben Wolf, the principal of Santiago High School in Garden Grove, Calif., over her hugging, kissing and holding hands with her girlfriend. Ms. Nguon was an all-A student ranked in the top 5 percent of her class, with no prior record of discipline. But last year, after Mr. Wolf said he wanted to separate her from her girlfriend, she transferred to another school. Her grades slipped, and her commute grew from a four-block walk to a four-and-a-half mile bike ride.
Judge James V. Selna of the Central District Court of California ruled Monday that Ms. Nguon had "sufficiently alleged a legally protected privacy interest in information about her sexual orientation."
"This is the first court ruling we're aware of where a judge has recognized that a student has a right not to have her sexual orientation disclosed to her parents, even if she is out of the closet at school," said Christine Sun, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought the case. "It's really important, because, while Charlene's parents have been very supportive, coming out is a very serious decision that should not be taken away from anyone, and disclosure can cause a lot of harm to students who live in an unsupportive home."
Alan Trudell, a spokesman for the school district, would not comment on the litigation. In its motion to dismiss the case, the district argued that Ms. Nguon had no legally protectable privacy right because she was "openly lesbian" and "constantly" hugging and kissing her girlfriend.
"A reasonable person could not expect that their actions on school grounds, in front of everyone else on the school grounds, would remain private," the motion said.
The district also said Ms. Nguon had "an issue with authority" and was disciplined because of her defiance, not because of her homosexuality. Both Ms. Nguon and her girlfriend were suspended twice, once for a day and once for a week.
The district saw Ms. Nguon's behavior and legal case as inconsistent, its motion questioning why "she can be openly gay in public, but should be permitted to hide her homosexuality from her parents."
Ms. Nguon said yesterday that the day on which the principal called was a difficult one for the family.
"My mom picked me up from school and her eyes were all watery," she said. "I just went to my room and cried. We didn't talk about it for about a week."
After the A.C.L.U. sent a letter to the school in late July, Ms. Nguon was allowed to return to Santiago High, but to date the school has not agreed to clear her disciplinary record.
Conservatives criticized the judge's reasoning. "This court ruling is so unrealistic that it borders on ridiculous," said Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family, a socially conservative group based in Colorado. "In a disciplinary action by the school, you can't expect them to lie to the parents and not give details of what happened. It seems ironic to raise privacy as an issue in a public display of affection. She'd already outed herself."
Advocates for gay rights, however, welcomed the judge's decision to let the case proceed, but said it was too soon to celebrate.
"I wouldn't yet go out and tell a kid in Iowa to walk down the halls at school holding hands with his boyfriend," said Brian Chase, a lawyer with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. "It isn't fair, but gay kids expressing affection are not treated the way straight kids are."
The lawsuit seeks to clear Ms. Nguon's record and create a districtwide policy and guidelines for the treatment of gay students.
On Palestinians and Gaza and all (editorial)
Go Your Own Way
By MARTIN INDYK
Washington
"LIFE'S Good." That's the message proclaimed on huge billboards in the Gaza Strip these days - albeit by an importer of European refrigerators. It was also a message conveyed by last weekend's pictures of Palestinians crossing from Gaza into Egypt, no longer scrutinized by Israeli soldiers.
Life seems good in Israel, too. Terrorist incidents are down to one every three months, tourism is booming again and high-tech investors are back in droves. The election of a union chief, Amir Peretz, to head the Labor Party brings fresh leadership to one of Israel's major parties and a new emphasis on the needs of those long neglected in Israeli society. And the departure of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from Likud, the other major party, holds out the hope that elections in March could produce a centrist coalition under his leadership that would finally lead Israel to peace with the Palestinians.
But beneath this surface lurks another, far less pleasant reality. Gaza today is ruled not by the Palestinian Authority but by competing warlords, armed gangs, security chiefs and terrorist organizations. There is no independent judiciary or rule of law. Educational and social institutions have collapsed. Unemployment is as high as 50 percent. Three months after Israel's withdrawal, there are few signs of renewed economic activity: no new housing projects and no new efforts to rebuild roads and basic services devastated by four years of intifada.
In this environment, it is little wonder that the militant Islamic group Hamas, with its combination of terrorist derring-do and efficient social services, is gaining in popularity in Gaza. If elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council are held in January as scheduled, Hamas is widely expected to take half the seats in Gaza, putting it in a position to dominate politics there.
Four years of intifada terrorism have inured Israelis to this reality. For them, the appeal of the Gaza disengagement was its unilateral separatism, which in one move allowed Israelis to rid themselves of responsibility for 1.3 million Palestinians. If Hamas comes to rule over a failed, terrorist state in Gaza, Israelis will simply close the border crossings, which even now barely function, and rely on the border fence and military deterrence to protect themselves. The same logic underlies Mr. Sharon's break with Likud. He knows Israelis want to separate from West Bank Palestinians, too, but that the Likud apparatus will oppose that move even more vehemently than it opposed the Gaza disengagement.
Mr. Sharon swears allegiance to the Middle East "road map," the plan promoted by the quartet of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia for an eventual peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. But the vision he holds out to his people is not one of a negotiated peace, but rather of an Israel with a robust Jewish majority and an undivided Jerusalem in its hands.
And the prime minister is already actively turning that vision into reality by building a security barrier around Jerusalem and the major West Bank settlement blocs. When it is completed, a re-elected Sharon is then likely to respond to growing Israeli public pressure for another unilateral step by withdrawing settlements from the Palestinian heartland and leaving Palestinians in control of some 70 percent of the West Bank, while retaining Israeli control of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.
This Israeli urge for separation has a counterpart in Gaza, where some residents now argue for placing Gaza's interests ahead of those of the West Bank. Increasingly, Gazans resent the weak, crony-infested leadership in Ramallah, which they fear will constrain their independence so as not to be left alone in Israel's grip. Arguing that Gaza has always been the crucible for critical developments in the Palestinian national movement (the first intifada began there in 1987), some Gazans suggest that the time has come to create their own independent state in the part of Palestine that has now been liberated.
American diplomacy has not yet taken account of these rising separatisms. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jim Wolfensohn, the Middle East envoy for the quartet, remain focused on turning the Gaza disengagement into a springboard for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But their admirable efforts are hobbled by the weakness of the Palestinian Authority and the lack of interest from Israelis looking out for their security first. Fostering negotiations will grow only more challenging when January elections bring Hamas into the Palestinian political mainstream with its terrorist abilities intact.
American interests might be better served by mustering international support for the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza first. Egypt is already quietly adopting the role of custodian in Gaza, putting Egyptian colonels in control of Palestinian border brigades, training the security services and leaning on terrorist organizations to cease their activities. With Egypt in the lead, the international community could help rebuild the institutions of governance in Gaza and reconstruct its economy. At the same time, Mr. Wolfensohn could focus his considerable energies on helping Gazans reorient their trade through Egyptian ports, across a border that is no longer controlled by Israel, and on generating foreign investment in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration could prepare to negotiate with the next Israeli government over the extent of its withdrawal from the West Bank and the Arab suburbs of East Jerusalem. American negotiators should pay close attention to how a West Bank withdrawal will affect the contiguity of Palestinian territory and its connection to East Jerusalem.
This process is not a substitute for hammering out a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, which could be facilitated once a Palestinian state in Gaza extends its writ to the newly liberated areas of the West Bank. Rather, such steps would constitute a recognition that practical separation - between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Gaza and the West Bank - may serve as a precursor to peace. Only when Egyptians and Jordanians put their own separate interests first was peace forged between those countries and Israel. Perhaps the time has come for Gazans to do the same.
On the Miss Penitenciaria pagent
Felons All, but Free to Try Being Beauty Queen for a Day
By PAULO PRADA
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, Nov. 25 - It was a retrial Brazilian style.
Forty convicted felons - drug traffickers and armed robbers mostly, but the odd kidnapper and murderer too - appeared again on Thursday before a state-appointed jury here in São Paulo, the capital of Brazil's most populous state.
Rather than shackles and prison yellow, though, the convicts donned evening gowns and high heels, bathing suits and costume jewelry. Charged to ignore the women's crimes, the jury instead was instructed to judge them on their beauty and congeniality, and on their talents in writing essays and poetry.
The second annual Miss Penitenciária pageant was the culmination of a competition lasting months in which 603 inmates from 10 prisons vied for titles in what is quickly becoming one of the best-known pageants in beauty-obsessed Brazil. By allowing the 4,000 women in the state's prisons the chance to parade the catwalk, the authorities hope to brighten morale and in the process lighten the image of a penal system better known for cramped and crime-ridden penitentiaries for men, where mutinies and murders are what normally make global headlines.
The finale, for instance, took place in the courtyard of a prison for women beside the remains of the Carandiru complex, once a vast prison block where police officers killed 111 prisoners during a riot in 1992. The old prison was razed to make way for a public park - workers were still clearing away what was left of Carandiru's concrete gateway - but the memory of such events remains lodged in the Brazilian conscience.
"The pageant is a message for prisoners and for those on the outside, too," said Nagashi Furukawa, the state secretary in charge of the penal system, which is now considering a musical talent contest for men next year. "These are people with something to offer who need opportunities to be able to show it."
Show it the contestants did.
After morning classes with a choreographer who trains contestants for Miss Brazil, the inmates strutted out on the stage, a T-shaped platform draped in red and white bunting. In addition to the 700 fellow inmates who made up the prison audience - their cheers and jeers at times drowning out the voices of the emcees and contestants - scores of photographers and television crews recorded every step and pose.
The inmates competed in categories that, aside from the headlining "beauty" classification, included a simpatia, or congeniality competition, plus an essay and poetry contest on the theme of "rewriting the future." Though the prizes were modest - the winner in each category won 350 reals, or just over $150 - the inmates were motivated by the colorful change to their drab routine and the chance to take part in an event unlikely for them on the outside.
"I was part of another world before I came here," said Márcia Santana Santos, a 30-year-old serving a sentence for armed robbery who was named Miss Congeniality. "I never could have done something like this."
Private sponsors covered the pageant's budget of about $20,000. A bank and a group of criminal defense lawyers helped pay for the lighting and sound systems, and local beauty schools and charities provided makeup and wax and hair treatments. Alexander Pires, a sweet-voiced Brazilian pop star, appeared free.
The 15-member jury included a plastic surgeon, a public defender, a television presenter and Rita Cadillac, a former stripper known for charity performances in prisons for men. Grafite, a heartthrob soccer star who sat on the jury, spent more time embracing inmate fans from the audience than focusing on those on the stage.
"They look happy," he said, pointing to a throng of women lined up in prison-issue yellow pants with white T-shirts to request his autograph. "I'm proud if I can somehow make them feel better about themselves."
Though each contestant received a package with shampoos, lotions and makeup, better self-esteem, they said, was the biggest part of the payoff.
Angélica Mazua, a tall, wiry, 23-year-old Angolan who was arrested at the São Paulo airport earlier this year with 2.2 pounds of cocaine tucked into a pair of sneakers, said she was taking part "to represent my prison and make us all feel better about our situation." The eventual winner of the beauty category, Ms. Mazua is jailed at the prison that held the final, and thus was buoyed by the chants and screams of the home crowd.
A similar esprit de corps was evident a day earlier at a minimum security prison for women in São José dos Campos, a small city 55 miles east of São Paulo. As the prison's four contestants tried on their gowns and high heels for a walk around an interior courtyard, companions gave tips on posture and eye contact. Priscila Maria Pereira Ferreira, a blond, blue-eyed 22-year-old convicted of marijuana possession, said cellmates even joined in when she did nightly situps in efforts to tone her stomach.
"It became a challenge for all of us," she said. "We all want the prison to win."
Some law-and-order advocates were offended by the contest. "What's next?" asked Jorge Damus, founder of the Movement for the Resistance of Crime, in São Paulo. "Are they going to pay them to pose nude? This is state-sponsored glorification of people who are supposed to be getting punished."
Participants say such attitudes do little to help them recover.
"We're not animals that you put in a cage and just forget about," said Ms. Santos, Miss Congeniality, glitter shining from the barbs of her recently spiked hair. "Society should seek to help us take advantage of our talents and our potential."
An article on Rosa Parks and her "deification" by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
alternet
And the NYTimes article on a tribute to her
New Yorkers Take a Tribute Standing Up
By ANTHONY RAMIREZ
It was meant to be a simple gesture to honor Rosa Parks, one of the giants of the civil rights movement, who died on Oct. 24 at age 92.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority asked riders on thousands of buses to remember Mrs. Parks by keeping the seat behind the driver empty.
Fifty years ago yesterday, Mrs. Parks, a seamstress, boarded a public bus in Montgomery, Ala., after work and refused to yield her seat in the front to a white man and go to the back where blacks sat. It led to the Montgomery bus boycott and the start of the civil rights movement.
Perhaps surprisingly, New Yorkers - not usually known as the most polite of commuters - embraced the unusual request even during the height of the rush, when just finding a comfortable standing spot can be hard to do.
The transportation authority's signs describing the tribute did not help. They were about the size of a legal pad with a photograph of Mrs. Parks. In small type were the words, "It All Started on a Bus."
The authority had taped the signs to the window or panel behind the drivers, where they tended to get lost among scheduling announcements. In the course of the day some of the signs had been moved to where they seemingly would be hard to miss - taped to the seat itself.
Still, there was some confusion as people who boarded crowded buses wondered why no one had claimed a prized empty seat. And some riders missed the sign and sat down but quickly stood up when told of the Rosa Parks tribute.
In Harlem, on the M101 bus headed west on 125th Street, it was hit and miss whether riders noticed the signs.
Anna Miller, who is black, sat down in the seat, but got up when a woman across the aisle pointed at the sign behind her.
"I didn't see the sign," Ms. Miller said, after thanking the woman and finding another seat. "It wouldn't be honoring what she went through. I'm 65 years old. I was around."
Gladys Smith, who is black, saw Ms. Miller switch seats. "It feels good to see somebody being honored like that," Ms. Smith said.
Asked if she had experienced any of the discrimination that Mrs. Parks fought against, Ms. Smith, who is 81, lifted herself on her cane to get off the bus and said: "All my life. I'm surprised I'm still here."
The authority joined dozens of other transit systems around the country - including those in San Francisco, Boston and Washington - in commemorating Mrs. Parks's historic act of defiance.
As for the best spot for the signs, the authority figured right above the seats meant to remain vacant seemed to make the most sense.
In Jackson Heights, Queens, on a westbound Q66 at 90th Street and Northern Boulevard, a sign taped right behind the bus driver was repeatedly ignored.
After several people had sat in the front seat, Sergio Amicamo, 40, a construction worker from Jackson Heights, also chose to sit there. He was asked what he thought of the sign. Mr. Amicamo read it quickly, shuddered, then uttered a loud profanity in dismay. He scooted out of the seat.
"I didn't realize it was there," Mr. Amicamo said. "It's history. It was a major event. It means freedom."
Some riders on the same bus continued to sit in the front seat, even when they knew why it was supposed to remain empty.
Joanne Satalino, who is white and from Queens, said: "Oh, no, I ain't giving mine up. There's no place left to sit."
When it was pointed out that there were empty seats nearby, Ms. Satalino said she would surrender the seat to a rider with a cane.
In Midtown Manhattan, a white couple boarded the M4 bus going south on Fifth Avenue and sat in the first two seats, including the Rosa Parks seat. From 52nd Street to the Empire State Building, the couple talked animatedly until they got off at 34th Street.
Then a black man boarded the bus and began to sit in the Rosa Parks seat, but stopped in midair when he noticed the authority's sign.
"History, history, Rosa Parks," he said to the black woman sitting across the aisle. "But people were sitting here."
The black woman said gently, "They couldn't see the sign."
"Well," the black man said, peeling away the sign and moving it to the edge of the seat, "they will now."
On the noisy "teen repellant" everybody's talking about
What's the Buzz? Rowdy Teenagers Don't Want to Hear It
By SARAH LYALL
BARRY, Wales - Though he did not know it at the time, the idea came to Howard Stapleton when he was 12 and visiting a factory with his father, a manufacturing executive in London. Opening the door to a room where workers were using high-frequency welding equipment, he found he could not bear to go inside.
"The noise!" he complained.
"What noise?" the grownups asked.
Now 39, Mr. Stapleton has taken the lesson he learned that day - that children can hear sounds at higher frequencies than adults can - to fashion a novel device that he hopes will provide a solution to the eternal problem of obstreperous teenagers who hang around outside stores and cause trouble.
The device, called the Mosquito ("It's small and annoying," Mr. Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away.
So far, the Mosquito has been road-tested in only one place, at the entrance to the Spar convenience store in this town in South Wales. Like birds perched on telephone wires, surly teenagers used to plant themselves on the railings just outside the door, smoking, drinking, shouting rude words at customers and making regular disruptive forays inside.
"On the low end of the scale, it would be intimidating for customers," said Robert Gough, who, with his parents, owns the store. "On the high end, they'd be in the shop fighting, stealing and assaulting the staff."
Mr. Gough (pronounced GUFF) planned to install a sound system that would blast classical music into the parking lot, another method known to horrify hang-out youths into dispersing, but never got around to it. But last month, Mr. Stapleton gave him a Mosquito for a free trial. The results were almost instantaneous. It was as if someone had used anti-teenager spray around the entrance, the way you might spray your sofas to keep pets off. Where disaffected youths used to congregate, now there is no one.
At first, members of the usual crowd tried to gather as normal, repeatedly going inside the store with their fingers in their ears and "begging me to turn it off," Mr. Gough said. But he held firm and neatly avoided possible aggressive confrontations: "I told them it was to keep birds away because of the bird flu epidemic."
A trip to Spar here in Barry confirmed the strange truth of the phenomenon. The Mosquito is positioned just outside the door. Although this reporter could not hear anything, being too old, several young people attested to the fact that yes, there was a noise, and yes, it was extremely annoying.
"It's loud and squeaky and it just goes through you," said Jodie Evans, 15, who was shopping at the store even though she was supposed to be in school. "It gets inside you."
Miss Evans and a 12-year-old friend who did not want to be interviewed were once part of a regular gang of loiterers, said Mr. Gough's father, Philip. "That little girl used to be a right pain, shouting abuse and bad language," he said of the 12-year-old. "Now she'll just come in, do her shopping and go."
Robert Gough, who said he could hear the noise even though he is 34, described it as "a pulsating chirp," the sort you might hear if you suffered from tinnitus. By way of demonstration, he emitted a batlike squeak that was indeed bothersome.
Mr. Stapleton, a security consultant whose experience in installing store alarms and the like alerted him to the gravity of the loitering problem, studied other teenage-repellents as part of his research. Some shops, for example, use "zit lamps," which drive teenagers away by casting a blue light onto their spotty skin, accentuating any whiteheads and other blemishes.
Using his children as guinea pigs, he tried a number of different noise and frequency levels, testing a single-toned unit before settling on a pulsating tone which, he said, is more unbearable, and which can be broadcast at 75 decibels, within government auditory-safety limits. "I didn't want to make it hurt," Mr. Stapleton said. "It just has to nag at them."
The device has not yet been tested by hearing experts.
Andrew King, a professor of neurophysiology at Oxford University, said in an e-mail interview that while the ability to hear high frequencies deteriorates with age, the change happens so gradually that many non-teenagers might well hear the Mosquito's noise. "Unless the store owners wish to sell their goods only to senior citizens," he wrote, "I doubt that this would work."
Mr. Stapleton argues, though, that it doesn't matter if people in their 20's and 30's can hear the Mosquito, since they are unlikely to be hanging out in front of stores, anyway.
It is too early to predict the device's future. Since an article about it appeared in The Grocer, a British trade magazine, Mr. Stapleton has become modestly famous, answering inquiries from hundreds of people and filling orders for dozens of the devices, not only in stores but also in places like railroad yards. He appeared recently on Richard & Judy, an Oprah-esque afternoon talk show, where the device successfully vexed all but one of the members of a girls' choir.
He is considering introducing a much louder unit that can be switched on in emergencies with a panic button. It would be most useful when youths swarm into stores and begin stealing en masse, a phenomenon known in Britain as steaming. The idea would be to blast them with such an unacceptably loud, high noise - a noise inaudible to older shoppers - that they would immediately leave.
"It's very difficult to shoplift," Mr. Stapleton said, "when you have your fingers in your ears."
One on Europe urging Africa to, rightly, reject the "abstinence-only" concept
"People shouldn't die because they have sex"
Europe rejects Bush's abstinence-only strategy, declaring that condoms are the most effective weapon in battling AIDS.
By Sarah Boseley
Dec. 01, 2005 | Europe, led by the U.K., Wednesday night signaled a major split with the United States over curbing the AIDS pandemic in a statement that tacitly urged African governments not to heed the abstinence-focused agenda of the Bush administration.
The statement, released for World AIDS Day Thursday, emphasizes the fundamental importance of condoms, sex education and access to reproductive health services. "We are profoundly concerned about the resurgence of partial or incomplete messages on HIV prevention which are not grounded in evidence and have limited effectiveness," it says.
While the United States is not named, there is widespread anxiety over the effect of its pro-abstinence agenda in countries such as Uganda, where statements by Janet Museveni, the president's wife, and alleged problems with supply have led to a serious shortage of condoms.
The U.S. has pledged $15 billion over five years to fight the disease, most of which is channeled through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. PEPFAR grants come with conditions, however -- two-thirds of the money has to go to pro-abstinence programs, and it is not available to any organizations with clinics that offer abortion services or even counseling. The U.S. is also opposed to the provision of needles and syringes to drug users on the grounds that it could be construed as encouraging their habit.
But the statement from 22 European Union member states, released at a meeting under the U.K. presidency in London Wednesday, calls on developing world governments to use every prevention tool, from condoms to clean needles to sexual health clinics, in a bid to slow down the spread of HIV. UNAIDS' latest figures show 40 million people are now infected, and the rate is rising as fast as ever.
"We, the European Union, firmly believe that, to be successful, HIV prevention must utilize all approaches known to be effective, not implementing one or a few selective actions in isolation," the statement says.
The international development secretary, Hilary Benn, told the Guardian that the evidence had shown what worked, from tackling stigma to supplying condoms and clean needles. "It is very important that those messages are heard loud and clear by everybody," he said.
Asked whether the U.K. disagreed with the U.S. emphasis on abstinence, he said: "Abstinence works if people can abstain, but I don't think people should die because they have sex. We need to make sure people have all the means [of prevention] at their disposal -- condoms and clean needles. It includes education and access to sexual and reproductive health services. We are very clear about that."
In August the U.N. secretary general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, accused the United States of "doing damage to Africa" by cutting funds for condoms in Uganda while promoting abstinence. "There is no doubt the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by" U.S. policies, said Lewis. "To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa."
Only 35 million condoms were distributed in Uganda between October 2004, when the government said there was a problem with the quality of the stock, and August of this year, compared with 120 million in previous years.
Uganda has historically been cited as one of the HIV/AIDS success stories, and experts generally agree it was partly the availability of condoms that brought the infection rate down. But Museveni has said condom distribution pushes young people into sex and recently equated condom use with theft and murder in an interview with the BBC World Service. The shift in government thinking is being linked within Uganda to PEPFAR.
AIDS activists in the U.K. are pleased by the E.U. stance. "Activists have been warning for years that the U.S. prevention policy is reckless and could cost lives," said Fiona Pettit of the U.K. Consortium on AIDS and International Development. "The relentless promotion of abstinence only is already having an impact in countries like Uganda. Abstinence only is an unrealistic policy in many communities and a one-size-fits-all approach simply won't work."
"In reality, people have sex ... much as conservative evangelists in the U.S. might prefer that they didn't," said Andrew George, the Liberal Democrats' spokesman on international development.
And one on the music listened to by the muderer/kidnapper kids
The devil's music
Does it matter that David Ludwig -- the 18-year-old alleged killer of his 14-year-old girlfriend's parents -- was a huge fan of hardcore Christian rock?
By Daniel Radosh
Nov. 24, 2005 | On the night of Oct. 6, David Ludwig, 18, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Kara Beth Borden, went to church. There was no sermon, though -- at least not a traditional one. David and Kara were at the Lancaster Bible Church in Manheim, Penn., for a Christian rock concert. As the punishingly loud guitars of Audio Adrenaline and Pillar strained the limits of the church sound system, the kids screamed and pumped their fists and banged their heads. "Pillar and Audio A rock my face off!" David wrote on his blog the next day. Kara spent almost all the money in her pocket on a Pillar sweatshirt. She was wearing it the morning of Nov. 13 when, police say, David shot and killed her parents and fled with her at his side.
If your only association with contemporary Christian music (CCM) is Amy Grant or Stryper, you might be surprised at how popular, varied and artistically mature the genre has become in the last 15 years. By some estimates, Christian music sales topped $720 million last year, making it a bigger niche than jazz and classical combined. For every genre of mainstream music there is a Christian parallel: rock, punk, reggae, folk, dance pop, gangsta rap. Pillar, named for the biblical description of God's household as "the pillar and foundation of truth," plays rap-core, a furiously propulsive mash-up of hard rock and rap. Musically, they are as creditable as many of their top-40 counterparts. Their lyrics testify to their faith in Jesus, a faith that David and Kara publicly share.
It should go without saying that Pillar isn't even remotely responsible for David Ludwig's actions, any more than Marilyn Manson was responsible for Columbine. As CCM reaches an ever larger audience, the likelihood that some people in that audience will be deeply troubled increases proportionally. The CCM industry is already painfully aware that its fans are often no more virtuous than any other teenagers. A 2004 survey by the Barna Group found that "teen buyers of Christian music were just as likely as other teens to engage in music piracy." Nearly 80 percent of young people who purchase Christian music also download it illegally. Christian music is not just for goody-goodies anymore.
But Christian rock doesn't just happen to find troubled kids in its audience, it reaches out to them. At a Christian music festival in Neodesha, Kan., two months ago, I watched as the singer of Seventh Day Slumber called on the people there to look into the darkest depths of their souls, that they may seek forgiveness. "If you've ever thought about suicide, put your hand in the air," he said, and they did, tears streaming down their faces. "If you've gone so far as to write a suicide note, put your hand in the air. If you've thought about killing yourself just this week, put your hand in the air." The dark undercurrents of secular thrash and emo music are not absent from the Christian versions, just channeled differently.
Pillar ended its Oct. 6 set with a song called "Fireproof." It must have struck a chord in David. He posted the lyrics on his blog:
I know where I stand and what'll happen if you try it
I am FIREPROOF
I know my heart and I just can't deny it
I am FIREPROOF
I tried to tell you but you wouldn't be quiet
I am FIREPROOF
I'll never bow down and you won't buy it
I am FIREPROOF
Like many edgier evangelical bands, Pillar specializes in battle anthems, composed on the premise that Christians are under constant spiritual attack. The emotional effects are remarkably similar to those of any secular odes to alienation and rebellion, and the vast majority of Christian teens who are drawn to such music, like the vast majority of their non-Christian peers, find comfort in the roiling cacophony that mirrors their inner lives; it helps them get through some difficult years in one piece. Any Christian artist can share legitimate and profound stories of young people who found genuine grace through their music. But there will always be a small fringe of disturbed people who are looking for an excuse to go over the edge, and who will find it in angry and tormented lyrics -- even if those lyrics are supposed to be about eternal salvation.
It is still possible to find fundamentalist Christians who hold that all rock 'n' roll is the devil's music, and that CCM is only a more deceptive variety. The mainstream Christian culture industry, however, is too sophisticated and too profitable to turn its back on any form of musical expression. But with the proliferation of Christian music -- and books, movies, stand-up comedy, and pro wrestling -- the line between faith and sin has become blurred, and pop proselytizers will have to ask themselves if they are really changing hearts or just winning fans. Evangelicals justify their embrace of 21st century pop culture forms by saying that the Bible calls them to be "in the world, but not of it." This week, sadly, they are both.
Months After Katrina, Bittersweet Homecoming in the 9th Ward
By DEBORAH SONTAG
NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 1 - Josephine Butler, 83, returned to her property for the first time since Hurricane Katrina on Thursday, when the city finally reopened the last sealed neighborhood for residents to "look and leave."
She knew that her house in the Lower Ninth Ward was gone, and she was prepared to face the empty lot where two chipped lions now guarded nothing but scrub grass. But something else was missing, something unexpected.
Mrs. Butler, wearing a white cardigan with beaded flowers and stylish sunglasses, walked anxiously across the street to the spot where her house had floated, landed and collapsed. Clutching her black purse, she slowly hunched over and peered under the roof that sat atop the crushed remains of her 51 years on Delery Street.
On Aug. 28, when Mrs. Butler fled the oncoming storm with nothing but an overnight bag, she left the house built by her late husband, Cherry Field Butler, in the care of a guardian angel made of stone. One hundred and one days later, on Thursday, she found a way to focus her grief. "My angel," she said, her voice breaking. "My angel is gone."
While the center of New Orleans is slowly reviving, the African-American community known as the Lower Ninth Ward is still ghostly, like a few other neighborhoods that were devastated by flooding. Until Thursday, the northern half of the Lower Ninth Ward, in particular, was an utter wasteland where virtually no cleanup effort had begun. City officials, citing safety concerns, had barred residents from visiting their homes.
Thursday, when the closing of the area was lifted, almost 2,000 people streamed into the eerily hushed neighborhood that locals call "the back of town." They signed in with Red Cross officials, received numbered day passes and warnings about "extremely dangerous conditions," and fanned out over the debris-littered area.
Donning rubber boots, masks and, in some cases, coveralls that looked like hazmat suits, they excavated soggy belongings from their ruined homes or searched for houses that the floodwaters had relocated.
For most, despite the hugs and jokes when neighbors reunited, it was a somber day.
"It's just like going to a funeral," said George Hill, 66, who surveyed his wrecked house on Delery Street with a pinched face. "We're coming to view the body. "
Many Lower Ninth Ward residents fear that their neighborhood will never be rebuilt, despite Mayor C. Ray Nagin's repeated promises. They fear that the city, in delaying their re-entry into the area for three months, was trying to loosen their ties to a neighborhood that, despite pockets of poverty and crime, had a small-town warmth that they valued.
"If that's the plan, then it's backfiring," said Tanya Harris, 30, Mrs. Butler's granddaughter. "I'm not seeing that laid-back New Orleans character right now. I'm seeing a fighting spirit. I mean, my grandmother would chain herself to that property before she allowed the city to take it. These are homeowners who take their home-owning very seriously."
Mr. Hill works for the Orleans Levee District, a job, he said, that allowed him to buy his first house - "our little rest-of-life place" - just 18 months ago. Asked what he did for the district, Mr. Hill paused and then said softly, "Flood protection."
Mr. Hill had flood insurance on his home, unlike many of his neighbors, who carried only storm insurance. Many are fighting with insurers who say it was water and not wind that damaged their properties. Mr. Hill is not engaged in that battle, but he said that flood insurance will not cover his losses and that he cannot afford to rebuild.
In Houston, where his family has relocated, real estate is more reasonably priced, he said. A co-worker, Lois Gutelius, who accompanied him to his property told him he would never survive outside New Orleans.
"What are you going to do, drive down from Houston every few weeks to stock up on red beans and butter beans and pickle meat?" Ms. Gutelius asked him. "You ain't going nowhere. You're homegrown. You were raised up here, and this is your neighborhood."
Mr. Hill rejoined: "Ain't no more neighborhood. It's gone and it will never be the same." But then he noticed something that gave him pause. "Look it," he said, nudging some leaves poking out of the mud-caked ground, "my watermelon plant survived!"
At that moment, Mary Jones, 49, just arriving from Fort Worth, pulled up in her car and bounded out cheerfully. "How you doing, neighbor?" she called to Mr. Hill. The little green house that belonged to her mother, Mabel, 82, had sailed off its foundations, landing a couple of blocks away, but Ms. Jones was taking it in stride.
"We don't got no house," she said, "but we're all alive and well."
Ms. Jones was determined to make her way into the house to retrieve her teenage son's sports trophies. The house, like many, bore an orange sticker, evidence of a recent inspection that pronounced it unsafe. The entryway was obstructed, so Ms. Jones and her older brother struggled to remove an air conditioner from a window and break in.
"We're like damn burglars," Ms. Jones said, laughing.
Troops and federal environmental officials roamed the neighborhood on Thursday, too, searching for hazardous materials and raising concern among residents that they could be wading into toxic houses.
Mary and Ishmael Molizone were suited up in safety gear that made them look like blue aliens. Mrs. Molizone, 78, said that she had lived 40 years in the house that she was emptying of sodden furniture, but that she had decided it was not worth her while to cry.
"It's all just material things," she said, examining a pile of muddy porcelain figurines. "Look," she said, holding up what she said was a Lladro representation of Martin Luther King Jr. "Dr. King survived."
Census data indicated that the population of the northern part of the Lower Ninth Ward was somewhere between 6,000 and 11,000. About 60 percent of the residents are homeowners; many are elderly and do not like the idea of starting over.
Mrs. Butler said she could not bear to be away from New Orleans when her family relocated to Myrtle Beach, S.C. after the hurricane. She lasted there about two weeks, then took a bus home and stayed at the Marriott Hotel with her niece, who is a housekeeper there.
Thursday, she fought back tears repeatedly. "It hurts so bad," she said, "to look at everything we built gone. I just don't know what I'm going to do now."
Josephine Mitchum, 78, who is staying with her granddaughter just outside New Orleans, said she is having difficulty with her loss of independence. "I'm a free spirit, and I never had to live under someone else's roof before," she said.
With a wink, Ms. Mitchum joked that she would contemplate a fresh start if there was no chance of returning to her home. "I'm a retired domestic worker, but I'm thinking about being in Playboy," she said. "I'm going to be one of them bunnies. I told my reverend, and he said, 'You go, girl!' "
On that gay student's privacy suit
Openly Gay Student's Lawsuit Over Privacy Will Proceed
By TAMAR LEWIN
In a case involving a California high school girl who was openly gay at school, a federal judge has ruled that the girl, Charlene Nguon, may proceed with a lawsuit charging that her privacy rights were violated when the principal called her mother and disclosed that she is gay.
Ms. Nguon filed suit in September after a year of run-ins with Ben Wolf, the principal of Santiago High School in Garden Grove, Calif., over her hugging, kissing and holding hands with her girlfriend. Ms. Nguon was an all-A student ranked in the top 5 percent of her class, with no prior record of discipline. But last year, after Mr. Wolf said he wanted to separate her from her girlfriend, she transferred to another school. Her grades slipped, and her commute grew from a four-block walk to a four-and-a-half mile bike ride.
Judge James V. Selna of the Central District Court of California ruled Monday that Ms. Nguon had "sufficiently alleged a legally protected privacy interest in information about her sexual orientation."
"This is the first court ruling we're aware of where a judge has recognized that a student has a right not to have her sexual orientation disclosed to her parents, even if she is out of the closet at school," said Christine Sun, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought the case. "It's really important, because, while Charlene's parents have been very supportive, coming out is a very serious decision that should not be taken away from anyone, and disclosure can cause a lot of harm to students who live in an unsupportive home."
Alan Trudell, a spokesman for the school district, would not comment on the litigation. In its motion to dismiss the case, the district argued that Ms. Nguon had no legally protectable privacy right because she was "openly lesbian" and "constantly" hugging and kissing her girlfriend.
"A reasonable person could not expect that their actions on school grounds, in front of everyone else on the school grounds, would remain private," the motion said.
The district also said Ms. Nguon had "an issue with authority" and was disciplined because of her defiance, not because of her homosexuality. Both Ms. Nguon and her girlfriend were suspended twice, once for a day and once for a week.
The district saw Ms. Nguon's behavior and legal case as inconsistent, its motion questioning why "she can be openly gay in public, but should be permitted to hide her homosexuality from her parents."
Ms. Nguon said yesterday that the day on which the principal called was a difficult one for the family.
"My mom picked me up from school and her eyes were all watery," she said. "I just went to my room and cried. We didn't talk about it for about a week."
After the A.C.L.U. sent a letter to the school in late July, Ms. Nguon was allowed to return to Santiago High, but to date the school has not agreed to clear her disciplinary record.
Conservatives criticized the judge's reasoning. "This court ruling is so unrealistic that it borders on ridiculous," said Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family, a socially conservative group based in Colorado. "In a disciplinary action by the school, you can't expect them to lie to the parents and not give details of what happened. It seems ironic to raise privacy as an issue in a public display of affection. She'd already outed herself."
Advocates for gay rights, however, welcomed the judge's decision to let the case proceed, but said it was too soon to celebrate.
"I wouldn't yet go out and tell a kid in Iowa to walk down the halls at school holding hands with his boyfriend," said Brian Chase, a lawyer with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. "It isn't fair, but gay kids expressing affection are not treated the way straight kids are."
The lawsuit seeks to clear Ms. Nguon's record and create a districtwide policy and guidelines for the treatment of gay students.
On Palestinians and Gaza and all (editorial)
Go Your Own Way
By MARTIN INDYK
Washington
"LIFE'S Good." That's the message proclaimed on huge billboards in the Gaza Strip these days - albeit by an importer of European refrigerators. It was also a message conveyed by last weekend's pictures of Palestinians crossing from Gaza into Egypt, no longer scrutinized by Israeli soldiers.
Life seems good in Israel, too. Terrorist incidents are down to one every three months, tourism is booming again and high-tech investors are back in droves. The election of a union chief, Amir Peretz, to head the Labor Party brings fresh leadership to one of Israel's major parties and a new emphasis on the needs of those long neglected in Israeli society. And the departure of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from Likud, the other major party, holds out the hope that elections in March could produce a centrist coalition under his leadership that would finally lead Israel to peace with the Palestinians.
But beneath this surface lurks another, far less pleasant reality. Gaza today is ruled not by the Palestinian Authority but by competing warlords, armed gangs, security chiefs and terrorist organizations. There is no independent judiciary or rule of law. Educational and social institutions have collapsed. Unemployment is as high as 50 percent. Three months after Israel's withdrawal, there are few signs of renewed economic activity: no new housing projects and no new efforts to rebuild roads and basic services devastated by four years of intifada.
In this environment, it is little wonder that the militant Islamic group Hamas, with its combination of terrorist derring-do and efficient social services, is gaining in popularity in Gaza. If elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council are held in January as scheduled, Hamas is widely expected to take half the seats in Gaza, putting it in a position to dominate politics there.
Four years of intifada terrorism have inured Israelis to this reality. For them, the appeal of the Gaza disengagement was its unilateral separatism, which in one move allowed Israelis to rid themselves of responsibility for 1.3 million Palestinians. If Hamas comes to rule over a failed, terrorist state in Gaza, Israelis will simply close the border crossings, which even now barely function, and rely on the border fence and military deterrence to protect themselves. The same logic underlies Mr. Sharon's break with Likud. He knows Israelis want to separate from West Bank Palestinians, too, but that the Likud apparatus will oppose that move even more vehemently than it opposed the Gaza disengagement.
Mr. Sharon swears allegiance to the Middle East "road map," the plan promoted by the quartet of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia for an eventual peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. But the vision he holds out to his people is not one of a negotiated peace, but rather of an Israel with a robust Jewish majority and an undivided Jerusalem in its hands.
And the prime minister is already actively turning that vision into reality by building a security barrier around Jerusalem and the major West Bank settlement blocs. When it is completed, a re-elected Sharon is then likely to respond to growing Israeli public pressure for another unilateral step by withdrawing settlements from the Palestinian heartland and leaving Palestinians in control of some 70 percent of the West Bank, while retaining Israeli control of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.
This Israeli urge for separation has a counterpart in Gaza, where some residents now argue for placing Gaza's interests ahead of those of the West Bank. Increasingly, Gazans resent the weak, crony-infested leadership in Ramallah, which they fear will constrain their independence so as not to be left alone in Israel's grip. Arguing that Gaza has always been the crucible for critical developments in the Palestinian national movement (the first intifada began there in 1987), some Gazans suggest that the time has come to create their own independent state in the part of Palestine that has now been liberated.
American diplomacy has not yet taken account of these rising separatisms. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jim Wolfensohn, the Middle East envoy for the quartet, remain focused on turning the Gaza disengagement into a springboard for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But their admirable efforts are hobbled by the weakness of the Palestinian Authority and the lack of interest from Israelis looking out for their security first. Fostering negotiations will grow only more challenging when January elections bring Hamas into the Palestinian political mainstream with its terrorist abilities intact.
American interests might be better served by mustering international support for the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza first. Egypt is already quietly adopting the role of custodian in Gaza, putting Egyptian colonels in control of Palestinian border brigades, training the security services and leaning on terrorist organizations to cease their activities. With Egypt in the lead, the international community could help rebuild the institutions of governance in Gaza and reconstruct its economy. At the same time, Mr. Wolfensohn could focus his considerable energies on helping Gazans reorient their trade through Egyptian ports, across a border that is no longer controlled by Israel, and on generating foreign investment in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration could prepare to negotiate with the next Israeli government over the extent of its withdrawal from the West Bank and the Arab suburbs of East Jerusalem. American negotiators should pay close attention to how a West Bank withdrawal will affect the contiguity of Palestinian territory and its connection to East Jerusalem.
This process is not a substitute for hammering out a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, which could be facilitated once a Palestinian state in Gaza extends its writ to the newly liberated areas of the West Bank. Rather, such steps would constitute a recognition that practical separation - between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Gaza and the West Bank - may serve as a precursor to peace. Only when Egyptians and Jordanians put their own separate interests first was peace forged between those countries and Israel. Perhaps the time has come for Gazans to do the same.
On the Miss Penitenciaria pagent
Felons All, but Free to Try Being Beauty Queen for a Day
By PAULO PRADA
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, Nov. 25 - It was a retrial Brazilian style.
Forty convicted felons - drug traffickers and armed robbers mostly, but the odd kidnapper and murderer too - appeared again on Thursday before a state-appointed jury here in São Paulo, the capital of Brazil's most populous state.
Rather than shackles and prison yellow, though, the convicts donned evening gowns and high heels, bathing suits and costume jewelry. Charged to ignore the women's crimes, the jury instead was instructed to judge them on their beauty and congeniality, and on their talents in writing essays and poetry.
The second annual Miss Penitenciária pageant was the culmination of a competition lasting months in which 603 inmates from 10 prisons vied for titles in what is quickly becoming one of the best-known pageants in beauty-obsessed Brazil. By allowing the 4,000 women in the state's prisons the chance to parade the catwalk, the authorities hope to brighten morale and in the process lighten the image of a penal system better known for cramped and crime-ridden penitentiaries for men, where mutinies and murders are what normally make global headlines.
The finale, for instance, took place in the courtyard of a prison for women beside the remains of the Carandiru complex, once a vast prison block where police officers killed 111 prisoners during a riot in 1992. The old prison was razed to make way for a public park - workers were still clearing away what was left of Carandiru's concrete gateway - but the memory of such events remains lodged in the Brazilian conscience.
"The pageant is a message for prisoners and for those on the outside, too," said Nagashi Furukawa, the state secretary in charge of the penal system, which is now considering a musical talent contest for men next year. "These are people with something to offer who need opportunities to be able to show it."
Show it the contestants did.
After morning classes with a choreographer who trains contestants for Miss Brazil, the inmates strutted out on the stage, a T-shaped platform draped in red and white bunting. In addition to the 700 fellow inmates who made up the prison audience - their cheers and jeers at times drowning out the voices of the emcees and contestants - scores of photographers and television crews recorded every step and pose.
The inmates competed in categories that, aside from the headlining "beauty" classification, included a simpatia, or congeniality competition, plus an essay and poetry contest on the theme of "rewriting the future." Though the prizes were modest - the winner in each category won 350 reals, or just over $150 - the inmates were motivated by the colorful change to their drab routine and the chance to take part in an event unlikely for them on the outside.
"I was part of another world before I came here," said Márcia Santana Santos, a 30-year-old serving a sentence for armed robbery who was named Miss Congeniality. "I never could have done something like this."
Private sponsors covered the pageant's budget of about $20,000. A bank and a group of criminal defense lawyers helped pay for the lighting and sound systems, and local beauty schools and charities provided makeup and wax and hair treatments. Alexander Pires, a sweet-voiced Brazilian pop star, appeared free.
The 15-member jury included a plastic surgeon, a public defender, a television presenter and Rita Cadillac, a former stripper known for charity performances in prisons for men. Grafite, a heartthrob soccer star who sat on the jury, spent more time embracing inmate fans from the audience than focusing on those on the stage.
"They look happy," he said, pointing to a throng of women lined up in prison-issue yellow pants with white T-shirts to request his autograph. "I'm proud if I can somehow make them feel better about themselves."
Though each contestant received a package with shampoos, lotions and makeup, better self-esteem, they said, was the biggest part of the payoff.
Angélica Mazua, a tall, wiry, 23-year-old Angolan who was arrested at the São Paulo airport earlier this year with 2.2 pounds of cocaine tucked into a pair of sneakers, said she was taking part "to represent my prison and make us all feel better about our situation." The eventual winner of the beauty category, Ms. Mazua is jailed at the prison that held the final, and thus was buoyed by the chants and screams of the home crowd.
A similar esprit de corps was evident a day earlier at a minimum security prison for women in São José dos Campos, a small city 55 miles east of São Paulo. As the prison's four contestants tried on their gowns and high heels for a walk around an interior courtyard, companions gave tips on posture and eye contact. Priscila Maria Pereira Ferreira, a blond, blue-eyed 22-year-old convicted of marijuana possession, said cellmates even joined in when she did nightly situps in efforts to tone her stomach.
"It became a challenge for all of us," she said. "We all want the prison to win."
Some law-and-order advocates were offended by the contest. "What's next?" asked Jorge Damus, founder of the Movement for the Resistance of Crime, in São Paulo. "Are they going to pay them to pose nude? This is state-sponsored glorification of people who are supposed to be getting punished."
Participants say such attitudes do little to help them recover.
"We're not animals that you put in a cage and just forget about," said Ms. Santos, Miss Congeniality, glitter shining from the barbs of her recently spiked hair. "Society should seek to help us take advantage of our talents and our potential."
An article on Rosa Parks and her "deification" by
alternetAnd the NYTimes article on a tribute to her
New Yorkers Take a Tribute Standing Up
By ANTHONY RAMIREZ
It was meant to be a simple gesture to honor Rosa Parks, one of the giants of the civil rights movement, who died on Oct. 24 at age 92.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority asked riders on thousands of buses to remember Mrs. Parks by keeping the seat behind the driver empty.
Fifty years ago yesterday, Mrs. Parks, a seamstress, boarded a public bus in Montgomery, Ala., after work and refused to yield her seat in the front to a white man and go to the back where blacks sat. It led to the Montgomery bus boycott and the start of the civil rights movement.
Perhaps surprisingly, New Yorkers - not usually known as the most polite of commuters - embraced the unusual request even during the height of the rush, when just finding a comfortable standing spot can be hard to do.
The transportation authority's signs describing the tribute did not help. They were about the size of a legal pad with a photograph of Mrs. Parks. In small type were the words, "It All Started on a Bus."
The authority had taped the signs to the window or panel behind the drivers, where they tended to get lost among scheduling announcements. In the course of the day some of the signs had been moved to where they seemingly would be hard to miss - taped to the seat itself.
Still, there was some confusion as people who boarded crowded buses wondered why no one had claimed a prized empty seat. And some riders missed the sign and sat down but quickly stood up when told of the Rosa Parks tribute.
In Harlem, on the M101 bus headed west on 125th Street, it was hit and miss whether riders noticed the signs.
Anna Miller, who is black, sat down in the seat, but got up when a woman across the aisle pointed at the sign behind her.
"I didn't see the sign," Ms. Miller said, after thanking the woman and finding another seat. "It wouldn't be honoring what she went through. I'm 65 years old. I was around."
Gladys Smith, who is black, saw Ms. Miller switch seats. "It feels good to see somebody being honored like that," Ms. Smith said.
Asked if she had experienced any of the discrimination that Mrs. Parks fought against, Ms. Smith, who is 81, lifted herself on her cane to get off the bus and said: "All my life. I'm surprised I'm still here."
The authority joined dozens of other transit systems around the country - including those in San Francisco, Boston and Washington - in commemorating Mrs. Parks's historic act of defiance.
As for the best spot for the signs, the authority figured right above the seats meant to remain vacant seemed to make the most sense.
In Jackson Heights, Queens, on a westbound Q66 at 90th Street and Northern Boulevard, a sign taped right behind the bus driver was repeatedly ignored.
After several people had sat in the front seat, Sergio Amicamo, 40, a construction worker from Jackson Heights, also chose to sit there. He was asked what he thought of the sign. Mr. Amicamo read it quickly, shuddered, then uttered a loud profanity in dismay. He scooted out of the seat.
"I didn't realize it was there," Mr. Amicamo said. "It's history. It was a major event. It means freedom."
Some riders on the same bus continued to sit in the front seat, even when they knew why it was supposed to remain empty.
Joanne Satalino, who is white and from Queens, said: "Oh, no, I ain't giving mine up. There's no place left to sit."
When it was pointed out that there were empty seats nearby, Ms. Satalino said she would surrender the seat to a rider with a cane.
In Midtown Manhattan, a white couple boarded the M4 bus going south on Fifth Avenue and sat in the first two seats, including the Rosa Parks seat. From 52nd Street to the Empire State Building, the couple talked animatedly until they got off at 34th Street.
Then a black man boarded the bus and began to sit in the Rosa Parks seat, but stopped in midair when he noticed the authority's sign.
"History, history, Rosa Parks," he said to the black woman sitting across the aisle. "But people were sitting here."
The black woman said gently, "They couldn't see the sign."
"Well," the black man said, peeling away the sign and moving it to the edge of the seat, "they will now."
On the noisy "teen repellant" everybody's talking about
What's the Buzz? Rowdy Teenagers Don't Want to Hear It
By SARAH LYALL
BARRY, Wales - Though he did not know it at the time, the idea came to Howard Stapleton when he was 12 and visiting a factory with his father, a manufacturing executive in London. Opening the door to a room where workers were using high-frequency welding equipment, he found he could not bear to go inside.
"The noise!" he complained.
"What noise?" the grownups asked.
Now 39, Mr. Stapleton has taken the lesson he learned that day - that children can hear sounds at higher frequencies than adults can - to fashion a novel device that he hopes will provide a solution to the eternal problem of obstreperous teenagers who hang around outside stores and cause trouble.
The device, called the Mosquito ("It's small and annoying," Mr. Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away.
So far, the Mosquito has been road-tested in only one place, at the entrance to the Spar convenience store in this town in South Wales. Like birds perched on telephone wires, surly teenagers used to plant themselves on the railings just outside the door, smoking, drinking, shouting rude words at customers and making regular disruptive forays inside.
"On the low end of the scale, it would be intimidating for customers," said Robert Gough, who, with his parents, owns the store. "On the high end, they'd be in the shop fighting, stealing and assaulting the staff."
Mr. Gough (pronounced GUFF) planned to install a sound system that would blast classical music into the parking lot, another method known to horrify hang-out youths into dispersing, but never got around to it. But last month, Mr. Stapleton gave him a Mosquito for a free trial. The results were almost instantaneous. It was as if someone had used anti-teenager spray around the entrance, the way you might spray your sofas to keep pets off. Where disaffected youths used to congregate, now there is no one.
At first, members of the usual crowd tried to gather as normal, repeatedly going inside the store with their fingers in their ears and "begging me to turn it off," Mr. Gough said. But he held firm and neatly avoided possible aggressive confrontations: "I told them it was to keep birds away because of the bird flu epidemic."
A trip to Spar here in Barry confirmed the strange truth of the phenomenon. The Mosquito is positioned just outside the door. Although this reporter could not hear anything, being too old, several young people attested to the fact that yes, there was a noise, and yes, it was extremely annoying.
"It's loud and squeaky and it just goes through you," said Jodie Evans, 15, who was shopping at the store even though she was supposed to be in school. "It gets inside you."
Miss Evans and a 12-year-old friend who did not want to be interviewed were once part of a regular gang of loiterers, said Mr. Gough's father, Philip. "That little girl used to be a right pain, shouting abuse and bad language," he said of the 12-year-old. "Now she'll just come in, do her shopping and go."
Robert Gough, who said he could hear the noise even though he is 34, described it as "a pulsating chirp," the sort you might hear if you suffered from tinnitus. By way of demonstration, he emitted a batlike squeak that was indeed bothersome.
Mr. Stapleton, a security consultant whose experience in installing store alarms and the like alerted him to the gravity of the loitering problem, studied other teenage-repellents as part of his research. Some shops, for example, use "zit lamps," which drive teenagers away by casting a blue light onto their spotty skin, accentuating any whiteheads and other blemishes.
Using his children as guinea pigs, he tried a number of different noise and frequency levels, testing a single-toned unit before settling on a pulsating tone which, he said, is more unbearable, and which can be broadcast at 75 decibels, within government auditory-safety limits. "I didn't want to make it hurt," Mr. Stapleton said. "It just has to nag at them."
The device has not yet been tested by hearing experts.
Andrew King, a professor of neurophysiology at Oxford University, said in an e-mail interview that while the ability to hear high frequencies deteriorates with age, the change happens so gradually that many non-teenagers might well hear the Mosquito's noise. "Unless the store owners wish to sell their goods only to senior citizens," he wrote, "I doubt that this would work."
Mr. Stapleton argues, though, that it doesn't matter if people in their 20's and 30's can hear the Mosquito, since they are unlikely to be hanging out in front of stores, anyway.
It is too early to predict the device's future. Since an article about it appeared in The Grocer, a British trade magazine, Mr. Stapleton has become modestly famous, answering inquiries from hundreds of people and filling orders for dozens of the devices, not only in stores but also in places like railroad yards. He appeared recently on Richard & Judy, an Oprah-esque afternoon talk show, where the device successfully vexed all but one of the members of a girls' choir.
He is considering introducing a much louder unit that can be switched on in emergencies with a panic button. It would be most useful when youths swarm into stores and begin stealing en masse, a phenomenon known in Britain as steaming. The idea would be to blast them with such an unacceptably loud, high noise - a noise inaudible to older shoppers - that they would immediately leave.
"It's very difficult to shoplift," Mr. Stapleton said, "when you have your fingers in your ears."
One on Europe urging Africa to, rightly, reject the "abstinence-only" concept
"People shouldn't die because they have sex"
Europe rejects Bush's abstinence-only strategy, declaring that condoms are the most effective weapon in battling AIDS.
By Sarah Boseley
Dec. 01, 2005 | Europe, led by the U.K., Wednesday night signaled a major split with the United States over curbing the AIDS pandemic in a statement that tacitly urged African governments not to heed the abstinence-focused agenda of the Bush administration.
The statement, released for World AIDS Day Thursday, emphasizes the fundamental importance of condoms, sex education and access to reproductive health services. "We are profoundly concerned about the resurgence of partial or incomplete messages on HIV prevention which are not grounded in evidence and have limited effectiveness," it says.
While the United States is not named, there is widespread anxiety over the effect of its pro-abstinence agenda in countries such as Uganda, where statements by Janet Museveni, the president's wife, and alleged problems with supply have led to a serious shortage of condoms.
The U.S. has pledged $15 billion over five years to fight the disease, most of which is channeled through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. PEPFAR grants come with conditions, however -- two-thirds of the money has to go to pro-abstinence programs, and it is not available to any organizations with clinics that offer abortion services or even counseling. The U.S. is also opposed to the provision of needles and syringes to drug users on the grounds that it could be construed as encouraging their habit.
But the statement from 22 European Union member states, released at a meeting under the U.K. presidency in London Wednesday, calls on developing world governments to use every prevention tool, from condoms to clean needles to sexual health clinics, in a bid to slow down the spread of HIV. UNAIDS' latest figures show 40 million people are now infected, and the rate is rising as fast as ever.
"We, the European Union, firmly believe that, to be successful, HIV prevention must utilize all approaches known to be effective, not implementing one or a few selective actions in isolation," the statement says.
The international development secretary, Hilary Benn, told the Guardian that the evidence had shown what worked, from tackling stigma to supplying condoms and clean needles. "It is very important that those messages are heard loud and clear by everybody," he said.
Asked whether the U.K. disagreed with the U.S. emphasis on abstinence, he said: "Abstinence works if people can abstain, but I don't think people should die because they have sex. We need to make sure people have all the means [of prevention] at their disposal -- condoms and clean needles. It includes education and access to sexual and reproductive health services. We are very clear about that."
In August the U.N. secretary general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, accused the United States of "doing damage to Africa" by cutting funds for condoms in Uganda while promoting abstinence. "There is no doubt the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by" U.S. policies, said Lewis. "To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa."
Only 35 million condoms were distributed in Uganda between October 2004, when the government said there was a problem with the quality of the stock, and August of this year, compared with 120 million in previous years.
Uganda has historically been cited as one of the HIV/AIDS success stories, and experts generally agree it was partly the availability of condoms that brought the infection rate down. But Museveni has said condom distribution pushes young people into sex and recently equated condom use with theft and murder in an interview with the BBC World Service. The shift in government thinking is being linked within Uganda to PEPFAR.
AIDS activists in the U.K. are pleased by the E.U. stance. "Activists have been warning for years that the U.S. prevention policy is reckless and could cost lives," said Fiona Pettit of the U.K. Consortium on AIDS and International Development. "The relentless promotion of abstinence only is already having an impact in countries like Uganda. Abstinence only is an unrealistic policy in many communities and a one-size-fits-all approach simply won't work."
"In reality, people have sex ... much as conservative evangelists in the U.S. might prefer that they didn't," said Andrew George, the Liberal Democrats' spokesman on international development.
And one on the music listened to by the muderer/kidnapper kids
The devil's music
Does it matter that David Ludwig -- the 18-year-old alleged killer of his 14-year-old girlfriend's parents -- was a huge fan of hardcore Christian rock?
By Daniel Radosh
Nov. 24, 2005 | On the night of Oct. 6, David Ludwig, 18, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Kara Beth Borden, went to church. There was no sermon, though -- at least not a traditional one. David and Kara were at the Lancaster Bible Church in Manheim, Penn., for a Christian rock concert. As the punishingly loud guitars of Audio Adrenaline and Pillar strained the limits of the church sound system, the kids screamed and pumped their fists and banged their heads. "Pillar and Audio A rock my face off!" David wrote on his blog the next day. Kara spent almost all the money in her pocket on a Pillar sweatshirt. She was wearing it the morning of Nov. 13 when, police say, David shot and killed her parents and fled with her at his side.
If your only association with contemporary Christian music (CCM) is Amy Grant or Stryper, you might be surprised at how popular, varied and artistically mature the genre has become in the last 15 years. By some estimates, Christian music sales topped $720 million last year, making it a bigger niche than jazz and classical combined. For every genre of mainstream music there is a Christian parallel: rock, punk, reggae, folk, dance pop, gangsta rap. Pillar, named for the biblical description of God's household as "the pillar and foundation of truth," plays rap-core, a furiously propulsive mash-up of hard rock and rap. Musically, they are as creditable as many of their top-40 counterparts. Their lyrics testify to their faith in Jesus, a faith that David and Kara publicly share.
It should go without saying that Pillar isn't even remotely responsible for David Ludwig's actions, any more than Marilyn Manson was responsible for Columbine. As CCM reaches an ever larger audience, the likelihood that some people in that audience will be deeply troubled increases proportionally. The CCM industry is already painfully aware that its fans are often no more virtuous than any other teenagers. A 2004 survey by the Barna Group found that "teen buyers of Christian music were just as likely as other teens to engage in music piracy." Nearly 80 percent of young people who purchase Christian music also download it illegally. Christian music is not just for goody-goodies anymore.
But Christian rock doesn't just happen to find troubled kids in its audience, it reaches out to them. At a Christian music festival in Neodesha, Kan., two months ago, I watched as the singer of Seventh Day Slumber called on the people there to look into the darkest depths of their souls, that they may seek forgiveness. "If you've ever thought about suicide, put your hand in the air," he said, and they did, tears streaming down their faces. "If you've gone so far as to write a suicide note, put your hand in the air. If you've thought about killing yourself just this week, put your hand in the air." The dark undercurrents of secular thrash and emo music are not absent from the Christian versions, just channeled differently.
Pillar ended its Oct. 6 set with a song called "Fireproof." It must have struck a chord in David. He posted the lyrics on his blog:
I know where I stand and what'll happen if you try it
I am FIREPROOF
I know my heart and I just can't deny it
I am FIREPROOF
I tried to tell you but you wouldn't be quiet
I am FIREPROOF
I'll never bow down and you won't buy it
I am FIREPROOF
Like many edgier evangelical bands, Pillar specializes in battle anthems, composed on the premise that Christians are under constant spiritual attack. The emotional effects are remarkably similar to those of any secular odes to alienation and rebellion, and the vast majority of Christian teens who are drawn to such music, like the vast majority of their non-Christian peers, find comfort in the roiling cacophony that mirrors their inner lives; it helps them get through some difficult years in one piece. Any Christian artist can share legitimate and profound stories of young people who found genuine grace through their music. But there will always be a small fringe of disturbed people who are looking for an excuse to go over the edge, and who will find it in angry and tormented lyrics -- even if those lyrics are supposed to be about eternal salvation.
It is still possible to find fundamentalist Christians who hold that all rock 'n' roll is the devil's music, and that CCM is only a more deceptive variety. The mainstream Christian culture industry, however, is too sophisticated and too profitable to turn its back on any form of musical expression. But with the proliferation of Christian music -- and books, movies, stand-up comedy, and pro wrestling -- the line between faith and sin has become blurred, and pop proselytizers will have to ask themselves if they are really changing hearts or just winning fans. Evangelicals justify their embrace of 21st century pop culture forms by saying that the Bible calls them to be "in the world, but not of it." This week, sadly, they are both.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 02:00 am (UTC)I just saw a bit about the gay privacy student on TV. If the school had a policy, written or unwritten, about making out (do they still call it that?) in the halls then they should have called her parents, if, and only if, they also call the parents of hetrosexual students who are showing PDAs. I got the impression from the TV that they were not, in fact, enforcing this unspoken rule among the hetrosexual couples.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 02:00 am (UTC)I just saw a bit about the gay privacy student on TV. If the school had a policy, written or unwritten, about making out (do they still call it that?) in the halls then they should have called her parents, if, and only if, they also call the parents of hetrosexual students who are showing PDAs. I got the impression from the TV that they were not, in fact, enforcing this unspoken rule among the hetrosexual couples.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 04:07 pm (UTC)